(snip)

There's a bit more to it than that; one of my professors was an airfoil engineer at airbus, and he spent days first optimising the formulas used to describe the wing, not to mention spending months performing various calculations in the windtunnel. But the short and sweet version is as you said. :)

spent days first optimising the formulas used to describe the wing, not to mention spending months performing various calculations in the windtunnel.

I thought that's what he said?

Edited January 11, 201214 yr by ZachLW

I guess I'm a little late to the party here, but thanks again to Robert for an excellent, well written, and totally depressing assessment of what we all feared would be the case with MS Flight. Makes sense given the reasons they dropped Flightsim from further development a few years ago. Business is business and they make tons of $$ from console games..... While I anxiously await the arrival of the PMDG 777, its pains me to know that we are really pushing the limits of what is possible given the software limitations of FSX..... Maybe the entire add-on software community will ultimately choose to port their products to something else, whether it's XPlane or something similar so that we can finally take advantage of the numerous hardware upgrades in CPU's and video cards that are available today.Phil

Lol!The thing that bugs me is that the A2A simulations are syaing the opposite to PMDG; they are not interested in X-plane. They say they reviewed X-plane 10 and it fell short of their requirements in every area.I love A2A aircraft, with Accusim. The engines are extremely well simulated and have many variables for damage and wear, and that damage stays when you shut down the simulator. Once you've experienced simulation at that level of realism its hard to go back to pistons engines on aircraft that don't have this kind of deep engineering modelling.So you see the problem - split in the developer community.

Not totally. A little later in the same thread, Scott said this: "If we see this [i.e. sales of A2A's FSX products] slow down, and Xplane gets close to FSX in terms of our own requirements, we would take a serious look at it [i.e. X-Plane], but it's... just too far off at this point." In other words, they're not considering it right now but might be open to it if there are changes in both the economics and the technical picture.We're very early on right now in a complicated process of evaluating new platforms, maybe moving (but to which one?), maybe not (FSX might go away at some future point but that won't happen tomorrow). There'll be a lot of trial and error, and the picture will keep changing. Remember that in his OP, Robert didn't say definitively that PMDG was committing to X-Plane - only that they found it promising and are planning to explore it via what's essentially a test project that will let them see what's involved in shifting a product to X-Plane and what the results are.It's likely to be a long and sometimes bumpy - but definitely interesting - ride.FYI - I have no affilition with A2A and don't have any special knowledge. I just admire their products, same as you. But I'm finding things to enjoy in X-Plane, too.

Edited January 12, 201214 yr by Alan_A

Yes, I suppose anything can happen but at the moment the fact is that A2A aren't interested in X-plane and PMDG are.I'd be interested to hear what you like about X-plane, and any recommendations for add-ons.

The whole MS Flight approach seems odd to me. If they want it to be a 'point scoring' game, why didn't they develop it for XBox? Plus, it seems to me that such a game would do better as a fighter plane type of thing. I would think the 'target audience' will get bored rather quickly given all the options in the gaming world today. Young people want to blow things up, not fly around.What I really wonder about is... Underneath it all, is Flight a better development platform that FSX? There has been much written during the development of the NGX about the limitations of FSX and that the autopilot and fuel delivery had to be specially designed. Not to mention the limitations of the engine itself being processor dependent, not utilizing multiple cores and graphics cards as well as it could have. Has any of this been addressed in Flight? Robert mentioned the legal and financial issues surrounding how MS is handling this, but not much about it's potential as a development platform. Is much even known about it? If it's not an improved platform, then MS Flight Simulator is truly dead as far as the future goes, which is sad.

The whole MS Flight approach seems odd to me. If they want it to be a 'point scoring' game, why didn't they develop it for XBox? Plus, it seems to me that such a game would do better as a fighter plane type of thing. I would think the 'target audience' will get bored rather quickly given all the options in the gaming world today. Young people want to blow things up, not fly around.What I really wonder about is... Underneath it all, is Flight a better development platform that FSX? There has been much written during the development of the NGX about the limitations of FSX and that the autopilot and fuel delivery had to be specially designed. Not to mention the limitations of the engine itself being processor dependent, not utilizing multiple cores and graphics cards as well as it could have. Has any of this been addressed in Flight? Robert mentioned the legal and financial issues surrounding how MS is handling this, but not much about it's potential as a development platform. Is much even known about it? If it's not an improved platform, then MS Flight Simulator is truly dead as far as the future goes, which is sad.

You raise some very interesting points. Kids ask me about simming, "can you crash" "can you blow things up"So I never thought of it as you have suggested

Robert -Thanks for your clarifications and explanations regarding platform considerations and support, by PMDG, regarding future projectsSam

Edited January 12, 201214 yr by SLKVP

I guess this is the real question about all possible platforms. At the end of the day fsx isn't great, it's full of limitations and isn't really taking advantage of the hardware we have today and is coming, my fairly high end system runs it fine, but it not really taking advantage of what it old be capable of. Many addons including scenery is having to do things to Orkney around the limitations, whether that is how things look such as scenery, lighting etc, or making engines, flight models, interaction with weather etc work as needed. P3D as the potential to fix a lot of this, but as seen isn't a consumer product as such. Xplane as some nice features, such as dynamic lighting(no more dodgy ground texture lighting etc.) When you look at the likes of outerra and some of the other new earth sim platforms, they show just what is capable and the world we should be dimming in. But again it's if they have the rest of the tech in them to allow sims aircraft to function within this world realistically.Now we have flight, looks like many improvements visually, making better use of hardware etc, but the burning question is, if it had been fs11 instead and we take away all the marketing restrictions etc, would it be the platform to develop for? Does it allow the likes of pmdg, orbx, or any other new developers to make stuff for it that is realistic and a simulator? Because if it does, all may not be lost, because there is nothing to stop Microsoft from at some point, realising their errors may decide to change their strategy, nothing o stop them from turning it into fs11, with some modifications to their app store policy that appeals to developers(I personally see no issue why ms shouldn't make something out of the product they created to allow others to make money out of) if they'd released fsx and done it(but better terms) then I think it actually be a success, after all we brought fsx, then spent fortune adding to it. The issue with flight is that its not coming with enough in the first place, and the terms are naff. But either way, what we need to know is, flight capable of being fs11, is it capable of giving us the graphic performance, hardware performance, and allow developers to create realstic scenery, realistic addon simulations, realistic flight experiences...if not doesn't really matter what addon market policy they adopt, it will remain a pointless platform, and we are left with to an extent a sub performing platform in fsx, for what we should have, or waiting for xplane to come p o scratch or something new to come along. Flight may be our best hope in some ways, but just not in it's present format.

When it come to dvelopers chosing platforms, I think a lot of it boils down to how you are used to programming and what libraries you are used to working with. I mean, who wants to start programming for OpenGL after 10 years of DirectX?

I salute to PMDG for standing upright in the face of Microsoft's proposed business model and the pressure they tried to put on PMDG. I can only hope that many other developers currently in the "secondary market" will do the same.FSX does have its quirks and flaws, yet I wouldn't want to exchange it for the new world Microsoft is envisioning for us which would mean certain death for any serious flight simming in favor of arcadish fly-gaming intended for the average gamer Joe.From all I could learn about Flight as a normal user and from the business practices that have been established in most software companies over the past years I really didn't expect anything different from Microsoft.I think it was pretty clear after the demise of the Aces team that MS would want to go for something that would be more profitable in their eyes, and that catering a hardcore simmer community would not be their prime objective.For my part, I've got a heavy investment in FSX payware addons, sceneries and tools so I'm definitely looking forward to the goodies that will still be released for FSX over the coming years to keep me running on the FSX platform.I'm not against moving to a new platform, but I am against moving to a platform that will not provide an in-depth hardcore flight simming experience whilst applying abusive, imposing policies to users and secondary market developers.

I'm not against moving to a new platform, but I am against moving to a platform that will not provide an in-depth hardcore flight simming experience whilst applying abusive, imposing policies to users and secondary market developers.

This pretty much sums up how I feel. Thanks for accurately expressing it Dave!

I'm trying to figure out who Flight is geared towards. People who are use to realistic add-ons from PMDG and others to fly around the world and simulate real world flight aren't gonna want MS Flight. Without an SDK, it kinda screws this community from hoping that that'll happen down the road. Sure, MS might release add-ons through a Marketplace like Android/Google, but who in their right mind is gonna want that hassle? How much would the whole world cost? How about add-on aircraft? If it doesn't come from developers we know who can make realistic planes, then why bother? It would take forever to develop these things (e.g., ATC, land, Wx, aircraft, AI). Stupid, very stupid. As far as I'm concerned, FSX with its games or missions was a complete joke. Dumbest thing ever. Boring. Sure, a couple were interesting to try once, but that's it.People who buy these type of things want one of two things, action or simulation. None of which MS Flight offer. Even with an app marketplace, Flight will be a flop. Simulators like us are gonna lose any possible interest in a week. Gamers won't even look at Flight unless they're about 10 years old or under.I'm really at a loss as to where MS thinks it's going with this latest software? So much time spent developing a worthless title. Surely we're missing something, but nothing I've seen indicates that. It really sounds like MS is under the assumption that flight sims are too difficult and that a new version needed to be made into a game. Very odd. Games nowadays are designed to be action-packed and engaging. Jumping in a plan to fly through hoops or getting points for good landings is not exciting unless you are easily entertained.IMO, Flight looks like something you'd download onto a tablet or smartphone. Those are the kinda games you play on those devices, not a PC or even console.

Edited January 16, 201214 yr by Orlaam

Folks, there are over ten people subscribed to this topic that receive updates everytime a post is made. I'm sure not all of them want their inbox crowded with replies regarding a really bad dude and the parody of that film clip. Just saying. I removed them since they're off topic, but welcome you to put them in Hangar Chat.

I salute to PMDG for standing upright in the face of Microsoft's proposed business model and the pressure they tried to put on PMDG. I can only hope that many other developers currently in the "secondary market" will do the same.FSX does have its quirks and flaws, yet I wouldn't want to exchange it for the new world Microsoft is envisioning for us which would mean certain death for any serious flight simming in favor of arcadish fly-gaming intended for the average gamer Joe.From all I could learn about Flight as a normal user and from the business practices that have been established in most software companies over the past years I really didn't expect anything different from Microsoft.I think it was pretty clear after the demise of the Aces team that MS would want to go for something that would be more profitable in their eyes, and that catering a hardcore simmer community would not be their prime objective.For my part, I've got a heavy investment in FSX payware addons, sceneries and tools so I'm definitely looking forward to the goodies that will still be released for FSX over the coming years to keep me running on the FSX platform.I'm not against moving to a new platform, but I am against moving to a platform that will not provide an in-depth hardcore flight simming experience whilst applying abusive, imposing policies to users and secondary market developers.

Well I don"t agree... after all Flight, if you remove the top arcade like information banner, looks really nice with nice tree autogen and a much better default ground texture than FSX.... Now, I feel that PMDG or ORBX, by refusing the new Microsoft business model is taking us hostages and preventing us from getting access to a new Flightsim....Oh we could always use it some may say, but would we, hardcore simmers, would like to Fly FSX without REX, PMDG, Aerosoft etc. ?Now, I can understand Microsoft wanting to charge developers for the use of their platform.... after all, without FS, there wouldn't be aircrafts or scenery deleoppment companies....In conclusion, I feel that you developers could have accepted to come at the table of negotiation, at least, and see where you could have find an agree point... Instead of that you preferred to stand proudly in front of the bad huge Microsoft company.... and us, we are left down with a 5 year old FSX..... or a future Prepar3d that will cost us 70 USD a year to use at least.... Thank you.Greg

Edited January 16, 201214 yr by pao