As you may have already seen, we have been collaborating with Linx to help him port his KSP mod "Parallax" into JNO. The mod is about to be released and we felt like we couldn't miss this opportunity to bring some very necessary visual enhancements to the game.
The two main areas where we have focused are the rocket engine exhausts and the procedural wings but there are more changes and improvements you can find in the Release Notes, and some extra things coming as we progress in this update's beta testing.
This update is going to be in beta testing for a couple weeks, and if everything goes well we should be looking at a public release in mid-late September, and a mobile release in early October. And for everyone wondering, Parallax will be coming out next week.
NEW EXHAUST
It has been more than 4 years since JNO got one of its signature features, the visual expansion of its plumes in procedural rocket engines. After this long it is easy to forget how ground-breaking that moment was, but since then the visuals lagged a bit behind and you sure let us know!
For this facelift we have decided not just to reimplement the visuals and logic behind this dynamic plumes, but also to hand you the wheel and let you choose how you want them to look with over a dozen properties to tweak the shape and color of the hottest part in your crafts.
PROCEDURAL WINGS
Jundroo is well known for its love for airplanes, but we have always received complaints about how un-aerodynamic our wings look. Players have been forced to tinker with the physics of wings to hide them within fuel tanks in an unnecessarily complicated process, but that ends with 1.2.
Wings have had different physics airfoils in the game forever, that realistically model how the wing would behave, but now that also comes with a visual companion, making it easy to identify what type of airfoil the wing is using and what face is pointing up. No more flat bottom tail wings! And if you aren't happy with those, we have exposed all the parameters that define their shape in the hidden properties, so you can recreate whatever aircraft you want.
VARIOUS IMPROVEMENTS
Maybe not as obvious as the previous two, but to continue with the idea of the facelift we have bumped up the visual fidelity in space by including an Ultra setting to the atmospheres, increasing by 8 times their precision and thus reducing their sawtooth artifacts, and also by accounting for the terrain slopes in the generation of the Scaled Space textures on Very High cubemap settings and above.
And to help you fly through the mountains to gasp at how amazing Parallax looks, we have also brought the Mouse Joystick feature from SimplePlanes, so you can smoothly sail the air even without a controller.
COMING SOON™
This is already a lot, but there are some extra things we are working on, like the new contracts, stock crafts and some things in line with the visual overhaul, here is some sneak peek:
is mobile out yet?
@Pedro I have the impossible zoom bug currently. Finally got the update.
@Pedro Ok thank you (:
@ElmerTheCat you did nothing wrong
@Pedro that’s strange. I can’t say I’ve seen that bug ever happen.
@Pedro regarding the beta, im sorry if i „leaked“ it while it wasn’t already out. I didn’t know if it was a testing thing just for mods or something so i took a risk. Should i not post the TestFlight link in the future or am i good?
@Pedro my build version is 1.1.109.0
Just fyi.
@Pedro Yeah, thanks for letting me know!
@Pedro when I clicked the link it says im a beta tester and that I should receive the update soon, as well as on google play store it says the same thing, "you are a beta tester for this app, future updates will include beta versions"
Oh ok, that makes sense. I dont mind waiting if I gotta lol, its no big deal but I was only concerned because of the page saying im a beta tester but havent received the update yet. I was thinking that maybe I messed up somehow or didn't do something right
@urownpersonalgod btw, we are not announcing it yet because right now there is a game breaking bug, we want to have a build with that fixed before bringing the attention to the beta. In flight it is impossible to zoom in and out the camera on mobile, we are looking into a possible fix.
@JanusSpaceIndustries there's no need to reply to every single comment, I appreciate that you want to help but sometimes if you don't know the answer it can cause confusion.
.
@urownpersonalgod you are correct, this post is where the question belongs. Are you sure you are a beta tester on Android? Our testing phones got the update already yesterday.
@JanusSpaceIndustries
Sorry for the confusion, but I am on the eye candy page, not the page dedicated to just parallax. Yeah, I dont mind waiting on the update, I was just confused because the link was for android. Lol no worries
@urownpersonalgod You weren't specific. I am not on mobile, so you are stuck
for now...@JanusSpaceIndustries
ElmerTheCat
Ig nobody officially announced it but the mobile beta is out. Here’s the TestFlight (apple) link for anyone who doesn't have it: https://testflight.apple.com/join/Q0X3TrMv and the android link is: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.jundroo.SimpleRockets2 (:
I know mods arent supported on mobile so why is there a link to join the beta? Lol im not ignorant, just confused. Im wanting the eye candy update, not a parallax mod update. XD
@urownpersonalgod Well, mods are only for PC, so I would have asked prior to downloading. You should have also read everything carefully for the entire page (Parallax Mod Page) as it said in the first forum when they were talking about parallax on the forum, and Pedro pinned a comment saying it is a mod so it will only be on PC and PC only. They also do not have plans for adding mods to mobile, and I think they said they never will.
@JanusSpaceIndustries
Android
@urownpersonalgod Are you on PC?
Not sure how to get the beta for thr update. It says im a beta tester but I havent gotten the update yet. What am I missing?
@ElmerTheCat ¯_(:р)_/¯
Oh ok. That certainly clears thing up XD
@ElmerTheCat I mean
Y O I N K
@LeMagicBaguette wdym
@ElmerTheCat nooooooo the apple beta is already full qwq
@ElmerTheCat Y O I N K
Ig nobody officially announced it but the mobile beta is out. Here’s the TestFlight (apple) link for anyone who doesn't have it: https://testflight.apple.com/join/Q0X3TrMv and the android link is: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.jundroo.SimpleRockets2 (: