Most aircraft developers still silent?

[ComSimPilot 623]

Excuse my anticipation on this, but its now the third day after P3Dv5 release was announced and with the exception of A2A and Leonardo none of the other aircraft developers have many any statement. 

I find it weird, as LM has said in all ways that they were in close contact with developers to assure backwards compatibility.

It seems like aircraft developers were waiting until the release announcement to start testing their aircraft. I can't think of any other logical explanation.

Can you? 

Edited April 10, 2020 by ComSimPilot

[MaDDogz 242]

Yeh, I find this strange too.

[KenG 492]

Yes, and one of the developers actually stated it. If they have advanced hooks directly into the code it will require reworking their hooks. That is actually a lot of software as all of the advanced features we demanded had to be done outside of the SDK.

Then there is the new stuff such as weather completely changing and thus how WX radar will have to interact. 

I also suspect that some are waiting to see how much of their customer base demands P3D V5. These places are businesses with payroll, each person they put on a P3D V5 update has to be paid. I suspect some are still trying to figure out if it is worth their time based on MSFS breathing down their neck. This is not where developers want to be with multiple platforms all demanding their skills. I suspect that if their choose P3DV5 they will stop updates for P3Dv4.5 as they need those resources for MSFS. 

I also suspect that some developers see P3DV5 as just a hiccup on the path to MSFS. Why develop something when over a hundred thousand are already lining up behind the other guy. 

[ComSimPilot 623]

I don't think any serious developer would think to not support P3Dv5. With the backward compatibility and performance boost it brings while nearly all scenery developers have given their support, he'll find big pressure from his customer base and become unpopular. But most importantly for them, how they would survive with no P3Dv5 support?  Aircraft developers base their income on newcomers, who join the hobby every week. These people won't be even able to buy P3D v4 after v5 is out -even if they wanted to-. MSFS is unknown when it will be released, it is still on alpha stage. So, if a developer chooses not to support P3D v5 it would be like saying, "I won't get any money until I sell my first MSFS add-on". That could be months after MSFS is released at best. So, I think the question "to support or to not support P3D v5" is not even a question. What I think is the reason they remain silent is what I said before. They didn't want to lose time testing their aircraft before the final P3D v5 version was ready, to avoid losing time. If that's the case, I find it kind of lame to be honest. Leonardo and A2A have also complex aircraft and they were able to inform us fast, something I really appreciate and remember as a customer.

Edited April 10, 2020 by ComSimPilot

[micstatic 4,350]

It is pretty strange that we've had comments from all across the board, but far less from aircraft manufacturers.  One thing I've been critical is the comm strategy of aircraft manufacturers in this space.  But I guess it's natural.  Many of these companies are small and super specialized.  So it's natural that say a computer programmer might not always be the best at communicating their product to the market.  Also, I'm sure they have their reasons to be quiet right now.  However, we've seen numerous threads where people want to buy a specific airplane but are holding off because they are unsure of the future.  This is where a communications would be a value to the aircraft manufacturers. 

[Rogen 1,102]

I think once the "actual" release is out said dev crews will be able to test and confirm.

Time is valuable and too expensive to spend qualifying complex software until there is an actual released to customer version to qualify against.

Cheers

Edited April 10, 2020 by Rogen

[Reader 2,035]

1 hour ago, ComSimPilot said:

IWhat I think is the reason they remain silent is what I said before. They didn't want to lose time testing their aircraft before the final P3D v5 version was ready, to avoid losing time. If that's the case, I find it kind of lame to be honest. Leonardo and A2A have also complex aircraft and they were able to inform us fast, something I really appreciate and remember as a customer.

Well done on creating a hypothesis and then shooting from it.

In fact, A2A have made it clear that they are indeed waiting for the final release:

 " At the time of writing we don’t have access to the P3Dv5 release candidate and we need to make sure we've got our hands on a stable version of the sim before we make any changes along these lines. For that reason, we won’t have new installers for v5 ready on the launch day next week."

so their news is that there is no news and any developer who has said nothing has given you the same information.

Obviously, anyone who wants to try their addon and has the necessary skills can do so on their own initiative.

I do not remember a single aircraft model being P3D v4 ready on the release day either, presumably for the same reason. Some of them just worked and some of them did not just work, as is always the case.

 

Edited April 10, 2020 by Reader

[ComSimPilot 623]

12 minutes ago, Reader said:

Well done on creating a hypothesis and then shooting from it.

In fact, A2A have made it clear that they are indeed waiting for the final release:

 " At the time of writing we don’t have access to the P3Dv5 release candidate and we need to make sure we've got our hands on a stable version of the sim before we make any changes along these lines. For that reason, we won’t have new installers for v5 ready on the launch day next week."

so their news is that there is no news and any developer who has said nothing has given you the same information.

Obviously, anyone who wants to try their addon and has the necessary skills can do so on their own initiative.

I do not remember a single aircraft model being P3D v4 ready on the release day either, presumably for the same reason. Some of them just worked and some of them did not just work, as is always the case.

I'm not talking about having v5 ready versions on release, that would be unrealistic to ask based on previous experience with aircraft add-ons. 

But A2A told us something. Most things work, some things like the rain effects and some textures, need fixing.

Most importantly they said that they will support P3D v5 and the upgrade will be free for existing P3D customers. 

That is a lot of valuable and positive information that they have concluded possible based on their current testing with P3Dv5 I guess. 

Information like that and complete silence is a big difference don't you think? That's all I said. 

Edited April 10, 2020 by ComSimPilot

[Bob Scott 7,759]

1 hour ago, ComSimPilot said:

Aircraft developers base their income on newcomers, who join the hobby every week. These people won't be even able to buy P3D v4 after v5 is out -even if they wanted to-.

I doubt that's true.  LM stopped the practice of deprecating the older version when a new one releases--at this moment you can still buy a new license to P3D v3, nearly three years after v4 first released.

[Reader 2,035]

 

8 minutes ago, ComSimPilot said:

Information like that and complete silence is a big difference don't you think? That's all I said. 

I am a firm believer in total silence. A2A's statement reveals some general points but I prefer to either try the aircraft myself or wait until a working version is released. Speculation and then critique on the basis of speculation, although a popular pass time, is not my way.

[ComSimPilot 623]

11 minutes ago, w6kd said:

I doubt that's true.  LM stopped the practice of deprecating the older version when a new one releases--at this moment you can still buy a new license to P3D v3, nearly three years after v4 first released.

Oh okay! Didn't know that they kept v3 alive. But again, I can't imagine how this could be a good marketing strategy for a developer, selling a product that works only on the previous version of the simulator, while the rest of the scenery/aircraft developers are developing and selling for the new simulator. Your target audience will certainly shrink. See what is happening with Vulcan in X-Plane. Imagine a developer saying we'd never support Vulcan. I don't think he'd survive too long. 

Edited April 10, 2020 by ComSimPilot

[cyyzrwy24 129]

We know that ORBX and FSDT have and had everything ready so it would be right to say that everyone else have and will have ready for Tuesday....At what cost and quality will see....

[Reader 2,035]

Aircraft developers is the subject.

[cwburnett 1,809]

3 hours ago, ComSimPilot said:

Excuse my anticipation on this, but its now the third day after P3Dv5 release was announced and with the exception of A2A and Leonardo none of the other aircraft developers have many any statement. 

Aerosoft made a statement about their aircraft as well a couple days ago... The thread even includes screenies of their aircraft in v5.

https://forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?/topic/151976-our-aircraft-in-p3d-v5/

While we still have to wait for the final sim to test, we can now say that we have found very few problems with aircraft. As there is only very limited work needed we do not anticipate any update fees.

Edited April 10, 2020 by cwburnett
type

[ComSimPilot 623]

Yes that's true. To be fair Aerosoft was the first to report that their aircraft work in v5.