Improving crash mechanics
Having to quit or load a save after crashing was disrupting the flow of the game, naturally leading to clanky abuse of the save system, and potentially annoying loss of progress.
It's now possible to repair your aircraft after a crash, for a cost:
Free on relaxing difficulty.
5% of the player's cash on easy.
10% of the player's cash on medium.
20% of the player's cash on hard.
On all difficulties repair costs are capped at a max of $4000.
After doing a repair, the aircraft is respawned:
250m above the crash location at a speed of 45 m/s.
If the fuel is below 25%, it will be set to 25%.
A remaining issue is that some crashes still feel unfair. I'm planning on doing further improvements that will unfold in upcoming updates.
Other improvements
The brakes are now softer and it's much harder to flip the aircraft.
Fixed a bug where save times were shown in UTC rather than the local time zone of the user.
Happy holidays!