4 hours ago, nikit said:

I do not think so, normally XP usually has 4-5 years of travel, a lot would have changed the thing so that they already have a new XP. When Laminar confirms it, I'll believe it.

Take a gander at this - Stephen usually has his story straight  https://xplanereviews.com/index.php?/forums/topic/1128-laminar-research-flightsimexpo-2019/

It is possible that I have not understood correctly, English is not my language, but I think you mention that the XP12 will be released later this year, and what I read in the link that you put, is that we will have beta 11.40 by the end of the year , which will be a long beta and I do not think we'll see xp12 until the end of 2020 or 2021. Of course I can be wrong, of course. Sorry for my English, I'm using a translator.

Product cycles for almost everything in this world tend to get shorter, X-Plane won't be an exception.

People should manage expectations though. MS will have streaming data, a thing I have proposed since like 2010. They have all the data (especially all the buildings in 3D, on top of the ortho photos), and it's a no brainer to connect it to a flight simulator. Really, it's a joke it took so long.

BUT

MS doesn't have any airports (maybe the outdated c**p they sold to Lockheed, nobody wants that anyways) and they do not have the Scenery Gateway Laminar does. There is no way in the world they will be able to ship MSFS2020 with a complete set of legit airports - maybe heavily dumbed down ones, yeah. In those terms, Laminar is really on top of their game, and a few years in.

So at this point, to make MSFS2020 look old upon release, XP12 "only" needs two things:

- New weather engine, and by new I mean top of the line. 

- Option to download high spec orthophotos right through the installer, or have a streaming solution.

The second point - quintessential to face MS2020 head on, is technically trivial (the download option anyways), it's a matter of investment. All it takes is Austin realising he's not Howard Hughes and to pour his money over X-Plane instead of some crazy side project.

Before people start stating what MS will and won't do, consider that AI has advanced so much during the past decade that it's very likely that MS has automated the airport creation process. It's not that complicated. 

 

5 hours ago, Colonel X said:

Product cycles for almost everything in this world tend to get shorter, X-Plane won't be an exception.

People should manage expectations though. MS will have streaming data, a thing I have proposed since like 2010. They have all the data (especially all the buildings in 3D, on top of the ortho photos), and it's a no brainer to connect it to a flight simulator. Really, it's a joke it took so long.

It's still not the ideal way to generate scenery for at least a few of us, who fly at low altitude and pay attention to what the ground looks like under 1,000 feet in altitude.

I'm thinking mainly helicopters, but you see a lot of scenery on final approach in fixed wing before you get to a hand-tailored airport model. Some people like zooming through wilderness areas like canyons too, which need to look good at low altitude. 

I know there is excitement about the new MSFS scenery modeling, but I want to see what it looks like close up, away from airports, before deciding it's the bee's knees. The early hints at the default aircraft in the new MSFS don't include a helicopter, which makes me suspect they don't want us looking too closely at the ground.

We also have no idea what kind of flight model they'll use. I don't care how good the scenery modeling is, if it turns out to be "flight on rails" I won't be spending much time with it.
 

Quote

 

So at this point, to make MSFS2020 look old upon release, XP12 "only" needs two things:

- New weather engine, and by new I mean top of the line. 

- Option to download high spec orthophotos right through the installer, or have a streaming solution.

The second point - quintessential to face MS2020 head on, is technically trivial (the download option anyways), it's a matter of investment. All it takes is Austin realising he's not Howard Hughes and to pour his money over X-Plane instead of some crazy side project.

 

I'm not sure Austin would ever go there (streaming ortho-based scenery). He has deprecated the texture swapping approach for scenery changes in the past, and seems to be a fan of doing everything with procedural generation as much as possible.

The current landclass + OSM isn't that bad, if you aren't intimately familiar with the area you're flying over. It just needs a heck of a lot more regionalized 3D autogen like the free Japan Pro scenery.

Another thing with regard to streaming -- Laminar isn't set up for this, in terms of infrastructure and their "buy it once" pricing model. They don't have Microsoft's Bing database, so they would have to license a satellite data source. High bit rate streaming is expensive to provide on a continual basis. There is also the cost of servers and tech staff to keep everything running smoothly. Laminar might be able to outsource the servers and the data connection -- something like what Frontier does with Elite: Dangerous using Amazon web services. But Frontier isn't serving anything like the amount of data MSFS is showing in that scenery. It wouldn't be cheap, and can't be covered with a one-time $60 purchase.

Which is why the new MSFS might require a monthly subscription (maybe). Monthly subscription is an untested pricing model for flight sims, and for how it could affect the add-on developers. And once again, Microsoft has the advantage here because they're already pushing a streamed game subscription for Xbox games.

All of this is a long-winded way of saying I hope Laminar sticks to the procedural scenery approach along with Gateway airports. We need a good alternative until it's absolutely proven that streamed ortho-based scenery is a better approach. We might be on the cusp of that, but as a sim helicopter pilot, I want stunning visuals right down to ground level. 

20 hours ago, olderndirt said:

Take a gander at this - Stephen usually has his story straight  https://xplanereviews.com/index.php?/forums/topic/1128-laminar-research-flightsimexpo-2019/

Thanks for posting this. An extremely interesting analysis and summary.

I wish LR was this open about ongoing development more often. And the improvments to the APU and "other systems" did not get any mention in the 11.35 change log, so I was a bit surprised.to see them in the presentation.

Personally, I'd like to know how much ($$$) this will affect current addons - scenery, aircraft and plugins.  Will anything working in XP11 work in 12?  You know developers are not going to be offering updates for free and I don't blame them.  You can bet Laminar XP12 will be premium ($$$) for a start.

Edited June 14, 20196 yr by olderndirt

44 minutes ago, olderndirt said:

Personally, I'd like to know how much ($$$) this will affect current addons - scenery, aircraft and plugins.  Will anything working in XP11 work in 12?  You know developers are not going to be offering updates for free and I don't blame them.  You can bet Laminar XP12 will be premium ($$$) for a start.

That's a good question. I know there has been some pain in the payware buyer community, with some developers requiring a full new purchase of aircraft going from XP10 to XP11. Notably Carenado, although with the size of their fleet and the fairly drastic changes Austin has been making with engine modeling it's understandable. 

I'm taking an optimistic stance on that, and thinking the big things Austin wanted to work on in XP11 with flight models and engine models is mostly done.

If XP12's big selling point is a better weather engine, seasons, and ATC (Are You Listening Austin??), then we might be able to move our payware XP11 aircraft into XP12 without having to buy every one of them all over again.

A requirement to re-buy new versions of payware aircraft you already "own" isn't a sustainable model for every release of X-Plane. At least from the end-user perspective. It might work if it's required for every other version. 

Of course that's going to look different for payware developers. but they can always take up the slack by introducing more variety in aircraft to buy. 

As far as payware scenery goes, I don't think there would be a requirement to re-purchase scenery in XP12. The current scenery engine is solid, supporting both the default procedurally-generated approach and user-made ortho scenery. It doesn't need a drastic change. What it does need is a lot more regionalized autogen buildings like the free Japan Pro scenery, but that shouldn't require re-purchase of payware airports. 

All of this just a wild guess, of course. Standard disclaimers apply. 😉

Since I tried DCS, IL-2 and War Thunder I totally sympathize with the idea of continuous updates without a formal version number update that requires, buying a new version...

These platforms keep evolving, and users, specially in DCS World and War Thunder, simply push the updates, and any paid modules - necessarily upgraded to be compatible with the new version of the base platform.

I hate the idea of <whatever flight sim> - N

and having to port, or not being able to for a good while, all our add-ons to the new version.

DCS World, War Thunder, and certainly other gaming platforms too, make it easy for the user.

I know their business model is defferent from LR's since they work mostly in "closed-circuit", but DCS is oppened to external 3pds too...

Just to think I will have to start, again, from scratch, when XP11 get's announced, and then released 😕

 

Edited June 14, 20196 yr by jcomm

On 6/13/2019 at 6:19 AM, Colonel X said:

Product cycles for almost everything in this world tend to get shorter, X-Plane won't be an exception.

People should manage expectations though. MS will have streaming data, a thing I have proposed since like 2010. They have all the data (especially all the buildings in 3D, on top of the ortho photos), and it's a no brainer to connect it to a flight simulator. Really, it's a joke it took so long.

BUT

MS doesn't have any airports (maybe the outdated c**p they sold to Lockheed, nobody wants that anyways) and they do not have the Scenery Gateway Laminar does. There is no way in the world they will be able to ship MSFS2020 with a complete set of legit airports - maybe heavily dumbed down ones, yeah. In those terms, Laminar is really on top of their game, and a few years in.

So at this point, to make MSFS2020 look old upon release, XP12 "only" needs two things:

- New weather engine, and by new I mean top of the line. 

- Option to download high spec orthophotos right through the installer, or have a streaming solution.

The second point - quintessential to face MS2020 head on, is technically trivial (the download option anyways), it's a matter of investment. All it takes is Austin realising he's not Howard Hughes and to pour his money over X-Plane instead of some crazy side project.

It's easy to get caught up in the eye candy that we see in the trailer.  But, despite that, FS2020 looks interesting.  I've switched back and forth between XP and FS more times than I can count as I don't want to maintain two sims.

I would hope that you are correct that XP12 can make FS2020 look old upon its release.  But, will the time, effort and investment be made to do so?  I would not be opposed to a streaming/subscription model in return for some real improvements.

26 minutes ago, ricka47 said:

I would hope that you are correct that XP12 can make FS2020 look old upon its release.

Whoa! Now we're comparing imaginary creatures. I wonder if Godzilla could beat King Kong in a best two out of three falls match?

X-Plane mobile is (as far as I understood) switching to a subscription model. That sounds like a test balloon to me.

On the other hand, aren't we all subscribed to X-Plane already? I am paying 69$ every 48 months or so. Really I would love to see X-Plane switch to a subscription model, if that enables faster updates / improvements. There could be a fall back version for people pausing on the subscription. For example, keep the version you entered the subscription with.

On 6/13/2019 at 7:36 PM, Paraffin said:

If XP12's big selling point is a better weather engine, seasons, and ATC (Are You Listening Austin??)

He’s not listening.  LR always marches to its own beat  

I’m all for those things you mention, but that is a hyper aggressive expectation list, at least based upon progress to date. 

21 minutes ago, irrics said:

He’s not listening.  LR always marches to its own beat  

I’m all for those things you mention, but that is a hyper aggressive expectation list, at least based upon progress to date. 

I agree about marching to its own beat, but Laminar has surprised us before with innovative features based on that internal beat.

The major one was a move to 64-bit memory address, halfway through the XP10 product cycle. That's usually the kind of thing developers save for a major release. It came more or less out of the blue, and it was free! That happened something like 2 years before LM and DTG got around to updating the ESP engine to 64-bits, and they both wanted to charge for that upgrade.

VR support is another one. There was a smattering of requests, but you can see from the other thread here on the survey that only a tiny number of people actually use it. Laminar is making a push on it anyway, because they apparently see it as a necessary feature going forward.

Moving away from OpenGL and towards Vulkan/Metal for (maybe) better performance and smoother programming is another one. That's a better foundation for a future weather engine and seasons than OpenGL.

Laminar might not be giving me everything I want right now like better weather, but I like the forward momentum they're showing. I'm not sure expanding the staff -- as with the subscription suggestion up-thread -- would help either. It might be one of those situations programmers are familiar with, where (metaphorically) you don't produce a baby any faster by assigning more women to the project.

On 6/12/2019 at 4:33 PM, JonRD463 said:

MS sold their ESP based code to Lockheed, which is the easy tell that the new sim is built from the ground up, so hopefully OOM errors will be a thing of the past.

That is not correct.. MS licensed their ESP code to Lockheed.. so your conclusion is not based on fact..