It's update time again! Over the past few months we've brought in Lorenz aka Brixxter for an internship to add Dynamic Weather, Rain, Thermals, and more to the game! He's done a lot of amazing work and there's a lot to unpack here, so let's get started.
Vincent made a great trailer for the update, so please check it out if you want a more visual showcase of the new stuff:
After scientists discovered how to spin things in the last update, they got a little carried away and are now spinning things fast enough to control the weather without your input. Don't worry though, they're kind enough to give you control over the weather machine if you'd prefer to have things your own way!
In other words, the game now supports dynamic weather which can be enabled, disabled, or otherwise overridden through the new and improved Environment Settings panel where you can now control the cloud heights and density, wind speed and heading, enable turbulence, ridge lift, rain, or thermals (more on those two in a bit), set the height of ocean waves, and all that good stuff.
Also, we've improved wind physics across the board, so wind should now feel more accurate in how it interacts with your crafts. Sheltered areas and tunnels now also block wind, giving you a safe space to tuck your stuff away when things are getting dicey.
You read that right, SP2 now has actual rain visual effects! Gone are the days of setting the clouds to "stormy" and just seeing lightning, now when you set the weather to rainy or stormy there is actual rain, accompanied with soothing noises. Rain can be set to various levels of intensity, adapts to wind settings, disappears when you're above the clouds, and gets obstructed by buildings and crafts. It adds a lot of ambience to the game that we think you'll love.
Scattered throughout the map you can find rising columns of warm air called "thermals". These give a ton of extra lift when you go inside, letting a clever glider pilot go the distance. Keep an eye out for big flocks of birds moving in circles as those will often mark the location of a nice thermal. Thank you to all of the public beta testers for helping us nail down the feeling of moving through these thermals, we really appreciate it!
That about wraps up the major features of this update, but if you're interested in all of the details you can check out the full patch notes here.
As always, thank you for playing, and be sure to check out the Roadmap to vote on what you'd like to see next!