Regional scenery update: Asia ships, and what comes next
Asia parts 1–4 are live, the older regional packages are about to enter a ZL16 remaster phase with updated XP12 bathymetry, and a short note on the road to 0.5.0.
With Asia in place, the main inhabited continents are now covered end-to-end, with one outstanding gap: the very far north of Canada. Antarctica is still on the table as the seventh and final continent, but whether it ships will depend on whether there is enough demand to justify the production work and whether we can keep the quality bar where it needs to be at those latitudes. We will revisit that decision later in the year.
A remaster phase next
With the global coverage loop almost closed, focus shifts away from new ground and onto the older packages. The next phase of work is bringing North America, South America, Europe Part 1, Africa Parts 1 and 2, and Oceania up to the current production standard: a clean ZL16 baseline and the updated XP12 water bathymetry mask settings.
The packages built before we settled on a single zoom-level story (covered in the previous roadmap post) still carry the older mixed-zoom and pre-XP12 bathymetry shape. Remastering them brings the visible quality and behaviour of those regions into line with what Asia and EU-2 already deliver, and it removes the awkwardness of telling new pilots that some of the older packages are “good but slightly different”. This is unglamorous work, but it is what makes the global footprint feel like one product rather than a sequence of generations.
On the XEarthLayer app
A short word on the app side. A 0.4.7 release is likely coming in the near future to tidy up a handful of final pieces left over from the 0.4.x line. These are small reliability and polish items rather than new headline features. After that, 0.4.7 will be the last release on this version, and work on 0.5.0 will start in the summer. We will write up where 0.5.0 is heading closer to the time.
A short break
On a personal note: I will be taking a break between now and July, travelling with family and getting some rest. Scenery production and most app work will be quiet during that window. Community channels will still be there, but expect slower responses than usual. Back at it properly in July, and thanks as always for sticking with the project.