X-Codr has recently announced a substantial update to their Airport Enhancement Package add-on for X-Plane, bringing procedurally generated life to over 36,000 airports around the globe.

While the original AEP focused on replacing key assets (ground textures, common buildings, and service vehicles), AEP 2.0 aims to add to airports, not just replace assets around them. After months of development and tinkering, the developer has managed to create a program that reads and understands the global airports, procedurally generating overlays that greatly enhance the experience with tire skids on taxi routes, runways, and service roads, additional clutter at gates and near buildings, grunge, oil leaks, rust, and random ramp clutter, yielding a more lifelike experience around every airport in the simulator.

While the procedural generation is the new star of the show, it doesn’t mean AEP no longer replaces assets, with over a thousand custom assets in total, including new pavement textures, service vehicles, new cars, all of the legacy hangars (and new ones), and various clutter objects.

There are a couple of things that are still being worked on before release, such as more baggage cart variants, old long metal hangars, cargo area clutter, stability testing for a new feature yet to be announced, and beta testing. They also use this opportunity to seek people willing to help stress-test the new product and aid in shaping the final release through their contact page or Discord.

Furthermore, the developer has also mentioned that it will be a free upgrade for AEP 1.0 owners.

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