Questions for Laminar Research - Users Invited

[Tom Allensworth 1,532]

Recently, we interviewed Lockheed Martin regarding their release of P3D V2. We would like to do the same thing with the guys from Laminar regarding X-Plane. So, here is your opportunity to get your burning questions in front to the Laminar team. You can post any question you want, but remember that we will be parsing them down to 10 or 15 selected questions and you do not want to waste your opportunity on questions that have no hope of being passed on or even answered.

 

We will be putting these questions together and submitting them with our own. You have until midnight EDT, Monday night (that's right, tomorrow night) to get them into us by placing them in this topic. At midnight tomorrow night, this topic will be locked.

 

Thanks for participating!

[VeryBumpy 272]

Q's.....

 

Why don't you address the common complaints that prevent X-Plane from being 'the next sim' of choice for everyone? i.e. seasons, ATC and airport buildings.

[saed45 38]

Q's.....

 

Why don't you address the common complaints that prevent X-Plane from being 'the next sim' of choice for everyone? i.e. seasons, ATC and airport buildings.

 

airport buildings have already been addressed. the newest patch released alot of free airports. and in future updates im sure even more airports will get released. 

 

the other problems you mentioned are still persistent so hopefully they will be addressed soon 

[jcomm 5,890]

Ok, here are my questions, and thank you Tom for your great initiative!!!

 

1) Will we have some form of changing weather parameters, using plugins / external apps, in such a way that wind speed and direction / variability, temperature, turbulence and precipitation can be set at various levels? Even better, will it be possible to set pressure levels, such that we can, for instance say at what height the 850 Mb pressure level is ( geopotential )? This last feature would allow to model the temperature side of the well known - "from high to low watch out bellow"... and would be pioneeing if released before Aerowinx PSX, which already includes it as an option :-)

 

2) Will we have the chance to better fine tune prop turboprop and jet engines, trying to adapt them to their RW counterparts, and BTW, do you plan to change the logic of the free-runing turboprop model so that we do not see FF changes with RPM changes, at constant alt and throttle settings?

 

3) Will the changes made to the flight dynamics model allow for a better / more plausible behaviour of prop aircraft, namely by having more yaw than bank as a consequence of the prop spiraling slipstream effects, and thus accounting for the unfamous "torque bug"?

 

4) Will we get a better default GPS, with more functionalities, including route editing, etc...?

 

5) Will anything be done regarding the unfamous "blurr" effect we see at higher altitude when looking towards areas not bellonging to the currently processed scenery tiles?

 

Thank you very much!

[ARTI 2]

Whether or when Laminar plans to release long-promissed decent sound architecture in XP10 for sound designers not 3rd party programming add ons... World Simulator without the sound?  

[TOGA-saurus 330]

Same as ARTI. X-Plane has been in development for years now, and the current sound engine leaves a lot to be desired. Can we expect a new engine in the near future?

[Polar 30]

I am probably going to get X-plane 10 however the lack of seasonal textures is a real problem for me. I have been doing a lot of research on the product and this is for me the biggest issue. I love flying in the northern reaches of the world, Canada, Greenland, Norway etc.and not having a white landscape in winter is troublesome, takes the realism effect out. More and more quality add-ons are coming no doubt, but having been a simmer for over 15 years the issues I have and those already expressed are the game changers for many.

 

This product has so many advantages, 64 bit maybe the biggest, this is your window plz take full advantage of the biggest opportunity you have to make this the next generation sim. Thank you

[uwespeed 497]

Although not a question, but to inform the uninformed : X-Plane has seasons since years, but not in a way you may expect - you can't see it visually, but only in flight through icing on the wings (and the correspondent consequences) or through icy runways, and thus (much) longer braking distances. And there are so many more items, which aren't visible visually, but add a lot to the flying experience.

 

Apart from that - two questions from me:

1. Would it be possible to have again (!!) darker cloud shadows (or maybe a slider in the rendering options for tuning it to the own liking)? I miss this great feature, since it adds a lot to the immersion. EDIT: I miss the cloud shadows more than seasonal textures ...
2. Up to XP10.03 (or so) it was possible to look around with TrackIR also in the external views. Could this feature be reintroduced?

[carrotroot 77]

Q1: DSF re-cuts, how often are you planning to update?

 

Q2: What is your road map for Autogen improvements? Do you plan to do regional specific autogen during X-Plane 10's run or is this a goal for X-Plane 11?

[strider1 575]

Ok, here are my questions, and thank you Tom for your great initiative!!!

 

1) Will we have some form of changing weather parameters, using plugins / external apps, in such a way that wind speed and direction / variability, temperature, turbulence and precipitation can be set at various levels? Even better, will it be possible to set pressure levels, such that we can, for instance say at what height the 850 Mb pressure level is ( geopotential )? This last feature would allow to model the temperature side of the well known - "from high to low watch out bellow"... and would be pioneeing if released before Aerowinx PSX, which already includes it as an option :-)

 

2) Will we have the chance to better fine tune prop turboprop and jet engines, trying to adapt them to their RW counterparts, and BTW, do you plan to change the logic of the free-runing turboprop model so that we do not see FF changes with RPM changes, at constant alt and throttle settings?

 

3) Will the changes made to the flight dynamics model allow for a better / more plausible behaviour of prop aircraft, namely by having more yaw than bank as a consequence of the prop spiraling slipstream effects, and thus accounting for the unfamous "torque bug"?

 

4) Will we get a better default GPS, with more functionalities, including route editing, etc...?

 

5) Will anything be done regarding the unfamous "blurr" effect we see at higher altitude when looking towards areas not bellonging to the currently processed scenery tiles?

 

Thank you very much!

+1

[Murmur 3,941]

1) Seasonal textures is one of the features most requested by users. What is your roadmap about it? Are you considering implementing it using shaders (like FlightGear is now experimenting) instead of conventional textures sets?

 

2) The number of payware add-ons aircrafts for X-Plane has increased a lot in the last few years. There's probably a lot of pressure from their authors to have a "frozen" flight model. Can we still expect the base flight model/engine model to be refined and improved in future updates, or will it be "frozen" to meet the wishes of 3rd party developers?

 

3) X-Plane only loads scenery, weather and navaids in 6 tiles (3x2 degrees) around the aircraft. This limitation becomes apparent when flying at high altitude (scenery and weather) or when using local map for flight planning, etc. (only local airports and navaids can be seen on the map). Are there any improvements in the plans?

 

4) Can you give us a high level roadmap of where you intend to advance X-Plane during the current version run? What features will you update/improve, and what will you just leave to 3rd party developers to improve? ATC, AI (20 aircrafts limitation), rendering engine, etc.?

[wohnlich 5]

What is the long-term strategy of X-Plane? In other words, apart from the nitty-gritty bugfixing and small-scale additions, what extensions do you plan, say, during the next 2-3 years? 

[ohsirus 241]

The Current Knob Manipulation method is very lackluster and as more and more complex AC are developed it's a chore to make simple precise changes. The mouse wheel needs to be incorporated into more than a zoom feature.

[airlinejets 709]

Would it be possible to have again (!!) darker cloud shadows (or maybe a slider in the rendering options for tuning it to the own liking)? I miss this great feature, since it adds a lot to the immersion.

 

 

Are these dark enough? :wink:

[uwespeed 497]

Disregard ... doubleposting somehow ...