Now the cat is out of the bag!

[Chock 17,769]

1 hour ago, GoranM said:

If you can use any sim for recreation, my hats off to you.  I haven't flown, for fun, in a flight sim since I started making aircraft.  8 years.  I can say I find it fun when i test aircraft.  But I've never actually sat down and planned a flight since I started doing this for a living.

That's one of the unfortunate pitfalls of turning a hobby or interest into a job. I've known plenty of people who've ended up finding that one out to their dismay.

[Jimmy RFR 406]

Lots of interesting reading in this thread; love the topic.

There's plenty I would like to see in X-Plane, some of that is stuff I currently see in FSX/P3D. But the other way around applies too - there's plenty that I see in X-Plane that I would like to see in FSX/P3D. Neither sim is 100% perfect for me personally.

Ideally, I would like to see a more 'alive' world in terms of airports & aircraft. If I think back on some of my most stand-out flight simulation experiences, one of the highlights was quite a few years ago in FS9: I was on a serious AI kick, having downloaded, tweaked and compiled hundreds of AI flight plans for tons of small Canadian carriers. But the icing on the cake was when I installed a really nice version of CFB Moose Jaw, and setup military AI to fly touch and goes in CT-155 Hawks, and then flew with them in the pattern, interacting with ATC and listening to the other aircraft doing the same. I spent a lot of hours doing just that - flying patterns and touch and goes at CFB Moose Jaw, all the while with a big silly grin on my face.

The point I'm making is that you can have hyper realistic scenery, as well as a perfectly replicated aircraft, but it still can feel a bit empty without a living world to exist in.

To make a bit more of a point form list however:

- I'd like VFR capable ATC.

- I'd like AI that can be setup to fly schedules, flight plans, touch and goes, patterns.

- Better pilot tracking & activities, but without gamification. This is a tricky one, I think. I love the idea of the sim keeping track of your pilot activity, showing flight history, hours flown, various stats, etc. The problem is that it's far too tempting for developers to turn that into a 'game', as in, earn these XP points, don't get these penalties, etc. The same goes for stuff to do in the sim. I really enjoyed some of the ideas behind Flight's missions and aerocaches - giving me stuff to do in the sim is great - but I don't like when it's gamified too far. I think a random flight generator as a part of the sim could easily be within reach, and done in a way that could simply provide something interesting to do, without being part of a game.

- More default resources. This means more AI aircraft paints & types to allow for a wider variety, maybe even regional specific. And more scenery objects! I'm a big believer in the Gateway airport project, having spent a lot of time contributing. However, I have quit for the time being. I'm simply getting too tired of trying to shoehorn in the same various buildings and objects, often things that aren't intended to be airport buildings, into creative arrangements to LOOK like airport buildings. LR has this extensive facade system in place, yet it remains underutilized. Three or four hangar facades that could work for small, individual aircraft hangars would absolutely revolutionize the Gateway airport scene.

1 hour ago, MarioDonick said:

I think if I'd work for P3D development, I'd use X-Plane for re-creation. :D

Indeed - I have the same issues in reverse! I do enough 'work' stuff in the FSX/P3D world that I turn to X-Plane for my actual fun.

 

[ryanbatc 12,770]

I guess to be competitive XP needs a new weather engine, and better cloud rendering.  (Especially a way to adjust cloud puffs/volume like in XP10 - no clouds I can get 60 fps...  clouds = half that or less).  And also there are a lot of tube liner pilots on P3D  - XP needs more developers doing those.  They're pretty boring to me (GA here!) but I'd love some bizjets (DDENN where's your Global ha?).  And we've said it many times... seasons...  one way or another...seasons!

Honestly I'm going to get P3D v4 - so I can enjoy my orbx stuff I bought for v2/3 that I couldn't really enjoy because of OOM's.  However I will still be flying XP11 - for the majority of my sim time.  Nothing beats Ortho4xp for enjoying scenery!

[tonywob 4,768]

I'll also be picking up P3D v4 (Probably a week or so after release) because I can use all my ORBX stuff in it for free, otherwise I probably would have given it a miss. 

[mattp52 2]

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VR support. But we know this is coming soon

So long as its there when the VR hardware can deliver 1080p and under 700USD I agree.

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Better weather depiction. I'd like to see more complex weather supported.

Yep - moving weather depictions. Hopefully some NGO/Academic Research/Philanthropic Industry Giant will develop an open-access cloud-based global real-time weather modelling engine in a few years (seems inevitable at some stage) that software including X-Plane can leverage to depict it.

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Better addon scenery.

Yes but I'd qualify that by saying not at the expense of the home brew scenery culture X-Plane has now. For example, X-Plane had some amazing talents pushing the envelope in plane development back in the late noughties who are now all but forgotten (XB-70 Valkyrie anyone). A wave of emigres from the "other" sim came along and the spirit changed, despite the clear legacy owed to those originally pushing the envelope. It would be unfortunate to see the same thing happen with scenery creation. Turn scenery creation into a market and it'll be driven by marketers... just saying.

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Ability to customise the mesh locally per airport.

Agree here too. Even given the 1˚ tile restriction, it should be possible at some level as you say, to patch modified data into the tile generation process so localised areas of landform can be of higher fidelity.

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Multi-platform. I'm happy it works on Mac OS X and Windows. It also runs on Linux, but many devs don't release Linux addons

 

The reason it runs on OSX is the only reason I started using it in the first place (many years ago). Apple's hardware decisions in the last decade or so and the increasing demands of the sim have made that a difficult proposition but there are signs of this changing (more customisable Pro line machines). 

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The freeware community. Just look at the tools and scenery available for the sim, for free. The airport gateway is a huge success, and it's great to see people adding their own airports for inclusion into the base sim.

True

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Laminar Research. This one might seem strange, but I like their enthusiasm (especially Austin's). The developer blog is always interesting to read, and it's great that users can interact with the developers and get their feedback heard. LR are pretty open on what they are working on

And true...

[petabread 67]

Everyone is going to have an opinion but there are also absolutes that the community is faced with but not told. I switched from FSX to X-plane 10 in 2011 because I was frustrated with fsx weather, atc and AI. Before Active sky next, no weather engine was good enough, they all caused some sort of crash, stutter, pause, massive wind change. ATC was terrible, putting me on a 100 mile final more than 60% of the time. AI, being in a line of 8 aircraft is awesome, except when you get stuck at an airport because the arriving aircraft is stuck half way off the runway because of an aircraft blocking the taxiway and now no one is going anywhere and you have to ride the grass and takeoff without permission. 

I never like P3D because I felt like there weren't enough differences from fsx. Also pmdg decided to charge for their products and that just turned me off completely. The aircraft and environment in x-plane far exceed what I ever had and get in fsx/p3d.

Now onto the new sims, quite frank, seeing the videos of p3d v4 show me nothing of interest. It's 64bit fsx with a few lighting changes... The night lighting is nothing to write home about, just going on video alone, it doesn't look good, the day looks like p3dv3. I will not purchase. FSW has my attention but not holding my breath.

Onto the subject of the flight sim community and 3rd party development. It's no doubt that pmdg, activesky, so forth and so one prefer p3d because it is very identical to fsx. The community as a whole, holding on for dear life for p3d not because it has a vastly better atc or AI than x-plane but rather that Pmdg and active sky and so forth are not part of x-plane. PMDG says that they were experimenting with x-plane by putting out the dc-6 and they were going to move from there. But don't let that fool anyone, if they were really committed to x-plane, their first choice wouldn't have been the dc-6. Evidence? Was the dc-6 their first aircraft of choice for fs9 or fsx?

Active sky is one of the if not the best weather engine to date for any platform but I get better immersion with x-enviro more often than not. Perfect? No; but it's good enough for now.

So where do I stand and what do I think about the flight sim community? Seems pretty grim but truth is whatever you like you like. I'm not going to stop you or call you and idiot for liking p3d or fsw or x-plane. We have sims for everyone. 

Now this is what I'd like to see happen, I would like to see a new flight sim, that sets the bar, one where you don't need active sky, one that doesn't require pmdg to develop top notch aircraft. Where atc and AI are smooth. My final thought is this, x-plane 11 is my sim and I get everything I want minus atc but I didn't get a satisfactory one in fsx and p3d anyway. 

[Paraffin 2,197]

2 hours ago, mattp52 said:

Yes but I'd qualify that by saying not at the expense of the home brew scenery culture X-Plane has now. For example, X-Plane had some amazing talents pushing the envelope in plane development back in the late noughties who are now all but forgotten (XB-70 Valkyrie anyone). A wave of emigres from the "other" sim came along and the spirit changed, despite the clear legacy owed to those originally pushing the envelope. It would be unfortunate to see the same thing happen with scenery creation. Turn scenery creation into a market and it'll be driven by marketers... just saying...

(That was in response to "Better scenery" in a previous post)

I don't think we have to worry about this, mainly because X-Plane has no built-in DRM for add-on scenery like other sims have. It's the only one of the 64-bit sims that works this way with a completely open, non-DRM'd file system for scenery.

I suspect this is the real reason Orbx backed out of their prematurely announced support of X-Plane. They probably realized there was no easy way to protect their payware, and apparently Austin isn't interested in building in DRM just to protect scenery files.

Personally I don't see this as a disadvantage. The default scenery engine of X-Plane is very good with its high-res terrain mesh, landclass textures, and OSM-based autogen. There is a method for people to create and install their own orthophotos if that's the kind of scenery they prefer. So the base-level scenery is already taken care of, without payware add-ons.

It would be nice to see more variety in trees and building types in other parts of the world besides North America and Europe/UK, but I have a feeling Laminar will gradually build this out over time.

As for individual airports and more detailed cities, I think the freeware scenery in the Gateway and individual downloads will continue to blossom under the current situation, where there isn't much payware competition.And there will still be a few smaller developers who can offer payware at a level where the average hobbyist can't compete, like the Beti-X scenery.

[mmerelles 78]

Considering the power/resources from a company like Lockheed my thought last year was.... ok p3d v3 is basically an improvement to keep moving and supporting the business on the dead horse old 32 bit architecture while they create the NEXT GEN simulator based on a 64 bit architecture that will rise the bar behind the scenes...

 

V4 comes announced, what a massive disappointment to me. Looks horrible on its stock form, looks the same than fsx & p3d except it runs 64 bit and supposed to have better sdk. Bottom line everything is done via the payware model and users have nothing without them.

note: disappointing to me, but a smart move, i was complaining about xplane on other threads by not putting enough resources to make a really strong/open SDK for developers to create masterpieces. Most developers complain about critical limitations for creating weather engines, etc. Laminar is a small company they can not produce the best ATC, the best weather engine, the best aircrafts, the best seasons, the best AI the best everything on the base sim platform.

 

Technically speaking on their stock form, you see a video of both... and xplane 11 looks billon times ahead of p3dv4 and offers a lot more in terms of graphics, lighting, default aircraft, fmc, etc even missing seasons because p3d atc and weather is useless anyway, requires payware for a descent immersion too.

 

BUT this is not a technical discussion, fsx/p3d enjoys a HUGE market share from the Microsoft days, all the customers and developers are there, business is business $$

 

This is just my opinion on this matter, not trying to convince anyone this is the truth.

 

 

[alpha12125 213]

1 hour ago, Paraffin said:

 

I don't think we have to worry about this, mainly because X-Plane has no built-in DRM for add-on scenery like other sims have. It's the only one of the 64-bit sims that works this way with a completely open, non-DRM'd file system for scenery.

I suspect this is the real reason Orbx backed out of their prematurely announced support of X-Plane. They probably realized there was no easy way to protect their payware, and apparently Austin isn't interested in building in DRM just to protect scenery files.

 

it is also my guess that this and the tile limitation is the reason why it was stopped.  Ironically this is also what is so hard to understand about the whole situation. No DRM and the tile limitation are things that are not hidden knowledge in any way or shape or form. You would guess that there was some from of basic research before announcing " the big r&d investment" blablabla.

If it was the one reply from austin (which was more funny than anything) on FB that led to him not developing for it, he is the biggest manchild i know of (ok recently there seems to be another on in the political landscape)

He never intended to develop for x-plane just use it as a way to get more attention or he did zero research before, then actually looked at x-plane and realized 1to1 carbon copies wont cut it. Both are rather pathetic reasons after that gloating post of his.

[scotchegg 4,158]

When I first saw the topic headline and that Tony was the starter I thought for a beautiful second that I'd missed a reveal elsewhere that Tony had partnered up with a texture artist to offer regional sceneries like Orbx. 

*Sigh*, back to real life, I guess...

[barrel_owl 304]

I bought X-Plane11 yesterday and finally had my hands on. I am totally new to this platform, although I have seen tons of videos in the last months e I followed several threads here on AVSIM in the past.
Well, I only wanted to add my two cents here by saying that I was really, really, really impressed by what I have seen and experienced so far.

Sorry for the OT.

[Lorby_SI 2,036]

22 hours ago, tonywob said:

• Ease of development. It is very easy to make addons for the sim, with a big community behind it. I find the SDK for FSX/P3D cumbersome to use, and I like the fact that with X-Plane you can create scenery easily using completely free software (Blender, etc)

IMHO that depends on what kind of addons you want to make. Forgive me for saying this, but if your thing are programmatic addons, then XP is a nightmare - because of its API. I would hazard a guess that it is because of this that there are so few advanced addons for things like ATC, AI or anything that seriously goes outside of the simulator box. And this will stay that way until LR finds it in their hearts to create a modern (=managed code too), extensive, complete and well documented API. This is not a small feat - something like SimConnect is "a dozen engineers work for a year" type of project.

As a dev of advanced addons you choose the platform that has the best development access (time is money) and the largest user base. Currently, the most accessible API is still SimConnect, and by a wide margin at that. It has the largest user base too, so from a business perspective there is not much to think about. If I wanted to get my addons into XP there is not a single line of code that I could re-use. I would have to write them a second time, using a different technology, and I would have to drop quite a few features that the XP API just doesn't support. This means more effort for less result and a smaller user base.

My wish for XP is therefore that LR would set aside visuals for a moment and concentrate on expanding their API - to make the things possible that turn a flight simulator into an aviation simulator.

Best regards

[tonywob 4,768]

8 hours ago, Paraffin said:

I suspect this is the real reason Orbx backed out of their prematurely announced support of X-Plane. They probably realized there was no easy way to protect their payware, and apparently Austin isn't interested in building in DRM just to protect scenery files.

I also think this is the real reason, or maybe difficulty in getting their flow technologies working. I guess we'll never know, but I wouldn't rule out ORBX announcing XP12 support in the future :). It seems they are happy at the moment with AeroflyFS, since it seems thay are able to influence how the sim is developed.

24 minutes ago, Lorby_SI said:

IMHO that depends on what kind of addons you want to make. Forgive me for saying this, but if your thing are programmatic addons, then XP is a nightmare - because of its API

Thanks for you input. I've only really worked with the scenery system, so my experience is limited in this regard. Documentation has never been a strong point and I've been prone to rant about it now and then, so I can imagine the API is probably the same. I guess this is why we also have Gizmo and SASL.

[Lorby_SI 2,036]

7 minutes ago, tonywob said:

Thanks for you input. I've only really worked with the scenery system, so my experience is limited in this regard. Documentation has never been a strong point and I've been prone to rant about it now and then, so I can imagine the API is probably the same. I guess this is why we also have Gizmo and SASL.

That is my impression too - like it was with FSUIPC?

But if you do payware work, IMHO it is not that good a strategy to rely on yet another third party product. That can leave you out in the cold if things go really sideways (=version updates of the core sim that render the middleware useless). Plus you never know if a bug or performance issue is caused by you doing something wrong or them - or the simulator itself. On top of that, if there is real money involved, there will be some questions about licensing that need to be addressed.

But that is more a question of "development philisophy".

Best regards

[gizmosellsbunnys 106]

Like Xplane 11 now since got my Skymax and Maxx working now. With scenery Xplane is something not to your liking fix with sketchup or blender. Always learn something about flight phyiscs in Xplane how torque or propeller wash works, and feel of velocity never got that feeling in fsx or new FSW as of yet. 

Just SCS software that maker of ATS and ETS2 and Xplane got together and combine as one I be in dream world.