Microsoft Fs2004 (5) SDK Are Available Now!

[Chris Willis 8]

Hi, A Century of Flight Software Development Kits;-ABL SDK -Aircraft Container SDK -ATC Voicepack SDK -FSEdit SDK -Multiplayer and Flight Instructor SDK Available here to download:http://www.microsoft.com/games/flightsimul...wnloads_sdk.aspThanksChris Willis[link:fsw.simflight.com/FSWMenuFsSim.html]Clouds And Addons For MsFs

[Guest Mark McG]

Hopefully this will dispel all the conspiracy theories that MS were not going to release/make SDKs for a century of flight.

[Dillon 2,197]

There was never any Conspiracy Theory, just observations people had based on the troubling silence of Microsoft. It's great to know they are reading these forums and acting to help out the many developers supporting FS2k4. Now I hope PSS and FSD will do something concerning upgrades to their great FS2k2 aircraft. FSD already said they would upgrade their aircraft (Commander, Seneca, etc.) once the SDK's are released; well now they are. One can only hope PSS will do the same with their A320 and Dash8 add-ons.

[Guest crabster]

Ok, no more excuses, lets get some addons updated!!! :)

[Guest russell]

I just took a look through the new multiplayer SDK...Oh. This is just painful. I can't look at it anymore. It's completely useless. It looks like the only thing updated is the first 2 steps of "Connecting an Add-On", and even there some things are wrong. All the steps after 2 are completely wrong -- they're the instructions for how to connect to an fs2002 session, and fs2004 uses a *completely* different method now. All the packet id's are wrong -- they're the old fs2002 id's. The weather packets haven't been udpated either. None of the errors in the fs2002 SDK have been corrected.The fs2002 SDK was riddled with errors and missing information. This is a 5-minute attempt at updating that document, when what was needed was a total rewrite. All of us multiplayer developers had to rewrite our code to make our programs work with fs2004 (and figure out everything the hard way, without an SDK). But Microsoft can't be bothered to update their docs, even after all these months of the product being released.Painful, really painful.I hope the other SDKs are better, for the sake of the developers using them.RussellFSHost, FSHostSpy, FSChatScroll, SBRelayhttp://www.chocolatesoftware.com/

[Mike S KPDX 597]

agreed, none of these are of any value to major (and minor) developers whatsoever. These will have no impact at all on any payware upgrades and release dates.However, this was also not unexpected.

[Dillon 2,197]

This is very disappointing and sad to say the least....

[Guest Outer Marker]

Oh what a disaster! It's as if the MS team were reading our posts and saw we were surprised at their lack of SDK response! What did we get? Utter garbage! I can only speak to the FSEdit SDK and the Aircraft container SDK as I am an FDE/Sounds developer. This is what I observed:The Aircraft Container is unchanged from FS2002. Nothing of use here. All paramters are the same, syntax is the same, and net result is the same. Not worth a second look except to note that when testing, AI is now cached in FS2004, so when re-loading your aircraft, you have to have AI set to 0%. No problem there for test purposes.Now I must really fault the FSEdit SDK. The FSEdit is just a front-end to the aircraft.cfg file. You can edit many more of the parameters in the .cfg file by doing it manually via notepad. What is awful however is that we still have no .air file SDK! This is where the magic happens in flight people! The SDK would have you believe that FSEdit can properly configure the .air file as well. This is not the case! Use FSEdit to "over-tweak" your aircraft and it will become so unstable that it will likely become unflyable. The correct way to build an FDE is to start with the .air file and then the .cfg file. Terrible!Glad to see my fellow developers have found the same useless information as I have.Dismayed,Outer Marker

[Guest Douglas K]

Thank you Chris for the announcement and link. :)>The Aircraft Container is unchanged from FS2002. Nothing of use here. All paramters are the same, syntax is the same, and net result is the same.

[Guest frankcubillos]

We at ProjectAI were really hoping too see the AI SDK by now....It's almost into the next sim cycle already (FS2006) :-(Can I have some cheese with that whine please? lol ;-)Frankhttp://fsgateway.com/frank/fs9paibeta.jpg

[ronzie 21]

I hope your remarks about FS Panel Studio were in jest. Even though I have not downloaded the patched FS2004 version but use the version upgrade prior to that, I have through preferences setting the FS Home directory and using Open Panel.Cfg direct been modifying panels and XML gauges without problems.Also note in the DreamFleet forum the thread regarding the posted response quoting an MSFS Game Studio developer basicly stating that if developers stuck rigidly to the table specs defined in the FS2K2 SDK, then those models would meet the requirement of FS2K4. This might explain why parts of the FS2K4 Aircraft Container SDK have not changed that much.

[Fitz505 21]

Did MS announce, that they were going to release an AI SDK for 2K4? I don't recall them doing it for 2K2. I remember reading an article way back, on how it's unlikely they would reveal any info on how it operates. That's kind of the "holy grail" for their flight sim series, I guess. I'd be surprised if they give up any trade secrets, so to speak, on how it operates, though one could always hope. The possibilities are mind bogling. John Fitzpatrick

[Guest Douglas K]

>I hope your remarks about FS Panel Studio were in jest.MSFS Game Studio developer basicly stating that if developers stuck rigidly to the table specs defined in the FS2K2 SDK, then those models would meet the requirement of FS2K4.:)

[Guest Ron Freimuth]

>Oh what a disaster! It's as if the MS team were reading our>posts and saw we were surprised at their lack of SDK response!>What did we get? Utter garbage! I can only speak to the FSEdit>SDK and the Aircraft container SDK as I am an FDE/Sounds>developer. This is what I observed:>>The Aircraft Container is unchanged from FS2002. Nothing of>use here. All paramters are the same, syntax is the same, and>net result is the same. Not worth a second look except to note>that when testing, AI is now cached in FS2004, so when>re-loading your aircraft, you have to have AI set to 0%. No>problem there for test purposes. A few new things were added for FS2004. Nothing I didn't know, in fact comments in some of the FS2K4 aircraft.cfg files explained most of the new lines. Not that all the explanations were correct, or made sense. Further, many of the new [autopilot] settings don't work at all. Or, not correctly. For example, I knew "pitch limit" would not keep the crappy MS FS autopilot from continuing to try to increase alitude even if pitch was 20 degrees. The old and useless or just plain wrong explainations that were in the FS2K2 SDK are unchanged.>...>The SDK would have you believe that FSEdit can properly>configure the .air file as well. This is not the case! Use>FSEdit to "over-tweak" your aircraft and it will become so>unstable that it will likely become unflyable. The correct way>to build an FDE is to start with the .air file and then the>.cfg file. Terrible!>>Glad to see my fellow developers have found the same useless>information as I have.>>Dismayed,>Outer Marker MS still pretends that FSEdit is the solution to doing flight dyanamics. Maybe the MS Airheads told MSFS managment "its done". Clearly, it's a mess that only adds to the confusion. First, the MS Airheads come up with the $%@# FSEdit, then they continue to pretend that it's of value. Who do they think they are kidding? Ron

[Datalink 26]

About time :-lol I'm waiting for the AI traffic SDK, I'll have some fun with that :-) - Guess I've only got to wait about 2 months :-lol