Is it a good idea to get into Prepar3D now?

[NickBo]

36 minutes ago, flycln said:

I do think it’s weird that you recognize the steps forward and the innovation but refuse to acknowledge the steps backwards that MSFS made compared to other sims.

You actually proved my point exactly. Look at your post - almost all of those things you mentioned are actually not P3D innovations, they are 3rd party innovations. There are some great things in P3D but almost all of them are either thanks to previous FS/FSX developers or 3rd party developers.

Did LM develop any complex airliner? Did LM redesign the entire weather system? Did LM redesign the ATC system? Or even repaint the taxiway signs? They gave us a submarine and a couple of fighter jets. They haven't even fixed many of the the 15 year old FSX bugs yet.

Those innovations you're talking about were created by 3rd party developers and most of them are now focusing more and more on MSFS. For me it's not where we are now, it's where we're heading. A sim that is not moving forward is degrading every day.

[NickBo]

10 minutes ago, OzWhitey said:

If people want to give up A2A and PMDG for a pretty-looking game/sim with dubious flight modelling and system-light aircraft, good for them.

What's your opinion on companies like A2A/PMDG/ORBX/FSDT/REX etc, do you think they're currently primarily investing time and effort in future products for P3D or has their focus switched to another sim?

Many companies won't tell you this out loud (although some has), but If you look at the news page at FSElite and similar sites, addons and news regarding one particular sim is announced at an impressive rate. For other sims you get the impression that they're pretty much abandoned already.

To me it's pretty clear where this is heading. If you're happy with the current addons then fine. Just be aware that as time goes by more and more of them will become abandoned. In that sense you could say the opposite of what you're saying: If you want to continue using quality 3rd party addons and continue to support those companies you mentioned, your choice of sim should match the choice of sim of the big developers.

[Biology]

4 minutes ago, OzWhitey said:

If people want to give up A2A and PMDG for a pretty-looking game/sim with dubious flight modelling and system-light aircraft, good for them.

If they’re excited, even better. 

I strongly encourage them to celebrate their newfound love of the game on the MSFS forum - a place where you will sometimes find me, when i want to talk about...MSFS.

If they don’t want to post their MSFS thoughts over there, perhaps they can blog them.

What I - and many others - can live without is thread after thread on the Prepar3d forum being derailed by the fans of a different sim.

I don't want to be involved in that "war", but PMDG is coming to the MSFS, same for many other airliners with extremely detailed systems. Also, based on my newcomer's experience with P3D, its default aircraft are not good by any stretch of imagination, which is weird given that people call MSFS "an inaccurate arcade game" just because of its default aircraft. In fact, I can probably say the same thing for its weather.

Also, really? Are we again back to the "simulator vs game" and "rEaL SiMmEr vs gamer" debates? It really doesn't help anybody, other than causing people to insult each other.

[flycln]

1 hour ago, NickBo said:

You actually proved my point exactly. Look at your post - almost all of those things you mentioned are actually not P3D innovations, they are 3rd party innovations. There are some great things in P3D but almost all of them are either thanks to previous FS/FSX developers or 3rd party developers.

I was talking about the platform. Not about a vanilla default game.

And right now the platform P3D is vastly superior to me because those things exist. Some of them part of the base sim, some provided by 3rd party devs.

Some of the stuff we'll most likely see in MSFS down the road. While some other stuff is very unclear at this point.

[micstatic]

54 minutes ago, NickBo said:

What's your opinion on companies like A2A/PMDG/ORBX/FSDT/REX etc, do you think they're currently primarily investing time and effort in future products for P3D or has their focus switched to another sim?

Many companies won't tell you this out loud (although some has), but If you look at the news page at FSElite and similar sites, addons and news regarding one particular sim is announced at an impressive rate. For other sims you get the impression that they're pretty much abandoned already.

To me it's pretty clear where this is heading. If you're happy with the current addons then fine. Just be aware that as time goes by more and more of them will become abandoned. In that sense you could say the opposite of what you're saying: If you want to continue using quality 3rd party addons and continue to support those companies you mentioned, your choice of sim should match the choice of sim of the big developers.

Great story. Fact of the matter is msfs is fun for viewing scenery. Not for the more complex airplane simulation options. Hopefully one day. But that day isn’t today. 

[NickBo]

18 minutes ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

I was going to list all the new features in P3D and bug fixes but that would turn my single post into 50+ pages ... do yourself a favor and read the "Prepar3d Learning Center" specifically the "What Is New" section as it covers everything from V1.0 to V5.x that has evolved over the years.

It doesn't take 50+ pages to spell "submarine and a couple of fighter jets".
 

[Biology]

17 minutes ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

Or how about the PDK, oh wait that's the Prepar3D Development Kit and there is NO equivalent in MSFS because everything significant to the needs of a complex "study level" aircraft has to go thru WASM.  You might want to read MSFS SDK ... then read the P3D SDK and PDK ... notice anything different?  😉

I was going to list all the new features in P3D and bug fixes but that would turn my single post into 50+ pages ... do yourself a favor and read the "Prepar3d Learning Center" specifically the "What Is New" section as it covers everything from V1.0 to V5.x that has evolved over the years.  Or just keep banging your drum if that makes you happy but it will NOT get Asobo nor DLC providers the ability to bring complex aircraft into MSFS any sooner.  

Cheers, Rob.

Actually this is something I really wonder - P3D SDK/PDK seems to have really neat features which aren't utilized by many add-ons available out there. Why is that the case? Not only the visual stuff like dynamic lighting, PBR, but even utilities. Many people call P3D "just rebranded FSX", but based on what I've seen, this is clearly not the case. Even though it maintains basic compatibility and looks similar out of the box, so many things under the hood seem to be changed.

[Biology]

5 minutes ago, BiologicalNanobot said:

Actually this is something I really wonder - P3D SDK/PDK seems to have really neat features which aren't utilized by many add-ons available out there. Why is that the case? Not only the visual stuff like dynamic lighting, PBR, but even utilities. Many people call P3D "just rebranded FSX", but based on what I've seen, this is clearly not the case. Even though it maintains basic compatibility and looks similar out of the box, so many things under the hood seem to be changed.

In fact, it looks like it is quite easy to add post-processing shaders, which made me believe that I can bring my freeware volumetric cloud add-on for X-Plane to Prepar3D as well. But probably not needed, given that trueSKY already looks fantastic.

[Mace]

1 minute ago, BiologicalNanobot said:

Actually this is something I really wonder - P3D SDK/PDK seems to have really neat features which aren't utilized by many add-ons available out there. Why is that the case? Not only the visual stuff like dynamic lighting, PBR, but even utilities. Many people call P3D "just rebranded FSX", but based on what I've seen, this is clearly not the case. Even though it maintains basic compatibility and looks similar out of the box, so many things under the hood seem to be changed.

Some of it are relatively recent additions to the SDK/PDK.  Just as with MSFS, in P3D top-notch add-ons take a lot of time to make.  As an example, my pet peeve, modern windshield rain effects came out about 2 or 2.5 years ago.  Yet even now we see add-ons released without that immersive feature.

Many things under the hood have change drastically, even from P3Dv4.0 to P3Dv4.5 -- not to mention v5HF2, which is a lot different than v5HF1 under the hood.

Now see @NickBo this (demonstrably, by the way) the friendliest subforum at AVSIM.  You go into certain other subforums here, and you'd get a far less friendly response.  Do not mistake calling out falsehood, with unfriendliness.  There has been a lot of calling out of falsehood in the last year in the P3D Subforum, sadly.  I kept silent about it for a loooooong time but I, like many others here as well as @BiologicalNanobot, want our tranquil P3D subforum back.  Thank you.  And @BiologicalNanobot, if you have not been around here very long, know that the P3D subforum here has traditionally been the most helpful and friendly place I know of for P3D info.  The AVSIM Hardware subforum is also very, very good -- lots of knowledgeable people there in case you're building a new system or thinking about components.

[JoeFackel]

9 minutes ago, BiologicalNanobot said:

Many people call P3D "just rebranded FSX" ....

Just from "simmers" only seeing the wrapping and giving a word not allowed about content.

[OzWhitey]

2 hours ago, NickBo said:

What's your opinion on companies like A2A/PMDG/ORBX/FSDT/REX etc, do you think they're currently primarily investing time and effort in future products for P3D or has their focus switched to another sim?

Many companies won't tell you this out loud (although some has), but If you look at the news page at FSElite and similar sites, addons and news regarding one particular sim is announced at an impressive rate. For other sims you get the impression that they're pretty much abandoned already.

To me it's pretty clear where this is heading. If you're happy with the current addons then fine. Just be aware that as time goes by more and more of them will become abandoned. In that sense you could say the opposite of what you're saying: If you want to continue using quality 3rd party addons and continue to support those companies you mentioned, your choice of sim should match the choice of sim of the big developers.

That makes no sense. Why would i ditch p3d now just because another sim possibly may have the thing i currently have in a years time? PMDG 777 for MSFS...in 2022? Never? Who knows, but abandoning p3d now so i can wait around for a day that may never come sounds like a bad idea. 

By the way, as per my sig i fly all the sims, i just use whatever is best for the job.

[micstatic]

2 hours ago, NickBo said:

It doesn't take 50+ pages to spell "submarine and a couple of fighter jets".
 

I see you just joined recently. I’m sorry. But the posts I see from you in this topic have me thinking you are doing a troll attempt. Like I’ve and others have said a million times. Msfs needs quality aircraft to have staying power. In the medium term pmdg has redeployed their developers back to P3d. Why do you think that is?

[OzWhitey]

1 hour ago, NickBo said:

It doesn't take 50+ pages to spell "submarine and a couple of fighter jets".
 

Nick, you complain that people are not friendly here, but then you go and make a dumb troll post like that.

i’m sorry, but “troll” is really the only word that fits that post. Not worth responding to. If you really believe that, go and do what Rob A-suggested, and read the v1 to v5hf2 change logs to educate yourself.

Edit: Mic, you beat me to it by 20 seconds. 🙂

[OzWhitey]

2 hours ago, BiologicalNanobot said:

I don't want to be involved in that "war", but PMDG is coming to the MSFS, same for many other airliners with extremely detailed systems. Also, based on my newcomer's experience with P3D, its default aircraft are not good by any stretch of imagination, which is weird given that people call MSFS "an inaccurate arcade game" just because of its default aircraft. In fact, I can probably say the same thing for its weather.

Also, really? Are we again back to the "simulator vs game" and "rEaL SiMmEr vs gamer" debates? It really doesn't help anybody, other than causing people to insult each other.

PMDG is not coming to MSFS any time soon. And you have no way to know for sure that “extremely detailed systems” will ever feature in the sim, as there is currently no SDK to support that. It’s a speculative future feature.

Nobody who is serious about P3D flies default aircraft, the sim is a base product to use with addons.

You’re the one who mentioned the simmer versus gamer thing, but fact: msfs is a game, and p3d is a training product. MS /Asobo have designed MSFS for entertainment, LM designed their product for simulation-based learning.

[LHookins]

Right now, for the kind of flying I do, having accurate scenery everywhere I fly makes up for a lot of shortcomings, and there are a lot to make up for.  

But I absolutely guarantee that when P3D goes to a streaming scenery model I will be back.  And I'm pretty sure P3D will have that feature much earlier than MSFS will be mature enough to have everything else I want.

Basically, the only advantage MSFS offers me right now is a study level pilotage and dead reckoning sim.  I think P3D could do it better.

P3D ain't dead by a long shot.

Hook