MSFS complex third party planes, maybe not so soon

[ilgrillo]

Uhm.
This not sound so well.
From the official site of MSFS, related to the "August 20th, 2020 Development Update". https://www.flightsimulator.com/august- ... nt-update/

SDK UPDATE

With the official release of Microsoft Flight Simulator also comes the first public Microsoft Flight Simulator SDK release. We have reached a good starting point for scenery and simple airplanes, but there is still a lot to come in the future. Since the last release in the Closed Beta, we have improved the documentation on several fronts; most notably aprons, taxiway signs, painted lines and lights. We added samples for the lights and for navigation data. The developer mode has seen many issues and crashes fixed, and now has the option to build an entire project at once, rather than requiring the developer to build package by package.

For complex aircraft, WebAssembly is still undergoing active development. We are working on some much-needed features and providing code to help port existing C++ aircraft. In addition to this, we are also actively working on mapping out the functionality of the SimConnect API. We look forward to your continued feedback, which has proven to be invaluable so far!

Uhm, maybe my first A2A plane is yet to come.

[cristi.neagu]

Well, we knew it won't be anytime soon. These things take time. Besides, we don't know what they mean by "the future". The SDK could be finished this September, and it could be finished September 2030. All we can really do is have patience and enjoy what we currently have, which is way more than FSX and P3D had out of the box.

[CAPFlyer]

According to PMDG and a couple others, the timeline they seem to be thinking of is end of year 2020 to early (Jan - Feb) 2021 to start releasing their addons. The biggest issue seems to be the file system and changes to animation calls, not the systems that are holding them up.

I think everyone who is being objective about this realizes that the SDK was the one part that would be postponed with release looming, so they aren't really panicking over it. There's a few being vocal about its lack, but that really doesn't seem to be holding up any of the major partners, so it looks like more smoke than actual fire.

[Jarek]

There is one additional risk factor. For any complex plane, the platform must be STABLE first. Development, checking how model behaves in the sim, corrections, checking again - all takes months not days. From reports that could be found on the forums, we are not yet there with stability.
Now imagine that some dev is rushing into release, then MSFT/Asobo decides that they need an update in aerodynamics model. As for any MS Store app - you will not be asked if you would like to update or not, it will be just updated.
In unlucky, but probable simulation, as 3rd party dev you will be forced to recheck everything again, leaving users with malfunctions in the model for weeks.

[CAPFlyer]

That's a problem, but not much of one honestly. With modern development, this is the norm. I play many games that are in continuous development (pretty much the norm today) and have mods in most of them. Whenever there's an update, you go back to "vanilla" for a few days or maybe weeks while the mod authors go through and update their addons if needed, or just change the checksum to confirm compatibility to the new version. Yeah, it can be frustrating to some extent, but it's kinda the new normal. I suspect that with MSFS and the fact Asobo understands how this community is, will do a better job of letting the major developers know of any major changes prior to release to give them a chance to update the mod first.

Also, the Microsoft Store does not automatically update your software if you tell it not to. Steam, you have to "opt out" of the automatic updates on a per-program basis, but the MS Store only updates when you tell it to. It's one of the things I've been bad about (I had like 30 updates pending when I went to download MSFS on Wednesday).

[twsharp12]

There is one additional risk factor. For any complex plane, the platform must be STABLE first. Development, checking how model behaves in the sim, corrections, checking again - all takes months not days. From reports that could be found on the forums, we are not yet there with stability.
Now imagine that some dev is rushing into release, then MSFT/Asobo decides that they need an update in aerodynamics model. As for any MS Store app - you will not be asked if you would like to update or not, it will be just updated.
In unlucky, but probable simulation, as 3rd party dev you will be forced to recheck everything again, leaving users with malfunctions in the model for weeks.

You are exactly right. The stability in the new sim is pretty awful and flying big iron pains me as the game is very heavy on the frames. I've had more CTD's in the last week with MS2020 than I've had since the release of P3Dv5. A lot of work needs done still with the default setup, let alone adding complex addons.

I believe they have a large enough development team to make the improvements quickly though, so that is nice.

[AKar]

Well, 'into 2021 the earliest' was my expectation for any wider "complex" add-on support anyways. I'm in no rush, more like waiting for P3Dv5.1 for time being.

-Esa

[MkIV Hvd]

I'm in no rush, more like waiting for P3Dv5.1 for time being.

I'm completely with you there! I'm not interested in the least until there are A2A airplanes and TrackIR support. The eye candy aspect and the fact that you can find your house seems very cool but I'm thinking the bloom will come off that rose quite quickly if you have to do it in a simple airplane (that flies like an FSX default type) that you don't want to fly in the first place and look at the beautiful scenery by scanning with the hat switch...ugh......

It seems to me that the new sim is clearly an Xbox game for folks that don't have a clue how to fly, to which MS will make some accommodations for the hard core sim group...bring on P3Dv5.1!

Cheers,
Rob

[cristi.neagu]

I'm not interested in the least until there are A2A airplanes and TrackIR support

There already is TrackIR support...

The eye candy aspect and the fact that you can find your house seems very cool but I'm thinking the bloom will come off that rose quite quickly if you have to do it in a simple airplane (that flies like an FSX default type)

While they may not be AccuSim, the default planes are nothing like default FSX planes.

It seems to me that the new sim is clearly an Xbox game for folks that don't have a clue how to fly, to which MS will make some accommodations for the hard core sim group

Seems like the reverse of that is closer to reality, considering that MSFS is an improvement over P3D in almost any respect.

Hey, look, it's not everyone's cup of tea, i know, especially since it's kinda sparse on the addon front right now. What do you expect, it just came out. But if you're going to say no to it, at least say no to it for real reasons, in full knowledge of the facts, rather than listening to the overly dramatic complaints from uninformed people. "Render unto Caesar" and all that. Especially since trying it out for yourself is pretty cheap.

[twsharp12]

TrackIR support.

you just need to update the games list on TrackIR and it works just fine.

[Buffy Foster]

Track-IR worked fine even before they added the game entry in the Track-IR config program.

I hope MSFS is taking feedback from A2A, PMDG, etc. to make the SDK better.

[patful]

It seems to me that the new sim is clearly an Xbox game for folks that don't have a clue how to fly

As were FS95, FS98, FS2000, FS2002, FS2004, FSX, X-Plane, and P3D (FSX with a training label slapped on it). I bought it knowing that A2A would participate, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered. No other add-ons needed, dream come true right there, MSFS and A2A only. This is the first sim that makes true VFR flight possible, kind of a must since I prefer flying warbirds. A few of the MSFS aircraft are superior to default FSX and P3D offerings IMO, some not so much. Just get rid of that danged G1000 please! Ugh.

[twsharp12]

It seems to me that the new sim is clearly an Xbox game for folks that don't have a clue how to fly

As were FS95, FS98, FS2000, FS2002, FS2004, FSX, X-Plane, and P3D (FSX with a training label slapped on it). I bought it knowing that A2A would participate, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered. No other add-ons needed, dream come true right there, MSFS and A2A only. This is the first sim that makes true VFR flight possible, kind of a must since I prefer flying warbirds. A few of the MSFS aircraft are superior to default FSX and P3D offerings IMO, some not so much. Just get rid of that danged G1000 please! Ugh.

No more weather add-ons, no more scenery add-ons, mesh add-ons, cloud add-ons... Just need to buy aircraft now. Bring on the A2A, PMDG, and Majestic Q400 fleet and we will enter the new golden age of flight simulation.

[CAPFlyer]

I disagree on the no more scenery addons. There are plenty of places where the scenery can be improved, especially with airports. I expect we'll see most of the major airports continue to be done by both old and new scenery devs in the Microsoft/P3D stable. Heck, we've already had an XPlane developer announce they're going to start developing for MSFS2020. We just won't need the large mesh/area addons.

Also, I've heard from more than a few XPlane people that were in the ALPHA and BETA (seems Asobo/Microsoft tried to get a lot of XPlane people in on the development as a comparison point) that there will be a lot of XPlane users that add MSFS2020 to their stable. XPlane is great for GA, but when you start getting into the more complex aircraft, it still lacks a lot because of its restrictive SDK. That's going to draw a lot of users to MSFS2020 as long as Asobo/Microsoft are as open with the SDK as they say they will and we hope.

[patful]

No doubt there will be airport and city addons, and folks will buy them like crazy, but they've become way too overdone for me. I don't need to walk my avatar around to explore, and certainly don't need to go in the airport terminal. I didn't buy the Deluxe or Premium, not really concerned with the airports beyond basic layout. To each his/her own, but I just want to fly. I have a midrange computer, and I've left room in my settings for a complex A2A aircraft, don't want to bog it down with anything more, G1000 included.