April 30th, 2020 - Development Update

[ual763 361]

6 minutes ago, Shack95 said:

As far as I know there are no float planes in the alpha.

The Icon A5 is, I believe.  Also, while we haven’t gotten any alpha screens of it yet, there was an original Cub on floats shown on the screen at XO19 in London last year.

[Shack95 2,658]

23 minutes ago, ual763 said:

The Icon A5 is, I believe.  Also, while we haven’t gotten any alpha screens of it yet, there was an original Cub on floats shown on the screen at XO19 in London last year.

I can't remember having seen the Icon in alpha screenshots. But I might be wrong. 

Edited May 1, 2020 by Shack95

[orchestra_nl 927]

It's there in the Aerodynamics Episode (around 2:57):

It was also on a few screenshots. We haven't seen it land on water though.

 

 

[ludekbrno 302]

On 5/2/2020 at 3:50 AM, orchestra_nl said:

 

 

 

But it doesn't mean, that Icon A5 must be present in an Alpha build for alpha testers from public! There must be several Aplha builds. One for public testing with very limited content (for example 747 is not present for public alpha testers) and other unlimited builds only for internal testing in developers team. So not everything what we can see in discovery episodes is avaiable for aplpha testers and therefore we can see Icon A5 in discovery episodes or in screenshots from Asobo, but not in aplha testers screenshots.

Edited May 5, 2020 by 188AHC
Removed video

[orchestra_nl 927]

I figured that, since the big planes are arriving in the alpha's now, that the smaller ones have been taken care off. But I recon you're right; if the Icon had been in the Alpha's we probably would have seen it in a few Alpha screenshots by now.

[Shack95 2,658]

14 minutes ago, orchestra_nl said:

if the Icon had been in the Alpha's we probably would have seen it in a few Alpha screenshots by now.

That‘s what I meant. I was referring to the playable alpha build because the said screenshot was made by a tester. I should have been more precise. Sorry for the confusion. It was late...😅

[Kpeters 42]

On 5/1/2020 at 4:42 AM, GodAtum said:

the last photo by FlyingFoxFox the ground looks awful and fuzzy!

That's Bing's fault. I've pointed that out several times.

[Kpeters 42]

On 4/30/2020 at 5:58 PM, NZ255 said:

This is risky posting negative comments... I like to think it's constructive 🙂

Some of those trees are enormous compared to the houses. Imagine the size of a human. I guess it could be plausible?

Rainforest trees are BIG I should know I live in Costa Rica! I 

[MatthewS 761]

On 5/1/2020 at 9:55 AM, Krakin said:

Also nice to see Matthew getting a shout out for undulating runways!

I noticed that 😁  Hey Asobo, how about an alpha invite? 🤔🙏 You can PM me here 👍🤜🤛

[MatthewS 761]

4 hours ago, Kpeters said:

Rainforest trees are BIG I should know I live in Costa Rica! I

Yes, but the tropics is not covered in rainforest, which is what Asobo seems to think....  Rainforest is the exception, not the rule.

[Tuskin38 6,468]

33 minutes ago, MatthewS said:

which is what Asobo seems to think....

You're implying they place every tree manually, which is very unlikely.

Edited May 3, 2020 by Tuskin38

[MatthewS 761]

Just now, Tuskin38 said:

You're implying they place every tree manually, which is very unlikely.

Of course they don't!

They are placing trees algorithmically and they need to have their "AI" default to normal sized trees in the tropics and only place "rainforest" where they have collaborating data.

It looks absolutely ridiculous to see that island off Palawan (see screenshot uploaded previously) covered in "Jurassic Park" style rainforest.

[Tuskin38 6,468]

27 minutes ago, MatthewS said:

Of course they don't!

They are placing trees algorithmically and they need to have their "AI" default to normal sized trees in the tropics and only place "rainforest" where they have collaborating data.

It looks absolutely ridiculous to see that island off Palawan (see screenshot uploaded previously) covered in "Jurassic Park" style rainforest.

They can't go every every square foot of the earth to make sure every tree is correct, most of it is going to be automated, and the automation can only place the correct trees if their data includes the tree types.

Edited May 3, 2020 by Tuskin38

[MatthewS 761]

33 minutes ago, Tuskin38 said:

They can't go every every square foot of the earth to make sure every tree is correct, most of it is going to be automated, and the automation can only place the correct trees if their data includes the tree types.

Of course and obviously their data (or their interpretation of the data) is wrong and so they should err on the side of smaller (i.e. average sized) trees and not populate the tropics with Jurassic Park sized rainforests.

In other words, their AI should only populate parts of the world with Jurassic Park sized rainforest (i.e. the exception) when they have multiple data sources that confirm the exception.

They could also have their AI flag regions that it suspects are exceptional (i.e. Jurassic Park sized rainforest) that require further investigation and manual confirmation.

Heck, I'd be happy to have alpha access and be part of a crowd-sourced group whose job is to confirm the correctness of scenery (vegetation, buildings etc). 

Asobo PM me?  Ready to join the alpha anytime... 🤜🤛

[ual763 361]

I have to agree on these trees.  They appear to be Banyan trees.  They do grow in the tropics around the World.  However, entire Banyan forests are, like Matthew says, the exception rather than the norm.  In tropical areas that are very large e.g. Papua Neu Guinea, Central & South America, etc. they are common.  But, on most smaller tropical islands, the trees are not all 200’ high.  They’ve changed the default trees in places like NY after our critiques.  Here’s to hoping they refine the default tree in places like this as well.