Status Update, Flash Sale, and Software Update!
Posted April 15, 2024
Hi all, a few general updates to share from us, in addition to pushing you the latest software we’ve been cooking up. First off, the A319/A321 package is coming along swimmingly - we are looking to put the expansion into beta testing very soon. To celebrate, we’re doing a short flash sale on the A320 from now, until 2200z on Wednesday. The product will be available during that time with a 20% discount! As a reminder, when the A319/A321 expansion goes live, it will do so at £39.99 incl. taxes. This expansion will also include a free update adding sharklet variants to both the A321 and A319 in the future.
To recap, our product layout will look a little something like this:
A320 Base Package - £49.99 £39.99 until Wednesday!
A320 CFM
A320 IAE
A320 CFM SL*
A320 IAE SL*
A319/A321 Expansion Package - £39.99
A319 CFM
A319 IAE
A321 CFM
A321 IAE
A319 CFM SL*
A319 IAE SL*
A321 CFM SL*
A321 IAE SL*
* will be delivered later in the year
That means for our existing customers, you will effectively pay a per variant price of £7.50 (if purchasing the expansion). We believe this represents excellent value to the customer, no matter if purchased before, during, or after our little flash sale.
On to other matters, we’ve prepared the next update for the A320. While development of the expansion has been chugging along, we broke off a small portion of the team to focus on some key areas we felt needed some improvement since B2 was launched to you all. This primarily consists of continuing to improve performance, and delivering optimisations across the product. With this in mind, we’ve optimised both the XEM, and the artwork about as far as we can take them at this point. We have some longer term plans in mind to continue this work, however those projects are larger in scope and require certain module rewrites, and so have been scheduled for a little later in order to facilitate expansion development at this time.
In the nearer term, we’re closely monitoring community feedback, currently specific to some complaints with flare and ground effect phases - at this stage we feel we’re quite close, so we won’t be making any larger changes in this area to keep the behaviour relatively consistent, however we’ve identified some areas we can make gentle adjustments to - specifically with ground effect modelling. At this juncture we’re reasonably happy with the lift/cushion effect of the ground effect, but feel like the drag additive could be slightly increased. This, in theory, will help the aircraft “settle” on the runway a touch better. Currently within MSFS, the lift and drag of ground effect are intrinsically tied to one another, but we are currently developing and prototyping a solution to this, which will enable us to achieve more granular control over the drag properties when in ground effect. The other area we’re focusing on are complaints of difficulty controlling the aircraft when on ground, during rollout or takeoff specifically. We are currently re-tuning the ground friction modelling in line with the incoming SU15 and its new ground friction modelling, and believe this will be a step in the right direction. Our aim is to deploy both of these to you as soon as possible, so rest assured neither of these improvements will be waiting on the expansion before landing in your hands.
That’s all for now, below I’ve attached the patch notes for your latest version of the A320, available now! Enjoy :)
V2.0.0.407 (DOWNLOAD NOW)
Please note: due to art optimisations, please update your liveries in the Livery Manager so they remain compliant with the latest version of software. All impacted liveries in the manager have been updated accordingly. This affects liveries that have a custom model (e.g. decal mesh in the cabin).
[Avionics and Systems]
- Optimised performance of External Engine Model
- Optimised performance of internal LVar handling
- Added EFIS BARO QNH LVars (
B_FCU_EFIS*
) - Added TO PERF LVars (
N_MISC_PERF_TO_*
) - Added ISFD LVars (
N_MIP_ISFD_*
,B_MIP_ISFD_*
) - Added standby XPDR output LVar (i.e. the “displayed” value,
N_FREQ_STANDBY_XPDR_SELECTED
) - Added more configuration options for default EO ACC, default THR RED
- Improved detection of when the aircraft has “loaded in” to the sim
- Small AoA tweaks in flight control law
- Fixed crash caused by failure to read aircraft.cfg
- Fixed cabin announcement logging not being verbose enough
- Fixed spoiler arm and disarm events being inverted
- Fixed DisarmDoors announcement being cut off by the switch from engine generators
- Fixed cabin ready not correctly handling single engine taxi
- Fixed incorrect handling of aircraft.cfg comments
- Fixed issue that could cause failure to hook or cabin announcements not working for users in some regions (Türkiye in particular)
- Fixed incorrect TCAS target altitudes being shown on the ND when flying online
- Fixed various other crashes throughout the systems (thank you to people who have the opt-in crash reporting turned on )
- Fixed gear being lowered automatically when performing a belly landing
- Fixed gear being up when spawning in
- GSX settings are now overriden using their new API to automatically set the required GSX settings for the integration to work correctly
- Fixed issue when connecting jetway or stairs via GSX
- Fixed IDG fuel-based cooling running when engines are shut down
- Fixed AOC WEATHER REQ requiring RETURN to be pressed twice
- Fixed bypass pin not being correctly synced with GSX during pushback
- Removed APU running requirement from DisarmDoors
- Fixed some instances of being unable to board with GSX
- Adjusted IAE FLX limit behaviour during takeoff, rotation, and THR RED
- Fixed ADIRS LVars being rounded
- Fixed VLS calculation for IAE engines
- Fixed STS page not auto-clearing after 3 seconds when status is normal
- Fixed CLB thrust being above FLX thrust
- Fixed some MCDU settings not saving - failure scenarios in particular
- Fixed missing ignition conditions for IAE engines (FLEX/TOGA thrust or approach idle)
- Further improved VLS calculation
[Art and Sound]
- Extensive optimisations to various parts of the art
- Improved our custom LOD system, resulting in shorter delays when switching and supporting drone camera
- Fixed CFM atd_id not matching the livery
- Fixed cockpit dome light always on in external view
- Reworked LOD system to fix FPS loss
- Fixed small cockpit perf dip
[EFB]
- Fixed various causes of errors throughout the EFB
- Fixed race conditions in boarding status, including the way loadsheets are generated and sent
- Fixed loadsheets not being generated when not using SimBrief
- Fixed mismatching green dot speed between EFB and aircraft
- Fixed mismatching SLT RETR and FLP RETR speeds between EFB and aircraft
- Fixed THR RED and THR ACC not taking into account the configured acceleration height
- Fixed incorrect ADC sent when departure time nears 0000Z
- Fixed EFIS BARO CTL setting not saving
- Fixed loadsheet error when starting boarding
- Fixed issue with empty EOBT
- Fixed refuelling in fast/slow mode using the incorrect unit
- Fixed loadsheet ACARS messages not being acceptable
[Livery Manager]
- Improved installation speed