Here’s a pop quiz: you download the release candidate for a new X-Plane patch – maybe it’s 10.41 – and you run your add-on. To your horror, you find that a dataref is missing – or maybe a command no longer works. Do you:
- Immediately rewrite your code to work with the release candidate and release it immediately, preferably before the beta is over or
- File a bug, clearly indicating what changed from the last shipping version. Laminar fixes the release candidate and by the time the patch ships, your add-on “just works”.
Pencils down! I have said this before, but I’ll say it again: the answer is choice number two – file a bug.
If you find a problem with your add-on during a beta where something used to work and now does not:
- Do file a bug. We cannot maintain compatibility if we do not know there is a problem.
- Do not change your add-on (and definitely do not release that change). Most likely that change is a mistake, and when we fix the bug, your original add-on would have worked but your modified add-on is now broken.
We try really, really, really hard to make sure that you don’t have to cut a new release of your add-on just because we are issuing a free update to X-Plane.
What If I Am Late?
What if you are using the new shipping version of the sim? You just got 10.41, but you didn’t try any betas, and you find your add-on is broken.
File a bug. We will still fix the bug, and issue a patch. The only difference here is that:
- Your users will be grumpy about the 1 or 2 week period during which the add-on was broken – that time could have been zero weeks if you participated in the beta and
- I will be grumpy that you reported the bug after beta instead of during the beta.
Free Passes
Even if we find a bug that requires a modification to your aircraft to fix, we still try to put a compatibility mode into X-Plane so that you don’t have to release your aircraft immediately. As I blogged before, shipping add-ons can get a free pass. In these cases we sometimes recommend you update your add-on when you can, but there is no requirement that you must update to match our new update. Update when you can, on your own schedule.
We did hit three bugs in X-Plane 10.40 for which you do have to update your aircraft to get the benefit of the bug fix:
- Light sizes for billboard lights.
- Fixing buggy fuel consumption at high altitude.
- Feathering props on low oil pressure.
In all of these cases, we couldn’t apply the bug fix correctly to all aircraft – the changes would have positive effects on some aircraft and negative effects on others. So you get a free pass to leave the aircraft as is until you next save it in Plane-Maker; at that time you can make sure that the results of each bug fix are working for your aircraft. More details here.
Hello,
The autogen road lights seems way to bright. Speaking of lighting, there is still a lot of autogen buildings with no lights. Is there anymore autogen updates coming ?
The light brightness is not bright at all – it could be brighter if anything.
However, there ARE tons of clusters of autogen with no lighting!! Not even on the roads of these clusters. Flying in the UK reveals tons of towns with no lighting whatsoever. 🙁
The dark autogen *should* be a known bug. I filed one at the start of the 10.30 run. For some reason, most of the LIT textures in the ..\1000 autogen\US\urban_high and ..\urban_mid are mostly blacked out (or not painted), resulting in a bunch of the autogen not having night lighting.
This is disappointing, given that I too filed a bug – but during the 10.40 run-up.
Oh well maybe next beta release.
Regards
Ben, I want to note a mistake in X-Plane 10.41R3
During approach posdku in fog, all the windows are dark blue also look extremely natural, and after 5 seconds the fog begins to draw the normal (3D view from the cockpit), set carried postural evening, when it was already dark.
Hello Ben,
regarding this:
“Fixing buggy fuel consumption at high altitude.”
is that a Plane Maker fix or a X-Plane fix?
Just to understand if I can save my aircraft with Plane Maker 10.40 in order to fix that bug while keeping the chance to use my aircraft with X-Plane 10.36 or if I then must use a X-Plane version not lower than 10.40.
Many thanks in advance.
Best regards
Angelo
The fix is in X-plane – X-plane just uses the plane-maker-saved version to decide whether to preserve the old behavior.
If you save an aircraft for version 1040 of X-plane, you should use it only in 1040 and newer. That’s pretty much always true for authoring with Plane-Maker. My suggestion is that when authoring v10 content you require users to use the version of x-plane that was current at the time of last edit or newer, so if you save now, have them get 1040.
Ok, understood, thank you very much for the clarification.
Hello Ben, is expected any time soon, or update any X-Plane 10.41?
Dear, Kirill. For improvement your English I would advice you to find an another forum. Let’s give to Ben just make a job, IMHO.