Release Notes
x-Plane 10.10 Beta 11
It's just like beta 10, but with the 'extra aircraft' folder properly included (this is where some of the old v9 aircraft and experimentals now live) and with code signing hopefully fixed.
X-Plane 10.10 Beta 10
This build closes our known bugs with aircraft and HDR mode - if you have created a custom aircraft for v9, you may have to update a few things to work with HDR mode and 10.10. Docs on what needs updating (the list is short) soon.
Safe mode warning dialog box disabled for pro key customers.
Mac apps are now signed to play nicely with Gatekeeper on 10.8 Mountain Lion
There is now a command to toggle full-screen mode - bind it to a key or call it from a plugin.
P180 Updates
The P-180's panel now works with global shadows, and the visors don't block the clouds in HDR mode.
The P-180's electrical system now puts a load on generators.
F22 Updates
New HUD elements added for attitude
Revised Airfoils
Heavily tweaked flight model
Turn and bank with more control and stability, even with full stick deflection
Nice manners on landing
Baron Updates
Fixed panel back shadow mode
Fixed prop lever in 3D cockpit so it doesn't drop prop RPM down below governing range
Fixed clipping of global lights in cockpit.
Airplane SDK:
Cockpit spill lights in Plane-Maker show up in HDR mode too. Their lighting equation is changed - they always look the way they used to look in HDR mode.
Fixed some cases of airplane lights showing through the walls of the 3-d cockpit.
Fixed ATTR_diffuse_rgb and ATTR_emission_rgb in HDR mode.
Fixed glass objs on ACF when airplane is upside down and atmospheric scattering is on.
Airplane casts shadows even on glass objects in HDR mode.
Plugins:
Flight loop callback is not called when the QuickFlight dialog box is up before the first flight.
Post-FM callbacks are called when dialog boxes are up - this is consistent with pre-FM callbacks.
Bug Fixes:
Airplanes with separate in and out cockpit objs work with GLOBAL_cockpit_lit
Slightly improved ramps that would stick up in the middle of street-level road junctions.
X-Plane 10.10 Beta 9
SUPPORT FOR FOREFLIGHT! Go to the SETTINGS menu in X-Plane, INTERNET OPTIONS window, IPHONE/IPOD tab, and turn on the ForeFlight option. Then, get ForeFlight from the App Store if you are the last one to have not already done so and run it! This is a map system that myself, and most other people, use in the cockpit, which is about ten million times better than using paper charts! Go to the (MORE...) menu at the bottom of ForeFlight and the to DEVICES item on the left. Touch it, and see the X-Plane window that appears... touch that, too, and a window will come up that lets you ENABLE it. Now, simply fly X-Plane with ForeFlight running on the same wireless network and you can use ForeFlight just like you would in the cockpit! Cool!
Supersonic engine thrust model improved to go from total pressure recovery to normal-shock recovery as you move towards the max inlet efficiency, and pass air subsonically to the compressor behind the inlet. This is still not a perfect inlet model since different inlets work in totally different ways, but this is the best superonic inlet model we have ever had, and the supersonic drag is now the best we have ever had as well. The supersonic drag model looks at each polygon of the acf model, finds its' normal vector and area, and treats it as a plate with a compression or expansion fan, and should now do a perfect job of tracking every single poly in the airplane.The new supersonic model, like ALL of the dynamics in X-Plane, considers all of the various bodies that you have created for the airplane. That is: ALL of the fuselage, misc bodies, nacelles, etc, are considered to be exposed to the airflow. This means that if you have multiple bodies one inside the other, the aero effects will be DOUBLED compared to reality! Also, if you have one body hiding right behind another, or behind the fuselage, then the drag effects will be DOUBLED compared to reality! This is why with the latest beta, some planes are not going supersonic that should: We are now computing the drag more accurately on each body, and having multiple bodies one behind the other simply add up the drag based on the frontal area of EACH BODY! A very simple case of this is an F-104 Starfighter model that uses a fuselage for the FRONT of the plane, and a misc body for the BACK! In this case, the front of the misc body is acting like a big flat-plate exposed to the air.. surely enough to keep the plane subsonic! So, to design a plane properly, do NOT use misc bodies and fuselage and nacelles stacked inside each other, or behind each other in a row. This will simply erroneously add up drag! When designing a plan e for X-Plane, the rule is really very very simple: Each fuselage, misc body, and nacelle has the local air aciting on it. That's it! So it is actually really simple. Now, there is ONE exception: Engine nacelles for jets. Engine nacelles for jets are assumed to NOT produce any drag. This is because the thrust for the engine that you enter in Plane-Maker is considered to already be based on installed thrust losses. So, if you want your ACF model to be accurate, then do not have hidden-away misc bodies with frontal area inside another body, and certainly do not have 2 bodies one behind the other to make a long body... the frontal area of the aft body will still be exposed to the air in X-Plane! If you want really detailed geometry (read: more than you can get out of a body in X-Plane, so you want to hook multiple bodies together) then it is time to build an OBJ for your airplane!
New commands: Spot lite on, off, and toggle... kind of sorely missing before!
Helo rotor rpm trim runs 0 to 1, so it is an interpolation between the lo and hi rotor rpm trim. This way, motion of the trim always DOES something, even if only a high OR lo rotor rpm trim is entered in Plane-Maker!
Automatic crash reporter no longer catches crashes that occur because of plugins. This is important so that plugin authors can get crash data from their users without us stealing it from them.
UI Buttons in all products have been improved to be...well...like every other button you've ever used outside of X-Plane. Actions happen on the up-click, not the down-click giving you a chance to change your mind while also giving you visual feedback of the press itself.
Aircraft
Fixed Vacuum pressure and Oil Pressure gauges in the default C-172
Fixed SR-71 flight model
Shadows
This build should fix the bug where the shadows would jitter and shake wildly with HDR enabled; the shadows should now be about the same with HDR on or off. (Global melt your GPU looks better with HDR on.) Some airplanes that previously did not shadow properly are now fixed. I am still working on shadow tuning.
Bug Fixes
Joystick Dialog now consolidates axis display so more device axis are visible. Important for people with many devices.
Joystick calibration ranges from 10.05R1 are now blown away to prevent corrupt axis on an update. NOTE: This will require EVERYONE to recalibrate their devices on updating.
Fixed broken "alt" button on Windows
Fixed buttons on some home-cockpit devices such as the MJoy16-C1
You can now save a situation and then load it again without exiting X-Plane to re-scan the file list.
Landing lights and all other lights should go across to the external visuals now.
Much less turbulence in light to moderate precip... but same trubulence in major (red) precip
QuickFlight startup does put you on the ramp now, if set up as such in Operations and Warnings window.
Weather goes to ALL the external visuals now, not just a random ONE of them! ;-P
Right Click/Zoom no longer control the sim from IOS station.
Fixed bug in planemaker causing resource copying to create invalid files on Windows.
Fixed dlerror __stack_chk_fail_local on Linux machines. Ideally, plugin authors should be compiling with -fno-stack-protector but in the meantime, this will let them run again.
Roads shouldn't cut into buildings at low view angles.
Fixed crash when starting up with IOS enabled and quick flight showing on startup.
Fixed cursor being hidden in joystick calibration wizard.
Fixed cut-off object names in Plane-Maker main screen.
Fixed prioritization up/down buttons in plane-maker misc objects screen.
Added error checking for airplanes whose use of panel texture is inconsistent. You can't mix and match ATTR_cockpit and ATTR_cockpit_region!!!!
Plugins are now exempt from breakpad; if a plugin crashes, the normal OS crashes happen so that the user can send a report to the plugin author, rather than the crash going into our database.
Fixed camera instrument to not turn green during the day with panel regions.
X-Plane 10.10 Beta 8
This is a recut of beta 7 that fixes Plane-Make crashing on startup on Windows.
X-Plane 10.10 Beta 7
Ben says: I screwed up - Plane-Maker crashes on startup on Windows 100% of the time. Beta 8 will be out shortly to fix this. Enjoy beta 7 if you are on Mac or just need to fly...Windows plane authors should hold off...
Quick-Look now supports our new 2D panel scrolling
Quick-Flight is now under the file menu
Major revisions to the Baron and Kingair
Global scenery terrain regions tuned.
Added "TEXTURE_CONTROL_NOWRAP" to correspond to TEXTURE_CONTROL. This is needed to make orthophoto pol files with decals.
Aircraft:
10.10 beta 6 attempted to mark older cockpit objects as 'glass'. This seemed like a clever way to make HDR work but actually breaks more aircraft than it helps. This change has been removed for beta 7. As a result, the CRJ and other aircraft that use the panel texture as a window will not show clouds correctly in HDR mode. These aircraft will need an update to work with HDR enabled, but will work correctly with HDR disabled. X-Plane cannot guess-and-auto-update these aircraft for HDR.
The cockpit now contains most of the same options in Plane-Maker as the attached objects.
Invalid use of ATTR_cockpit is now detected and logged.
Bug Fixes:
Fixed crash on Windows with facades with empty meshes. This fixes the crash using the "Classic 3" airport facade.
Added support for some out-of-spec PFC Yokes
Fixes to solve some strange button behavior on various joysticks (ie. Cyborg Evo)
Fixed bus_load_amps dataref to read proper value
Landing lights accurately reflect their load on electrical busses now.
G430,G1000 and Avidyne instruments now work with panel regions.
Fixed some cases where water fog looks funny - there are still some bugs with water and fog.
Fixed black line when shadows on "Melt your GPU" with NV cards.
Fixed missing cockpit objects in Chinook and other older-style planes.
Fixed missing transponder on P32R and other panels that mix translucency and panels.
Fixed intermittent drawing of airports in sectional map.
Fixed plugin glue code: XPLMNavAid can find stand-alone DMEs.
Fixed incorrect culling of trees when forest exclusion zones go outside a DSF boundary.
Moved power tower wires to a later drawing group to avoid artifacts.
Fixed world being very dark for the first few frames in HDR mode.
Other tweaks:
if you ask to start on the ramp under operations and warnings, then the quick-flight screen honors that
real-weather should grab dew-point to display in ATIS reports, which is kind of nice.
supersonic model for bodies over-hauled a bit... should be more realistic now (the supersonic model for the wings should remain un-changed)
September 2, 2012
August 8, 2012
Mission 1:Nightmare
Skies over Miami, United States
December 31, 2015
"I saw my death in my dreams. Many times."-Warwolf 1
It was a bright sunny day over Miami. But instead of the peace and security that you would normally see in the skies, there's chaos. The city was under attack, by Russian fighters. The enemy forces were made up of Sukhoi Su-33 Sea Flankers and Su-35S Flanker-Es. Amongst the radio chatter, there were a large group of U.S. pilots.
"Magic to Warwolf leader. Bogies are confirmed hostile and on a direct course to Miami. You are clear to engage and destroy." the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft, callsign "Magic" called in on the radio.
While the majority of the defending U.S. fighters were General Dynamics F-16C Fighting Falcons and Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornets, there was one group that stood out. A squadron of four Lockheed Martin F-22A Raptors coming in from the south. These pilots were of the 108th Task Force, 57th Tactical Fighter Wing, callsign "Warwolf."
"A nightmare that I'll never forget."the voice continues.
We then begin focusing on the Warwolf Squadron's flight lead, Colonel William Bishop, callsign "Brass".
"This is Tiger 1, Warwolf squadron, be advised, there are multiple contacts already over the city, We have missiles in the air." Tiger 1, the leader of an F-16C squadron, called out.
"Warwolf squadron, engage." Bishop ordered to his squadronmates.
"Warwolf 1. Warwolf 1. Tally bandit at one o'clock." Warwolf 2, callsign "Guts" called out.
"He's mine, Guts." Bishop responded. He immediately begins persuit of the bandit, an Su-35S, but things got complicated as Bishop followed the bandit into the middle of downtown Miami, where there is a higher risk of civilian casualties. He fires an AIM-9M Sidewinder, hitting the bandit.
"I've got your back, Boss. He's all yours, Will." Guts responded. Bishop fires a Sidewinder at the Flanker-E, but it missed, hitting a building. The impact sent debris falling toward the street below, and in Bishop's path. He immediately evades, breathing heavily, he fires another missile at the enemy fighter, destroying it instantly.
Bishop then catches sight of another bandit, this time an Su-33 and begins persuit. He fires a Sidewinder at the Sea Flanker, hitting it. Bishop's Tomcat follows the enemy plane, firing its Vulcan cannon. Somewhere along the line, the enemy pilot screws up and slams into the scoreboard of Sunlife Stadium, the stadium where the Miami Dolphins play. The Sea Flanker is destroyed on impact with the scoreboard. The plane slams into the ground a few hundred yards from the stadium. Bishop's Raptor shudders.
"Warwolf Leader? Colonel?" asked a concerned Guts.
"I took some shrapnel. My engines are fine but my controls seem to be a little sluggish." Bishop responded. He then gave a small order, "I'm going to run a flight check. Watch my rudder."
"Go for it, Colonel." Guts responded.
"Turning...Check. Ascend...Check. Acceleration...Check. Deceleration...Check." Bishop said to himself as he went through the flight check. When he was finished, he called out to Guts, "I'm good. Let's get back to the furball."
"I'm with you." Guts responded. Warwolfs 1 and 2 go into mid-air stand-by.
"Warwolf 1, what's your status?" Magic called out. Bishop then responded, "Looking for action." Magic then gave a situation report. "Second flight of bandits approaching from the south."
Bishop and Guts then turn to the south to find two Su-33s incoming. "I have them in sight." Bishop reported.
"Tiger squadron, follow Warwolf." one of the other pilots ordered.
"We're with you Warwolf." Tiger 1 responded.
Bishop slides in behind the Sea Flanker and fires a Sidewinder, destroying the enemy fighter instantly. With one gone, the other Su-33 was at a loss of what to do. Bishop fires another Sidewinder at the enemy plane, though it didn't destroy it like the previous fighter. Bishop then flew his Raptor closer and fired his Vulcan cannon, tearing the Sea Flanker apart.
"Where the hell is Tiger? By the time they get here, we would've hosed the whole crowd." Warwolf 3 complained.
"Colonel, watch yourself! There's one on your six!" called out Guts alarmingly. Sure enough, there's an Su-35S Super Flanker sliding in behind Bishop's tail. He accelerates and evades the Super Flanker until it was out of missile range. He then turns his plane to see that Warwolf 4 had taken out the Su-35.
"Enemy bandits inbound. We've already lost two allied aircraft. Be careful." Magic called out to the allied aircraft.
Bishop then turns to the east to find an Su-33, the leader of the squadron of Sea Flankers he shot down earlier. The enemy fighter was tailing Tiger 1. He then heard a message from Tiger 1, "This is Tiger 1, I need help here."
"Tiger 1, break left. We'll take him." Bishop responded. He goes into hot pursuit, throwing the Sea Flanker out of position. He then fires a Sidewinder at it, destroying it.
"Thank you Colonel." Tiger 1 said in relief.
"Magic to Warwolf 1. Bandits approaching Miami Beach area. You're cleared to engage." Magic called out.
Bishop then responded, "Warwolf 1, roger."
Bishop heads toward Miami Beach, his Raptor going full afterburner. When he arrives at the location, he intercepts an Su-35S. The Super Flanker then joins up with the rest of the enemy squadron. Bishop fires a Sidewinder, but the Super Flanker deploys flares, and throws the missile off course and slams it into a crane. Bishop misses the crane by mere feet.
"He's going to break right." Warwolf 3 warned. True enough, a Super Flanker slides in behind Bishop. He slows down significantly, and barrel rolls, forcing the Su-35 to overshoot. Then, to his luck, three more Super Flankers join in front of him. Bishop switches to his secondary weapons, AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAMs)
"Fox 3!" Bishop called out as he fired the AMRAAM missiles. Tiger 1 marvels at Bishop's work, "Beautiful."
"Great flying. Looks like those rumors I heard about you in Iraq were all true." Guts said.
Tiger 1 then gives a report, "Warwolf, be advised. Bandits running north in your direction. They've been sighted over the Venetian Causeway."
"Roger that. We'll take them." Bishop responded.
Magic then gave a grim advisory to the defending forces. "All allies, be advised. The Sharkmouth has been sighted."
Bishop then pursues an Su-33 and follows it down towards the port, firing his cannon whenever he can. He then fires a Sidewinder, destroying the enemy plane.
"Looks like they're targeting Interstate 95." Guts called out.
Tiger 3 shoots down a Super Flanker and it tumbles onto a freeway interchange. Bishop pursues another Sea Flanker and shoots it down.
"Warwolf, be advised. Downtown is under attack. Direct all units to intercept." Magic reported.
Bishop responded, "Understood."
Just then, a message came in. "Magic, this is Shooter 1. We're assisting in a search and rescue operation for a downed airman near the stadium." The message came from the 108th Task Force, 32nd Airborne Battalion, callsign "Shooter". "Magic, can you keep those planes off us and the Black Hawk while we bring it in?" Shooter 1 asked.
"We're doing our best, Shooter." Magic reassured.
"Warwolf, we have an SAR operation near the stadium. Keep the bandits away from the area." Magic ordered.
Warwolf 4 responds, "Copy that, Magic." Bishop engages a squadron of Su-33s, and switches to his AMRAAMs and fires. The missiles destroy three out of the four planes.
"Magic, have we identified which aircraft is carrying Trinity?" Tiger 1 asked.
"Negative. Still unknown, Tiger 1." Magic responded.
Tiger 1 responds, "Understood."
Bishop gets a Sidewinder lock on the remaining Su-33. "Fox 2!" He launches the missile, tearing the wings off the Sea Flanker on impact.
"Warwolf, be careful. We have a downed airman here and civilian casualties." Shooter 1 reminded.
"Sorry. I owe you a cigar." Guts said apologetically.
"Yeah, all right. Make it up to me with another of your uncle's hand-rolled ones." Shooter 1 said enthusiastically.
"Magic to Warwolf flight. We still have several contacts." Magic advised.
"Guts, fuel status." Bishop called out.
"Enough to take down two or three more." Guts responded.
"Roger that, wing. Let's finish this." Bishop said, giving the go-ahead for the rest of his squadron mates.
Bishop pursues a Super Flanker, firing his cannon. The Su-35 then joins up with five more. He switches to his AMRAAMs. "Fox 3!" He fires, killing four of the enemy fighters on impact. He then pursues the last of the pack and shreds it with his cannon.
He then catches sight of a Sea Flanker, and pursues it. He fires his cannon. "Fuel is into reserves." Warwolf 3 called out.
"Moving to engage. Guts?" Bishop told his squad mates while at the same time was asking a question.
"I got enough fuel for them." Guts responded.
"Roger, Wolf 2. Keep an eye on your fuel." Bishop responded, while at the same time giving an order. He sees a squadron of four Sea Flankers in formation, and switches to his AMRAAMs. "Fox 3!" Bishop fires, destroying the Su-33s instantly.
Just then, Guts calls in frantically, "Colonel, it's him! The shark bastard!"
Just as Guts said this, a white and black Su-35S adorned with a sharks mouth fired an Archer missile. It is aimed at Bishop. He tries to evade, but it was too late. The missile impacted Bishop's Raptor. Bishop spat out only one word immediately after missile impact, "Shit."
As the cockpit of the Raptor was ringing warning alarms, Bishop was at a loss of what to do. "Damn...Panel...dead. Engine..." he said to himself frantically.
"Get out of there Colonel. Eject!" Guts told him alarmingly.
"Hit it! Get out! You're on fire!" Tiger 1 warned Bishop.
It was after this that Bishop had run out of options. He put his hand on the ejection lever and pulled it. The seat then thrusts him clear of the burning Raptor. As he looked down, his plane exploded. "Magic, be advised, Warwolf 1 is going down. Colonel Bishop is out." Guts immediately informed Magic. As he said this, Bishop's parachute was beginning to deploy. It was a few seconds after that that his chute was fully deployed. "I have a chute! I have a chute!" Guts informed.
As Bishop was hanging there, he felt helpless. He watched the battle going on around him. He even kept his eye on the shark mouthed Super Flanker, which at one point tried to ram him in his parachute, almost as if this enemy pilot had a policy of no survivors. He tried to protect himself as an F-16 went down in flames just yards from him. His breathing began to get heavier as the carnage was going on around him. It got quicker when he saw the shark nosed Su-35S heading right towards him in a final strike.
"This is it. It's over." Bishop thought as the last thing he saw was the nose of the white and black Super Flanker ramming him in the chest
December 31, 2015
"I saw my death in my dreams. Many times."-Warwolf 1
It was a bright sunny day over Miami. But instead of the peace and security that you would normally see in the skies, there's chaos. The city was under attack, by Russian fighters. The enemy forces were made up of Sukhoi Su-33 Sea Flankers and Su-35S Flanker-Es. Amongst the radio chatter, there were a large group of U.S. pilots.
"Magic to Warwolf leader. Bogies are confirmed hostile and on a direct course to Miami. You are clear to engage and destroy." the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft, callsign "Magic" called in on the radio.
While the majority of the defending U.S. fighters were General Dynamics F-16C Fighting Falcons and Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornets, there was one group that stood out. A squadron of four Lockheed Martin F-22A Raptors coming in from the south. These pilots were of the 108th Task Force, 57th Tactical Fighter Wing, callsign "Warwolf."
"A nightmare that I'll never forget."the voice continues.
We then begin focusing on the Warwolf Squadron's flight lead, Colonel William Bishop, callsign "Brass".
"This is Tiger 1, Warwolf squadron, be advised, there are multiple contacts already over the city, We have missiles in the air." Tiger 1, the leader of an F-16C squadron, called out.
"Warwolf squadron, engage." Bishop ordered to his squadronmates.
"Warwolf 1. Warwolf 1. Tally bandit at one o'clock." Warwolf 2, callsign "Guts" called out.
"He's mine, Guts." Bishop responded. He immediately begins persuit of the bandit, an Su-35S, but things got complicated as Bishop followed the bandit into the middle of downtown Miami, where there is a higher risk of civilian casualties. He fires an AIM-9M Sidewinder, hitting the bandit.
"I've got your back, Boss. He's all yours, Will." Guts responded. Bishop fires a Sidewinder at the Flanker-E, but it missed, hitting a building. The impact sent debris falling toward the street below, and in Bishop's path. He immediately evades, breathing heavily, he fires another missile at the enemy fighter, destroying it instantly.
Bishop then catches sight of another bandit, this time an Su-33 and begins persuit. He fires a Sidewinder at the Sea Flanker, hitting it. Bishop's Tomcat follows the enemy plane, firing its Vulcan cannon. Somewhere along the line, the enemy pilot screws up and slams into the scoreboard of Sunlife Stadium, the stadium where the Miami Dolphins play. The Sea Flanker is destroyed on impact with the scoreboard. The plane slams into the ground a few hundred yards from the stadium. Bishop's Raptor shudders.
"Warwolf Leader? Colonel?" asked a concerned Guts.
"I took some shrapnel. My engines are fine but my controls seem to be a little sluggish." Bishop responded. He then gave a small order, "I'm going to run a flight check. Watch my rudder."
"Go for it, Colonel." Guts responded.
"Turning...Check. Ascend...Check. Acceleration...Check. Deceleration...Check." Bishop said to himself as he went through the flight check. When he was finished, he called out to Guts, "I'm good. Let's get back to the furball."
"I'm with you." Guts responded. Warwolfs 1 and 2 go into mid-air stand-by.
"Warwolf 1, what's your status?" Magic called out. Bishop then responded, "Looking for action." Magic then gave a situation report. "Second flight of bandits approaching from the south."
Bishop and Guts then turn to the south to find two Su-33s incoming. "I have them in sight." Bishop reported.
"Tiger squadron, follow Warwolf." one of the other pilots ordered.
"We're with you Warwolf." Tiger 1 responded.
Bishop slides in behind the Sea Flanker and fires a Sidewinder, destroying the enemy fighter instantly. With one gone, the other Su-33 was at a loss of what to do. Bishop fires another Sidewinder at the enemy plane, though it didn't destroy it like the previous fighter. Bishop then flew his Raptor closer and fired his Vulcan cannon, tearing the Sea Flanker apart.
"Where the hell is Tiger? By the time they get here, we would've hosed the whole crowd." Warwolf 3 complained.
"Colonel, watch yourself! There's one on your six!" called out Guts alarmingly. Sure enough, there's an Su-35S Super Flanker sliding in behind Bishop's tail. He accelerates and evades the Super Flanker until it was out of missile range. He then turns his plane to see that Warwolf 4 had taken out the Su-35.
"Enemy bandits inbound. We've already lost two allied aircraft. Be careful." Magic called out to the allied aircraft.
Bishop then turns to the east to find an Su-33, the leader of the squadron of Sea Flankers he shot down earlier. The enemy fighter was tailing Tiger 1. He then heard a message from Tiger 1, "This is Tiger 1, I need help here."
"Tiger 1, break left. We'll take him." Bishop responded. He goes into hot pursuit, throwing the Sea Flanker out of position. He then fires a Sidewinder at it, destroying it.
"Thank you Colonel." Tiger 1 said in relief.
"Magic to Warwolf 1. Bandits approaching Miami Beach area. You're cleared to engage." Magic called out.
Bishop then responded, "Warwolf 1, roger."
Bishop heads toward Miami Beach, his Raptor going full afterburner. When he arrives at the location, he intercepts an Su-35S. The Super Flanker then joins up with the rest of the enemy squadron. Bishop fires a Sidewinder, but the Super Flanker deploys flares, and throws the missile off course and slams it into a crane. Bishop misses the crane by mere feet.
"He's going to break right." Warwolf 3 warned. True enough, a Super Flanker slides in behind Bishop. He slows down significantly, and barrel rolls, forcing the Su-35 to overshoot. Then, to his luck, three more Super Flankers join in front of him. Bishop switches to his secondary weapons, AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAMs)
"Fox 3!" Bishop called out as he fired the AMRAAM missiles. Tiger 1 marvels at Bishop's work, "Beautiful."
"Great flying. Looks like those rumors I heard about you in Iraq were all true." Guts said.
Tiger 1 then gives a report, "Warwolf, be advised. Bandits running north in your direction. They've been sighted over the Venetian Causeway."
"Roger that. We'll take them." Bishop responded.
Magic then gave a grim advisory to the defending forces. "All allies, be advised. The Sharkmouth has been sighted."
Bishop then pursues an Su-33 and follows it down towards the port, firing his cannon whenever he can. He then fires a Sidewinder, destroying the enemy plane.
"Looks like they're targeting Interstate 95." Guts called out.
Tiger 3 shoots down a Super Flanker and it tumbles onto a freeway interchange. Bishop pursues another Sea Flanker and shoots it down.
"Warwolf, be advised. Downtown is under attack. Direct all units to intercept." Magic reported.
Bishop responded, "Understood."
Just then, a message came in. "Magic, this is Shooter 1. We're assisting in a search and rescue operation for a downed airman near the stadium." The message came from the 108th Task Force, 32nd Airborne Battalion, callsign "Shooter". "Magic, can you keep those planes off us and the Black Hawk while we bring it in?" Shooter 1 asked.
"We're doing our best, Shooter." Magic reassured.
"Warwolf, we have an SAR operation near the stadium. Keep the bandits away from the area." Magic ordered.
Warwolf 4 responds, "Copy that, Magic." Bishop engages a squadron of Su-33s, and switches to his AMRAAMs and fires. The missiles destroy three out of the four planes.
"Magic, have we identified which aircraft is carrying Trinity?" Tiger 1 asked.
"Negative. Still unknown, Tiger 1." Magic responded.
Tiger 1 responds, "Understood."
Bishop gets a Sidewinder lock on the remaining Su-33. "Fox 2!" He launches the missile, tearing the wings off the Sea Flanker on impact.
"Warwolf, be careful. We have a downed airman here and civilian casualties." Shooter 1 reminded.
"Sorry. I owe you a cigar." Guts said apologetically.
"Yeah, all right. Make it up to me with another of your uncle's hand-rolled ones." Shooter 1 said enthusiastically.
"Magic to Warwolf flight. We still have several contacts." Magic advised.
"Guts, fuel status." Bishop called out.
"Enough to take down two or three more." Guts responded.
"Roger that, wing. Let's finish this." Bishop said, giving the go-ahead for the rest of his squadron mates.
Bishop pursues a Super Flanker, firing his cannon. The Su-35 then joins up with five more. He switches to his AMRAAMs. "Fox 3!" He fires, killing four of the enemy fighters on impact. He then pursues the last of the pack and shreds it with his cannon.
He then catches sight of a Sea Flanker, and pursues it. He fires his cannon. "Fuel is into reserves." Warwolf 3 called out.
"Moving to engage. Guts?" Bishop told his squad mates while at the same time was asking a question.
"I got enough fuel for them." Guts responded.
"Roger, Wolf 2. Keep an eye on your fuel." Bishop responded, while at the same time giving an order. He sees a squadron of four Sea Flankers in formation, and switches to his AMRAAMs. "Fox 3!" Bishop fires, destroying the Su-33s instantly.
Just then, Guts calls in frantically, "Colonel, it's him! The shark bastard!"
Just as Guts said this, a white and black Su-35S adorned with a sharks mouth fired an Archer missile. It is aimed at Bishop. He tries to evade, but it was too late. The missile impacted Bishop's Raptor. Bishop spat out only one word immediately after missile impact, "Shit."
As the cockpit of the Raptor was ringing warning alarms, Bishop was at a loss of what to do. "Damn...Panel...dead. Engine..." he said to himself frantically.
"Get out of there Colonel. Eject!" Guts told him alarmingly.
"Hit it! Get out! You're on fire!" Tiger 1 warned Bishop.
It was after this that Bishop had run out of options. He put his hand on the ejection lever and pulled it. The seat then thrusts him clear of the burning Raptor. As he looked down, his plane exploded. "Magic, be advised, Warwolf 1 is going down. Colonel Bishop is out." Guts immediately informed Magic. As he said this, Bishop's parachute was beginning to deploy. It was a few seconds after that that his chute was fully deployed. "I have a chute! I have a chute!" Guts informed.
As Bishop was hanging there, he felt helpless. He watched the battle going on around him. He even kept his eye on the shark mouthed Super Flanker, which at one point tried to ram him in his parachute, almost as if this enemy pilot had a policy of no survivors. He tried to protect himself as an F-16 went down in flames just yards from him. His breathing began to get heavier as the carnage was going on around him. It got quicker when he saw the shark nosed Su-35S heading right towards him in a final strike.
"This is it. It's over." Bishop thought as the last thing he saw was the nose of the white and black Super Flanker ramming him in the chest
X-Plane 10.1 Beta 6 Update
X-Plane 10.10 Beta 6
- Red/White Flashlight added!
- "Mouse-Look" Re-implemented in a new way...Double right-click and the mouse will lock-in as camera control in any view. Change views or right click again to disable it.
- Quick-Look view prefs have been renamed from *_prefs.txt to *_view_prefs.txt. If you already had quicklook commands set, they will not be used until you rename them in your aircraft's directory.
- Additional improvements to terrain textures. Albert hopes to have these finished by the end of the beta run.
- WE ONLY CALIBRATE JOYSTICKS WHEN THE JOYSTICK WINDOW IS UP NOW! So, to calibrate your joysticks, you have to go to the joystick window... you cannot just wiggle your joystick around to let X-Plane automatically find the joystick extrema... you have to be in the joystick window!
- Flight model refined a hair: There will be no measurable difference for any reasonably conventional flight, but now we handle sideslip angles of even 90 degrees, or backwards flight, on wings with crazy dihedral and sweep and incidence angles,with more geometric perfection... even though this does not represent a flight regime where you ever operate in a conventional airplane, we still nailed the theoretical geometry down just get mathematical perfection there.
- Also, the supersonic dynamics improved a hair in computing drag over the fuselage.
- My Evo is now in the EXPERIMENTAL folder. There s no external model, and the panel is a joke, but it FLIES right. Of course, we will improve this over time to be a good model of the aircraft!
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed quick-look views so they no longer reset back to "center" when changing views in cockpit
- Fixed a bug causing ATC to crash if "AI Flies Plane" is selected
- Fixed a bug causing ATC to crash if an airport without a proper flow was selected.
- Scroll wheel now works in all sections of the quick-flight and open aircraft dialogs.
- Fixed powerlines that fly up at DSF boundary near EHRD.
- 747 airspeed indicator fixed.
- Sectional map shading and water fixed.
- Water fixed in HITS instrument.
- Camera instrument fixed.
- Datarefs for object drawing location are now in OGL coordinates. This fix makes v10 work the way v9 did.
- Control-click acts like right click for Mac users with old one-button mice.
- Fixed jitter and shake of cloud shadows when HDR is enabled.
- Fixed ATTR_lit_level to properly scale lights during the day.
Aircraft Authoring:
- Plane-Maker now has a popup UI to show/hide objects and the visualizations of interior and exterior lights. Since the exterior lights are now drawn as cones (with small discs at their source point) the 3-d view can get messy. Simply turn off the visualizations you don't want to see, or hide your objects to get a better view of what is going on.
- ATTR_cockpit can be used in any attached object. This has always been true (despite warnings in the docs) but the implementation only worked some of the time.
- The cockpit object can now be marked as glass, as well as interior or exterior. Mark it as glass if you need to use panel texture in your windows. X-Plane will attempt to guess whether the cockpit object should be glass on older airplanes to maintain compatibility.
- Spill lights only affect the interior if they are attached to an interior object; they only affect the exterior and world if they are attached to an exterior object. Use this to fix problems like landing lights flooding the cabin or cabin lights illuminating the runway below the airplane.
Beech Baron 58 Fixes/Improvements:
- Wing landing lights added with independent control switches for left/right
- Revised Autopilot and annunciator panel so all modes work, including APPR
- ADF 1 added
- HSI now uses Nav 1, Nav2 and GPS
- Nav 2 VOR added
- Flight model improved
- Wing Ice light works
- Clock added to yoke
- Instrument night lighting fixed to work. No more lit instruments when power is off.
- Avionics fun doesn't come on when power is off.
- Dash annunciators improved and work properly
- Taxi light added to nose gear, aligned and working properly
July 31, 2012
10.1 Beta 5 update (31/7)
Release Notes
X-Plane 10.10 Beta 5
We now support devices with an insane number of buttons and axis like the Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog (That thing is an insane beast).
Improved consistency in views. Right click and scroll are now used everywhere for camera movement and zoom respectively.
Implemented Quick-Look view commands to allow users to save predefined views on a per-aircraft basis. See discussion here.
OBJ File Format Extensions - docs coming soon!
ATTR_no_shadow disables shadows for just one part of an OBJ; polygon-offset (ATTR_poly_os) geometry now works this way too.
A new pixel-based manipulator lets you define drags that work horizontally or vertically, with scaling. This manipulator is intended to make draggable knobs.
GLOBAL_cockpit_lit object attribute declares that ATTR_cockpit will use real 3-d lighting. This provides a better migration path for old airplanes that depend on translucency.
Bug Fixes:
Fixed broken hot-spots on Altimeters
Fixed broken adjustment on attitude indicator
Fixed 3/4 deflection on Joystick Axis page on some devices (Saitek Flight Stick, Epic USB, etc.)
Fixed "sticking" hat-switches that would sometimes not turn off once pressed.
Fixed Joysticks with missing buttons/axis on Windows such as the Logitech G940 or G25
Bump maps now work in .ter files again.
The HDR pipeline has been severely thrashed in an attempt to improve the look of translucent scenery. While there are still translucency artifacts in HDR mode (and all airplanes should use the "glass" option in plane-Maker for windshields and canopies) translucency should be better than it was before.
Fixed ugly blue glowing water at night.
Added back 3-d cockpit toggle command to match v9.
Airplane is converted to metric before plugins are run.
X-Plane 10.10 Beta 4
This beta updates and renames the Aerosoft airports that ship with X-Plane 10 global, fixing naming inconsistencies between different DVD editions. You should only notice the update if you have installed European global scenery.
This beta also includes initial rough translations for Japanese and Portuguese; we'll be refining this over the beta period. The French translation has also been updated.
Bug Fixes:
Fixed crash at night (take 2, the fix in beta 3 was in itself broken).
Fixed cockpits going dark and camera angle moving at night.
Fixed support for Epic USB and other devices that send unsigned axis data but have LogicalMax with the signed bit set. 0xFF vs 0x00FF.
Improved update screen dialog so users can reject updates without a crash.
Liveries can be selected.
Barometric pressure knob fixed on C172 and other panels.
Plane-Maker won't prompt for safe-mode after an X-Plane crash.
Fixed crash if previous flown airplane is missing when X-Plane is next run.
Fixed sun glare on landing markings at KSEA when bump/normal mapping is disabled.
Interior geometry shown for older planes. Note that showing the inside of the fuselage and misc bodies is not recommended, not possible in airplanes saved for v10, and will be dropped completely in the future.
X-Plane 10.10 Beta 3
Bug Fixes:
Fixed washed out cockpits on older airplanes like the CL415. Blog post coming soon explaining what this was, why authors might want to update their planes, and what's coming in the future for cockpits.
Fixed erratic joystick behavior on windows that prevented proper calibration
Fixed linux joystick problem preventing the detection of rudder pedals/trim wheels etc (NOTE: If it still doesn't find your device, you'll need to UDEV your /dev/input/event* device to give X-Plane permission).
Fixed roads shooting into the sky at LSZA. (There are a lot of the roads on this planet and we can't check them all by hand, so if you find yet more roads shooting into the sky, please file a bug!!)
Sim won't go into 'safe mode' after an auto-update.
Aircraft carrier wake doesn't show through carrier.
Fixed crash at night with C130 and other planes with no 3-d cockpit.
Fixed heat blur to not show up in first class cabin of 747 and other interiors.
X-Plane 10.10 Beta 2
Bug Fixes:
Fixed crash on startup on Windows caused by some Joysticks
Joysticks no longer have a negative impact on frame rate.
Roads no longer shoot up into the sky at DSF tile ends.
Fixed crash with v9 DSFs with powerlines.
Hedges and bushes in autogen no longer stick into the street.
4x SSAA HDR mode fixed to not draw into 1/4 of the screen.
Fixed blue and red artifacts in HDR mode on Windows machines.
Fixed white box around bomb craters in HDR mode.
Fixed blue flicker when QuickFlight carousel spins.
Fixed night water reflections in non-HDR mode.
Fixed brightness of lights reflected in water.
Improved UI tile scrolling in quick-flight dialog.
X-Plane 10.10 Beta 1
USABILITY
X-Plane now features a "Quick Flight" screen, which can open on load if desired. Besides being a nice way to quickly set up a simple flight and see all of your airplanes, the Quick Flight screen will save you time, because it appears before scenery is loaded. No need to wait for scenery to load, then change airports, then wait again. Start your flight where you want with the plane you want.
Q E R F < > arrow keys to move around: SHIFT to go FAST CONTROL to go SLOW this gives more control for movie-makers, as requested by various movie-makers.
20 new commands: 10 MEMORIZE view in 3-d cockpit 10 RECALL view in 3-d cockpit The 10 views, called "Quick-Look" views, are commands in the VIEW group in the keyboard assignment screen, but if you delete your preferences in the output/preferences folder, then they will default to the 10 numeric keypad numbers, and hit CONTROL plus that number to memorize a new view.
Joysticks can now be hot-plugged; X-Plane detects your joystick changes as they happen; no need to restart!
X-Plane now features automatic crash reporting. When X-Plane crashes (due to its own code or a plugin) it will gather up a crash report, which goes into its Output/Crash Reports folder. It will then present you the _option_ to send the report to Laminar Research automatically.
Whether or not you choose to send the report, the report is retained in Output/Crash Reports so you can see what data was collected and would have been sent. Reports you choose to send go into a database so that we can analyze them and search by common problems (e.g. do all of the crashes at this point in the code happen on this graphics card).
X-plane will attempt to detect low memory conditions before an actual crash happens and warn you. If possible, it will stop loading scenery but not terminate the app so you can save any preferences if desired. This is not a replacement for 64-bit but is designed to help differentiate low memory vs. an actual crash bug.
If X-Plane crashes, it will offer to optionally start up in 'safe mode' on the next run, with rendering settings set back to factory defaults. If you change a rendering setting that takes effect on restart and thus cannot restart the sim, this gives you an easy way to restore things.
COOL NEW STUFF
New oil rig... see it in the oil rig approach... really amazing detail.
New plane: Columbia-400!
Piaggo Avanti updated to be really nice, and is our default airplane for now.
Updated scenery textures. New textures for dry regions and Volcanos, as well as enhancements and refinements, including color adjustment.
New lights - the light texture and table of colors has been tuned up for better night lighting.
More "stuff" in the airport library.
(Autogen improvements are still in progress and will be available in a later beta.)
RENDERING ENGINE
The entire HDR pipeline has been rewritten to fix bugs and boost performance. It may be a bit before the bugs are all thrashed out.
Tone mapping in HDR mode now features dynamic exposure as you move the camera. The dynamic exposure is set to very small changes for now; we'll tune it during the beta.
Night lighting performance has been tuned considerably.
The "ATI Windows" issue is fixed: the ATI Windows driver is a bit slow to map memory compared to other drivers/platforms, so we use an alternate code path. This should provide lower CPU use for clouds on ATI Windows systems. If you still have slow clouds, then X-Plane is slow or your machine is slow or your settings are too high.
SCENERY SYSTEM
X-Plane creates a .ini file in Custom scenery to manage your scenery packs. You can reprioritize scenery without renaming folders by editing the file. This feature is meant as a base; someday we'll get a UI in front of it. Disable a pack you don't like by replacing SCENERY_PACK with SCENERY_PACK_DISABLED. New packs will be added to the .ini file automatically as they are found, so you never _have_ to edit this .ini file.
Scenery packs in custom scenery can be symbolic links, short cuts or aliases to other hard drives. Link the pack - that is, put the pack anywhere, and put the alias in custom scenery. draped objects work without specific LOd
The road rendering code has been overhauled to not put roads up in the sky and to avoid putting powerline towers on roads when possible. If you see a case where a road goes straight up into the air, please, re-report the bug against 10.10b1. But note that we are still tuning and fixing bugs in the roads.
Other scenery system bug fixes:
Line-style forest rendering fixed - the lines could be garbled.
Facade roof textures flipped horizontally - they were wrong before.
Placement of tiles in autogen strings improved.
Objects with draped geometry work even if there is non non-draped geometry and no LOD instructions. In 10.05r1 the default LOD was miscalculated. To ship scenery that works with 10.05r1, just use the explicit ATTR_LOD_draped command.
IMPROVED FLIGHT MODEL
controllable ram-air recovery for propeller engines assign the ram air recovery percentage for your recip or turboprop engine installation, and see what kind of power boost you can get at speed with a properly-designed inlet! this used to be hard-wired at 10% (pursuant to flight-test in my Cirrus) but is now controllable by you per-aircraft.
electric motors are limited on torque and power, so if you exceed redline rpm, the torque will be gin to fall off to hold constant power! electric motors can have efficiency as well, indicating what percentage of the watt-hours coming out of the battery make it to the prop! electric motors can re-gen power as well, if you enter a re-gen efficiency in the engines screen of Plane-Maker (Spool-Up tab.. where the engine efficiency mentioned above is also set) the re-gen model causes the prop to go into re-gen mode if the throttle is at idle, running the braking torque (and thus battery charge) up linearly with rpm until braking torque equals max allowable drive torque at redline prop rpm. These things are designed to make electric motor simulation really run well in X-Plane... even well enough to plan how a real electric airplane will perform!
manifold pressure tweaked still more! I am sorry to keep twiddling this one parameter, but i sure do want to get it right! we now DO use the max manifold pressure that you enter into Plane-Maker, so you should be able to control the results well.
when you fail the left or right flaps, they simply stay in the position they were in the moment the failure occurred. this makes it possible to fail the flaps when extended, so only one side RETRACTS! rather interesting for go-arounds with failed flaps on one side when you start to clean up the plane!
The weight and balance predictor in Plane-Maker (designed by me to test out real airplane designs!) now has a different weight and balance entry for each fuel tank, so you can see CG ranges at all possible fuel tank load-outs.
Metal coefficient on concrete increased a bit... this will reduce skidding on helos a bit, and make dynamic roll-over more likely!
More refinement of the transition from subsonic to supersonic flight model, with input from an F-18 pilot that spends time flying in both speed regimes. In reality, the air accelerates to (and beyond) the speed of sound as it moves around the body of the aircraft... even BEFORE the airplane makes it up to the speed of sound. We now start to emulate that effect a bit, starting to move to the supersonic flight modeling as the aircraft speed approaches Mach 1, with drag rising as shock waves form.
You now enter the starter HORSEPOWER in the engines screen, and it's behavior should be more realistic in flight. As well, starter current draw should be a lot more realistic now, and the starter torque should fall off as the rpm comes up due to power limits of the starter and it's associated circuitry.
New variable in Plane-Maker: Prop pitch time to enter beta. Enter a value here (in the Engines screen, Spoolup tab) to set how quickly the propeller can move. While you only enter the time to move from idle to beta, this prop speed is then used for ALL propeller operations.
AIRPLANES
Translucency is fixed in HDR mode - translucent glass should look the same in forward and HDR renders. If you have a model whose translucency changes, please re-report a bug!!!
V9-style lights don't "leak" - landing light affect exterior objects and global interior spill affects interior.
Prop disc overrides fixed.
NEW STUFF FOR AUTHORS
Textures can now be up to 4096 x 4096 pixels. Use good judgment as this can eat a lot of VRAM!!!
A new OBJ attribute GLOBAL_no_shadow excludes an object from shadow calculations. This is both good for performance and gets rid of ugly shadows on objects like grass that should not have shadows.
Autogen and roads can have attached objects that appear more often in higher rendering settings. Our artists will be using this to tune rendering performance.
Draped geometry in an object now has all of the same shader options as a road or autogen tile. Docs on this coming soon!
PLUGINS
Changing weather datarefs will not regenerate cloud puffs unless cloud-related datarefs change.
The sim no longer tests for a "crashed" airplane when the sim is paused. This test was causing the sim to believe that the user had crashed the aircraft when a plugin changed the airplane's position in the world. So now writing the airplane's position should work correctly even for far-away locations.
PLANE-MAKER
The screenshot command still works in Plane-Maker.
SMALL VISUAL REFINEMENTS
landing lights light up the rain and snow now... kind of a nice detail
heat blurr moved according to the exhaust location even with tilting engines for VTOL ops...nice if you want to try something like a JET V-22 type aircraft.
less water spray effect form hovering helos over wet terrain, as per reality.
no more brakes hanging on free-casting nosewheel craft. (oops!)
the LOCATION of the jettisonable load on the aircraft is now considered on all aspects of the flight model
in the weight and balance screen, add a nice big jettisonable water load and put it out on the wingtip! let the fun commence!
GENERAL OPERATING REFINEMENTS
situations can be saved even if you just loaded a situation to start up with! kind of convenient. situations within situations.
mouse controls rudder again, as desired, when no joy controls found
new file-open is nice... try it! should be much quicker to use. as well, new livery selection is nice... it is integrated with the aircraft-open
more failures that do not apply to your airplane are culled from the failure UI list
new command: "sim/flight_controls/brakes_toggle_auto" to toggle auto-brakes, as requested.
the cloud layers can now be as close together as you like
SLIGHT change in the icing model: you now only need ONE switch for bleed air or pneumatic on the panel now. it will active any bleed air and pneumatics on BOTH wings.
New command: "sim/autopilot/knots_mach_toggle" This is a new command (assignable to a joystick button or keyboard, and one shat should be used by custom-aircraft makers) that properly toggle between speed and mach number on the airspeed hold.
New command: "sim/flight_controls/tail_wheel_lock" Toggles the tailwheel lock.
New commands: ADF 1 and 2 cards, pilot and copilot, rotate up and down.
Much less turbulence from RAIN... you have to select STORMS or the turbulence slider to get noticeable turbulence,
or fly into CUMULUS clouds.
BUG-FIXES
shooting down other airplanes works.
lift fans possible, as intended.
these are insanely fun.
equip your plane with 1 (or more!) jet engine but set up 2 (or more) props.
be sure that the jet engine is set so it can be VECTORING! set the vector range in the helos and VTOL screen to at least 90 degrees, and check it as vectoring in the engines screen
for the props, set them to type LIFT FAN and give them plenty of RPM and make them ducted and at a vertical cant of 90 degrees
if you balance out the fan speed and radius number of blade and chord to absorb the right amount of power from the jet, then you should be able to get the thing balanced out to fly nicely like an F-35!
carrier catshot mission won't launch prematurely off the deck just cause you have toe-brakes, and should have better physics in place holding you before the shot
X-Plane 10.10 Beta 5
We now support devices with an insane number of buttons and axis like the Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog (That thing is an insane beast).
Improved consistency in views. Right click and scroll are now used everywhere for camera movement and zoom respectively.
Implemented Quick-Look view commands to allow users to save predefined views on a per-aircraft basis. See discussion here.
OBJ File Format Extensions - docs coming soon!
ATTR_no_shadow disables shadows for just one part of an OBJ; polygon-offset (ATTR_poly_os) geometry now works this way too.
A new pixel-based manipulator lets you define drags that work horizontally or vertically, with scaling. This manipulator is intended to make draggable knobs.
GLOBAL_cockpit_lit object attribute declares that ATTR_cockpit will use real 3-d lighting. This provides a better migration path for old airplanes that depend on translucency.
Bug Fixes:
Fixed broken hot-spots on Altimeters
Fixed broken adjustment on attitude indicator
Fixed 3/4 deflection on Joystick Axis page on some devices (Saitek Flight Stick, Epic USB, etc.)
Fixed "sticking" hat-switches that would sometimes not turn off once pressed.
Fixed Joysticks with missing buttons/axis on Windows such as the Logitech G940 or G25
Bump maps now work in .ter files again.
The HDR pipeline has been severely thrashed in an attempt to improve the look of translucent scenery. While there are still translucency artifacts in HDR mode (and all airplanes should use the "glass" option in plane-Maker for windshields and canopies) translucency should be better than it was before.
Fixed ugly blue glowing water at night.
Added back 3-d cockpit toggle command to match v9.
Airplane is converted to metric before plugins are run.
X-Plane 10.10 Beta 4
This beta updates and renames the Aerosoft airports that ship with X-Plane 10 global, fixing naming inconsistencies between different DVD editions. You should only notice the update if you have installed European global scenery.
This beta also includes initial rough translations for Japanese and Portuguese; we'll be refining this over the beta period. The French translation has also been updated.
Bug Fixes:
Fixed crash at night (take 2, the fix in beta 3 was in itself broken).
Fixed cockpits going dark and camera angle moving at night.
Fixed support for Epic USB and other devices that send unsigned axis data but have LogicalMax with the signed bit set. 0xFF vs 0x00FF.
Improved update screen dialog so users can reject updates without a crash.
Liveries can be selected.
Barometric pressure knob fixed on C172 and other panels.
Plane-Maker won't prompt for safe-mode after an X-Plane crash.
Fixed crash if previous flown airplane is missing when X-Plane is next run.
Fixed sun glare on landing markings at KSEA when bump/normal mapping is disabled.
Interior geometry shown for older planes. Note that showing the inside of the fuselage and misc bodies is not recommended, not possible in airplanes saved for v10, and will be dropped completely in the future.
X-Plane 10.10 Beta 3
Bug Fixes:
Fixed washed out cockpits on older airplanes like the CL415. Blog post coming soon explaining what this was, why authors might want to update their planes, and what's coming in the future for cockpits.
Fixed erratic joystick behavior on windows that prevented proper calibration
Fixed linux joystick problem preventing the detection of rudder pedals/trim wheels etc (NOTE: If it still doesn't find your device, you'll need to UDEV your /dev/input/event* device to give X-Plane permission).
Fixed roads shooting into the sky at LSZA. (There are a lot of the roads on this planet and we can't check them all by hand, so if you find yet more roads shooting into the sky, please file a bug!!)
Sim won't go into 'safe mode' after an auto-update.
Aircraft carrier wake doesn't show through carrier.
Fixed crash at night with C130 and other planes with no 3-d cockpit.
Fixed heat blur to not show up in first class cabin of 747 and other interiors.
X-Plane 10.10 Beta 2
Bug Fixes:
Fixed crash on startup on Windows caused by some Joysticks
Joysticks no longer have a negative impact on frame rate.
Roads no longer shoot up into the sky at DSF tile ends.
Fixed crash with v9 DSFs with powerlines.
Hedges and bushes in autogen no longer stick into the street.
4x SSAA HDR mode fixed to not draw into 1/4 of the screen.
Fixed blue and red artifacts in HDR mode on Windows machines.
Fixed white box around bomb craters in HDR mode.
Fixed blue flicker when QuickFlight carousel spins.
Fixed night water reflections in non-HDR mode.
Fixed brightness of lights reflected in water.
Improved UI tile scrolling in quick-flight dialog.
X-Plane 10.10 Beta 1
USABILITY
X-Plane now features a "Quick Flight" screen, which can open on load if desired. Besides being a nice way to quickly set up a simple flight and see all of your airplanes, the Quick Flight screen will save you time, because it appears before scenery is loaded. No need to wait for scenery to load, then change airports, then wait again. Start your flight where you want with the plane you want.
Q E R F < > arrow keys to move around: SHIFT to go FAST CONTROL to go SLOW this gives more control for movie-makers, as requested by various movie-makers.
20 new commands: 10 MEMORIZE view in 3-d cockpit 10 RECALL view in 3-d cockpit The 10 views, called "Quick-Look" views, are commands in the VIEW group in the keyboard assignment screen, but if you delete your preferences in the output/preferences folder, then they will default to the 10 numeric keypad numbers, and hit CONTROL plus that number to memorize a new view.
Joysticks can now be hot-plugged; X-Plane detects your joystick changes as they happen; no need to restart!
X-Plane now features automatic crash reporting. When X-Plane crashes (due to its own code or a plugin) it will gather up a crash report, which goes into its Output/Crash Reports folder. It will then present you the _option_ to send the report to Laminar Research automatically.
Whether or not you choose to send the report, the report is retained in Output/Crash Reports so you can see what data was collected and would have been sent. Reports you choose to send go into a database so that we can analyze them and search by common problems (e.g. do all of the crashes at this point in the code happen on this graphics card).
X-plane will attempt to detect low memory conditions before an actual crash happens and warn you. If possible, it will stop loading scenery but not terminate the app so you can save any preferences if desired. This is not a replacement for 64-bit but is designed to help differentiate low memory vs. an actual crash bug.
If X-Plane crashes, it will offer to optionally start up in 'safe mode' on the next run, with rendering settings set back to factory defaults. If you change a rendering setting that takes effect on restart and thus cannot restart the sim, this gives you an easy way to restore things.
COOL NEW STUFF
New oil rig... see it in the oil rig approach... really amazing detail.
New plane: Columbia-400!
Piaggo Avanti updated to be really nice, and is our default airplane for now.
Updated scenery textures. New textures for dry regions and Volcanos, as well as enhancements and refinements, including color adjustment.
New lights - the light texture and table of colors has been tuned up for better night lighting.
More "stuff" in the airport library.
(Autogen improvements are still in progress and will be available in a later beta.)
RENDERING ENGINE
The entire HDR pipeline has been rewritten to fix bugs and boost performance. It may be a bit before the bugs are all thrashed out.
Tone mapping in HDR mode now features dynamic exposure as you move the camera. The dynamic exposure is set to very small changes for now; we'll tune it during the beta.
Night lighting performance has been tuned considerably.
The "ATI Windows" issue is fixed: the ATI Windows driver is a bit slow to map memory compared to other drivers/platforms, so we use an alternate code path. This should provide lower CPU use for clouds on ATI Windows systems. If you still have slow clouds, then X-Plane is slow or your machine is slow or your settings are too high.
SCENERY SYSTEM
X-Plane creates a .ini file in Custom scenery to manage your scenery packs. You can reprioritize scenery without renaming folders by editing the file. This feature is meant as a base; someday we'll get a UI in front of it. Disable a pack you don't like by replacing SCENERY_PACK with SCENERY_PACK_DISABLED. New packs will be added to the .ini file automatically as they are found, so you never _have_ to edit this .ini file.
Scenery packs in custom scenery can be symbolic links, short cuts or aliases to other hard drives. Link the pack - that is, put the pack anywhere, and put the alias in custom scenery. draped objects work without specific LOd
The road rendering code has been overhauled to not put roads up in the sky and to avoid putting powerline towers on roads when possible. If you see a case where a road goes straight up into the air, please, re-report the bug against 10.10b1. But note that we are still tuning and fixing bugs in the roads.
Other scenery system bug fixes:
Line-style forest rendering fixed - the lines could be garbled.
Facade roof textures flipped horizontally - they were wrong before.
Placement of tiles in autogen strings improved.
Objects with draped geometry work even if there is non non-draped geometry and no LOD instructions. In 10.05r1 the default LOD was miscalculated. To ship scenery that works with 10.05r1, just use the explicit ATTR_LOD_draped command.
IMPROVED FLIGHT MODEL
controllable ram-air recovery for propeller engines assign the ram air recovery percentage for your recip or turboprop engine installation, and see what kind of power boost you can get at speed with a properly-designed inlet! this used to be hard-wired at 10% (pursuant to flight-test in my Cirrus) but is now controllable by you per-aircraft.
electric motors are limited on torque and power, so if you exceed redline rpm, the torque will be gin to fall off to hold constant power! electric motors can have efficiency as well, indicating what percentage of the watt-hours coming out of the battery make it to the prop! electric motors can re-gen power as well, if you enter a re-gen efficiency in the engines screen of Plane-Maker (Spool-Up tab.. where the engine efficiency mentioned above is also set) the re-gen model causes the prop to go into re-gen mode if the throttle is at idle, running the braking torque (and thus battery charge) up linearly with rpm until braking torque equals max allowable drive torque at redline prop rpm. These things are designed to make electric motor simulation really run well in X-Plane... even well enough to plan how a real electric airplane will perform!
manifold pressure tweaked still more! I am sorry to keep twiddling this one parameter, but i sure do want to get it right! we now DO use the max manifold pressure that you enter into Plane-Maker, so you should be able to control the results well.
when you fail the left or right flaps, they simply stay in the position they were in the moment the failure occurred. this makes it possible to fail the flaps when extended, so only one side RETRACTS! rather interesting for go-arounds with failed flaps on one side when you start to clean up the plane!
The weight and balance predictor in Plane-Maker (designed by me to test out real airplane designs!) now has a different weight and balance entry for each fuel tank, so you can see CG ranges at all possible fuel tank load-outs.
Metal coefficient on concrete increased a bit... this will reduce skidding on helos a bit, and make dynamic roll-over more likely!
More refinement of the transition from subsonic to supersonic flight model, with input from an F-18 pilot that spends time flying in both speed regimes. In reality, the air accelerates to (and beyond) the speed of sound as it moves around the body of the aircraft... even BEFORE the airplane makes it up to the speed of sound. We now start to emulate that effect a bit, starting to move to the supersonic flight modeling as the aircraft speed approaches Mach 1, with drag rising as shock waves form.
You now enter the starter HORSEPOWER in the engines screen, and it's behavior should be more realistic in flight. As well, starter current draw should be a lot more realistic now, and the starter torque should fall off as the rpm comes up due to power limits of the starter and it's associated circuitry.
New variable in Plane-Maker: Prop pitch time to enter beta. Enter a value here (in the Engines screen, Spoolup tab) to set how quickly the propeller can move. While you only enter the time to move from idle to beta, this prop speed is then used for ALL propeller operations.
AIRPLANES
Translucency is fixed in HDR mode - translucent glass should look the same in forward and HDR renders. If you have a model whose translucency changes, please re-report a bug!!!
V9-style lights don't "leak" - landing light affect exterior objects and global interior spill affects interior.
Prop disc overrides fixed.
NEW STUFF FOR AUTHORS
Textures can now be up to 4096 x 4096 pixels. Use good judgment as this can eat a lot of VRAM!!!
A new OBJ attribute GLOBAL_no_shadow excludes an object from shadow calculations. This is both good for performance and gets rid of ugly shadows on objects like grass that should not have shadows.
Autogen and roads can have attached objects that appear more often in higher rendering settings. Our artists will be using this to tune rendering performance.
Draped geometry in an object now has all of the same shader options as a road or autogen tile. Docs on this coming soon!
PLUGINS
Changing weather datarefs will not regenerate cloud puffs unless cloud-related datarefs change.
The sim no longer tests for a "crashed" airplane when the sim is paused. This test was causing the sim to believe that the user had crashed the aircraft when a plugin changed the airplane's position in the world. So now writing the airplane's position should work correctly even for far-away locations.
PLANE-MAKER
The screenshot command still works in Plane-Maker.
SMALL VISUAL REFINEMENTS
landing lights light up the rain and snow now... kind of a nice detail
heat blurr moved according to the exhaust location even with tilting engines for VTOL ops...nice if you want to try something like a JET V-22 type aircraft.
less water spray effect form hovering helos over wet terrain, as per reality.
no more brakes hanging on free-casting nosewheel craft. (oops!)
the LOCATION of the jettisonable load on the aircraft is now considered on all aspects of the flight model
in the weight and balance screen, add a nice big jettisonable water load and put it out on the wingtip! let the fun commence!
GENERAL OPERATING REFINEMENTS
situations can be saved even if you just loaded a situation to start up with! kind of convenient. situations within situations.
mouse controls rudder again, as desired, when no joy controls found
new file-open is nice... try it! should be much quicker to use. as well, new livery selection is nice... it is integrated with the aircraft-open
more failures that do not apply to your airplane are culled from the failure UI list
new command: "sim/flight_controls/brakes_toggle_auto" to toggle auto-brakes, as requested.
the cloud layers can now be as close together as you like
SLIGHT change in the icing model: you now only need ONE switch for bleed air or pneumatic on the panel now. it will active any bleed air and pneumatics on BOTH wings.
New command: "sim/autopilot/knots_mach_toggle" This is a new command (assignable to a joystick button or keyboard, and one shat should be used by custom-aircraft makers) that properly toggle between speed and mach number on the airspeed hold.
New command: "sim/flight_controls/tail_wheel_lock" Toggles the tailwheel lock.
New commands: ADF 1 and 2 cards, pilot and copilot, rotate up and down.
Much less turbulence from RAIN... you have to select STORMS or the turbulence slider to get noticeable turbulence,
or fly into CUMULUS clouds.
BUG-FIXES
shooting down other airplanes works.
lift fans possible, as intended.
these are insanely fun.
equip your plane with 1 (or more!) jet engine but set up 2 (or more) props.
be sure that the jet engine is set so it can be VECTORING! set the vector range in the helos and VTOL screen to at least 90 degrees, and check it as vectoring in the engines screen
for the props, set them to type LIFT FAN and give them plenty of RPM and make them ducted and at a vertical cant of 90 degrees
if you balance out the fan speed and radius number of blade and chord to absorb the right amount of power from the jet, then you should be able to get the thing balanced out to fly nicely like an F-35!
carrier catshot mission won't launch prematurely off the deck just cause you have toe-brakes, and should have better physics in place holding you before the shot
Release Notes
Release Notes
X-Plane 10.10 Beta 5
We now support devices with an insane number of buttons and axis like the Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog (That thing is an insane beast).
Improved consistency in views. Right click and scroll are now used everywhere for camera movement and zoom respectively.
Implemented Quick-Look view commands to allow users to save predefined views on a per-aircraft basis. See discussion here.
OBJ File Format Extensions - docs coming soon!
ATTR_no_shadow disables shadows for just one part of an OBJ; polygon-offset (ATTR_poly_os) geometry now works this way too.
A new pixel-based manipulator lets you define drags that work horizontally or vertically, with scaling. This manipulator is intended to make draggable knobs.
GLOBAL_cockpit_lit object attribute declares that ATTR_cockpit will use real 3-d lighting. This provides a better migration path for old airplanes that depend on translucency.
Bug Fixes:
Fixed broken hot-spots on Altimeters
Fixed broken adjustment on attitude indicator
Fixed 3/4 deflection on Joystick Axis page on some devices (Saitek Flight Stick, Epic USB, etc.)
Fixed "sticking" hat-switches that would sometimes not turn off once pressed.
Fixed Joysticks with missing buttons/axis on Windows such as the Logitech G940 or G25
Bump maps now work in .ter files again.
The HDR pipeline has been severely thrashed in an attempt to improve the look of translucent scenery. While there are still translucency artifacts in HDR mode (and all airplanes should use the "glass" option in plane-Maker for windshields and canopies) translucency should be better than it was before.
Fixed ugly blue glowing water at night.
Added back 3-d cockpit toggle command to match v9.
Airplane is converted to metric before plugins are run.
X-Plane 10.10 Beta 4
This beta updates and renames the Aerosoft airports that ship with X-Plane 10 global, fixing naming inconsistencies between different DVD editions. You should only notice the update if you have installed European global scenery.
This beta also includes initial rough translations for Japanese and Portuguese; we'll be refining this over the beta period. The French translation has also been updated.
Bug Fixes:
Fixed crash at night (take 2, the fix in beta 3 was in itself broken).
Fixed cockpits going dark and camera angle moving at night.
Fixed support for Epic USB and other devices that send unsigned axis data but have LogicalMax with the signed bit set. 0xFF vs 0x00FF.
Improved update screen dialog so users can reject updates without a crash.
Liveries can be selected.
Barometric pressure knob fixed on C172 and other panels.
Plane-Maker won't prompt for safe-mode after an X-Plane crash.
Fixed crash if previous flown airplane is missing when X-Plane is next run.
Fixed sun glare on landing markings at KSEA when bump/normal mapping is disabled.
Interior geometry shown for older planes. Note that showing the inside of the fuselage and misc bodies is not recommended, not possible in airplanes saved for v10, and will be dropped completely in the future.
X-Plane 10.10 Beta 3
Bug Fixes:
Fixed washed out cockpits on older airplanes like the CL415. Blog post coming soon explaining what this was, why authors might want to update their planes, and what's coming in the future for cockpits.
Fixed erratic joystick behavior on windows that prevented proper calibration
Fixed linux joystick problem preventing the detection of rudder pedals/trim wheels etc (NOTE: If it still doesn't find your device, you'll need to UDEV your /dev/input/event* device to give X-Plane permission).
Fixed roads shooting into the sky at LSZA. (There are a lot of the roads on this planet and we can't check them all by hand, so if you find yet more roads shooting into the sky, please file a bug!!)
Sim won't go into 'safe mode' after an auto-update.
Aircraft carrier wake doesn't show through carrier.
Fixed crash at night with C130 and other planes with no 3-d cockpit.
Fixed heat blur to not show up in first class cabin of 747 and other interiors.
X-Plane 10.10 Beta 2
Bug Fixes:
Fixed crash on startup on Windows caused by some Joysticks
Joysticks no longer have a negative impact on frame rate.
Roads no longer shoot up into the sky at DSF tile ends.
Fixed crash with v9 DSFs with powerlines.
Hedges and bushes in autogen no longer stick into the street.
4x SSAA HDR mode fixed to not draw into 1/4 of the screen.
Fixed blue and red artifacts in HDR mode on Windows machines.
Fixed white box around bomb craters in HDR mode.
Fixed blue flicker when QuickFlight carousel spins.
Fixed night water reflections in non-HDR mode.
Fixed brightness of lights reflected in water.
Improved UI tile scrolling in quick-flight dialog.
X-Plane 10.10 Beta 1
USABILITY
X-Plane now features a "Quick Flight" screen, which can open on load if desired. Besides being a nice way to quickly set up a simple flight and see all of your airplanes, the Quick Flight screen will save you time, because it appears before scenery is loaded. No need to wait for scenery to load, then change airports, then wait again. Start your flight where you want with the plane you want.
Q E R F < > arrow keys to move around: SHIFT to go FAST CONTROL to go SLOW this gives more control for movie-makers, as requested by various movie-makers.
20 new commands: 10 MEMORIZE view in 3-d cockpit 10 RECALL view in 3-d cockpit The 10 views, called "Quick-Look" views, are commands in the VIEW group in the keyboard assignment screen, but if you delete your preferences in the output/preferences folder, then they will default to the 10 numeric keypad numbers, and hit CONTROL plus that number to memorize a new view.
Joysticks can now be hot-plugged; X-Plane detects your joystick changes as they happen; no need to restart!
X-Plane now features automatic crash reporting. When X-Plane crashes (due to its own code or a plugin) it will gather up a crash report, which goes into its Output/Crash Reports folder. It will then present you the _option_ to send the report to Laminar Research automatically.
Whether or not you choose to send the report, the report is retained in Output/Crash Reports so you can see what data was collected and would have been sent. Reports you choose to send go into a database so that we can analyze them and search by common problems (e.g. do all of the crashes at this point in the code happen on this graphics card).
X-plane will attempt to detect low memory conditions before an actual crash happens and warn you. If possible, it will stop loading scenery but not terminate the app so you can save any preferences if desired. This is not a replacement for 64-bit but is designed to help differentiate low memory vs. an actual crash bug.
If X-Plane crashes, it will offer to optionally start up in 'safe mode' on the next run, with rendering settings set back to factory defaults. If you change a rendering setting that takes effect on restart and thus cannot restart the sim, this gives you an easy way to restore things.
COOL NEW STUFF
New oil rig... see it in the oil rig approach... really amazing detail.
New plane: Columbia-400!
Piaggo Avanti updated to be really nice, and is our default airplane for now.
Updated scenery textures. New textures for dry regions and Volcanos, as well as enhancements and refinements, including color adjustment.
New lights - the light texture and table of colors has been tuned up for better night lighting.
More "stuff" in the airport library.
(Autogen improvements are still in progress and will be available in a later beta.)
RENDERING ENGINE
The entire HDR pipeline has been rewritten to fix bugs and boost performance. It may be a bit before the bugs are all thrashed out.
Tone mapping in HDR mode now features dynamic exposure as you move the camera. The dynamic exposure is set to very small changes for now; we'll tune it during the beta.
Night lighting performance has been tuned considerably.
The "ATI Windows" issue is fixed: the ATI Windows driver is a bit slow to map memory compared to other drivers/platforms, so we use an alternate code path. This should provide lower CPU use for clouds on ATI Windows systems. If you still have slow clouds, then X-Plane is slow or your machine is slow or your settings are too high.
SCENERY SYSTEM
X-Plane creates a .ini file in Custom scenery to manage your scenery packs. You can reprioritize scenery without renaming folders by editing the file. This feature is meant as a base; someday we'll get a UI in front of it. Disable a pack you don't like by replacing SCENERY_PACK with SCENERY_PACK_DISABLED. New packs will be added to the .ini file automatically as they are found, so you never _have_ to edit this .ini file.
Scenery packs in custom scenery can be symbolic links, short cuts or aliases to other hard drives. Link the pack - that is, put the pack anywhere, and put the alias in custom scenery. draped objects work without specific LOd
The road rendering code has been overhauled to not put roads up in the sky and to avoid putting powerline towers on roads when possible. If you see a case where a road goes straight up into the air, please, re-report the bug against 10.10b1. But note that we are still tuning and fixing bugs in the roads.
Other scenery system bug fixes:
Line-style forest rendering fixed - the lines could be garbled.
Facade roof textures flipped horizontally - they were wrong before.
Placement of tiles in autogen strings improved.
Objects with draped geometry work even if there is non non-draped geometry and no LOD instructions. In 10.05r1 the default LOD was miscalculated. To ship scenery that works with 10.05r1, just use the explicit ATTR_LOD_draped command.
IMPROVED FLIGHT MODEL
controllable ram-air recovery for propeller engines assign the ram air recovery percentage for your recip or turboprop engine installation, and see what kind of power boost you can get at speed with a properly-designed inlet! this used to be hard-wired at 10% (pursuant to flight-test in my Cirrus) but is now controllable by you per-aircraft.
electric motors are limited on torque and power, so if you exceed redline rpm, the torque will be gin to fall off to hold constant power! electric motors can have efficiency as well, indicating what percentage of the watt-hours coming out of the battery make it to the prop! electric motors can re-gen power as well, if you enter a re-gen efficiency in the engines screen of Plane-Maker (Spool-Up tab.. where the engine efficiency mentioned above is also set) the re-gen model causes the prop to go into re-gen mode if the throttle is at idle, running the braking torque (and thus battery charge) up linearly with rpm until braking torque equals max allowable drive torque at redline prop rpm. These things are designed to make electric motor simulation really run well in X-Plane... even well enough to plan how a real electric airplane will perform!
manifold pressure tweaked still more! I am sorry to keep twiddling this one parameter, but i sure do want to get it right! we now DO use the max manifold pressure that you enter into Plane-Maker, so you should be able to control the results well.
when you fail the left or right flaps, they simply stay in the position they were in the moment the failure occurred. this makes it possible to fail the flaps when extended, so only one side RETRACTS! rather interesting for go-arounds with failed flaps on one side when you start to clean up the plane!
The weight and balance predictor in Plane-Maker (designed by me to test out real airplane designs!) now has a different weight and balance entry for each fuel tank, so you can see CG ranges at all possible fuel tank load-outs.
Metal coefficient on concrete increased a bit... this will reduce skidding on helos a bit, and make dynamic roll-over more likely!
More refinement of the transition from subsonic to supersonic flight model, with input from an F-18 pilot that spends time flying in both speed regimes. In reality, the air accelerates to (and beyond) the speed of sound as it moves around the body of the aircraft... even BEFORE the airplane makes it up to the speed of sound. We now start to emulate that effect a bit, starting to move to the supersonic flight modeling as the aircraft speed approaches Mach 1, with drag rising as shock waves form.
You now enter the starter HORSEPOWER in the engines screen, and it's behavior should be more realistic in flight. As well, starter current draw should be a lot more realistic now, and the starter torque should fall off as the rpm comes up due to power limits of the starter and it's associated circuitry.
New variable in Plane-Maker: Prop pitch time to enter beta. Enter a value here (in the Engines screen, Spoolup tab) to set how quickly the propeller can move. While you only enter the time to move from idle to beta, this prop speed is then used for ALL propeller operations.
AIRPLANES
Translucency is fixed in HDR mode - translucent glass should look the same in forward and HDR renders. If you have a model whose translucency changes, please re-report a bug!!!
V9-style lights don't "leak" - landing light affect exterior objects and global interior spill affects interior.
Prop disc overrides fixed.
NEW STUFF FOR AUTHORS
Textures can now be up to 4096 x 4096 pixels. Use good judgment as this can eat a lot of VRAM!!!
A new OBJ attribute GLOBAL_no_shadow excludes an object from shadow calculations. This is both good for performance and gets rid of ugly shadows on objects like grass that should not have shadows.
Autogen and roads can have attached objects that appear more often in higher rendering settings. Our artists will be using this to tune rendering performance.
Draped geometry in an object now has all of the same shader options as a road or autogen tile. Docs on this coming soon!
PLUGINS
Changing weather datarefs will not regenerate cloud puffs unless cloud-related datarefs change.
The sim no longer tests for a "crashed" airplane when the sim is paused. This test was causing the sim to believe that the user had crashed the aircraft when a plugin changed the airplane's position in the world. So now writing the airplane's position should work correctly even for far-away locations.
PLANE-MAKER
The screenshot command still works in Plane-Maker.
SMALL VISUAL REFINEMENTS
landing lights light up the rain and snow now... kind of a nice detail
heat blurr moved according to the exhaust location even with tilting engines for VTOL ops...nice if you want to try something like a JET V-22 type aircraft.
less water spray effect form hovering helos over wet terrain, as per reality.
no more brakes hanging on free-casting nosewheel craft. (oops!)
the LOCATION of the jettisonable load on the aircraft is now considered on all aspects of the flight model
in the weight and balance screen, add a nice big jettisonable water load and put it out on the wingtip! let the fun commence!
GENERAL OPERATING REFINEMENTS
situations can be saved even if you just loaded a situation to start up with! kind of convenient. situations within situations.
mouse controls rudder again, as desired, when no joy controls found
new file-open is nice... try it! should be much quicker to use. as well, new livery selection is nice... it is integrated with the aircraft-open
more failures that do not apply to your airplane are culled from the failure UI list
new command: "sim/flight_controls/brakes_toggle_auto" to toggle auto-brakes, as requested.
the cloud layers can now be as close together as you like
SLIGHT change in the icing model: you now only need ONE switch for bleed air or pneumatic on the panel now. it will active any bleed air and pneumatics on BOTH wings.
New command: "sim/autopilot/knots_mach_toggle" This is a new command (assignable to a joystick button or keyboard, and one shat should be used by custom-aircraft makers) that properly toggle between speed and mach number on the airspeed hold.
New command: "sim/flight_controls/tail_wheel_lock" Toggles the tailwheel lock.
New commands: ADF 1 and 2 cards, pilot and copilot, rotate up and down.
Much less turbulence from RAIN... you have to select STORMS or the turbulence slider to get noticeable turbulence,
or fly into CUMULUS clouds.
BUG-FIXES
shooting down other airplanes works.
lift fans possible, as intended.
these are insanely fun.
equip your plane with 1 (or more!) jet engine but set up 2 (or more) props.
be sure that the jet engine is set so it can be VECTORING! set the vector range in the helos and VTOL screen to at least 90 degrees, and check it as vectoring in the engines screen
for the props, set them to type LIFT FAN and give them plenty of RPM and make them ducted and at a vertical cant of 90 degrees
if you balance out the fan speed and radius number of blade and chord to absorb the right amount of power from the jet, then you should be able to get the thing balanced out to fly nicely like an F-35!
carrier catshot mission won't launch prematurely off the deck just cause you have toe-brakes, and should have better physics in place holding you before the shot
X-Plane 10.10 Beta 5
We now support devices with an insane number of buttons and axis like the Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog (That thing is an insane beast).
Improved consistency in views. Right click and scroll are now used everywhere for camera movement and zoom respectively.
Implemented Quick-Look view commands to allow users to save predefined views on a per-aircraft basis. See discussion here.
OBJ File Format Extensions - docs coming soon!
ATTR_no_shadow disables shadows for just one part of an OBJ; polygon-offset (ATTR_poly_os) geometry now works this way too.
A new pixel-based manipulator lets you define drags that work horizontally or vertically, with scaling. This manipulator is intended to make draggable knobs.
GLOBAL_cockpit_lit object attribute declares that ATTR_cockpit will use real 3-d lighting. This provides a better migration path for old airplanes that depend on translucency.
Bug Fixes:
Fixed broken hot-spots on Altimeters
Fixed broken adjustment on attitude indicator
Fixed 3/4 deflection on Joystick Axis page on some devices (Saitek Flight Stick, Epic USB, etc.)
Fixed "sticking" hat-switches that would sometimes not turn off once pressed.
Fixed Joysticks with missing buttons/axis on Windows such as the Logitech G940 or G25
Bump maps now work in .ter files again.
The HDR pipeline has been severely thrashed in an attempt to improve the look of translucent scenery. While there are still translucency artifacts in HDR mode (and all airplanes should use the "glass" option in plane-Maker for windshields and canopies) translucency should be better than it was before.
Fixed ugly blue glowing water at night.
Added back 3-d cockpit toggle command to match v9.
Airplane is converted to metric before plugins are run.
X-Plane 10.10 Beta 4
This beta updates and renames the Aerosoft airports that ship with X-Plane 10 global, fixing naming inconsistencies between different DVD editions. You should only notice the update if you have installed European global scenery.
This beta also includes initial rough translations for Japanese and Portuguese; we'll be refining this over the beta period. The French translation has also been updated.
Bug Fixes:
Fixed crash at night (take 2, the fix in beta 3 was in itself broken).
Fixed cockpits going dark and camera angle moving at night.
Fixed support for Epic USB and other devices that send unsigned axis data but have LogicalMax with the signed bit set. 0xFF vs 0x00FF.
Improved update screen dialog so users can reject updates without a crash.
Liveries can be selected.
Barometric pressure knob fixed on C172 and other panels.
Plane-Maker won't prompt for safe-mode after an X-Plane crash.
Fixed crash if previous flown airplane is missing when X-Plane is next run.
Fixed sun glare on landing markings at KSEA when bump/normal mapping is disabled.
Interior geometry shown for older planes. Note that showing the inside of the fuselage and misc bodies is not recommended, not possible in airplanes saved for v10, and will be dropped completely in the future.
X-Plane 10.10 Beta 3
Bug Fixes:
Fixed washed out cockpits on older airplanes like the CL415. Blog post coming soon explaining what this was, why authors might want to update their planes, and what's coming in the future for cockpits.
Fixed erratic joystick behavior on windows that prevented proper calibration
Fixed linux joystick problem preventing the detection of rudder pedals/trim wheels etc (NOTE: If it still doesn't find your device, you'll need to UDEV your /dev/input/event* device to give X-Plane permission).
Fixed roads shooting into the sky at LSZA. (There are a lot of the roads on this planet and we can't check them all by hand, so if you find yet more roads shooting into the sky, please file a bug!!)
Sim won't go into 'safe mode' after an auto-update.
Aircraft carrier wake doesn't show through carrier.
Fixed crash at night with C130 and other planes with no 3-d cockpit.
Fixed heat blur to not show up in first class cabin of 747 and other interiors.
X-Plane 10.10 Beta 2
Bug Fixes:
Fixed crash on startup on Windows caused by some Joysticks
Joysticks no longer have a negative impact on frame rate.
Roads no longer shoot up into the sky at DSF tile ends.
Fixed crash with v9 DSFs with powerlines.
Hedges and bushes in autogen no longer stick into the street.
4x SSAA HDR mode fixed to not draw into 1/4 of the screen.
Fixed blue and red artifacts in HDR mode on Windows machines.
Fixed white box around bomb craters in HDR mode.
Fixed blue flicker when QuickFlight carousel spins.
Fixed night water reflections in non-HDR mode.
Fixed brightness of lights reflected in water.
Improved UI tile scrolling in quick-flight dialog.
X-Plane 10.10 Beta 1
USABILITY
X-Plane now features a "Quick Flight" screen, which can open on load if desired. Besides being a nice way to quickly set up a simple flight and see all of your airplanes, the Quick Flight screen will save you time, because it appears before scenery is loaded. No need to wait for scenery to load, then change airports, then wait again. Start your flight where you want with the plane you want.
Q E R F < > arrow keys to move around: SHIFT to go FAST CONTROL to go SLOW this gives more control for movie-makers, as requested by various movie-makers.
20 new commands: 10 MEMORIZE view in 3-d cockpit 10 RECALL view in 3-d cockpit The 10 views, called "Quick-Look" views, are commands in the VIEW group in the keyboard assignment screen, but if you delete your preferences in the output/preferences folder, then they will default to the 10 numeric keypad numbers, and hit CONTROL plus that number to memorize a new view.
Joysticks can now be hot-plugged; X-Plane detects your joystick changes as they happen; no need to restart!
X-Plane now features automatic crash reporting. When X-Plane crashes (due to its own code or a plugin) it will gather up a crash report, which goes into its Output/Crash Reports folder. It will then present you the _option_ to send the report to Laminar Research automatically.
Whether or not you choose to send the report, the report is retained in Output/Crash Reports so you can see what data was collected and would have been sent. Reports you choose to send go into a database so that we can analyze them and search by common problems (e.g. do all of the crashes at this point in the code happen on this graphics card).
X-plane will attempt to detect low memory conditions before an actual crash happens and warn you. If possible, it will stop loading scenery but not terminate the app so you can save any preferences if desired. This is not a replacement for 64-bit but is designed to help differentiate low memory vs. an actual crash bug.
If X-Plane crashes, it will offer to optionally start up in 'safe mode' on the next run, with rendering settings set back to factory defaults. If you change a rendering setting that takes effect on restart and thus cannot restart the sim, this gives you an easy way to restore things.
COOL NEW STUFF
New oil rig... see it in the oil rig approach... really amazing detail.
New plane: Columbia-400!
Piaggo Avanti updated to be really nice, and is our default airplane for now.
Updated scenery textures. New textures for dry regions and Volcanos, as well as enhancements and refinements, including color adjustment.
New lights - the light texture and table of colors has been tuned up for better night lighting.
More "stuff" in the airport library.
(Autogen improvements are still in progress and will be available in a later beta.)
RENDERING ENGINE
The entire HDR pipeline has been rewritten to fix bugs and boost performance. It may be a bit before the bugs are all thrashed out.
Tone mapping in HDR mode now features dynamic exposure as you move the camera. The dynamic exposure is set to very small changes for now; we'll tune it during the beta.
Night lighting performance has been tuned considerably.
The "ATI Windows" issue is fixed: the ATI Windows driver is a bit slow to map memory compared to other drivers/platforms, so we use an alternate code path. This should provide lower CPU use for clouds on ATI Windows systems. If you still have slow clouds, then X-Plane is slow or your machine is slow or your settings are too high.
SCENERY SYSTEM
X-Plane creates a .ini file in Custom scenery to manage your scenery packs. You can reprioritize scenery without renaming folders by editing the file. This feature is meant as a base; someday we'll get a UI in front of it. Disable a pack you don't like by replacing SCENERY_PACK with SCENERY_PACK_DISABLED. New packs will be added to the .ini file automatically as they are found, so you never _have_ to edit this .ini file.
Scenery packs in custom scenery can be symbolic links, short cuts or aliases to other hard drives. Link the pack - that is, put the pack anywhere, and put the alias in custom scenery. draped objects work without specific LOd
The road rendering code has been overhauled to not put roads up in the sky and to avoid putting powerline towers on roads when possible. If you see a case where a road goes straight up into the air, please, re-report the bug against 10.10b1. But note that we are still tuning and fixing bugs in the roads.
Other scenery system bug fixes:
Line-style forest rendering fixed - the lines could be garbled.
Facade roof textures flipped horizontally - they were wrong before.
Placement of tiles in autogen strings improved.
Objects with draped geometry work even if there is non non-draped geometry and no LOD instructions. In 10.05r1 the default LOD was miscalculated. To ship scenery that works with 10.05r1, just use the explicit ATTR_LOD_draped command.
IMPROVED FLIGHT MODEL
controllable ram-air recovery for propeller engines assign the ram air recovery percentage for your recip or turboprop engine installation, and see what kind of power boost you can get at speed with a properly-designed inlet! this used to be hard-wired at 10% (pursuant to flight-test in my Cirrus) but is now controllable by you per-aircraft.
electric motors are limited on torque and power, so if you exceed redline rpm, the torque will be gin to fall off to hold constant power! electric motors can have efficiency as well, indicating what percentage of the watt-hours coming out of the battery make it to the prop! electric motors can re-gen power as well, if you enter a re-gen efficiency in the engines screen of Plane-Maker (Spool-Up tab.. where the engine efficiency mentioned above is also set) the re-gen model causes the prop to go into re-gen mode if the throttle is at idle, running the braking torque (and thus battery charge) up linearly with rpm until braking torque equals max allowable drive torque at redline prop rpm. These things are designed to make electric motor simulation really run well in X-Plane... even well enough to plan how a real electric airplane will perform!
manifold pressure tweaked still more! I am sorry to keep twiddling this one parameter, but i sure do want to get it right! we now DO use the max manifold pressure that you enter into Plane-Maker, so you should be able to control the results well.
when you fail the left or right flaps, they simply stay in the position they were in the moment the failure occurred. this makes it possible to fail the flaps when extended, so only one side RETRACTS! rather interesting for go-arounds with failed flaps on one side when you start to clean up the plane!
The weight and balance predictor in Plane-Maker (designed by me to test out real airplane designs!) now has a different weight and balance entry for each fuel tank, so you can see CG ranges at all possible fuel tank load-outs.
Metal coefficient on concrete increased a bit... this will reduce skidding on helos a bit, and make dynamic roll-over more likely!
More refinement of the transition from subsonic to supersonic flight model, with input from an F-18 pilot that spends time flying in both speed regimes. In reality, the air accelerates to (and beyond) the speed of sound as it moves around the body of the aircraft... even BEFORE the airplane makes it up to the speed of sound. We now start to emulate that effect a bit, starting to move to the supersonic flight modeling as the aircraft speed approaches Mach 1, with drag rising as shock waves form.
You now enter the starter HORSEPOWER in the engines screen, and it's behavior should be more realistic in flight. As well, starter current draw should be a lot more realistic now, and the starter torque should fall off as the rpm comes up due to power limits of the starter and it's associated circuitry.
New variable in Plane-Maker: Prop pitch time to enter beta. Enter a value here (in the Engines screen, Spoolup tab) to set how quickly the propeller can move. While you only enter the time to move from idle to beta, this prop speed is then used for ALL propeller operations.
AIRPLANES
Translucency is fixed in HDR mode - translucent glass should look the same in forward and HDR renders. If you have a model whose translucency changes, please re-report a bug!!!
V9-style lights don't "leak" - landing light affect exterior objects and global interior spill affects interior.
Prop disc overrides fixed.
NEW STUFF FOR AUTHORS
Textures can now be up to 4096 x 4096 pixels. Use good judgment as this can eat a lot of VRAM!!!
A new OBJ attribute GLOBAL_no_shadow excludes an object from shadow calculations. This is both good for performance and gets rid of ugly shadows on objects like grass that should not have shadows.
Autogen and roads can have attached objects that appear more often in higher rendering settings. Our artists will be using this to tune rendering performance.
Draped geometry in an object now has all of the same shader options as a road or autogen tile. Docs on this coming soon!
PLUGINS
Changing weather datarefs will not regenerate cloud puffs unless cloud-related datarefs change.
The sim no longer tests for a "crashed" airplane when the sim is paused. This test was causing the sim to believe that the user had crashed the aircraft when a plugin changed the airplane's position in the world. So now writing the airplane's position should work correctly even for far-away locations.
PLANE-MAKER
The screenshot command still works in Plane-Maker.
SMALL VISUAL REFINEMENTS
landing lights light up the rain and snow now... kind of a nice detail
heat blurr moved according to the exhaust location even with tilting engines for VTOL ops...nice if you want to try something like a JET V-22 type aircraft.
less water spray effect form hovering helos over wet terrain, as per reality.
no more brakes hanging on free-casting nosewheel craft. (oops!)
the LOCATION of the jettisonable load on the aircraft is now considered on all aspects of the flight model
in the weight and balance screen, add a nice big jettisonable water load and put it out on the wingtip! let the fun commence!
GENERAL OPERATING REFINEMENTS
situations can be saved even if you just loaded a situation to start up with! kind of convenient. situations within situations.
mouse controls rudder again, as desired, when no joy controls found
new file-open is nice... try it! should be much quicker to use. as well, new livery selection is nice... it is integrated with the aircraft-open
more failures that do not apply to your airplane are culled from the failure UI list
new command: "sim/flight_controls/brakes_toggle_auto" to toggle auto-brakes, as requested.
the cloud layers can now be as close together as you like
SLIGHT change in the icing model: you now only need ONE switch for bleed air or pneumatic on the panel now. it will active any bleed air and pneumatics on BOTH wings.
New command: "sim/autopilot/knots_mach_toggle" This is a new command (assignable to a joystick button or keyboard, and one shat should be used by custom-aircraft makers) that properly toggle between speed and mach number on the airspeed hold.
New command: "sim/flight_controls/tail_wheel_lock" Toggles the tailwheel lock.
New commands: ADF 1 and 2 cards, pilot and copilot, rotate up and down.
Much less turbulence from RAIN... you have to select STORMS or the turbulence slider to get noticeable turbulence,
or fly into CUMULUS clouds.
BUG-FIXES
shooting down other airplanes works.
lift fans possible, as intended.
these are insanely fun.
equip your plane with 1 (or more!) jet engine but set up 2 (or more) props.
be sure that the jet engine is set so it can be VECTORING! set the vector range in the helos and VTOL screen to at least 90 degrees, and check it as vectoring in the engines screen
for the props, set them to type LIFT FAN and give them plenty of RPM and make them ducted and at a vertical cant of 90 degrees
if you balance out the fan speed and radius number of blade and chord to absorb the right amount of power from the jet, then you should be able to get the thing balanced out to fly nicely like an F-35!
carrier catshot mission won't launch prematurely off the deck just cause you have toe-brakes, and should have better physics in place holding you before the shot
May 29, 2012
AC6: Garuda's Angel
Ace Combat 6: Garuda's Angel
Chapter Fifteen: Chandelier
Gracemeria Air Force Base
Republic of Emmeria
General Roberts spoke, "Alright ladies and gentlemen, this is what we have on the Enemy's new superweapon." He then spoke, "It is called Chandelier, and it was built as a defense against the Ulysses Catastrophe years ago. It seems that the Estovakians got it working." Kristen looked at it. "So we preform an airstrike."
Col. Daniels spoke, "Sir, with all due respect, we can shoot down the missiles. We cannot waste fighters attacking this thing. Who will protect the city?" Kristen countered. "They are picking us off from five hundred miles away Colonel. Sooner or later, they're going to wear us down, and then we'll be defenseless. We have to do an airstrike on it."
Daniels spoke, "We don't have a shred of intelligence on this thing, we don't know where to hit it." Kristen responded, "That's not the point Colonel. We're going to run out of fighters and pilots if we just tough it out and some of those missiles might get through. Look." She brought up one of the satellite photos. "This railing must be some kind of reloading system, if we can knock that out, we can prevent any more shells from being fired at us."
General Roberts spoke, "I'm inclined to agree, but we do not know how to take this thing out Major." Kristen spoke, "We have no choice, the only other alternative is for this weapon system to keep on grinding us until we break. If we attack it, maybe we might get lucky enough to inflict some kind of damage on it.
"Alright Major. It's either we go out fighting now, than to linger here while we get ground down." The General noted. Daniels spoke, "What about our city, we didn't just liberate it just to leave it undefended." Kristen spoke, "Daniels, I don't like this any more than you do. But this is what has to be done. General, we need our ground forces to evacuate the city. If we fail, we'll at least buy some time for our people to escape."
General Roberts nodded, "Good luck Major."
Kristen began to speak, her pilots standing at attention. "Ladies and Gentlemen. We have seen too much war. Too much of this bloodshed. But we must end this now. We're tired, we're homesick, we want to be with our families, our loved ones. We want to go one day without killing someone. But our homes are, once again, in danger." She stated.
"Pilots, this may be a suicide mission, and I will not order you to go with me. But it is the same, in our histories, as when the Golden King himself asked his tired and freezing army for one more month of service to our people. And so, I find myself in the same unpleasant situation of asking for one more battle." Kristen stated.
"I ask you now, to render one more service to our people. And after this battle, despite the outcome, I will release you from my service." Kristen stated. "Those who volunteer, step forward." There was some slight hesitation, until Shamrock walked forward. "I volunteer Ma'am." One by one, the other pilots did so. Avalanche, Sky Kid, Windhover, Lanner, and even Ghosteye and his crew. There was not a single pilot left that did not volunteer. "Thank you, all of you." She then spoke, "Let us go forward, and end this war."
She flew her fighter on, staring out into the obscured horizon. A blizzard, cold. Everything about this land seemed cold. So cold that it easily filled anyone's heart, and drowned out the warmth. "Look at this place, it's giving us a good look in the Estovakian soul. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Kristen heard some static on her radio.
"... can you hear me?" A woman's voice asked. "I'd like to say hello, hello to all Emmerian Air Force pilots in the northern sky."
"What the? Who's voice is that?" Lanner asked.
"I'm just a Civilian, my name's Melissa Herman." The voice said. The name meant something to Kristem "Herman... Herman... I think I know that name."
"I think it's coming from Gracemeria's Radio Station. Hey, we're in a war zone here!" Ghosteye stated. Melissa responded. "I don't know a whole lot about war. But there's something I need to tell you."
"This airband is reserved for wartime defense purposes." Ghosteye stated.
"Please, pilots, listen to my mom. She has something important to say." A young girls voice stated.
Kristen finally spoke, "Wait! Ma'am, do you know a Lieutenant Daniel Herman?" She mentioned. Melissa responded. "Yes, he was my husband." Kristen then spoke. "Alright, we'll hear you out ma'am."
"The Estovakian Military has that battery, and it can't be destroyed." Melissa stated.
Ghosteye spoke, "It looks like she's trying to disrupt our plans, I better contact Gracemeria Base." Shamrock spoke, "Wait!"
"But that's when its construction was completed." Kristen then heard an operator over the signal. "Recovered to optimal cooling, We can resume with launching." A response was heard, "Roger, resume with attacks immediately." Kristen then picked up some approaching fighters. "Alright pilots, we have incomming. Standby to. Suddenly something large was fired past Talisman toward Gracemeria. "Dammit! It's firing again!"
"Can you hear me?" Melissa said. "The Battery's weak points are its cooling units. If you destroy those, it will heat up and collapse on its own." Melissa stated. Her daughter responded. "Not only that, even if they get those heat thingies, there's also a backup, they have to get that too."
Shamrock spoke, "Do you have proof of this?" Melissa nodded, "We're trying to get you the data. The radio station's crew is sending it now."
Ghosteye spoke, "Data received, Hold on here. Ma'am, how did you get ahold of this?" Melissa responded, "I got it from a flight instructor in the Estovakian Air Force, his name is Lieutenant Colonel..." Kristen finished, "...Voychek."
Kristen spoke, "Garuda team to Ghosteye, Send us that data..." Ghosteye responded, "Roger, all planes, I'm sending you data on the enemy's defense capabilities."
Kristen spoke, "Got it..." She checked the data. "Mother... of... God..." She said. Chandelier was, literally, a fortress. "All pilots, engage Chandelier." She and Shamrock dove toward Chandelier, which erupted into a firestorm of tracer fire. "Alright Shamrock, concentrate on the cooling units. Suddenly a voice spoke, "Prepare stauros for for launch, initiate loading." Kristen broke off her attacks on several of the fortresses anti-aircraft batteries and headed for the, "Damn, they're loading one of those shells."
"Those huge missiles are being carried in a gutter below the gunbarrel." One of her pilots said. "I'm on it... Continue your attack." She flew into the loading chute, and saw the shell being carried to the loading area. She opened fire on it and it exploded. "Got it." She then noticed some familiar looking fighters. Strigon team was here. She had to finish this, once and for all. She managed to get behind one of the Strigons, He twisted, attempting to evade Kristen's lock. Finally she got a lock. "This is why you should've never gone back to war!" She fired a missile into the Strigon's tailpipe. Another Strigon managed to get behind Kristen, and she lead him on a chase through the struts supporting the cannon. "C'mon, make a mistake, One of the Strigon's stabilizes were taken off by one of the struts and he began to spin right into another strut. Kristen set her sights on a series of side cooling units on the weapons side and unleashed some SOD dispensors toward it.
They impacted on the ground, taking the cooling units with them. Ghosteye spoke, "We got some of the cooling units. She then noticed a Aegis cruiser providing ESM and fired at it's radar tower. "I got one of the ESM craft, that should help us a bit." She set her sights on another cooling unit. "Shamrock, help me with this cooling unit." She opened fire on one of the cooling units with shamrocks help. After a barrage of concentrated missile and gunfire, the cooling unit exploded. Ghosteye spoke, "We got another cooling unit!"
"Prepare Stauros for launch, initiate loading." This signal made Kristen jump. "I'm on it!" She broke approached the Chandelier's loading chute from the side and turned into it. The shell was approaching fast, and she fired a missile at it. It exploded. "This is Lanner, We got another Cooling unit on the side." Ghosteye spoke, "Understood, Cooling unit destroyed." She set her sights on the remaining side cooling units and launched a SOD Dispensor toward them. The bomblets managed to take out some more of the cooling unit, another one was finished off with gunfire. "Fifth one down, Cooling unit five is destroyed.
Kristen evaded another missile from one of the destroyers near Chandelier. "Someone deal with these ships, there is a lot a fire coming from them. The Squadron provided some cover fire for Talisman, She turned toward another one of the cooling units and began to open fire. It's cover was blown off, followed by its its shielding and then the unit itself, she pulled up barely to avoid the blas. "Another Cooling unit down. That's number six." She spotted more Strigons. "Strigon team..." she stated. "Stop fighting, or I will destroy you all." She said to them.
"We have no choice. We cannot let you into Estovakia demon." One of Strigon's pilots stated. "I am not a Demon, I am an Angel." She stated as she dogfighted one of them. "Do you want to know what your leader told me? He told me that corrupt governments and marred lands aren't worth defending!" She said as she dogfighted. "There is only one thing worth defending, and that is the future." The Strigon spoke, "You have destroyed many of our comrades, our darkest dreams now have you in them, dark angel of Emmeria. We cannot let you bring more war to Estovakia." Kristen dogfighted with them more. "Is this what it is about? Is this what your general has told you? This war is over, I have accepted this fact, those who haven't accepted that war must end are nothing but weapons to be used!" She stated.
"Prepare Stauros for Launch, initiate loading." She broke from combat, toward Chandelier's loading chute, and fired an SOD dispenser into the chute. She then focused on Strigon again.
General Sokovich slammed his fist on the command room's mapscreen. "Someone kill that woman. Damn her! Kill her! Kill her! Kill her!" He got on the com system. "Landsford. I will kill you, I swear that I will kill you." He then spoke to his subordinate. "Work quicker, I want Chandelier loaded!"
One of the soldiers manning a console spoke, "Sir, we're working as fast as we can." Sokovich drew his gun and killed the soldier that stated that. "You, take his place, work faster than he did, or you will die!" Sokovich did not know that his words were carried on the radio.
"Strigon team, what kind of leader kills his own men? Do you not see what he is now? He has gone insane. Is he worth fighting for? Is this worth fighting for? Because I am fighting for someone very dear to me." Kristen stated.
"Who?" One Strigon asked. Kristen spoke, "If you must know, he's a doctor." This managed to get a response from the Strigons. "Doctor Anders? You're the one he spoke of?" Kristen nodded. "Yes." There was a moment that seemed like forever, until one of Strigon team's pilots spoke. "General Sokovich, this war is over, end this at once."
"What?" Sokovich stated.
"This is Lieutenant Tosha Miyajek. Your war is over General. We will not fight for you anymore. The demon you spoke of is willing to forsake war. We are willing to do the same. She is not a demon, she is an Angel."
Sokovich spoke, "Treason! Treason! How dare you! All defenses, shoot down everything. Kill everything!" The General's staff in Chandelier spoke, "No General. This war is over, it's too much now." The General opened fire in his command center. "Computer, Directive Zero, Execute." The Chandelier's computer spoke, "Voiceprint ID confirmed, Directive Zero activated." The General escaped the room.
"Garuda, this is Lieutenant Vasyev. General Sokovich has escaped, but he's locked us out of the computers. We can't shut down Chandelier. You'll have to destroy this base."
"Lieutenant, evacuate your men from Chandelier, hurry." Kristen noted. Strigon's fighters took up formation with her. "We will fight with you Garuda, for the glory of our country, and for the promise of the future." Kristen spoke, "Strigon focus on Chandelier's defenses, we'll focus on the cooling units, All Emmerian Squadrons. The Estovakians are not hostiles, repeat, not hostiles. Focus solely on Chandelier, cover the evacuation from it. The Combined Emmerian and Estrovakian squadrons focused their firepower down on Chandelier. Kristen and one of the Strigons opened fire on one of the cooling units. "Cooling unit down. Three remaining."
"Prepare Stauros for launch, initiate loading." The mechanical voice of Chandelier's computer said. "Someone take that out!" Tosha responded. "I got it." He entered the Chute and began firing on the shell in the chute. "Thank you, we can't let one of these shells past us." Kristen stated.
"This is Sky Kid, me and Lanner have got another one." Ghosteye spoke, "One cooling unit remaining." Kristen spoke, "I've got it, She opened fire on the last unit, and kept on firing until an explosion errupted from it. Chandelier groaned under its own weight as the glacier it was built on shifted. Ghosteye spoke, "That monster's got a backup unit. An Extra cooling unit." Shamrock spoke, "The little girl was right. That thing still isn't dead."
"Thermal Scan data confirmed. I don't believe this. The backup unit is within Chandelier itself." Ghosteye stated.
"We can't do this, we're being hammered out here." One of Kristen's pilots said. Shamrock spoke. "Leave this to me, I'll go in for a closer look."
"Don't be stupid Shamrock, you'll get full of holes before you can get close." One of the pilots stated.
"This is Garuda Two, I'm going in alone and at low altitude." Ghosteye responded, "Garuda Two, that's too dangerous."
"I know it's dangerous, but it's time for me to dance with the angels." Shamrock stated. Shamrock went in low, and entered the loading shute. The Automated defenses fired in the tunnel. "Almost there, just a little further, gotcha." One of the guns in the chute managed to score a hit on one of Shamrock's engines.
Shamrock spoke, "Did you get the data?"
Ghosteye spoke, "Data confirmed, now pull up Garuda Two."
"I'm loosing thrust, but maybe I won't need it." Shamrock stated. "Lets see what these angel wings can do." Shamrock's fighter crashed. "Marcus! Marcus!" Kirsten stated. "Shamrock!"
Ghosteye spoke, "All planes, get in there and save shamrock. He's gotta be alive!" Kristen spoke, "Easy Ghosteye, I've got the cooling unit."
"Prepare Stauros for launch. Initiate loading." The Computer stated. "Oh no you don't All fighters, cover me." She dove toward the front of Chandelier, as the remaining fighters provided her with cover fire to draw off their attacks. She did her best to evade the defenses, when she dipped into the stauros chute. The shell had already made it down the chute. "Stauros loading complete, prepare to fire in five..." She had to get through this. "Four..." There were too many people at stake. "Three..." Jason... " Two..." Marcus... "One" She fired her last missiles at the cooling unit. The explosion erupted in the tunnel and she managed to see an opening in the tunnel, she shot out of it.
Chandelier began to move further, as the battery was placed under intense pressure from the fragmenting glacier. It's barrel began to open like a giant maw. Ghosteye spoke, "It's vital area is inside the barrel." Kristen flew toward the weapon's maw. "Time to end this." Suddenly shots barely missed Talisman, an SU 47 was tailing her from behind. "Now you die Garuda, like your friend. Die!" It was Sokovich in a SU 47. Kristen entered the Barrel, with Sokovich behind her. "Die! Die! Die!" He screamed as he fired everything at Kristen in the barrel. His missiles impacted in the barrel, and Kristen opened fire on the core inside. The Barrel exploded, and only Kristen's fighter emerged from it. It was trailing smoke. Everyone could hear a wrenching scream on the radio. "No!"
Chandelier began to fall to pieces, like a beast of destruction being defeated. However Kristen's fighter was not fairing well. "I can't keep her up. Ejecting!" Kristen reached up and pulled the eject cable. She was shot from her fighter with incredible force as the Ejection seat fired, Suddenly her parachute opened and she began to descent. Her fighter crashed into the sea. She didn't need it anymore anyway. She watched as the angel of mercy and destruction finally crashed into the sea.
As she descended, she noticed the crashed form of a Raptor floating in the water, and she manuvered her parachute close to it. With excellent timing, she managed to land on the raptor's fuselage. She released her parachute and moved up to the cockpit. Pulling the emergency release, she started unstrapping Shamrock from the fighter. She put all of her strength into pulling him from the cockpit, but the fighter started to sink fast into the sea. Grabbing the emergency raft from Shamrock's ejection seat, she inflated it, and managed to drag Shamrock onto it. She climbed into it herself, and she thanked the manufacturer of these rafts that they could hold two pilots instead of one. It was times like that she was grateful Emmeria didn't cut corners on the defense budget. Shamrock came through, as the fighter began to slip into the frozen sea.
"Did you do it? Is it done?" Marcus asked. Kristen spoke. "Yes, it's all over." She stated. In the distance, she noticed an approaching patrol boat. "We can stop fighting now, there's no more need for weapons." She heard a fighter fly by overhead.
She and Marcus were rescued by the Estovakian Survivors on the Patrol Boat, and brought to what was left of Chandelier. The Estovakians also started to treat Shamrock's injuries, as she approached an old Estovakian Major who had just arrived, and was nearby a Helicopter. "Greetings, I am Major Grigori Antovich, of the Estovakian Army, and the Provisional Estovakian Government." He stated.
"I am here, on behalf of the Estovakian Government, to offer you and Emmeria a cease fire. You have fought us on every front, destroyed every army we sent against you, destroyed even Aigaion itself. We have nothing left to fight you with. If you were to set foot on Estovakia, nothing in this world would stop you. We surrender to you Garuda." He bowed before Kristen.
Suddenly something, that was once done in Emmerian History, repeated; Kristen smiled. Not just any smile, but one that was in the same spirit as the Golden King himself. "I accept your cease fire, and you do not need to surrender." She grabbed the Major's arms, "Lets just end this terrible war that has taken so much away from all of us."
Two Days later
Kristen stepped off the Helicopter, with Shamrock in a wheelchair. To the cheers of thousands who had gathered to greet her. Now, the war was truly over. She walked, as she was greeted by friends and family.
But there were so many who were not here for this day. She walked toward her parents and hugged them both, she held to them for quite some time before she released them, and approached Jason. She embraced him in her arms.
It was a brand new day.
A man was sitting, in a lone chair, within a large room. Before him was a laptop computer, and a large window to a mansion. "So, the Estovakians have failed?" Lightning erupted in the distance.
"It is no matter, our plans will not be interrupted." He stated.
A man behind him spoke, "Sir, we're ready to recover Garuda Team's fighters."
He spoke, "How long?"
"Ten years to analyze the data." The man stated.
"It is no consequence, we Belkans know patience well. And wait we shall." He then typed on a keyboard and pilot data began to appear on it. The Demon Lord, Mobius One, Yellow Thirteen, Solo Wing Pixy, Heartbreak One, Blaze, Edge, Chopper, Archer, Pasternak, Shamrock, and Talisman. Data had been gathered on all of these pilots. The Computer spoke. "Analysis Ready..."
Lightning Erupted again...
Author's Note: I wish to thank all my readers and reviewers. Without your support, this fanfic would've never been completed. Also, this ending is different than the one in the game. I just think the game's ending dose not do the story justice, so I've created my own.
Chapter Fifteen: Chandelier
Gracemeria Air Force Base
Republic of Emmeria
General Roberts spoke, "Alright ladies and gentlemen, this is what we have on the Enemy's new superweapon." He then spoke, "It is called Chandelier, and it was built as a defense against the Ulysses Catastrophe years ago. It seems that the Estovakians got it working." Kristen looked at it. "So we preform an airstrike."
Col. Daniels spoke, "Sir, with all due respect, we can shoot down the missiles. We cannot waste fighters attacking this thing. Who will protect the city?" Kristen countered. "They are picking us off from five hundred miles away Colonel. Sooner or later, they're going to wear us down, and then we'll be defenseless. We have to do an airstrike on it."
Daniels spoke, "We don't have a shred of intelligence on this thing, we don't know where to hit it." Kristen responded, "That's not the point Colonel. We're going to run out of fighters and pilots if we just tough it out and some of those missiles might get through. Look." She brought up one of the satellite photos. "This railing must be some kind of reloading system, if we can knock that out, we can prevent any more shells from being fired at us."
General Roberts spoke, "I'm inclined to agree, but we do not know how to take this thing out Major." Kristen spoke, "We have no choice, the only other alternative is for this weapon system to keep on grinding us until we break. If we attack it, maybe we might get lucky enough to inflict some kind of damage on it.
"Alright Major. It's either we go out fighting now, than to linger here while we get ground down." The General noted. Daniels spoke, "What about our city, we didn't just liberate it just to leave it undefended." Kristen spoke, "Daniels, I don't like this any more than you do. But this is what has to be done. General, we need our ground forces to evacuate the city. If we fail, we'll at least buy some time for our people to escape."
General Roberts nodded, "Good luck Major."
Kristen began to speak, her pilots standing at attention. "Ladies and Gentlemen. We have seen too much war. Too much of this bloodshed. But we must end this now. We're tired, we're homesick, we want to be with our families, our loved ones. We want to go one day without killing someone. But our homes are, once again, in danger." She stated.
"Pilots, this may be a suicide mission, and I will not order you to go with me. But it is the same, in our histories, as when the Golden King himself asked his tired and freezing army for one more month of service to our people. And so, I find myself in the same unpleasant situation of asking for one more battle." Kristen stated.
"I ask you now, to render one more service to our people. And after this battle, despite the outcome, I will release you from my service." Kristen stated. "Those who volunteer, step forward." There was some slight hesitation, until Shamrock walked forward. "I volunteer Ma'am." One by one, the other pilots did so. Avalanche, Sky Kid, Windhover, Lanner, and even Ghosteye and his crew. There was not a single pilot left that did not volunteer. "Thank you, all of you." She then spoke, "Let us go forward, and end this war."
She flew her fighter on, staring out into the obscured horizon. A blizzard, cold. Everything about this land seemed cold. So cold that it easily filled anyone's heart, and drowned out the warmth. "Look at this place, it's giving us a good look in the Estovakian soul. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Kristen heard some static on her radio.
"... can you hear me?" A woman's voice asked. "I'd like to say hello, hello to all Emmerian Air Force pilots in the northern sky."
"What the? Who's voice is that?" Lanner asked.
"I'm just a Civilian, my name's Melissa Herman." The voice said. The name meant something to Kristem "Herman... Herman... I think I know that name."
"I think it's coming from Gracemeria's Radio Station. Hey, we're in a war zone here!" Ghosteye stated. Melissa responded. "I don't know a whole lot about war. But there's something I need to tell you."
"This airband is reserved for wartime defense purposes." Ghosteye stated.
"Please, pilots, listen to my mom. She has something important to say." A young girls voice stated.
Kristen finally spoke, "Wait! Ma'am, do you know a Lieutenant Daniel Herman?" She mentioned. Melissa responded. "Yes, he was my husband." Kristen then spoke. "Alright, we'll hear you out ma'am."
"The Estovakian Military has that battery, and it can't be destroyed." Melissa stated.
Ghosteye spoke, "It looks like she's trying to disrupt our plans, I better contact Gracemeria Base." Shamrock spoke, "Wait!"
"But that's when its construction was completed." Kristen then heard an operator over the signal. "Recovered to optimal cooling, We can resume with launching." A response was heard, "Roger, resume with attacks immediately." Kristen then picked up some approaching fighters. "Alright pilots, we have incomming. Standby to. Suddenly something large was fired past Talisman toward Gracemeria. "Dammit! It's firing again!"
"Can you hear me?" Melissa said. "The Battery's weak points are its cooling units. If you destroy those, it will heat up and collapse on its own." Melissa stated. Her daughter responded. "Not only that, even if they get those heat thingies, there's also a backup, they have to get that too."
Shamrock spoke, "Do you have proof of this?" Melissa nodded, "We're trying to get you the data. The radio station's crew is sending it now."
Ghosteye spoke, "Data received, Hold on here. Ma'am, how did you get ahold of this?" Melissa responded, "I got it from a flight instructor in the Estovakian Air Force, his name is Lieutenant Colonel..." Kristen finished, "...Voychek."
Kristen spoke, "Garuda team to Ghosteye, Send us that data..." Ghosteye responded, "Roger, all planes, I'm sending you data on the enemy's defense capabilities."
Kristen spoke, "Got it..." She checked the data. "Mother... of... God..." She said. Chandelier was, literally, a fortress. "All pilots, engage Chandelier." She and Shamrock dove toward Chandelier, which erupted into a firestorm of tracer fire. "Alright Shamrock, concentrate on the cooling units. Suddenly a voice spoke, "Prepare stauros for for launch, initiate loading." Kristen broke off her attacks on several of the fortresses anti-aircraft batteries and headed for the, "Damn, they're loading one of those shells."
"Those huge missiles are being carried in a gutter below the gunbarrel." One of her pilots said. "I'm on it... Continue your attack." She flew into the loading chute, and saw the shell being carried to the loading area. She opened fire on it and it exploded. "Got it." She then noticed some familiar looking fighters. Strigon team was here. She had to finish this, once and for all. She managed to get behind one of the Strigons, He twisted, attempting to evade Kristen's lock. Finally she got a lock. "This is why you should've never gone back to war!" She fired a missile into the Strigon's tailpipe. Another Strigon managed to get behind Kristen, and she lead him on a chase through the struts supporting the cannon. "C'mon, make a mistake, One of the Strigon's stabilizes were taken off by one of the struts and he began to spin right into another strut. Kristen set her sights on a series of side cooling units on the weapons side and unleashed some SOD dispensors toward it.
They impacted on the ground, taking the cooling units with them. Ghosteye spoke, "We got some of the cooling units. She then noticed a Aegis cruiser providing ESM and fired at it's radar tower. "I got one of the ESM craft, that should help us a bit." She set her sights on another cooling unit. "Shamrock, help me with this cooling unit." She opened fire on one of the cooling units with shamrocks help. After a barrage of concentrated missile and gunfire, the cooling unit exploded. Ghosteye spoke, "We got another cooling unit!"
"Prepare Stauros for launch, initiate loading." This signal made Kristen jump. "I'm on it!" She broke approached the Chandelier's loading chute from the side and turned into it. The shell was approaching fast, and she fired a missile at it. It exploded. "This is Lanner, We got another Cooling unit on the side." Ghosteye spoke, "Understood, Cooling unit destroyed." She set her sights on the remaining side cooling units and launched a SOD Dispensor toward them. The bomblets managed to take out some more of the cooling unit, another one was finished off with gunfire. "Fifth one down, Cooling unit five is destroyed.
Kristen evaded another missile from one of the destroyers near Chandelier. "Someone deal with these ships, there is a lot a fire coming from them. The Squadron provided some cover fire for Talisman, She turned toward another one of the cooling units and began to open fire. It's cover was blown off, followed by its its shielding and then the unit itself, she pulled up barely to avoid the blas. "Another Cooling unit down. That's number six." She spotted more Strigons. "Strigon team..." she stated. "Stop fighting, or I will destroy you all." She said to them.
"We have no choice. We cannot let you into Estovakia demon." One of Strigon's pilots stated. "I am not a Demon, I am an Angel." She stated as she dogfighted one of them. "Do you want to know what your leader told me? He told me that corrupt governments and marred lands aren't worth defending!" She said as she dogfighted. "There is only one thing worth defending, and that is the future." The Strigon spoke, "You have destroyed many of our comrades, our darkest dreams now have you in them, dark angel of Emmeria. We cannot let you bring more war to Estovakia." Kristen dogfighted with them more. "Is this what it is about? Is this what your general has told you? This war is over, I have accepted this fact, those who haven't accepted that war must end are nothing but weapons to be used!" She stated.
"Prepare Stauros for Launch, initiate loading." She broke from combat, toward Chandelier's loading chute, and fired an SOD dispenser into the chute. She then focused on Strigon again.
General Sokovich slammed his fist on the command room's mapscreen. "Someone kill that woman. Damn her! Kill her! Kill her! Kill her!" He got on the com system. "Landsford. I will kill you, I swear that I will kill you." He then spoke to his subordinate. "Work quicker, I want Chandelier loaded!"
One of the soldiers manning a console spoke, "Sir, we're working as fast as we can." Sokovich drew his gun and killed the soldier that stated that. "You, take his place, work faster than he did, or you will die!" Sokovich did not know that his words were carried on the radio.
"Strigon team, what kind of leader kills his own men? Do you not see what he is now? He has gone insane. Is he worth fighting for? Is this worth fighting for? Because I am fighting for someone very dear to me." Kristen stated.
"Who?" One Strigon asked. Kristen spoke, "If you must know, he's a doctor." This managed to get a response from the Strigons. "Doctor Anders? You're the one he spoke of?" Kristen nodded. "Yes." There was a moment that seemed like forever, until one of Strigon team's pilots spoke. "General Sokovich, this war is over, end this at once."
"What?" Sokovich stated.
"This is Lieutenant Tosha Miyajek. Your war is over General. We will not fight for you anymore. The demon you spoke of is willing to forsake war. We are willing to do the same. She is not a demon, she is an Angel."
Sokovich spoke, "Treason! Treason! How dare you! All defenses, shoot down everything. Kill everything!" The General's staff in Chandelier spoke, "No General. This war is over, it's too much now." The General opened fire in his command center. "Computer, Directive Zero, Execute." The Chandelier's computer spoke, "Voiceprint ID confirmed, Directive Zero activated." The General escaped the room.
"Garuda, this is Lieutenant Vasyev. General Sokovich has escaped, but he's locked us out of the computers. We can't shut down Chandelier. You'll have to destroy this base."
"Lieutenant, evacuate your men from Chandelier, hurry." Kristen noted. Strigon's fighters took up formation with her. "We will fight with you Garuda, for the glory of our country, and for the promise of the future." Kristen spoke, "Strigon focus on Chandelier's defenses, we'll focus on the cooling units, All Emmerian Squadrons. The Estovakians are not hostiles, repeat, not hostiles. Focus solely on Chandelier, cover the evacuation from it. The Combined Emmerian and Estrovakian squadrons focused their firepower down on Chandelier. Kristen and one of the Strigons opened fire on one of the cooling units. "Cooling unit down. Three remaining."
"Prepare Stauros for launch, initiate loading." The mechanical voice of Chandelier's computer said. "Someone take that out!" Tosha responded. "I got it." He entered the Chute and began firing on the shell in the chute. "Thank you, we can't let one of these shells past us." Kristen stated.
"This is Sky Kid, me and Lanner have got another one." Ghosteye spoke, "One cooling unit remaining." Kristen spoke, "I've got it, She opened fire on the last unit, and kept on firing until an explosion errupted from it. Chandelier groaned under its own weight as the glacier it was built on shifted. Ghosteye spoke, "That monster's got a backup unit. An Extra cooling unit." Shamrock spoke, "The little girl was right. That thing still isn't dead."
"Thermal Scan data confirmed. I don't believe this. The backup unit is within Chandelier itself." Ghosteye stated.
"We can't do this, we're being hammered out here." One of Kristen's pilots said. Shamrock spoke. "Leave this to me, I'll go in for a closer look."
"Don't be stupid Shamrock, you'll get full of holes before you can get close." One of the pilots stated.
"This is Garuda Two, I'm going in alone and at low altitude." Ghosteye responded, "Garuda Two, that's too dangerous."
"I know it's dangerous, but it's time for me to dance with the angels." Shamrock stated. Shamrock went in low, and entered the loading shute. The Automated defenses fired in the tunnel. "Almost there, just a little further, gotcha." One of the guns in the chute managed to score a hit on one of Shamrock's engines.
Shamrock spoke, "Did you get the data?"
Ghosteye spoke, "Data confirmed, now pull up Garuda Two."
"I'm loosing thrust, but maybe I won't need it." Shamrock stated. "Lets see what these angel wings can do." Shamrock's fighter crashed. "Marcus! Marcus!" Kirsten stated. "Shamrock!"
Ghosteye spoke, "All planes, get in there and save shamrock. He's gotta be alive!" Kristen spoke, "Easy Ghosteye, I've got the cooling unit."
"Prepare Stauros for launch. Initiate loading." The Computer stated. "Oh no you don't All fighters, cover me." She dove toward the front of Chandelier, as the remaining fighters provided her with cover fire to draw off their attacks. She did her best to evade the defenses, when she dipped into the stauros chute. The shell had already made it down the chute. "Stauros loading complete, prepare to fire in five..." She had to get through this. "Four..." There were too many people at stake. "Three..." Jason... " Two..." Marcus... "One" She fired her last missiles at the cooling unit. The explosion erupted in the tunnel and she managed to see an opening in the tunnel, she shot out of it.
Chandelier began to move further, as the battery was placed under intense pressure from the fragmenting glacier. It's barrel began to open like a giant maw. Ghosteye spoke, "It's vital area is inside the barrel." Kristen flew toward the weapon's maw. "Time to end this." Suddenly shots barely missed Talisman, an SU 47 was tailing her from behind. "Now you die Garuda, like your friend. Die!" It was Sokovich in a SU 47. Kristen entered the Barrel, with Sokovich behind her. "Die! Die! Die!" He screamed as he fired everything at Kristen in the barrel. His missiles impacted in the barrel, and Kristen opened fire on the core inside. The Barrel exploded, and only Kristen's fighter emerged from it. It was trailing smoke. Everyone could hear a wrenching scream on the radio. "No!"
Chandelier began to fall to pieces, like a beast of destruction being defeated. However Kristen's fighter was not fairing well. "I can't keep her up. Ejecting!" Kristen reached up and pulled the eject cable. She was shot from her fighter with incredible force as the Ejection seat fired, Suddenly her parachute opened and she began to descent. Her fighter crashed into the sea. She didn't need it anymore anyway. She watched as the angel of mercy and destruction finally crashed into the sea.
As she descended, she noticed the crashed form of a Raptor floating in the water, and she manuvered her parachute close to it. With excellent timing, she managed to land on the raptor's fuselage. She released her parachute and moved up to the cockpit. Pulling the emergency release, she started unstrapping Shamrock from the fighter. She put all of her strength into pulling him from the cockpit, but the fighter started to sink fast into the sea. Grabbing the emergency raft from Shamrock's ejection seat, she inflated it, and managed to drag Shamrock onto it. She climbed into it herself, and she thanked the manufacturer of these rafts that they could hold two pilots instead of one. It was times like that she was grateful Emmeria didn't cut corners on the defense budget. Shamrock came through, as the fighter began to slip into the frozen sea.
"Did you do it? Is it done?" Marcus asked. Kristen spoke. "Yes, it's all over." She stated. In the distance, she noticed an approaching patrol boat. "We can stop fighting now, there's no more need for weapons." She heard a fighter fly by overhead.
She and Marcus were rescued by the Estovakian Survivors on the Patrol Boat, and brought to what was left of Chandelier. The Estovakians also started to treat Shamrock's injuries, as she approached an old Estovakian Major who had just arrived, and was nearby a Helicopter. "Greetings, I am Major Grigori Antovich, of the Estovakian Army, and the Provisional Estovakian Government." He stated.
"I am here, on behalf of the Estovakian Government, to offer you and Emmeria a cease fire. You have fought us on every front, destroyed every army we sent against you, destroyed even Aigaion itself. We have nothing left to fight you with. If you were to set foot on Estovakia, nothing in this world would stop you. We surrender to you Garuda." He bowed before Kristen.
Suddenly something, that was once done in Emmerian History, repeated; Kristen smiled. Not just any smile, but one that was in the same spirit as the Golden King himself. "I accept your cease fire, and you do not need to surrender." She grabbed the Major's arms, "Lets just end this terrible war that has taken so much away from all of us."
Two Days later
Kristen stepped off the Helicopter, with Shamrock in a wheelchair. To the cheers of thousands who had gathered to greet her. Now, the war was truly over. She walked, as she was greeted by friends and family.
But there were so many who were not here for this day. She walked toward her parents and hugged them both, she held to them for quite some time before she released them, and approached Jason. She embraced him in her arms.
It was a brand new day.
A man was sitting, in a lone chair, within a large room. Before him was a laptop computer, and a large window to a mansion. "So, the Estovakians have failed?" Lightning erupted in the distance.
"It is no matter, our plans will not be interrupted." He stated.
A man behind him spoke, "Sir, we're ready to recover Garuda Team's fighters."
He spoke, "How long?"
"Ten years to analyze the data." The man stated.
"It is no consequence, we Belkans know patience well. And wait we shall." He then typed on a keyboard and pilot data began to appear on it. The Demon Lord, Mobius One, Yellow Thirteen, Solo Wing Pixy, Heartbreak One, Blaze, Edge, Chopper, Archer, Pasternak, Shamrock, and Talisman. Data had been gathered on all of these pilots. The Computer spoke. "Analysis Ready..."
Lightning Erupted again...
Author's Note: I wish to thank all my readers and reviewers. Without your support, this fanfic would've never been completed. Also, this ending is different than the one in the game. I just think the game's ending dose not do the story justice, so I've created my own.
May 14, 2012
MS Flight vs X-Plane comparison
Press Release: The Bright, Shiny Future of X-Plane
Note: This “press release” was posted April 1.
Hello, I am Austin Meyer, author of X-Plane, and I am announcing some major new improvements and pricing strategies for X-Plane 10.1, due out in a few weeks!
First of all, starting with X-Plane 10.1, we will be removing almost all of the world-wide dynamic scenery that X-Plane is known for. It is simply too much work for us to create, maintain, and improve this kind of massive database, so we are cutting the Global Scenery out of X-Plane starting with version 10.1. Of course, we still need to have some scenery to fly over, so, to keep our jobs simple, we will be cutting the scenery down to the smallest and most geographically isolated area we can imagine: Hawaii. We chose Hawaii because that is such a small area that we can very easily create and distribute it. As well, this tiny flying area will be totally static. There will be no moving cars, no dynamic lighting, and no living cities. No immersive 3-D world loaded with AI cars and planes to fly in. There is simply no need for this complex and dynamic environment and it is actually a very difficult job for us to continue to provide this stuff for you.
As well, we have grown tired of supplying so many airplanes. It takes effort for us to build the countless airplanes that we do, so we are cutting the fleet way down. Starting with X-Plane 10.1, rather than having about sixty-five airplanes, ranging from the Cessna 172 to the Space Shuttle, with the SR-71, X-15, B-2, Piaggo Avanti, and Boeing 747 in between, we will cut X-Plane down to two airplanes. Both single-engine props. That is simply all of the airplanes that we feel the need to give you in a simulator like this. And, you will no longer be able to design your own airplanes to test how they would fly in reality, as Plane Maker will be removed entirely. I see no need for anyone to have any planes other than the two that we give you. So, rather than the sixty-five planes that come with X-Plane and the thousands of others that are freely downloadable from the net, and the ability to make any airplane you can imagine for free, you will be restricted to two airplanes. We may let you buy three additional aircraft as add-on purchases at some point in the future, though. These will be incredibly boring single-engine props, though, and will be surprisingly expensive.
Also new for 10.1 will be a new “flight model” for X-Plane! Unlike previous versions of X-Plane, this model will not have unneeded things like “accuracy.” We here at Laminar Research feel that “accuracy” is over-rated, and the most important thing that we can do is make sure that X-Plane is so easy to use that nobody feels sad that they cannot fly like a professional on their first flight. Marketing assures us that customers “feel better” if they have no challenge. Certainly, the feeling that you can fly is more important than actually being able to fly. For myself, I cannot think of a single reason that anyone would actually want to know how to fly a real airplane! Better to leave actual flying to someone else, and simply have a game that is accessible to all. So, the new flight model will be designed by our marketing team to be accessible even to toddlers. Starting with 10.1, the actual laws of physics need not be applied… why would the laws of physics matter to anyone? Marketing is more important than physics!
New also will be the removal of all navigation, air traffic control, and real-weather options, since they are somewhat challenging to master and would be too much work to properly code. Since these elements of aviation may pose “challenges” for “some,” we have decided to remove those features from the sim entirely so that nobody can enjoy them.
Also, we will be changing our pricing structure. Version 10.1 will be free, but by the time you have bought the tiniest quantity of add-ons, you will have paid us a notable amount and never be able to expand upon that without paying us more. And more. And more.
Our programmers did notice that this update to X-Plane 10 will make it completely useless, but our marketing team has decided upon the perfect solution to this problem! We are going to “spruce it up” by adding jewels in the sky! You will aim one of the two airplanes you get towards those jewels! When you do so, there will be a little noise that is played, or something like that… our marketing department is still working out the details.
Also, we at Laminar Research have noticed that it is a somewhat formidable achievement to make X-Plane work on Mac, Windows, and Linux. It simply involves a decent amount of knowledge, savvy, and work. Also, we love the constant viruses, crashes, and frustrations that we go through with Windows so frequently, so we have decided to remove support for Mac and Linux and just provide X-Plane on Microsoft Windows. We here at Laminar Research believe that the success of Apple is just a fad, and that Microsoft will be the future of computing, since we all love Microsoft Windows so much, just like we know you do.
So, hopefully this will make X-Plane have more “mass market appeal,” and therefore be a better sim for all of us!
To the future!
austin
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