Patch release notes

[dragonflightdesign 98]

Thought I'd nail this in one place as info is getting spread out already. It's still work in progress, so you will see some updates. This is already substantially different to the one posted earlier.

What has been fixed:

- Battery voltage: drain time has been extended. Switching on the battery with no other systems engaged will drain the batteries to nine volts (effectively flatten the batteries) in approximately four hours. It is assumed that the crew require battery power elsewhere in the aircraft. As the engines need a minimum of 22 volts to crank, that gives you around one hour to get them started from battery on. Cranking the engines drains the batteries, so if you try to start the engines close to the one hour limit, they may or may not start

- Pilot's RPM master switch is now correctly biased to centre off in the VC

- Starboard wingtip flashing beacon removed (should never have been there)

- VC dump valves are now right-click for dump

- VC main wing tanks gauge needles indicate one and two instead of zero and one

- Oil Temp In warning light now comes on at 90 degrees C and not 75 degrees C as previously

- RDF1 and RDF2 click areas in the VC now operate the correct radio sound on/off (left earpiece for receiver one, right earpiece for receiver two)

- Many of the systems have been partly rewritten to reduce event flooding

- Fuel transfer pumps de-sensitised so that they only have a 40% chance of breaking if you change tanks while they are running

- Fuel transfer pumps added to the save/load routines so that they retain on/off/broken status between flights

- Manual fuel transfer fixed. If you break the electric pumps you can use the handpump for fuel transfer

- ‘Fuel Transfer’ section in the manual part 2 has been expanded to add detailed use information

- VC master mixture lever now operates the four individual VC mixture levers. Previously it only operated the 2D master and 2D individual mixture levers

- Taxi light now switches off when the switch is moved to Off. Previously the landing lights needed to be switched off to kill the taxi lights

- Landing lights made much brighter in P3Dv4.5

- VC RDF needles now collapse to 90 degrees on startup if no station is within range. Previously they indicated zero degrees

- Gyropilot operation completely overhauled. Please read the expanded 'Sperry Gyropilot' section in the Manual Part 2. Note - and I cannot say this strongly enough - it is not an autopilot and does not behave like an autopilot.

- VC gyropilot reaction speed controls now turn the same way as the 2D version

- Tooltip on the ‘Autopilot’ lever (next to the First Pilot’s seat) changed to indicate whether the servos have pressurised (gyropilot is usable) or are de-pressurised

- VC comms radios now work. They didn’t work at all in the initial release but no-one reported it!

- VC and 2D cowl flaps levers, mixture levers and manifold levers now correctly align when driven from the 2D. Previously there was an occasional slight discrepancy on the VC lever fully open position when driven from the equivalent 2D lever

- VC flaps switch now raises the flaps

- VC flaps switch mouse actions reversed to bring them in line with the rest of the switches i.e. right-click for ‘on’ or ‘up’

- VC flaps switch is now click-only and not 'hold down'. The tooltip will tell you at what angle the flaps will stop, not the angle that they are at. This will make take-offs with flap much easier to achieve

- Trim controls in the VC and 2D now respond to joystick and keyboard input

- VC needles on the Flight Engineer’s main panel now illuminate correctly at night. Previously some needles did not light up because one section of the fx was slightly out of line

- VC Flight Engineer’s lighting modified to be not so bright and more accurately angled onto the main gauges panel

- Prop pitch controls now react correctly if a joystick/controller key is assigned to them. See the manual Part 2 for additional information

- Throttle locks fixed. Previously the VC didn’t actually lock the throttles and the 2D/VC display was not co-ordinated

 

What has been added:

- Dynamic tooltips in the VC on most controls and switches e.g. the trim indicators and some control levers

- An autopilot mode has been added to the gyropilot which is selectable from the Level Flight switch if you are having problems setting up the gyropilot. This mode uses the default autopilot. See the ‘Sperry Gyropilot’ section in Part 2 of the manual

- Menu | Navigation | Air Traffic Control will auto-tune comm 1. Please note that the Clipper’s radios are 25Khz tuning only because of the age of the plane. If ATC come up on an 8.33Khz frequency then the frequency displayed on the radio will not change.

- Both comm 1 and comm 2 should auto-tune if you are using external radios. This is untested because neither I nor my testers have an external radio setup. Please report any problems with an exact description of what you are seeing/is not happening

- By request, P3D v5.x VC throttle box and trim wheels lightened slightly to be more easily visible when that part of the cockpit is in shadow

- A list of the L:vars that are accessible for use with controllers such as the Honeycomb Alpha and Beta. See the manual Part 2 ‘L:Var Key Assignments’ for additional information

 

What was requested but could not be implemented:

- Turning off the ATIS voice when ATIS is tuned on the comm radios

 

Notes:

When assigning a key action to the trim controls, ensure that the Repeat action is set to 50% in the Options | Key Assignments. The reason for this is that the repeat key assignments have an accelerator on them (the longer you hold them down, the faster the sim makes the repeat happen) and setting them to 100% will cause the trim to go immediately from 0 to 100%.

 

Note: I am very, very grateful for the help I received from a gentleman who wishes to remain anonymous, despite my efforts to persuade him otherwise. Without him, this patch would not have been anywhere near as comprehensive because he wouldn't let me 'get away' with anything! 🤣

 

Edited March 28, 2021 by dragonflightdesign
Update...

[YoYo 374]

Thx, now Im a little busy but will back to Clippers.

Is it possible now to turn on engines from VC only without 2D panels? TY for update!

[gaab 111]

Hi Yoyo,

We will "need" your updated VC textures when the patch will be issued - unless Pilot's gives us also new VC textures...

It is way to dark to see all the details of this beauty in P3Dv5...

Gérard

[dragonflightdesign 98]

@Yoyo: yes

@Gerard: I've deferred the textures for this time but I will be getting back to them.

[IanFisher 10]

Hello Dai

Do those patch release notes apply to version 1.1 which was issued late January, or are we waiting for a further version to be released?

Thanks

Ian

[dragonflightdesign 98]

It's for a new patch, Ian. I'd hoped to have it done this week but I took sick in the middle of the week and lost a few days.

[gaab 111]

Dai,

Hope you are doing well now. In this difficult times, one must take good care of himself (and his family) first.

Cheers

Gérard

[dragonflightdesign 98]

Thank you Gérard. It was a migraine attack. Depending on the severity it can take two - five days to recover; this one took four days. Back 'on form' today 😄

Edited March 6, 2021 by dragonflightdesign

[dragonflightdesign 98]

Fix list has grown... but it's getting closer. IanFisher's auto-tune has been added (with a caveat) 😄

Edited March 28, 2021 by dragonflightdesign

[ghostminer3 1]

can't wait for this patch to be released 

[dragonflightdesign 98]

We are working on it daily. I was just looking at the email trail and there have been 84 emails between myself and the tester in the last 15 days alone. He's very, very good - I just wish I'd had him earlier in the project because many of the bugs would never have got into the initial release.

Edited March 28, 2021 by dragonflightdesign

[IanFisher 10]

😀

[Scorpio47 22]

👌

Any predictions on when it could be released?
Thank you!

Edited March 30, 2021 by Scorpio47

[dragonflightdesign 98]

Actually, pretty soon - maybe even days. There are a few minor problems that I am deferring to the B314-A release, but we're on the last major one now.

 

[dragonflightdesign 98]

Patch is in final testing