February 20th, 2020 – Development/Insider Update

[byork 2,258]

One of the products FS2Crew makes is Ultimate Ground Crew X.

I'll admit, I was a bit scared watching this video thinking, 'oh my god, Ultimate Ground Crew X is now dead'...  There goes years of development time out of the window.

But then I watched the video again and noticed how they're opening everything up via XML.

This could actually be a good thing.  instead of killing us, they could be enabling us to make UGCX better.

And besides, a lot of people still want heavy customization.  Asobo will gear their ground services for the masses, not the hardcore guys who want power options and things like voice control in foreign languages, which we do.

 

Edited February 21, 2020 by byork

[Jim Young 2,356]

6 hours ago, Casualcas said:

Along with the SDK scenery tools, it looks like anyone can add more details where you wish, so we'll be helping as well. 

If a member updates an airport, can he zip up the airport, add it to the AVSIM Library for anyone to download and try themselves?  Think it might be good to have a MSFS2020 Airport section in the Library.  We could have several variations from different members and members could download the one they really like.  We have a lot of talented members who could really show off their expertise and a great contribution to the community.

Jim

[FDEdev 955]

16 minutes ago, domkle said:

Good points but it is also relevant to the ATC Discovery EP we are looking forward to now 😏 !

What ATC EP?

[Kopteeni 819]

1 minute ago, Jim Young said:

If a member updates an airport, can he zip up the airport, add it to the AVSIM Library for anyone to download and try themselves?  Think it might be good to have a MSFS2020 Airport section in the Library.  We could have several variations from different members and members could download the one they really like.  We have a lot of talented members who could really show off their expertise and a great contribution to the community.

Jim

I wouldn't be surprised if the product came with its own mechanism for downloading and managing the content produced by the community. I hope we'll find out soon enough.

[RALF9636 1,905]

16 minutes ago, Johnny19 said:

Quote

RIP GSX and scenery developers. A sad time from them but great for us!

 

I would not agree with this statement of yours. While default airport do look great, I can't imagine what the best scenery developers could do with the SDK when they get their hands on it. Dooming the addon developers is just childish.

Indeed, there is always room for improvement, no matter how good the default is.

Most probably there will be no room any more for mass production developers of mediocre products.

But premium quality addons will still have plenty to do. We cannot even imagine now what they will be able to do with the new SDK building upon that high quality default standard.

The 3PD market will certainly change, but not disappear. There will be plenty of new opportunities for premium quality developers.

[Dominique_K 10,133]

3 minutes ago, FDEdev said:

What ATC EP?

The one we are longing for

[GlideBy 324]

8 minutes ago, Jim Young said:

Think it might be good to have a MSFS2020 Airport section in the Library.

Yes.  But what about a Missions area where they can upload missions, or a Planes area to upload new planes, etc.

[Dominique_K 10,133]

3 hours ago, RALF9636 said:

Indeed, there is always room for improvement, no matter how good the default is.

Most probably there will be no room any more for mass production developers of mediocre products.

But premium quality addons will still have plenty to do. We cannot even imagine now what they will be able to do with the new SDK building upon that high quality default standard.

The 3PD market will certainly change, but not disappear. There will be plenty of new opportunities for premium quality developers.

 

Color me a contrarian but my first gut reaction after watching the vid was, a new golden age of freeware and payware smallish airports development is dawning.

Not that I am not impressed by what I saw, on the contrary !  But customization will be still needed more than ever  because the surroundings will be so realistic that there will be a strong incentive to  improve the non "iconic" airports. Thinking of airports in SE Asia for instance.

 

Edited February 21, 2020 by domkle

[RALF9636 1,905]

16 minutes ago, domkle said:

Quote

What ATC EP?

 

The one we are longing for

Alongside with a bush flying episode covering all kinds of grass and dirt strips, beaches, riverbanks and seaplane operations.

 

But for me they could skip all these episodes and release an open Beta instead... 😉

 

[Dominique_K 10,133]

6 minutes ago, RALF9636 said:

Alongside with a bush flying episode covering all kinds of grass and dirt strips, beaches, riverbanks and seaplane operations.

 

But for me they could skip all these episodes and release an open Beta instead... 😉

 

Now, don't start me on a bush flying EP 😏 ! 

[RALF9636 1,905]

10 minutes ago, domkle said:

 

Color me a contrarian but my first gut reaction after watching the vid was, a new golden age of freeware and payware smallish airports development is dawning.

Not that I am not impressed by what I saw, on the contrary !  But customization will be still needed more than ever  because the surroundings will be so realisticl that there will be a strong incentive to  improve the non "iconic" airports. Thinking of airports in SE Asia for instance.

 

I am with you here and see no contradiction to my post. Maybe I wasn't clear enough. Of course the premium quality can be put into small airports and airfields. I was thinking about developers like Justsim who released a plethora of airports lately within a short time which certainly improve the default airports a lot but significantly fall short compared to the likes of Flightbeam. Those will most probably have to change their approach.

I totally agree - and hope - that small airports and bush flying environments will be a major field for 3PD now as the most iconic and largest airports will already be covered in premium quality in the default sim.

 

 

Edited February 21, 2020 by RALF9636

[Jim Young 2,356]

25 minutes ago, GlideBy said:

Yes.  But what about a Missions area where they can upload missions, or a Planes area to upload new planes, etc.

We can all of that once the sim is released and probably more!

[HighTowers 1,434]

I dont understand the pickiness given this is still Alpha. This is outstanding work and to have this out of the box default for all these obscure airports is really great.  Just to have all these airports up to date and not search online for an update somewhere is a big bonus. Even having ground services built in natively and done pretty good is a plus.  There will be lots of room for 3PDs to make improvements to be sure. There is only so much detail and info you can get from a top down satellite view.   Whether the community does it or 3rd party, there is all kinds of details that surely they would not be able to add or manipulate all 37k. Seems like there is robust tools too to make adjustments or changes to airport layouts. The environment is so much more immersive. Even the GPU light reflected dynamically.  

[Dominique_K 10,133]

1 minute ago, RALF9636 said:

I am with you here and see no contradiction to my post. Maybe i wasn't clear enough. Of course the premium quality can be put into small airports and airfields. I was thinking about developers like Justsim who released a plethora of airports lately within a short time which certainly improve the default airports a lot but significantly fall short compared to the likes of Flightbeam. Those will most probably have to change their approach.

I totally agree - and hope - that small airports and bush flying environments will be a major field for 3PD now as the most iconic and largest airports will already be covered in premium quality in the default sim.

 

 

Sorry for the misunderstanding. My mistake.  I meant a contrarian to those who announce the demise of the 3rd party development. I agree with you. 

and yes, I was not only thinking of bush airfields. Actually I had in mind airports like Mae Hong Son in Thailand or Wamena in Indonesia for instance.

[Bear242 68]

45 minutes ago, Jim Young said:

If a member updates an airport, can he zip up the airport, add it to the AVSIM Library for anyone to download and try themselves?  Think it might be good to have a MSFS2020 Airport section in the Library.  We could have several variations from different members and members could download the one they really like.  We have a lot of talented members who could really show off their expertise and a great contribution to the community.

Jim

That would be really cool, not just airports but scenery world wide, it would be amazing if we can add missing buildings or landmarks in particular cities.