I have ranted in the past about the importance of not treating beta builds of X-Plane as having finalized file formats. Generally a beta should be used to explore, experiment, and test old content, but not to create new finished work or ship product. File formats sometimes change during beta to work around bugs we find.

Another reason not to depend on the file formats of new betas is that sometimes we screw up. In the case of 940 beta 1, the code that converts 930 airplanes forward to the new 940 electrical system is pretty buggy (hence the reports of electrical systems doing wonky things, panel instruments disappearing, and general weirdness).

This one is our bug to fix and will be fixed in beta 2 (at least we think). But to “get the fix” authors will need to open their 930 saved airplane in 940. If you already re-saved the airplane in 940 then the 930->940 conversion code won’t be re-run.

I’ll try to post some info on the new electrical system on the Wiki, but for now: if in beta 2 you have a bug with a plane that used to work in 930, send us the 930 version of the plane so that we can convert it and watch the conversion screw up. If the plane is already in 940 format we don’t know what our conversion code broke and what you edited in Plane-Maker.

About Ben Supnik

Ben is a software engineer who works on X-Plane; he spends most of his days drinking coffee and swearing at the computer -- sometimes at the same time.