Impressions from a long time MSFS(Aces) developer

[RudyB24 296]

Another opinion ... followed by opinions on that opinion:

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/the-opinions-of-the-flight-sim-community-a-summary/213316

My opinion on the opinion in the link: quite a reasonable summary of the general opinion.

Edited August 26, 2020 by RudyB24

[Nedo68 533]

13 minutes ago, filoux said:

If you analyse the new flight_model.cfg you will see it’s a concatenation of the old aircraft.cfg and air table in a txt format. That is to say based on derivatives.
I was surprised to see they changed the ground effect by plotting it vs mach which is quite weird... anyway The BIG new stuff Asobo introduced is the discretisation of aircraft surfaces according coarse geometry parameters as described in geometry section. From this geometry they deduce the basic surfaces (wing, tail, fuse...) that they cut in 1000 element surfaces on which they spread the forces computed from old air cfg system. Example : the lift computed from CL and it’s derivatives (CL vs mach, CL vs aoa) is spread on the computed coarse wing surface. The idea I think is to compute the moments of asymmetrical forces on the airplane. Could be interesting but in real life pressure and so forces are not not spread equally on all the surfaces. Take example if the lift. It spreads on the wing differently with AOA, drift angle, mach. The result of this spread evolution is the pitch moment described macroscopically by Cm coefficients. What is funny is despite Asobo computes forces application on 1000 surfaces to get these moments right, they kept Cm coefficients in the new cfg. The risk is the moments get overestimated by addition of Cm and force repartition.

I would have loved to see implementation of multi wing, a more evolved drag model including effect of Reynolds, mach and aoa conjugated, effect of slats on CL vs aoa etc...

now this is interesting ! Time to get my dusty physics book out of the cellar, best would be a bottle of red wine as well! ;*D

[rtodepart 761]

Come on now did this man just got cloned and someone erased some parts of his memorys of what FSX was like when  released ???.....

Edited August 26, 2020 by rtodepart

[pjs37 319]

7 minutes ago, rtodepart said:

Com on now did this man just got cloned and someone erased some parts of his memorys of what FSX was like when  released ???.....

Or any sim really.  I mean X-Plane 11 was good at launch but they didn't add airports until later, or the GPS module, or the new UI interface.  These things improved in time but it was a solid platform.  P3D by all accounts was more or less a clone of FSX at launch and only through its patches and updates have improved.  I expect the same will occur here.  Was the launch rushed?  Probably I think it could have stayed in testing longer and some features should have been in place for launch and not being planned to be addressed later but for what it is today it is a very solid Flight Sim platform that is enjoyable today and I can only see improving into the future.

[overspeed3 410]

It's no comfort to me or anyone out there to remind us how supposedly dreadful FSX was out of the box. 

Asobo has been developing this project for supposedly two years.  The fact is, 2020 was released half-baked: There are still there are many bugs that should have been resolved prior to release, and several long-established flight sim features are are down-right missing - so, will they ever be included in subsequent updates?  We're now told by those out to just "wait" until Asobo can fix everything, and "wait" until 3rd party developers get busy.  Seriously!  We all have to wait for all of them to fix this simulator.  Huh. And what if there are bugs in payware?  They first have to stop and figure-out the SDK  development protocols.  Or did MS give them a heads-up in advance?  Ya know, to share $ in payware products thru the "Marketplace Store.

I'm certainly glad there are those simmers who now are tickled pink with this version of MSFS2020:  But I think right now, you are outnumbered by a bunch of rather sad-faced emojis...

Edited August 26, 2020 by overspeed3

[filoux 9]

26 minutes ago, Nedo68 said:

now this is interesting ! Time to get my dusty physics book out of the cellar, best would be a bottle of red wine as well! ;*D

Bordeaux preferrably !😉

[odourboy 1,289]

Meh. With all his background and experience, I was expecting much more insight and depth. His 'review' was disappointingly superficial and could have been written by any number of AVSimmers. 

[Turpentine 375]

This was a very painful read, it oozes with contempt and (very) selective memory. Actually, more than painful, it was sad.

[pjs37 319]

7 minutes ago, overspeed3 said:

I'm certainly glad there are those simmers who now are tickled pink with this version of MSFS2020:  But I think right now, you are outnumbered by a bunch of rather sad-faced emojis...

Not according to the Steam Reviews which has been "Mostly Positive"

I don't think anyone is saying that those with problems especially critical ones like the installation issues or CTD to the point they cannot enjoy it are wrong or that their issues are not valid.  They absolutely are and yes it sucks that there are bugs and it sucks that people cannot also enjoy it.  But like any product in life those who have issues are not indicative of overall experience of most users they just tend to be the most vocal.

[eslader 1,783]

My thoughts, for what theyre worth.

 

-On the "state-of-the-art computer" thing. I'm running a 1080Ti, AMD 2700x 3.7g, 32g ram and, of course, SSD. Supposed 40mbps from Centurylink, but usually closer to 30 with fairly regular complete dropouts because Centurylink sucks.

My computer is no slouch, but it's certainly not the baddest rig on the block. While I'm not running 4k - my monitors are all 1080 - I was still surprised that the sim defaulted to ultra settings. I was further surprised that for the most part it runs smoothly on those settings. Just a little bit of stuttering in dense areas - and I haven't quite determined yet whether that's actual framerate issues or if it's frantically trying to download all that scenery and not quite keeping up. If I had to guess, it's the latter. In short, while yes this sim does require a lot of power, it requires a lot less relative power than FSX did. I said elsewhere that some of us used to joke that we needed to get the computer from the Starship Enterprise to run the thing smoothly.

 

-Completely agree on the documentation thing. I've been simming since before Microsoft bought SubLogic, and even I am experiencing occasional confusion on how to do something. And I'm not having to learn the interface *and* the basics of flying. Total sim noobs may well give up in frustration before they manage to figure everything out.

-Agree on the menu navigations. They're pretty, but not granular enough for efficient flight setup. And I shouldn't have to exit all the way back out to the main menu just to swap planes or make a new flight plan. That's dumb.

-Agree on the cockpits. For the most part, they're pretty but in some of them more than 50% of the controls are "inop," and the ones that do operate, a lot of them don't operate correctly. I am not dumb enough to expect PMDG level planes from the defaults, but this is not what was advertised. They'd do well to improve the default aircraft at least to the point of usability. Right now, Carenado addons are embarrassing most of the defaults, and that's a sad state of affairs for a next-gen sim.

-"step backwards."  Nah.  I mean, yeah, right now it's not as robust as FSX/P3d/Xplane installs with lots of addons, but we all knew that going in. The base platform is a giant leap forward. Developers have been making addons for FSX for well over a decade, which is why it and P3d are the robust sims they are now. Imagine what this thing is gonna look like after a few years of 3rd party development.

He's right that MSFS2020 is incomplete, but so was every version of MSFS that he worked on - and those were never completed, at least, not by Microsoft/ACES.

 

[Cognita 1,082]

Maybe I came to MS2020 with low expectations. It felt clear from the early statements and descriptions, from ABOSO and from developers, that this sim was just a beginning, that not everything was complete or polished but there was a commitment to keep building on it actively in the years ahead. Robert from PMDG said this explicitly before the sim was released, that it was still under development and was not ready for complex PMDG type simulated aircraft, and that it would be 4 to 8 months before he thought this would be possible. But he also said that the ABOSO team was eager to listen to the needs of developers and was continually working to improve the platform. The early YouTube streams made it really clear that the airliners were buggy and far from what we consider to be a “study aircraft.”  

What I remember from FSX was that on day 1 I could not run it, except to load the 182 in a sparsely populated Caribbean strip and fly to another sparsely populated airport. I did this for months! It took 3 years from me to be able to run that simulation well, and then only with a set of “tweaks” that took hours to test and learn. It took many more years to get it to look and feel somewhat acceptable and to get better modeled aircraft.  Right now I am flying fluidly in what I think everyone agrees is much better scenery and, “look mom, no tweaks!”

The difference I perceive is that we now have a team that by all accounts is trying, is developing, has a roadmap and is listening.  There is a lot of work to do here. But I am really enjoying flying the 172 from airport to airport around southern Ontario, planning most of the trips in advance and following VFR landmarks. And most of the time I have a wonderful sense of flying and immersion. But, I accept, my standards, I guess, are low.

One problem here is so much is subjective. What is fluid to me is a slideshow to someone else; what looks like great clouds to me, to someone else looks like poorly heated cotton candy; what is a great menu system to me, is impossible to manage for someone else; what is acceptable sense of flight for me is a laughable child’s video game to others. If you are ASOBO, what do you do with hundreds of countervailing opinions and impressions and desires?

Part of my work is as a consultant and a frequent conversation I have with managers is focused on helping them learn to identify strength and to build on it. Too often I find we work hard to identify weaknesses, and while this can be helpful, I have found it is far more beneficial in the long run to identify the strengths and put resources into building on these as experience is gained and capacity built. In time the weaknesses get addressed. Is that not what happened to a degree with FSX, especially by third-party developers as they brought more vision and capacity?

[Paraffin 2,197]

1 minute ago, Cognita said:

Part of my work is as a consultant and a frequent conversation I have with managers is focused on helping them learn to identify strength and to build on it. Too often I find we work hard to identify weaknesses, and while this can be helpful, I have found it is far more beneficial in the long run to identify the strengths and put resources into building on these as experience is gained and capacity built. In time the weaknesses get addressed. Is that not what happened to a degree with FSX, especially by third-party developers as they brought more vision and capacity?

That's a valid point. I suppose a counter-argument is that in the time since the announcement of the new sim and the release, Avsim was filled with people saying they were so glad that finally, they would have a "complete" sim without having to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars for 3rd party add-ons. That was the future Asobo/MS was selling.

Of course that wouldn't apply to aircraft models, you expect to have to buy those because Asobo can't fill out the hangar all by themselves. But people were looking forward to no longer needing scenery add-ons, weather, and avionics add-ons. They were expecting a complete package in the default sim.

Now the reality hits, and it looks like we'll need a few scenery add-ons here and there, and probably some payware avionics to beef up the various GPS models. Not sure about the weather yet, but if Asobo can't fix the turbulence modeling, it may be up to a 3rd party product.

So I think it's worth pointing out weaknesses when it's not meeting people's early expectations, as well as the original hype for the sim from Asobo and Microsoft. Things will improve over time, just not quite the way some folks were expecting.

[Adrian123 1,015]

Just now, Paraffin said:

expectations

You hit the nail on the head. Too high of expectations. Though, I didn't hear any of what was to be pre release!

[MikeT707 1,181]

Sarcasm Alert: Please do not proceed if you cannot understand sarcasm. 

FSX was definitely not aimed at a gaming market and was certainly intended for serious virtual pilots in command. Many advanced pilot in command features and systems are enabled, not just basic stuff like MSFS, plus the FSX flight model is finely tuned. FSX is a good training aid.

 

 

And who says that FSX can't look as good as MSFS. 

[Slides 1,552]

2 hours ago, filoux said:

If you analyse the new flight_model.cfg you will see it’s a concatenation of the old aircraft.cfg and air table in a txt format. That is to say based on derivatives.
 

Finally we have someone who knows what's he's doing digging into the FM.