May 14th, 2020 - Development Update

[Tuskin38 6,458]

Yes but the system requirements stated a 150GB space requirement, which kinda implies it will be bigger than 100GB.

Edited May 17, 2020 by Tuskin38

[JSilva 42]

5 hours ago, 2reds2whites said:

Would love some more videos, the screenshots are great but videos would be lovely.

More than happy to. I'll just show three videos.

On that one, the only undulating part is a little after the runway platform.

Again, except for before the platform, nowhere does it show undulations.

Like the second video, there is no undulation on the runway (mostly). Though there is some undulation in the taxiway.

I know I said three videos, but I'm going to throw a bonus, from before the extension. No cockpit video, though.

 

Edited May 17, 2020 by JSilva

[Richard Jacks 23]

23 minutes ago, Tuskin38 said:

Yes but the system requirements stated a 150GB space requirement, which kinda implies it will be bigger than 100GB.

Is there any advantage/disadvantage in getting a much larger drive or is it a waste of money?  Trying to decide between a 500g and 1t for my ssd/boot/MSFS.

[ual763 361]

1 hour ago, Richard Jacks said:

Is there any advantage/disadvantage in getting a much larger drive or is it a waste of money?  Trying to decide between a 500g and 1t for my ssd/boot/MSFS.

Depends on how many addons you plan on adding.  I would recommend the 1tb

[JSilva 42]

4 hours ago, Deleted said:

LPMA is not the only airport in MSFS. Yes, opinions are good, but your detailing about your airport is totally over the top.

Yeah, it may sound a little over the top based on my wording originally (and I apologize for that once again), but for the runway appearance and sloping, not exactly impossible for Asobo to do and not as over the top as you're making it out to be. Again, not sure if LPMA is a part of the 80 detailed airports, but I think it has a shot being there. The runway platform is definitely there in the sim (which I consider a huge positive), not to forget LPMA has some notable features that make it stand out in real life.

In addition, this update's change log has these two lines mentioned under "Airport Specific Changes":

• Surface types on airports runways, taxiways and aprons (First Pass)
• All of this is based on Bing Aerial imagery

I don't know how the airports are done (Episode 6 of Feature Discovery shows they edited the airports by hand), but it is possible for the runway appearance to change if they wanted do. I know this isn't a priority, but I don't really think it's impossible to change the parts of the runway before the threshold to be light gray, or using the correct threshold. Again, this can be changed after release using the SDK if I wanted to so it's not a big loss if they didn't change it.

Though not many airports have similar runway thresholds as Madeira, it's not uncommon for small airports to have such markings. The image on https://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Runway_Designators with the caption "Runway designator and threshold marking", the example on the right is the one Madeira uses. I can name some examples of airports in the UK that uses these thresholds (Southampton, Norwich, and Isle of Man comes to mind and these three are in the top 30 busiest British airports as of 2018).

The trees though, looking back I don't think I should have mention them in the original post as I think this is a more general issue rather than with the airport.

Edited May 17, 2020 by JSilva

[Dominique_K 10,133]

1 hour ago, Richard Jacks said:

Is there any advantage/disadvantage in getting a much larger drive or is it a waste of money?  Trying to decide between a 500g and 1t for my ssd/boot/MSFS.

As far we know how the game works and besides the game itself which will need 100-odd GB itselfand its addons, you need to know what cache size you will be using. If you've a very fast connection without any cap, you shouldn't need a large cache and hence a smaller SSD partition would be enough. But if yours is a low and unreliable connection or if you have a cap, the larger the cache, the better. I wouldn't be surprised to see simmers with a 500 GB or more dedicated SSD. Reasoned speculation...

[Richard Jacks 23]

3 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

As far we know how the game works and besides the game itself which will need 100-odd GB itselfand its addons, you need to know what cache size you will be using. If you've a very fast connection without any cap, you shouldn't need a large cache and hence a smaller SSD partition would be enough. But if yours is a low and unreliable connection or if you have a cap, the larger the cache, the better. I wouldn't be surprised to see simmers with a 500 GB or more dedicated SSD. Reasoned speculation...

Makes sense, the new home I am moving into has AT&T fiber with very nice download rates...but if I move in 2 years to slower download, a larger cache will be more important.

[2reds2whites 827]

2 hours ago, JSilva said:

More than happy to. I'll just show three videos.

On that one, the only undulating part is a little after the runway platform.

Again, except for before the platform, nowhere does it show undulations.

Like the second video, there is no undulation on the runway (mostly). Though there is some undulation in the taxiway.

I know I said three videos, but I'm going to throw a bonus, from before the extension. No cockpit video, though.

 

Ha! Apologies JSilva, I meant more videos of the sim! Originally I'd replied to your message but decided to edit it and just make a general statement about wanting more videos. Perhaps it alerted you to my message even though I'd already edited it? I don't know.

I'm familiar with Funchal, I've landed a jet there a few times. But it's still good to watch these videos.

Edited May 17, 2020 by 2reds2whites

[JSilva 42]

4 minutes ago, 2reds2whites said:

Ha! Apologies JSilva, I meant more videos of the sim! 

I'm familiar with Funchal, I've landed a jet there a few times. But it's still good to watch these videos.

Ah. I see. I though you're talking about Funchal undulations in real life.

Yeah, seeing these videos are fun. I personally like the one showing the history of the airport pre-extension, which is why I wanted to include it.

Yeah, I do wish to see more of LPMA in MSFS. I'm happy they showed some of the runway platform in this update, but I would like to see more of it, as this is the most defining feature of the airport.

Edited May 17, 2020 by JSilva

[frila 13]

What you can see on the four videos of Funchal - apart from the levels and shape of the runway - how different the sea and the waves look at different angles and different wind speeds!

This is very different to what we could see on the preview pictures and videos, especially on the shorelines. I wonder if there will be waves at the shores and how they will differ from what we had at FSX.

[Krakin 5,742]

MS and Asobo say there will be room for third party devs to do their thing but I get the feeling they don't want any part of this sim looking shabby. I say this especially where scenery is concerned. It seems the goal really is to make everywhere at the very least, recognizable...

[paintedfutures 6]

3 hours ago, JSilva said:

Yeah, it may sound a little over the top based on my wording originally (and I apologize for that once again), but for the runway appearance and sloping, not exactly impossible for Asobo to do and not as over the top as you're making it out to be.

I really don't think you need to apologize for the core of your message (that is, "Madeira could be improved to make it more life-like). You're providing feedback, not demanding that Asobo drop everything they're working on and fix the issues you mentioned like some people seem to think.

When they read your feedback, the devs could think "we don't care" (unlikely given the care and attention to detail they've shown elsewhere), "thanks for the feedback, we'll add it to our list of things to fix", or "we don't have time for this before release, but we will provide the tools for users to fix it themselves". Either way, it's far better to give devs the option of responding to feedback rather than hiding it and keeping it to ourselves. 

Asobo seem dedicated and pretty well-organized, so I'm sure they have the ability to prioritize different work in response to what we say. We don't have to worry about burdening them with too many requests.

[ryanbatc 12,815]

15 hours ago, anden145 said:

Don't 'feed' him, guys... he wants this to be a problem for him. You won't change his mind, no matter how many logical and rational arguments, you throw his way...

Let's just leave him at that belief.

KenG is respected guy...  If a person were only using flightsim they may not have noticed how big AAA titles are these days.   They are huge downloads .  

There is an offline version too.  No idea on the file size

[JSilva 42]

1 hour ago, paintedfutures said:

I really don't think you need to apologize for the core of your message (that is, "Madeira could be improved to make it more life-like). You're providing feedback, not demanding that Asobo drop everything they're working on and fix the issues you mentioned like some people seem to think.

When they read your feedback, the devs could think "we don't care" (unlikely given the care and attention to detail they've shown elsewhere), "thanks for the feedback, we'll add it to our list of things to fix", or "we don't have time for this before release, but we will provide the tools for users to fix it themselves". Either way, it's far better to give devs the option of responding to feedback rather than hiding it and keeping it to ourselves. 

Asobo seem dedicated and pretty well-organized, so I'm sure they have the ability to prioritize different work in response to what we say. We don't have to worry about burdening them with too many requests.

Thanks. Though I do see where they're coming from. It's just the way I worded it seemed to fly over other people's heads. Though at the same time, I never said the scenery is awful and I thought it was taken out of proportion some of the responses (though some is cleared up). I made the post because I have good faith Asobo would read this. I know they read posts from Avsim. What they do with it however is a different story though. If they changed some details, I would be happy, but if they leave it as-is, I can understand. Plus, I did like the runway platform is there, which is the defining feature of the airport in real life.

Honestly, I am not a fan of the way undulated runways are presented. While I do see why they did it this way, which is to definitively prove that undulated runways are in the sim; however at the same time they were overdone, at least in LPMA. This is because other than before the dock, Madeira never had undulating runways to begin with. The three videos I showed are proof of this, plus the extra to show even before the runway platform, it never undulated. In reality, from runway 5 the slope is 0.8% to 1.0% incline going up. It's still flat, but is sloped. However before the bridge, the runway slope decreases until it reaches the platform. After that, everything is flat and leveled (0.0% incline). This is according to charts from November 2018. Plus, I saw an earlier screenshot of LPMA back in April 24 (the ones from simtom112), and there was no undulations like the one in this update, so I thought those screenshots are more accurate. I do admit there isn't enough screenshots of LPMA to get the whole story behind how much is depicted in MSFS.

Plus, the one thing I was confused about with a few reactions is the threshold markings. Especially since I doubt LPMA is the only airport that uses these markings. I pointed out that out of the 30 busiest airports in Britain, at least 10% of them used similar threshold markings to LPMA. Also one of the changes in the change log mentions runway surfaces, which is why I completely disagree with anyone who thinks it's impossible for Asobo to improve LPMA. Again, I wasn't trying to come across as entitled, just pointing out the threshold used in LPMA isn't uncommon for smaller airports, especially in the UK at least.

I do need to point out I do not regret posting this, not one bit. Just the way I worded could've been better or better balanced out with some positives such as the runway platform. Plus, I got to talk with a few users on the forum, which is nice. I will still point out discrepancies with future screenshots or videos of LPMA, but at the same time keeping in mind how I word it so that I avoid these types of reactions (or at least minimize it).

Edited May 17, 2020 by JSilva

[Anthracite 131]

9 hours ago, LHookins said:

The 116 gig download is new information.  And it is something people can use to calculate their Internet requirements.

If you or anyone else in the UK wants me to download the data for them they can send me a USB drive with sufficient space and have it done. I imagine we all have some friends we can ask to do just that though.

If it was me who had data caps, I would pick a different hobby. I've been gaming online since 56k, I've never reached a data cap or broken any fair use on bandwidth and I've been pretty prolific with my downloads. Where you living that its a problem if you don't mind me asking?