The last couple years we've been working really hard on SimplePlanes 2, it was time to deliver on the years old promise, but why keep it at that? 1.4 is our biggest update since 1.0, there's so much to cover, and what a better way to start than with the amazing trailer made by @DeepSpaceIndustries:
Reentries have received the facelift they deserved. The old image effect is gone, replaced by a mesh-based shock that blends from condensation to plasma depending on Mach and atmospheric density, with a long trail when you come in too hot.
That glow extends to the engines too: nozzles now heat up and shine based on their temperature, active cooling actually runs them cooler, and Overthrottle overheats instead of instantly damaging them, so if you manage your temperatures you can push them for longer.
Speaking of which, jets got a "LOX Afterburner" mode to keep burning where there's no air, with a new mesh-based exhaust to match, and the solid motors got a thrust-vectoring variant. The aerospike got a truncated sibling too!
Disclaimer: Droods still can't lick the nozzles. Don't ask how we know.
Particles have been entirely reworked, making use of a new particle manager that let's us have a lot more control over how they look and behave. Rockets, jets and props now blast dust off the ground, hard impacts throw ejecta plumes, water landings splash with foam, fast slides spark against structures, reentries have a glowing trail, each fuel leaves its own distinct smoke and engine smoke behaves much more realistically. Your launches (and your crashes) have never looked this good.
It's not just the particles, the Juno system just got a lot more alive. The atmospheres have been reworked with more vibrant colors and jaw dropping sunsets. Droo and Oord sport moving cloud covers, Nebra, Sergeaa and Tauros are wrapped in thick blankets, and Cylero gets swept by dust storms occasionally thanks to an overhaul of the fake clouds that used to be directly painted in the planets, but like the old ones they are only visible from orbit and Map View, although those that command the weather say otherwise.
It's not just shiny things in life, 1.4 also brings in many QoL changes:
The designer got a FreeCAD-inspired navigation cube, an orthographic toggle and fuel flow gizmos routed along your craft's actual plumbing, so you can finally see where the fuel goes.
The flight cameras have been overhauled from the ground up, including a new Target Framing camera and revamped cinematic shots.
Map View is now accessible straight from the main menu, letting you manage your crafts with proper context of where they are, planet rings included.
Fuels have been reworked to pave the way for resource gathering. Bipropellants can now be drawn from separate constituent tanks (LOX, RP-1, LH2, CH4) in the correct ratio, Monopropellant got rebranded to Hydrazine and joined by Hydrogen Peroxide, Argon has joined the Xenon, and CO2, Nitrogen and Regolith have been added in preparation for 1.5. Planets can now specify the composition of their atmosphere, hydrosphere and terrain, and jets finally care about it: no oxygen, no zoomies.
As per usual there's more to this update, you can find all the changes in the Release Notes, like the new Vizzy text synthesizer, the native Apple Silicon support, switching crafts on the fly or welding docking ports. Seriously, there's so much, go check them out!
If you got all the way to here you may have also noticed the changelog mentions Localization all over the place. The groundwork is now done (thanks to @SatelliteTorifune for the extensive QA), and now we want to work with the community to bring Juno to as many space nerds as possible.
If you want to help translate the game into your language, head over to our new translation platform, your contributions could be part of the official translations coming in 1.5.