A bit of polishing and maintenance in this small update of the simulator:
increased chance of light category aircraft (L), mainly at North American fields where that's more common, and several traffic and plane type updates
corrected Toronto departure headings, to allow for parallel departures at all runway configurations
added some explanation of the meaning of several buttons (SID, DCT, etc) for absolute beginners
bugfix to avoid a possible freeze when changing traffic mode
bugfix that should fix a crash when the icon file is somehow not found
V3.9.7 (2 June): bugfix for planes that sometimes didn't go around while they were too close behind eachother on the localizer. Also corrected the traffic at Tokyo.
Flow limit can be set up to 180 planes per hour. Before, the limit was 120/h, which may not be challenging enough when there are 3 landing runways available (like at KATL). However, the departure flow is unlikely to keep up with very high flow rates, depending on the runway configuration.
More departures from secondary airports when flow mode is enabled. The amount of traffic to secondary airports actually depends on the skill value you have set. If you want high traffic rates at secondaries, set a high skill value before switching to flow mode. Flow mode sets the traffic flow to the main airport.
Added wake turbulence information to the text at the bottom of the screen when the mouse cursor hovers above a near plane.
Added a low contrast option, to reduce display issues on certain monitors (VA panels) with slow black->grey pixel transitions, improving display quality when panning/zooming.
Fixed keyboard command for speed adjustment which didn't work for departures (for example 'S250').
V3.9.4 (14 March 2019)
Wake turbulence distance is more clearly displayed to the user. The arcs have a brighter color for better visibility. The infotext at the bottom of the screen shows the required distance to the next plane on approach, for example 'wake -0.5 NM' if displayed when a plane is half a mile closer than it should be.
Adjusted (increased) the traffic rate to secondary airports. The traffic flow to these airports depends on the skill value, but in the previous version the flow was pretty low even at high (20+) skill values. That is now corrected.
A small update with more wake turbulence categories, graphical adjustments, and bugfixes. Patch notes:
Added three more wake categories, totalling 6 (like RECAT in real life, which is used at several big airports). It isn't really noticable when playing (heavy and superheavy are still labeled H and J) but it's less strict for some combinations of planes, so it allows for more efficient wake vortex separation; fewer go arounds. The heavies and mediums are basically split up into subclasses. This system also allows for less time between departures: better flow rates!
Wake arc on the localizer will now adapt dynamically to the required distance between two plane categories (instead of displaying two arcs for H and M categories, now only one arc is displayed at the required distance).
Planes inbound secondary airports have a slightly different label color, so they're easier to distinguish from traffic inbound the main airport.
Panning/zooming is a bit more smooth.
Bugfix for an issue where planes went missed approach at CYYZ + TZ when a certain runway combination was in use.
A pretty big update this time, including two more locations! Furthermore, the amount of traffic and the weather can be customized more precisely.
Summary of what's new:
Tokyo Haneda Airport (RJTT).
Toronto Pearson Airport (CYYZ), plus the nearby secondary airport Billy Bishop (CYTZ).
Custom traffic menu, where the skill level, cap or traffic flow can be adjusted.
Weather menu where wind direction, speed and clouds can be specified.
Several bugfixes and adjustments.
In more detail:
RJTT is the busiest airport in Japan and has four runways. In real life flights arrive and depart via the Tokyo bay on the east of the field, with lots of operational constraints, but in the game you have more freedom, although as always you're limited to ILS approaches. CYYZ is the busiest airport in Canada, with five runways (max 2 in use for landings at a time). At the smaller CYTZ field, regional jets will takeoff and land.
Things in the menu are shuffled around a bit: now the top most button is the airport selection/new game button. Right next to it is a new traffic button, where you can switch from normal mode to custom traffic mode. Normal mode is the default game mode, where the amount of traffic adapts to the skill value (while trying to improve your high score). In custom mode, you can set the skill cap (as in earlier versions, this limits the skill value, to avoid extremely crowded airspaces). But now you can also adjust the skill value itself. This allows you for example to start a game with lots of traffic and runways from the beginning, without having to wait for the traffic to build up. It's also easier to set a certain cap value, or close the airspace entirely.
In addition to setting a skill value (which determines the amount of planes to control at a time) you can switch to the new flow mode to set the traffic rate (the number of planes per hour). The flow you set is fixed, so independent of user mistakes. Set it for example at 30/h and you'll see planes arriving every 2 minutes, as well as planes departing every 2 minutes. A maximum and minimum flow rate can be set, to simulate inbound and outbound peaks, which will alternate every 30 minutes. When setting a flow, keep in mind that the capacity of the runways is limited. Each runway should have a capacity of about 40 planes per hour, or perhaps 60 in mixed mode. When the runway capacity is insufficient, the game may not be able keep up with the flow rate, and star will appear next to the flow rate, indicating flights are lagging behind the 'schedule'. To open more runways, you'll have to manually increase the skill level first.
Additionally, if you want to try something different you can disable all departures (press the 'no dep' button), or disable traffic from and to the secondary airports (press 'no sec'). Of course, high scores will not be recorded when using any the custom traffic features.
Weather is generated at random when you enable it, but now you can set the wind precisely is the weather menu, and enable clouds with a separate button. Press it again for more clouds. Use the runway change button to find a proper runway configuration (with headwind) allowing safe takeoffs and landings. Runway changes make take sometime to complete, but now at least they're instant if a certain runway use is unchanged.
Several bugfixes and traffic updates. Type 'nobar' to disable the sidebar if you don't need it. A display menu is added where range rings can be enabled.
So, many changes, I hope you like it. Thanks for the suggestions and support. Happy controlling! ːsteamhappyː
Better departure capacity from parallel runways. When, for example, a departure from a northern runway turns to the south after takeoff, the southern runway is blocked for a bit. But from now on, it's more likely that a departure from a northern runway will have a SID towards the north, allowing more simultaneous departures.
Change runway configuration (by clicking the rwy chg button in the airport menu, or hitting F12). Before, this was only possible when cap mode was enabled, plus it caused missed approaches as planes couldn't detect the runways anymore. Now, planes will continue their approach. Changing runways can be handy if there's weather near a runway, or the wind has changed. Keep in mind that after a runway change request, it takes a few minutes before the airport is ready for new approaches and the runways are cleared.
Inactive runways are visible (in grey).
Two new 'cheat' modes (in addition to F9/F10 to alter the skill level): type in nodep for a game without departures, or nosec to close all secondary airports. As this alters the gameplay, high scores/achievements are disabled after using cheats, until a new game is started.
Removed doubleclick ILS for LLZ mode (localizer only), as it has little use and could be selected by accident. LLZ mode is still available by keyboard commands, and hidden behind a longclick between the altitude buttons in the sidebar.
Hotfix 28 Aug: planes shouldn't go around anymore after switching between airports.
Hotfix 30 Aug: more bugfixes, and the yellow heading line remains visible after handoff, and hold right mouse button to show estimated time from plane to mouse position.
Long press and doubleclick functionality of the sidebar can now also be used with the mouse and keyboard commands, for example selecting ILS* mode by longpressing the Insert key, or longpressing both left and right mouse buttons at the same time.
Doubleclicking SID now automatically selects the highest altitude (handy for New York), and planes can be cleared for the localizer only (LLZ mode) by doubleclicking ILS (could be useful if still planes overlap and should not descend just yet), but don't forget to give the full approach clearance later on.
if you don't like to manually handoff planes, then the pilots won't notify you anymore when they switch to a different frequency automatically; this is to reduce repetative messages.
Hover the mouse above a plane to show the plane type and the distance from selected plane in the description text at the bottom.
After a (very) long delay, pilots decide to divert automatically (costs 0.5 point).
In this update, there are several changes/new features aiming for a better controlling experience. Here's a list of what's new:
(edit 23 March): bugfixes
planes can make turns greater than 180 degrees; instead of just making the shortest turn to a selected heading, planes will now comply to instructions to turn 'the long way round', making turns up to 360 degrees possible
doubletap between heading buttons to easily instruct a 360 turn over right or left
switch between airports without losing progress
adjusted penalty for separation incidents; long duration incidents should now cause less skill reduction than before
tower is a bit more helpful; tower can reduce the speed of approaching planes that are too close to a preceding plane (when they're less than 10 miles from the runway); this may avoid some missed approaches
larger margins between departures and between arrivals, and adjusted initial climb altitudes for Paris and Atlanta, for a smoother traffic flow
button added in menu to switch the sidebar to the other side
In this update, there are several changes/new features aiming for a better controlling experience. Here's a list of what's new:
(edit 23 March): bugfixes
planes can make turns greater than 180 degrees; instead of just making the shortest turn to a selected heading, planes will now comply to instructions to turn 'the long way round', making turns up to 360 degrees possible
doubletap between heading buttons to easily instruct a 360 turn over right or left
switch between airports without losing progress
adjusted penalty for separation incidents; long duration incidents should now cause less skill reduction than before
tower is a bit more helpful; tower can reduce the speed of approaching planes that are too close to a preceding plane (when they're less than 10 miles from the runway); this may avoid some missed approaches
larger margins between departures and between arrivals, and adjusted initial climb altitudes for Paris and Atlanta, for a smoother traffic flow
button added in menu to switch the sidebar to the other side
the blue text from a selected plane now remains visible till OK is clicked, and the message is also displayed at the front of the queue to make sure it's visible.
green text now always fits on screen (using two lines of text when needed)
no automatic altitude change anymore when enabling SID mode (mainly affects the KJFK area where SID is off by default; it should avoid accidental climb instructions)
added a warning message before cap mode is enabled for the first time, to inform that goals won't trigger anymore when cap has been used.