March 26th, 2020 – Development Update

[Purr 117]

21 minutes ago, ual763 said:

Guys, we are overdue for a Bing photogrammetry update.  They always release them in batches.  And we already have been told that the sim will automatically update when Bing does.  

How often do those updates happen with Bing?

[Noodle 626]

1 hour ago, BijanStudio said:

That's sun. Moon doesn't do that to the clouds.

Also yes, you can have dark sky with sun in higher altitude. Even black in space.

You think a bright full moon doesn't light up the clouds? Have you not flown at night under a full moon?

I guarantee you a TBM isn't flying high enough for the sky to be remotely that dark. Even if it was--which it isn't--that doesn't explain why the airplane itself is not illuminated despite being in direct sunlight.

Come on. There has to be some other explanation: a menu overlay effect; a bug in the alpha build's lighting; a post processing effect gone awry; or...its actually a shot of the moon with the wrong filename as a joke.

But that screenshot is not a realistic depiction of daylight. Given how well everything else is modeled, and the fact the devs actually chose to feature that screenshot publically, I have a hard time believing it's that jacked up.

[GlideBy 324]

8 hours ago, tolip2 said:

No, 50 is a HUGE number. It is the number of rendered a/c that are closest to you. Not even counting the AI. How many times in real life have you seen 50 a/c around you at the same time? That would either be 1) Some serious formation flying that is pretty much unheard of except during WW2, or 2) A huge number of a/c breaking every rule regarding separation.

First of all, I want to point out that the person you are replying to is in the Alpha, and more importantly, was in a screenshot with about 20 planes in it.  So he does have a bit of a different perspective on it.

Next, 50 is not closest to you.  50 is the limit, close or far, or whatever.  So 50 planes spread over 200 KM is not an issue at all for separation.  200KM radius, can handle a lot more planes.  And sometimes you just want to have fun, so rules and separation become secondary.

The maximum other players is 50.  Imagine AVSIM decides to do an event.  We could max that easily.  And on the MSFS2020 Discord server there are 1910 users.  And on Reddit in the MSFS2020 subreddit, there are over 4200 people.  And in the official www.flightsimulator.com forums there are 42683 users.  A group even with those groups will blow away the limits even if only 10% show up.

  

8 hours ago, tolip2 said:

I really don't understand the "with their whole Azure cloud technology you would expect to see more capabilities from it" criticism. In what way would a cloud service enable your computer and graphics card to be able to render more objects on the screen in front of you? It doesn't make any sense.

Rewatch the video.  They clearly state that the limit of 50 is because of bandwidth and nothing to do with your video card.  They mention they can display live traffic with those 50, so they can display more planes than 50.  Besides, they can display thousands of buildings, trees, etc, I would be shocked to find out 50 planes maxes the GPU.  And even if it did, what about when I buy a 3090Ti card, or a 4100 Titan.   But that aside, even if the limit was 50,000, you could always set your local limit to 50.

  

8 hours ago, tolip2 said:

It seems like some people are just here trying to make positive things sound like limitations. I'm pretty sure that if the limit was 500 or 5000, there would still be people here finding this number disappointing.

Maybe it is because I have seen video games with more players, and they need faster connections and more updates per second than a plane.  In 2010 MAG, a first person shooter, allowed for 256 players at the same time.  This was server technology from ten years ago, and a FPS where lag difference of milliseconds become important.  So a limit of 50, is a bit surprising.

And no, I would not complain if it was 500.  But that is ten times the difference.  500 would impress me, and I think would fit most of the groups above even if 10% showed up.

50 is just a bit disappointing.  But I do agree that most of the time it won't matter.  And it doesn't detract from all the other amazing things the sim is doing and will do.  So it is not a big deal.

[GlideBy 324]

1 hour ago, Noodle said:

You think a bright full moon doesn't light up the clouds? Have you not flown at night under a full moon?

I guarantee you a TBM isn't flying high enough for the sky to be remotely that dark. Even if it was--which it isn't--that doesn't explain why the airplane itself is not illuminated despite being in direct sunlight.

Come on. There has to be some other explanation: a menu overlay effect; a bug in the alpha build's lighting; a post processing effect gone awry; or...its actually a shot of the moon with the wrong filename as a joke.

But that screenshot is not a realistic depiction of daylight. Given how well everything else is modeled, and the fact the devs actually chose to feature that screenshot publically, I have a hard time believing it's that jacked up.

Noodle, if you rewatch the Multiplayer video, you can see times when he open the menu and it darkens everything else except the menu.  And then if you look at the top right of the picture, it does have a menu open.  So I think it was a daylight sun shot, but darkened by the menu effect.  So it looks weird because of that.  (The community manager person that picked it, might have just thought it looked cool. Or maybe put it in to see how many caught it.)

[simtom 495]

55 minutes ago, GlideBy said:

First of all, I want to point out that the person you are replying to is in the Alpha, and more importantly, was in a screenshot with about 20 planes in it.  So he does have a bit of a different perspective on it.

Thank you for explaining it so clearly, 50 in a 200 KM radius indeed seems quite low.

[BijanStudio 896]

4 hours ago, Noodle said:

You think a bright full moon doesn't light up the clouds? Have you not flown at night under a full moon?

I guarantee you a TBM isn't flying high enough for the sky to be remotely that dark. Even if it was--which it isn't--that doesn't explain why the airplane itself is not illuminated despite being in direct sunlight.

Come on. There has to be some other explanation: a menu overlay effect; a bug in the alpha build's lighting; a post processing effect gone awry; or...its actually a shot of the moon with the wrong filename as a joke.

But that screenshot is not a realistic depiction of daylight. Given how well everything else is modeled, and the fact the devs actually chose to feature that screenshot publically, I have a hard time believing it's that jacked up.

Yes I have seen many but this color. Moon doesn't do orange colors on cloud. 

IF it were moon, it would be make it full moon, That means the sun would be behind the camera/plane. if that was the case, you would see all clouds light up from the back. not from front.  You wouldn't only see light from front.

[NZ255 309]

3 hours ago, GlideBy said:

Next, 50 is not closest to you.  50 is the limit, close or far, or whatever.

The in video it says you’ll see the 50 closest planes in a 200km radius. 

But they’re all still there in a “one shared world”. If you’re currently at the 50 display limit and you move closer to a plane that wasn’t visible before, the one farthest away is disappear and another one will pop in. The 50 is dynamic, one off one in.

You’re right, they do talk about bandwidth and not graphics power. That’s because it’s going to add up to a lot of data being streamed to have 50 planes per person with enough detail (data size) to have planes update x times a second and make the movements look smooth. 

Edited March 28, 2020 by NZ255

[Noodle 626]

2 hours ago, BijanStudio said:

Yes I have seen many but this color. Moon doesn't do orange colors on cloud. 

IF it were moon, it would be make it full moon, That means the sun would be behind the camera/plane. if that was the case, you would see all clouds light up from the back. not from front.  You wouldn't only see light from the front.

Meh. Each of your points is demonstrably false but after typing out a lengthy refutation, I realized I was doing that thing again where I argue with people on the internet because they're wrong and I'm bored. 

I disagree with your position, sir. Good day.

Edited March 28, 2020 by Noodle

[Noodle 626]

5 hours ago, GlideBy said:

Noodle, if you rewatch the Multiplayer video, you can see times when he open the menu and it darkens everything else except the menu.  And then if you look at the top right of the picture, it does have a menu open.  So I think it was a daylight sun shot, but darkened by the menu effect.  So it looks weird because of that.  (The community manager person that picked it, might have just thought it looked cool. Or maybe put it in to see how many caught it.)

Roger. This makes the most sense of all the possibilities. I didnt catch the screen darkening myself, though I saw it suggested earlier. I'll rewatch. Thanks.

[tweekz 2,165]

16 hours ago, GlideBy said:

The maximum other players is 50.  Imagine AVSIM decides to do an event.  We could max that easily.  And on the MSFS2020 Discord server there are 1910 users.  And on Reddit in the MSFS2020 subreddit, there are over 4200 people.  And in the official www.flightsimulator.com forums there are 42683 users.  A group even with those groups will blow away the limits even if only 10% show up.

I fly on IVAO as it's more populated in Europe. Outside of events I have never seen anywhere near 50 other people in my 200km radius. Not even close.

I guess there will be workarounds (third party or MS) if the community really needs it.

[Dazzaboy 81]

Im just really happy they are developing this sim . They have reignited my enthusiasm for flight sims . Ive been flight simming since the first releases from Microsoft and each one has advanced the genre . However none seems to have come close to the degree of advancement this one appears to be doing . Quit the negativity and embrace the future . 

[RazorBlade 22]

I guess that that all these ATC networks will be a group that you can choose in multiplayer. So, then you can join a group and they decide if you can become a member or not. If you don't follow the procedures of that group then they can ban you. 

It seems obvious to me that flying in a free for all world is not going to work. Even the people that try to behave in a normal way to the best of their abilities will become frustrated with each other. There are only 80 fully detailed airports in the world by default. This means that people that just bought the sim will most likely want to visit these places. Divide 1 million players over 80 airports and you have total chaos. Sure, there will be multiple servers and not everybody will be at those 80 airports at the same time but most likely there will be to many people at certain places anyway. When you just bought the sim, who doesn't want to make a trip over Manhattan?  I can imagine it will be very crowded their. 

Just showing the 50 closest planes is not a good idea either. It will mean that in very crowded places like the detailed airports and popular landmarks you see a constant popping of planes. Try to imagine that you just bought the sim and you plan to fly over Manhattan and 10,000 other people will do the same thing. What do you think you will see? 

I also wonder how they are going to mix real world traffic with flight sim traffic. I used to be a mainly military flight simmer so correct me if I am wrong but during very busy peak moments the big airports already use the maximum of their capacity. So if you have all that real world traffic, how are you be able to squeeze a lot of flight sim pilots between those real planes? You know one thing for sure and that is that the real world pilots are not going to listen to flight sim ATC. You will be placed in a holding pattern and you will not be able to land, not even when you have a fuel emergency because the real aircraft are not going to wait for you.  

And what about the people that start their flight on the active runway of one of the 80 detailed airports? You are on final, just seconds before touching the runway and suddenly somebody is appearing out of thin air just in front of you. Not only one aircraft pops up but in one minute 10 people do that on the same spot. How is this ever going to work?

 

 

 

 

[ludekbrno 302]

29 minutes ago, RazorBlade said:

...Try to imagine that you just bought the sim and you plan to fly over Manhattan and 10,000 other people will do the same thing. What do you think you will see?...

50 other aircraft, nothink more :-) I thing, that is not any catastrophe.

[ILSFREAK 56]

All valid points Razor blade

Sure will be the cause off some scrap metal lying around AND  a lot of kamikaze flying done by civil AC

Might be fun to sit in the tower

[aleex 551]

Most of MP games have a max of 64 players, with no AI and no Terrain being loaded on your PC.

 

I don't see what's the issue with the 50 aircraft's + AI... Considering the default MP on current sims, it's a big improvement.

 

Edited March 29, 2020 by aleex