v1.0.9668 (August 28th 2020)
This release is all about GA aircraft. These are not defined by predetermined schedules, but generated dynamically. There are a number of model fixes, additional help for VR users, plus the usual range of small improvements and fixes. Please see the list below for details and the updated manual for full information on the new GA support.
Changes in this release:
========================
- GA aircraft exist
- Once more with feeling: GA aircraft exist!!!
- Custom camera data is sent to networked external-graphics PCs since X-Plane doesn't do this by design.
- Ignore visibility limits on flows if greater than 10 miles, have seen some set in thousands.
- Use the sim UTC time as provided when calculating UTC day offset.
- Comms was inverting arrival/departure runways when they were different.
- Keep a runway occupied if an aircraft is backtracking
- GA aircraft paints can be restricted to a list of ICAO codes, for flightschool liveries.
- Replays are partially supported - animations and load/save not working due to X-Plane limitations.
- Excluded airports/airlines with no percentage were ignored
- Model converter changes for ICAO type field
- Don't write jet engine effect emitters for prop planes
- Handle sounds in relative directories
- Model converter properly copies multiple sound variations
- Fix a crash in error reporting
- Restrict textures to 2K.
- Fix logic problem creating go-around legs.
- Fix backwards taxying on approach due to positive rearward axle offset.
- Scale tyre smoke according to aircraft class
- Add option to show or hide scheduled and GA on the flightplan view
- Fix labels being shown for above-density aircraft.
- Only query the weather once every few seconds, not per frame.
- Base backtrack circle size on the runway width as well as the aircraft landing gear offsets
- Improve turning smoothness
- Add label option for engine type
- Add basic MSA awareness for GA
- Increase on-runway fast-taxi speed
- Fix rare prediction error where a distant aircraft could be activated if it was taxying out
- Numerous changes for altitude checks returning bad values at distance.
- Don't build a cruise altitude curve if modifying a long cruise waypoint after the midpoint.
- Improvements to circuits
- Penalise sharp corners on taxiways less than sharp corners transitioning from runway to taxiway
- Don't cause huge framerate drop if the license needs revalidated but can't be
- Trim spaces from pasted license keys.
- Add zoom support for custom cameras
- Performance improvement for flightplan view
- Blocked status was being lost on occasion when taxying
- Limit nosewheel steering angle to +/- 90
- Changing the TCAS setting via dataref will update the settings UI if it's open
- More work on detecting contact points
- When leaving parking with no clear route and moving forward, pull straight forward briefly then straight for the nearest point on the first edge.
- Allow straight-line exit from parking when no intersect can be found, even if the intercept angle is > 90 degrees.
- Improved collision detection on fallback taxi out
- Change n1 for prop/turboprop to improve default animations
- Fix plane being repositioned when using the "immediate pushback" option
- Don't scan for spurs unless the leg is all in front or all behind.
- Don't remove suspected spurs if we can't intersect with anything.
- Airline codes updated
- Decrease opacity of prop disc, it was effectively transparent.
- Fix prop shadows on models
- Ensure that isolated sections of taxiway in X-Plane 10 airports with no defined taxiways can reach the runway.
- Aircraft reversing out of parking will not reverse so far before moving forwards
- Draw runway offset thresholds on the flightplan view
- Change taxi routing around runway entry zones to prevent zones made up of many edges being excessively penalised
- Start accelerating to fast-taxi if entering a runway at an entry point inside a displaced threshold which is not the best one for the runway
- Aircraft entering a runway for takeoff before a displaced threshold will fast-taxi to the threshold instead of beginning the takeoff run immediately
- Performance improvement for drawing the flight plan window
- Change to handling sharp turn coursefinding
- Move map labels closer to the icon
- Add a new map layer specifically for GA
- Aircraft on go-around will now start to descend during the base leg
- Incorrect altitudes were used for displaced thresholds on X-Plane 10 airports
- Preplanned taxi route was not being cleared when a route was reset for repositioning, potentially causing taxi across the airport if the chosen parking also changed.
- Point-to-point GA flights could have inappropriate durations
- Ensure slow aircraft doing a go-around on a long runway have enough space to properly descend.
- GA aircraft will often fly around other airport zones.
- Change tyre smoke emission on different surfaces.
- Go-around could skip locations in some circumstances
- Allow small GA aircraft to taxi round others when deadlocked.
- Aircraft will enter parking from the closest point on the nearest taxiway, attempting to avoid other parking, if all other attempts at finding the correct parking entry method fail.
- Add image buttons to the additional views to help VR users
- Add menu for AI cameras to help VR HOTAS users
- Flight-board can now be scrolled using the mouse/VR pointer.
- Add relative-altitude label option
- Make all labels with distance/altitude obey the imperial/metric switch.
- Add altitude ranges, and absolute/relative option to the radar
- Very busy runways will operate with reduced safety distances for departures.
- Fix race condition where the traffic may not initialise correctly for several minutes after sim start
version 1.0.9454 (June 30th 2020)
Upgrading
=========
For Windows, simply run the installer. There is no need to manually uninstall beforehand. For Mac, please remove the "Aircraft/Traffic Global" folder before unarchiving since aircraft names may change over time, and unpacking an archive does not remove files that should no longer exist.
If you have replaced your traffic file (.BGL) you will need to check the replacement for yourself; the traffic file changes with almost every release and will be updated or replaced if it is changed or missing.
Compatibility
=============
This build has been tested against X-Plane 11.50 betas 1 through 11, the latest available at time of writing, and works against each in both OpenGL and Vulkan/Metal modes on both Mac and Windows. It has also been tested against 11.41r1. It's just not possible to guarantee that this will continue to work for future X-Plane beta releases since the platform it is running on is changing. If something gets broken in future X-Plane betas or of course the final 11.50 release then an interim release will be made available as soon as possible.
Many other plugins have been tested as part of this update. There are no known compatibility problems with current versions of any of the following:
124thATC, A-Better-Camera, Autogate, AviTab, BetterPushback, JoinFS, Gizmo64, SAM, TerrainRadar, xEnviro, ActiveSky XP*, X-ATC-Chatter, X-Camera*, XPForce.
Please note that some versions of xPilot crash X-Plane on startup if Traffic Global is installed and TCAS enabled, due to incorrect shutdown of xPilot when it detects that the TCAS system is already in use.
ActiveSky XP v7414 causes a crash if used with X-Plane 11.50b7 or higher when TCAS is enabled. Version 7467 or better should be used.
Integration with SAM for active jetways requires SAM 2.0.8 or higher.
X-Camera 2.4 unintentionally disables certain custom cameras provided by other plugins including Traffic Global. A fix for this - 2.4.1 beta 2 - is already available.
A-Better-Camera v1.3b3 (now released) is required for users who are using this version of TGXP with Vulkan and the latest XP11.50 betas.
Known Problems
==============
- If you are using an external weather engine such as xEnviro, correct weather may not be set for a minute or so after the simulator starts. This will affect runway-in-use for aircraft initialised during this period.
- The custom map layers will re-enable themselves if you disable them, each time X-Plane loads new scenery. This is X-Plane bug XPD-10498 and is fixed in X-Plane 11.50.
- Custom views do not respond correctly in VR. This is X-Plane bug XPD-10412.
- If very few aircraft are nearby, additional false aircraft are reported via TCAS. This is X-Plane bug XPD-10434 and is fixed in X-Plane 11.50.
- X-Plane can stutter when loading textures for the first time. This should be fixed for X-Plane 11.50b12.
Changes in this release:
- Manual updated to reflect changes
- Reduce likelihood of negative time skipping if XP has several seconds between frames
- Improve traffic flow in the vicinity of runway exit zones
- Fix Mac-specific text error on the Radar display
- The aircraft substitution system will now use the closest aircraft type instead of the first match.
- In networked mode, field of view affected whether AI on all external graphics computers were correctly pinned to the ground.
- Add network compression and reduce overheads.
- Show packet loss stats
- Correctly delete AI when switching from external visuals back to master.
- Several airline livery fixes/additions.
- Add pitch/roll/heading datarefs.
- Change handling of wind/cloud layers.
- Clean up transparent click-detection window if camera system is disabled.
- Add more detailed flight phases to datarefs.
- When force-freeing a parking slot for the user, also clear overlapping parking.
- All available liveries are included whether the airline is scheduled or not.
- Fix Frontier A321 using the wrong livery
- Additional regional airlines added to traffic database
- Sort TCAS entries using distance from player, not distance from camera
- Runway-to-AI camera could behave strangely if used to show a runway at a remote airport
- Merge runway-flow selectors for the same runway and the same conditions where one is marked arrival-only and one departure-only.
- More efficient use of overlapping parking spots when occupied by smaller aircraft.
- Selection of parallel runways on approach was reversed i.e. 26L would be used where 26R was more appropriate.
- Fix J41 model which had door animations linked to lights
- Obey the undocumented "flatten" option for airports.
- Fix aircraft turning off the runway too soon if a runway exit was immediately next to the transition from approach to taxi
- Add ability to customise labels for airborne, ground and radar.
- Add taxiway name as label option.
- Avoid speeding up just before a corner.
- Add Shift+Home shortcut to flight plan legend
- Change detection of parking entry/exit routes.
- Draw parking entry/exit and radius on the flight plan view when zoomed in.
- Make sure TCASIndex dataref is synchronised with the TCAS data.
- Reduce rendering passes for AI detection and billboards.
- Enable leading-edge slats for models equipped with them.
- Add callable command to toggle TCAS system.
- Big changes to the way parking pushback is detected.
- Show pushback locations on the flightplan view when zoomed very close.
- Add ability to set active AI and camera via datarefs.
- Fix incorrect taxi destination for one-way runway entry nodes
- Fix incorrect taxi destination for incorrectly-designated runway entry nodes
- Slightly reduce ignore zone around parking
- Add option to change label visibility range
- Fix bug where TCAS positions were only updating for visible aircraft
- Fix incorrect text size when SSAA is enabled.
- Create appropriate fake multi-runway flow rules for parallel runways with different allowed aircraft classes
- Hide hard-excluded flights from the departure board
- Have different default taxi speeds for different aircraft classes.
- Fix typo in reading 8.33KHz airport departure radio frequencies.
- Fully fix click detection including in full-screen multimonitor
- Camera-type dataref not being cleared correctly if the camera control is taken away
- Add keyboard shortcut to certain menu items
- Minor fix to runway splitting
- Add managed runway-flow changeover to prevent frequent flipping in variable winds.
- Add workaround for incorrect flow time rules defined as 00->24 instead of 0000->2400.
- Add workaround for incorrect flow wind rules which have a zero-degree heading range.
- Use the correct aircraft type for the player's aircraft when assigning runways in comms.
- Add ability to reduce as well as exclude airport/airline traffic using Excluded...txt files.
- Add "heavy" to the comms callsign if appropriate.
- Take account of user altitude when calculating radio range.
- Add option to query source/destination airport datarefs as int arrays of XPNavRefs.
- Add colour picker to Label Config
- More work on player runway detection
- Add a little variation to braking distances.
- Alternate aircraft are now enabled - multiple variants per aircraft/airline.
- Detection of unplanned camera loss fixed to detect slow frames better
- Add liveries to be marked with the maximum number of instances.
- Ease-of-use changes for VR in windows.
- Add basic UI to define airport/airline excludes
- Full support for the all-new TCAS system in X-Plane 11.50
- Add a load of new model paints courtesy of XPlaner73 and Craggle
- Fix problem with cutting corners on very short legs
- Fix glideslope calculations.
- Mark all runways as allowing GA traffic at airports where no flow rules exist.
- Fix potential infinite loop when changing airports in the departure board after restarting a flight in a new location with no airports with traffic nearby
- Performance optimisations.
- Add minimum height range on the Flightplan view
- Updated French translations.
- Set a runway as occupied if an aircraft on go-around is overhead
- Database update - Fix several country and airline mappings
- Remove some "Corporation"s from airline names.
- Fix comms for airports which have multiple frequencies defined for the same purpose
- Fix pushback onto perpendicular
- Change future location detection to prevent early reservation of runway when a sequence of sharp corners exists
- Check for future deadlocks continually when on pushback.
- Add runway dataref.
- Add the version to the Plugin Manager info.
- Add shared datarefs for airport flows. Change camera_type and active_instance datarefs to be shared.
- Add writeable dataref to allow stop/start and erase of an AI.
- Ensure that datarefs are consistent even if AI state changes during building.
- Highlight the current flight more clearly on the departure board.
- Parking descriptive text on the flightplan view was incorrectly positioned.
- Highlight the parking for the active AI when close enough.
- Fix parking-entry speed change again.
- Add taxiroute dataref.
- Add timezone awareness, X-Plane style (i.e. ignore DST).
- Fix creation of flow rules for some airports where none exist not covering all possibilities.
- Example plugin will change AI targets on AI startup if the previous one is no longer taxying or departing, as well as none selected.
- Fix a crash dealing with user parking
- Fix a crash on startup if another plugin reads datarefs before TG is initialised
- Adjust for manual time offset
- Airline identifier updates
- Rework go-arounds to fix corners and early touchdown
- TCAS reinstated for 11.50b7 in Vulkan mode.
- Some magnetic variation fixes
- Center runways get a larger circuit.
- Aircraft no longer all land precisely on the centerline
- Add visible warning if X-Plane is set to external visuals, and no data is being received.
- Add a north line and numeric heading indicator to the radar.
- Fix long straight lines on the flightplan view at certain point in AI curves
- Increase circuit height to clear departing aircraft.
- Fix bug affecting taxi speeds of aircraft that just landed a long way from the user
- Was applying longitude corrections backwards on the radar
- Add command to initiate pushback to help airport designers with testing.
- Don't show blue movement lines for non-flying aircraft
- Extend runway-use detection for the player out to 10NM
- Weld taxiway waypoints that are too close together for a given aircraft type.
- Preload detailed airport data for relevant airports periodically
- Vary the default takeoff run length by engine type as well as size class
- Clicking on the user in the flightplan view used the wrong view type
- Flow rules were removed if a runway was unusable, even if another runway in the same flow was good.
- Add 'Follow User' option to the flightplan view.
- If on approach, don't give way to a closer aircraft if it's already on go-around.
- Improve handling of changes from positive to negative speed
- Fix a potential crash with TCAS aircraft being deleted
- Fix pushback along a spur that touches the parking spot (i.e. all of KMCO)
- A waiting aircraft could enter the runway when an approaching aircraft passed the entry point
- Performance improvement for the flightplan window drawing.
- Fix transition between ground and air sections of departure
- Takeoff altitude profile changed.
- Have type-specific climb/departure climb/descent rates
- Fix runway designators not being shown in labels.
- Fix labels for flight number
- Updated Spanish translations.
- Fix labels on external displays. Note that some label items, relating to runway or taxiway names, are unavailable on external displays.
- Fix full-screen multi-monitor mouse drag
- Update settings dialog values each time it opens to handle TCAS setting override from dataref
- Delete old crash dumps if a crash occurs which isn't TG.
- Show a more detailed altitude curve on the first 20% of a departure leg
- Reinstate tcas_index dataref, limited to 19 aircraft, even if tcas_override is on.
- Can now do backtrack on runway if needed to get to an exit
- Fix tab key (show/hide/autoshow controls) on Radar.
- Add ICAO aircraft type to tcas datarefs.
- AI will now backtrack for takeoff if needed
- Model and paint changes
- Handle some payware airports which are defined with mixed or lower case ICAO codes
- Fix problem with welding taxiway nodes at too shallow an angle
- Update stall and cruise speeds for most aircraft.
- Update the departure board if the day changes but the time doesn't
- Polar Air Cargo/Pacific Air Cargo codes corrected
- Improve calculation of takeoff and braking distances.
- Workaround for some airports with bad flows which allow aircraft types to land but not depart or vice-versa.
- Fix aircraft refreshing instead of recreating with certain ranges of time change in X-Plane
- Properly account for the delayed touchdown point when deciding the runway exit route
- Sound was interrupted for one frame for nearby aircraft going out of view.
- Rewrite installer UI to use standard dialogs including "Features"
- Aircraft may not be fully recreated under very specific circumstances, when changing the flight to be on a different day.
- Have different delays before entering runway for takeoff, depending on relative size classes
- Add support for SAM 2.0.8 and higher.
- Improve multi-runway detection
- When more than one runway exit connected to the same point, the intended route was not always used.
- Add a small bias for taxi routes to avoid complex areas in favour of simple ones
- Stop aircraft circling forever during a descending sharp turn from cruise to approach
- Add information about aircraft blocking a flow change by hovering over the wind indicator in the flightplan view.
- Potential fix for network issue where individual aircraft randomly disappear for a few seconds.
- Make aircraft nearing an airport which is changing flows hold.
- Add separate volume control for external cameras
- Aircraft in non-UTC timezones were incorrectly reset when the UTC day changed.
- The installer would inappropriately report errors on some PCs
- Taxi lights are used sooner
- Choose whether external visuals sync to framerate, calculation complete or X-Plane UDP Data rate