SimplePlanes 2 News

[p]Hey everyone,[/p][p][/p][p]It’s getting late in 2025, and we’ve been hearing a familiar question more and more: "When is the game actually coming out?" So, let’s talk about it. I’ve got good news and bad news.[/p][p][/p][p]The good news: We finally have a release month
The bad news: It's not until next year[/p][p][/p][p]We are going to release SimplePlanes 2 on Steam as Early Access in March of 2026. We're still considering what the initial price will be, most likely it will be $20 or $25 with a 10% launch discount and that price will go up when we exit Early Access. At this point we don't expect to delay the mobile release, but it's certainly possible it will slip to 2027.[/p][p][/p][p]Why Early Access? Because we wouldn't dream of trying to finish this game without the community's input. We’ve built something here that we’re truly proud of and it's shaping up to be our most exciting, feature-packed launch ever. But there's still work to do: localization, VR support, more parts, more environments, and most importantly, time to listen and respond to the community before calling it final.[/p][p][/p][p]Early Access is the only sensible way to release a game like this, for a community like this.[/p][p][/p][h2]But, wait! There's more good news![/h2][p]Now, for the really exciting part. This October, we're releasing a free, limited-time demo on Steam for everyone. This demo, which we're internally calling the Flight Demo, is focused on letting you experience multiplayer and a taste of the new environments. Here's what to expect:[/p]

• [p]The designer will be "read-only": You can load up and look at any craft, including your SP1 crafts, but you can't modify them. You won't be able to add, remove, or modify any parts. However, the designer will let you paint your craft so you can check out the new texture system which is pretty sweet.[/p]
• [p]New stock crafts: We have a new set of stock crafts built with love by our playtesters. They are awesome. We'll have a showcase post for them in the future.[/p]
• [p]Driftwood Island: You will be restricted to a small island just east of the main SP2 Isles. It has plenty of great stuff to check out, so don't try to leave because Nathan has installed a very accurate missile system that will shoot you down.[/p]

[p]Aside from those limitations, the demo will let you do quite a lot. You'll be able to start activities such as air & car races, a bomber defense mission, play multiplayer with your friends, or just explore the island! We're really excited to get the game in your hands soon, and we hope this demo will help alleviate some of the sting of having the game delayed. You might even come across a developer in a multiplayer lobby on occasion :)[/p][hr][/hr][p]One last thing. When you check out the Steam page, you might notice some new art. We got new key art for the game from the very skilled Daniel Liske! It turned out really nice, and you'll be seeing it all over the game on Steam now; in the thumbnail, your library, and so on.
[/p][p]If you haven't already, please consider wishlisting SimplePlanes 2 on Steam and joining our Discord Server! We hope to see you in October when we release the demo![/p][hr][/hr][p]Thanks for your patience and thanks for playing![/p][p]-Andrew[/p]

[p]Among the original SimplePlanes parts in desperate need of a facelift is the Resizable Wheel. It was introduced over nine years ago and has received relatively little change since then, besides the addition of a number of new visual styles.[/p][p][/p][p]Needless to say, improving the wheels has been a high priority for SimplePlanes 2, and we’re really excited to finally show off what we’ve been working on.[/p][p][/p][p]To start with, the model for the wheels is much more detailed. Look closely and you’ll see high definition rims, the brake rotor, and the brake caliper – all of which have their own paint trims. There’s also new skidmark and tire smoke visual effects, letting your craft leave a lasting impression everywhere it goes.[/p][p][/p][p]As far as customization goes, there’s the standard size and width options you already know and love, but we also went just a tiny bit overboard and now you have over 20 tire styles, over 20 rim styles, and a bunch of tread styles, all of which can be independently selected. You can also use a slider to adjust the offset of the rim, setting it deeper or shallower into the tire. All of these allow for an insane degree of personalization, letting you make your wheels look exactly the way you want them to.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]But new visuals aren’t the only thing we did with the wheels. Come on, did you really think we’d leave the physics untouched? Because boy oh boy did we touch them.[/p][p][/p][p]The wheel physics have been totally redone, behaving in a much more realistic and fun way. They behave differently depending on the type of surface you’re on (roads, grass, sand, etc), you can drift in them, they have much better colliders, and so much more.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]The new wheels use an elliptical grip model (shout out to @hpgbproductions for making a SimplePlanes 1 mod that does a similar thing two years ago!), which is a difficult concept to explain so if you’re interested you can check out this Wikipedia page. What it essentially means is the way the grip in your wheels works is significantly more dynamic and realistic than before, allowing each wheel to oversteer or understeer depending on a multitude of factors for much more interesting vehicle handling.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]We’ve tweaked the default properties of the elliptical model to what we feel meets a nice middle ground for the needs of most players, but we’ve left those properties open in the craft XML for those of you who want to fine tune your craft’s handling in a more in-depth way.[/p][hr][/hr][p]Wheels are cool and all, but they don’t exist in a vacuum (unless your name is Apollo). In order to make a vehicle that drives smoothly and doesn’t violently break itself apart at the slightest bump, you need suspension.[/p][p][/p][p]You could make suspension in SimplePlanes 1 and many people have happily done so, but it required a fair bit of knowledge of the actual mechanics of real-life suspension and was generally not intuitive to a new player.[/p][p][/p][p]So in SimplePlanes 2, we’ve added a brand new procedural Double Wishbone Suspension part with a variety of tweakable properties. Now you can simply drag and drop some suspension onto your craft, tune it to your liking, slap a wheel on it, and go on your merry way![/p][p][/p][p]Here’s a quick rundown of the suspension properties you can customize:[/p]

• [p]Size & Extension[/p]
  • [p]These are self explanatory. They affect the overall size of the part, as well as how far from the center of the craft it will extend.[/p]
• [p]Length[/p]
  • [p]This defines the suspension’s range of motion and how far off the ground the main body of your craft will be. A nimble racecar made for a track might prefer a shorter suspension that doesn’t travel much, but an offroader will want all the room it can get to navigate perilous terrain.[/p]
• [p]Stiffness[/p]
  • [p]This affects the strength of the spring according to how smooth of an experience you want. A softer spring will make for a more pleasant and stable ride on uneven ground, but may not give the desired responsiveness for a track-oriented car that a more firm spring would.[/p]
• [p]Damper[/p]
  • [p]Effects the suspension’s resistance to vibration. Low damper will make the suspension bouncier when absorbing bumps, and higher damper will keep the suspension steadier which will help plant your tires more firmly onto the road.[/p]
• [p]Shock Position[/p]
  • [p]A purely cosmetic property that affects how far forward or back the shock absorber is.[/p]

[p]Tuning your vehicle’s suspension can be quite a fun process, with an endless variety of configurations depending on what you want – there is no singular “best” option, it’s all about what you want out of any given vehicle. So experiment![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]While the double wishbone is the only suspension configuration currently in the game as of writing this, we also have plans to add straight axle suspension! Kevin has already made the model for it, it just needs to be brought to life on the programming side by Andrew.[/p][p][/p][p]Circling back to wheels for a moment, we’ve also added steering wheels to the game! You’ve got your traditional circular steering wheel, as well as the more rectangular type commonly seen in high-performance race cars. Just like the joysticks and yokes, they can be gripped by Chad for an added layer of interactivity to your craft.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]To make operating the steering wheels more comfortable for Chad, there’s now a reclinable racing chair as well, perfect as a more grounded replacement for the aircraft-centric chairs currently available in the game. You can set it to recline anywhere from 0-90 degrees in the designer, and Chad will lean back along with it – maybe with some neck pain if you don’t adjust his head rotation.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][hr][/hr][p]For all the improvements you’ve seen us make to ground vehicles, there’s still one glaring issue left: engines.[/p][p][/p][p]In SP1, the Car Engine is incredibly barebones and hardly behaves the way it should, as it merely applies torque to a selected set of wheels and does little else. So let’s fix that.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]In SimplePlanes 2 we’re adding procedural engines and transmissions, along with several modular powertrain parts to make it all work. Let’s start with the engine.[/p][p][/p][p]The new procedural engine is highly customizable and has significantly more realistic behaviour, while staying simple to set up. Rotational inertia, torque curves, and angular velocity are all simulated now. This lets you really feel the way your engine responds to the variety of situations you put it in, especially with the new RPM gauge in the flight UI that appears when you’re in a car.[/p][p][/p][p]There are a few properties you can mess around with on the engine:[/p]

• [p]Size[/p]
  • [p]Raising this increases the engine’s horsepower and torque, but reduces its maximum RPM and increases its mass.[/p]

• [p]Cylinders[/p]
  • [p]Increasing the number of cylinders in the engine raises its horsepower and torque without reducing RPM, but makes the engine longer and heavier.[/p]

• [p]Engine Tuning[/p]
  • [p]With the Engine Tuning slider, you can tune the engine to produce more torque but less RPM, or vice-versa. More torque will improve your vehicle’s acceleration and make it better at carrying heavy loads, but the resulting loss in RPM will reduce your top speed which may not be desirable for a racecar.[/p]

[p][/p][p]Next, the transmission. A transmission allows you to optimize your engine’s output according to how fast you’re going, using a set of gears. The new Transmission part gives you a number of things to tinker with: you can choose between manual or automatic shifting, three different gear profiles preconfigured to be optimized for street, racing, and offroad performance, set the number of gears from 3-10, and you can tune it. Similar to the engine tuning, gear tuning allows you to choose whether to prioritize torque or top speed, allowing for further fine tuning beyond just the engine itself.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Now for some really cool stuff. In order to make the engine work, you use a combination of driveshafts, differentials, and transfer cases to link everything together.[/p][p][/p][p]Driveshafts build a path from your engine to other powertrain parts, and differentials and transfer cases allow you to split that output in multiple directions to make any drive configuration you can imagine.[/p][p][/p][p]This might sound complicated, but true to the game’s name (well, half of it anyway) we’ve made it quite simple. Just place a driveshaft at the end of your transmission, and the driveshaft will automatically shift and scale itself around to link to any parts you attach to it, allowing for creation of ground vehicles in a way that is both intuitive and educational.[/p][p][/p][p]While the whole powertrain system might sound like it’s just for ground vehicles, during development we realized how flexible it truly is – so not only will we be adding additional types of car engine, we’ll also accommodate use of the powertrain system for aircraft via propeller engines and turbines![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]We've uploaded a video showing off the new power train system, check it out here:[/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][hr][/hr][p]If you like what you're seeing, please consider wishlisting the game! If you'd like to see bits of these blogs early, consider joining our Discord Server![/p]

[p]This post serves as a follow-up to our previous post about the new wings and fuselages in SimplePlanes 2, with more in-depth information than we gave you in the last one. If you missed Part 1, check it out here.[/p][p][/p][p]This one is going to be a slight change of pace compared to our previous showcases, with some more nerdy talk than usual. If that isn’t your style and you’d rather skip it, then the key takeaway here is this: for SP2, we’ve completely redone the flight model for the wings, making their physics more dynamic and interesting than ever before.[/p][p][/p][p]For the nerds that want the juicy details, I’ve let Nicky (the mastermind behind these new wings) write the rest of the showcase as he can explain it far better than I can:[/p]

[p]Having heard so many stories from people who played the game as a way to explore aeronautics from a young age and later found themselves growing up into qualified pilots, engineers or mechanics, I knew that the educational side of the game was very important, and I always wanted to expand on it in the sequel.[/p][p][/p][p]One way to do this is to increase the fidelity of our flight model. This is something I've been planning for a while and it's great to finally see results. Many modern methods exist for simulating the aerodynamics of aeroplanes, but almost all of them are made for designing real life aircraft. This means that they favour being numerically accurate to real life, at the expense of huge amounts of computational power, and ease of use. SP2's flight model is not for designing real life aircraft and has a very different set of requirements. It needs to be highly performant to run on as many devices as possible and it also needs to be numerically stable. If an iterative solution fails to converge for an aircraft you make, we can't have an engineer hop in and change the simulation parameters to get an accurate solution - it has to just work every time. But, we still want to improve the applicability of the behaviour you see in SP2 to real life engineering. This means we need to increase the range of effects and behaviours that can be expressed by the wings. Of course, we still use real-life data and scaling as much as we can - but we shouldn't let it get in the way of teaching important concepts. Numbers are important, but concepts more so. Here are some new concepts that you'll find in SP2:[/p][p][/p]

• [p]Control Surface Moments[/p]

[p]In addition to increasing or reducing a wing's lift, control surfaces also apply a turning force to the wing they're on. In SP1, you can often deploy your flaps all the way to increase your turn rate and save yourself from an early introduction to the ground. This is less advisable in SP2, where flaps will correctly cause you to pitch down. This also means that elevators on delta wings can work without the fakery required in SP1.[/p][p][/p]

• [p]More in-depth customisation[/p]

[p]As we mentioned in the previous blog, you can tune the airfoil parameters to change how your wing acts. This accentuates the difference between a docile trainer and an aggressively tuned fighter. The range of control surface types you've seen are also not just for show: each one affects your maximum lift, stall angle, moment and drag uniquely.[/p][p][/p]

• [p]Wing Efficiency[/p]

[p]A key consideration when designing a wing is efficiency. It's easy to get buried in airfoil cross sections and forget that there's a third dimension down the span of your wing. We're experimenting with a new system that adds effects driven airflow along the span of your wing. You'll see that longer, thinner wings like you see on a glider are more efficient than shorter stubbier wings. This system makes it so that maximising the efficiency of your build is more than just reducing the frontal surface area for drag.[/p]

[p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][hr][/hr][p]Speaking of drag, this was a fairly painful topic in SimplePlanes 1. The drag model had a ton of problems, which becomes quite apparent when you look at any of the top crafts on the website and notice that they typically have drag disabled on most of the parts.[/p][p][/p][p]In SimplePlanes 2, that old drag model is still there, but you can now choose to switch a craft to a brand new drag model that addresses many of the egregious issues with the old one. The new drag model uses the visual mesh of your craft rather than its colliders. This means the overall drag profile of your craft will be more accurate and intuitive. The curvature and angle of surfaces are now also taken into consideration.[/p][p][/p][p]Crafts using the new drag model should notice a significant reduction in overall drag, allowing for better speed. Performance should be better, especially with very large crafts. The frustrating issues with inexplicable asymmetrical drag should also be resolved.[/p][p][/p][p]The new model also has some cool new behaviours that weren’t in the old model:[/p]

• [p]In-flight Drag Recalculation[/p]
  • [p]Drag will now be automatically recalculated in-flight when the geometry of your craft changes, such as a part being detached or destroyed.[/p]
• [p]Body Lift[/p]
  • [p]Non-wing parts are now capable of generating a small amount of lift based on their angle of attack.[/p]

[p][/p][p]To complement the new drag model, we’ve completely overhauled the drag visualizer in the designer. It is now much more useful and very pretty, with a red to blue gradient depending on how prominent the drag is on a surface, and a pretty animation to go along with it. The new visualizer shows a much more accurate visual of the drag forces on your craft, showing exactly where the draggiest bits are instead of just highlighting entire parts based on their total drag, though you can re-enable that behaviour if you want to.[/p][p][/p][p]The drag visualizer can be tuned to your liking, allowing you to set an angle for the airflow as well as the maximum range of drag values to be shown. Note that as of writing this the visualizer doesn’t work on wings due to technical limitations, though by the time the game is released this may change.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][hr][/hr][p]If you like what you're seeing, please consider wishlisting the game. If you'd like to see bits of these blogs early, consider joining our Discord Server![/p]

[p]SimplePlanes 2 includes a number of new visual enhancements that drastically improve the look of the game compared to SimplePlanes 1.[/p][p][/p][p]To start, let’s talk about clouds. They technically existed in SP1, but they were baked into the skybox which pretty much meant they were fake and you couldn’t fly above them no matter how far into the sky you reached. SP2’s clouds, on the other hand, are volumetric, powered by an asset called Enviro by Hendrik Haupt. This means they’re 3D and very much “real”, making for a much more believable environment in the air than before.[/p][p][/p][p]In the world settings you can define the weather, ranging anywhere from a clear sky to dense fog to a thunderstorm. The clouds really help enhance the mood of SP2 and I hope you’ll feel the same way.[/p][p][/p][hr][/hr][p]Clouds aren’t the only major visual improvement to the game. Thanks to a couple of powerful assets – Beautify and HBAO – we’re able to use a number of post-processing effects to make SimplePlanes 2 look nice and polished.[/p][p][/p][p]What is post-processing, you might ask? Without bogging you down with overly technical talk, it basically modifies the image after the game engine has rendered it in order to add extra visual enhancements to make things pop.[/p][p][/p][p]There are three main things we use post-processing for: colour balancing, bloom, and ambient occlusion (SSAO). Colour balancing lets us adjust the colours to be more (or less) vibrant, bloom creates a glow effect on bright objects like emissive paint or a smooth metallic surface being hit by sunlight, and ambient occlusion creates soft shadows in corners and other areas that would be obscured from the ambient lighting.[/p][p][/p][p]All of them can be customized in the game’s settings, letting you fine tune the game’s visuals to your liking. Want more bloom? No problem. Want the colours to be less saturated? Go ahead![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]These add a lot to the game’s visual appeal and really help bring things up to a more modern graphical standard, with a fairly modest performance hit.[/p][hr][/hr][p]If you like what you're seeing, please consider wishlisting SimplePlanes 2 on Steam. If you'd like to see bits of these blogs early, consider joining our Discord Server![/p]

[p]This latest blog post is all about multiplayer and Major Chad![/p][p][/p][p]Arguably the biggest gamechanger in all of SimplePlanes 2 is the built-in multiplayer. There’s so much fun to be had messing around with your friends (or with strangers!), and our playtesters have had a really good time with it.[/p][p][/p][p]Multiplayer is something that was possible in SimplePlanes 1 with a mod, but it was quite limited and unintuitive to use. Among its problems were hosting and joining lobbies, as the host needed to download a separate executable (potentially in addition to other stuff) as well as give people their IP address, and the person joining had to know the server info (often buried in an old forum somewhere) and input it in-game to join.[/p][p][/p][p]SP2 makes this process much simpler. From the main menu, simply click the multiplayer button and you’ll get a nifty server browser where you can host or join a multiplayer lobby in seconds. To host a lobby, click Create Server, set a name, maximum player count (you can play with up to 15 other players!), lobby privacy, and you’re set! Once in the game you can also set the server tick rate and a per-craft part count limit, as well as control the time of day, weather, and activities. To join a lobby, just click the join button on any of the listings in the server browser and click Join Server (if you’re playing on Steam you can also join your friends through the Steam overlay); you’ll immediately join the host and can start doing shenanigans together.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][hr][/hr][p]Once you’re in a multiplayer lobby, you’re pretty much free to do whatever you want. Blow each other up, do challenges and races together, chill on the beach, or whatever else. If you open your menu, you can access a player list that lets you kick a player (if you’re the host), copy their craft (you can prevent people from copying your craft in the settings), or teleport next to them.[/p][p]They say a picture speaks a thousand words, so I’ve compiled about 1300 “pictures” in the form of a montage rather than go into exhaustive detail on all that’s possible in multiplayer. Most of this footage was captured over the last few months by our playtesters (and as such includes some outdated content), and I think it captures the essence of multiplayer far better than I could. Enjoy :)[/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][hr][/hr][p]A common criticism we heard with Juno: New Origins in particular is that it lacked a certain charm to it. For a game with a focus on multiplayer like SP2, it seemed pretty important to address that criticism. Enter Major Chad, a peculiar person of many talents who serves as both the mascot for SP2 and as an avatar for the player.[/p][p][/p][p]To bring Chad to life, we brought in an expert: Alexandre Alin. Alexandre is a professional 3D character artist with well over a decade of experience, having worked on numerous high-profile projects including five Star Wars movies (plus a few episodes of The Mandalorian), Arrival, Pacific Rim, and more. We’ve been very fortunate to be able to collaborate with him, and the results are better than we ever could have hoped.[/p][p][/p][p]As an aside, he’s also a co-founder of a small Quebec-based team called Renart Studios, who are currently working on their own game. I’m sure he’d appreciate it if you checked them out :)[/p][p][/p][p]We asked him a bunch of questions for this post to get some insight into his creative process and other thoughts, which we’ll go through now in a nice and compact interview format:[/p][p][/p][p]What were your first impressions of SP2 when we first talked?[/p]

[p]The first time I discovered SimplePlanes, I found it to be a truly unique game. I was impressed by the level of customization available for the planes. It immediately connected with my creative side. So, adding a character to that universe was something I found genuinely exciting.[/p]

[p]What software did you use to bring him to life?[/p]

[p]I used Maya for modelling and rigging, Substance Painter and Photoshop for texturing, and ZBrush for sculpting.[/p]

[p]What was the most technically challenging part of the process?[/p]

[p]The most technically challenging part of the project for me was keeping everything organised and clear. With many different rigged clothing pieces and multiple texture files, it would have been easy to lose track. But with new challenges come new opportunities for improvement. Working on Major Chad, I had to create some custom tools to speed up and simplify those repetitive tasks.[/p]

[p]Facial expressions are a big part of Major Chad’s charm. How did you approach creating them?[/p]

[p]Creating facial blendshapes is one of my favourite parts as a 3D character generalist. That’s where I get to bring the character’s personality to life, and every character is unique. The secret behind well-done blendshapes lies mostly in having clean, well-structured topology. Many artists shy away from topology because it’s considered technical—but once you’ve mastered it, it actually gives you more artistic freedom to create appealing and anatomically accurate expressions.[/p]

[p]How does making a character for a video game compare to making one for a film?[/p]

[p]The big difference lies in optimizing the model to run smoothly in a game engine. For Major Chad, the polygon count is much lower than for a movie character, and the deformation complexity is also reduced to ensure real-time performance. The challenge is to maintain a high-quality aesthetic despite those constraints.[/p]

[p]If Major Chad were to be cast in a movie, who should play him?[/p]

[p]Definitely Jim Carrey.[/p]

[hr][/hr][p]To complement his dashing looks, Chad has a diverse wardrobe that allows him to dress for any occasion whether it’s practical, formal, or casual.[/p][p][/p][p]In SP2 we have four outfits to choose from (for now), each one able to be recoloured to any set of colours you want in order to suit your needs (no pun intended), and some of them can even have certain elements added or removed entirely, like taking off a helmet or a jacket. There’s a surprising amount of diversity in what you can do with Chad’s customization, leading to a multiplayer experience where no one player looks quite the same, yet they all share the same recognizable character.[/p][p][/p][carousel][/carousel][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][hr][/hr][p]Chad doesn’t just stand around and look pretty, he serves as a means for you to interact with your craft and the game world in ways you never could before. He can walk, crouch, jump, swim, jankily push things around, and more![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Perhaps most importantly of all though is what happens when you give him a chair to sit in. First off, when you go into first-person the camera will gently tilt left or right as your craft rolls around to mimic the way a real person would tilt their head to match the horizon. This adds an extra layer of immersion to flying your crafts around, and if you don’t like it very much you can adjust its intensity in the game settings.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Next, we have “puppeteering”. What is puppeteering? Well aside from being a metaphor for Chad’s utter helplessness to the whims of the player (he doesn’t mind), it’s a way for you to define how Chad interacts with your craft when he’s sitting down. Using a process called inverse kinematics (don’t worry, you don’t have to know what that means), you can define a cockpit part for each of Chad’s hands, elbows, knees, and feet to stick to, and they’ll automatically move with those parts in a natural way (fun fact, at one point during development William had forgotten to make Chad’s limbs disconnect from things that are too far away, resulting in him being able to be stretched beyond recognition). This is a feature we had added in Juno to great success, but unlike a simple-minded Drood, Chad is able to wrap his fingers around certain parts to actually grab them when the need arises, unlike the hands just sort of awkwardly floating next to the part like in Juno.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Puppeteering helps make Chad more than just someone who sits idly in whatever seat you give him, and it will be an instrumental tool for properly scaling cockpits for VR whenever we implement support for it into SP2.[/p][hr][/hr][p]If messing around in multiplayer with your friends seems exciting to you, please consider the game! And if you want to see early sneak peeks of these blogs, consider joining our Discord Server![/p]