Hi everyone! I've been hanging around this site a lot as I usually do and I wanted to make a post with some of my thoughts. I really meant to post this a few days ago but I've been busy with moving into a new flat for university. Also, I'm sorry for how long this post is. If I had more time, it would be shorter.

Recently SimplePlanes had an update, 1.12.200. Part of this update was bringing SP to a newer version of the Unity engine (2022). When engines go through major version increments, by definition this is when changes that can potentially break existing code can be introduced - and you might have noticed this update's beta being a bit buggier than others. Normally this goes under the radar a bit because we have a lot of new features to bring you, but this time there wasn't a lot added because we've been really busy working on other projects. But having SP on a newer engine version is good for the long-term and will make it easier to fix any critical issues that may pop up at a later date. So in a way it secures SP's future as a game to stick around for hopefully as long as you want to play it, even while we work on future projects ;). This brings me onto the main point of this post:

Thank you!

Getting SP stable on a newer engine is something we totally couldn't have done without you - the players and the army (or air force? navy? you seem to build anything in this game) of beta testers. That's why I wanted to make this post - just to say thank you to everyone. Everything else written here is just explaining why I wanted to say thank you, and then putting down some of my other thoughts. The fixes we've been able to make with your reports are potentially even more valuable than you think, because we're still game-developing and what we find here transfers into making what comes next better and more stable too. Thanks to your reporting, we've even been able to pinpoint and fix ourselves an issue in the game engine itself - you're welcome unity! So with that big thanks out of the way, I also wanted to mention a few more things just so we're all on the same page:

Lingering Bugs

I'm still trying to keep an eye out for anything that this new update broke that has so far eluded us. Specifically I heard from a few people about the keybind for deleting parts in the designer not working, but we haven't managed to recreate the issue on our end and there's no obvious reason for it happening, and some people said the issue randomly went away. If you get this bug, do get in touch and especially let us know what you might have done to trigger it, I'd like to know how many people are affected by it and any leads on how to trigger it would be really helpful. Let us know about any other bugs but please keep it to issues that were introduced by this update. Also, issues pertaining to mods are a bit different too:

Mods

As the Unity engine grows and changes, some of the ways it's structured have changed, especially when it comes to user interface. This can unfortunately break some mods. There's not too much that can be done about this other than updating and re-exporting the mods in the new engine version - make sure to import the newest mod tools as well. If you have other issues updating your mods, do ask - I used to be a modder, before I took an arrow in the knee! I also understand that some modders may be inactive or unable to update their mods, so as a last resort in case a mod is totally broken with no fix in sight we have made a beta-branch on steam that lets you jump back to v1.12.128.0, the last version on the older engine.

What are you working on? What are you working on? What are you working on?

Okay okay okay I get it :). We haven't been very open about what we're doing with the rest of our time right now, but it's hard to announce games when they haven't fully taken shape. I personally am really looking forward to showing off all the stuff I've been working on, and getting all of your input on it. But in order to be at that point, we need to get to work until our future comes more clearly into focus. So understandably we're currently full speed ahead on getting to that point, which is why we haven't been able to bring many new features into beloved old SimplePlanes. But I still do browse the forums and I do listen to what you have to say, and peruse about it frequently.

Ok, that's been me. I'll be around. Till next time!