"Study-Level" Aircrafts Do Not Require Payware Addons

[cwburnett 1,809]

13 minutes ago, robert young said:

you are the "supreme coordinator"

LOL Robert, I'm going to change my 'title' on avsim to this I think. I'm sure my friends on the WT team will not thank you for this...as I will now also make them call me the supreme coordinator.

In all seriousness I agree with everything you said. There is nothing currently 'study level' in MSFS and the term itself as you and others have pointed out is all but meaningless. What are we studying? How the plane flies? Or how the FMS loads a flight plan.

12 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

My point is that there will be a MSF market for high end products and all the valiant efforts of the freeware folks will not replace them. MSF is a solid platform and market for that.

Yea, I mean, I have purchased thousands of dollars of add-ons for P3D. I'll tell you for sure that if Majestic brings the Q400 to MSFS I will buy it; when Leonardo brings the MD80, I will buy it. It's a big world and there are a lot of planes out there. But we're all working from the same playbook - aka the SDK. There's nothing magical about what goes INTO a payware project vs a freeware project. There will be crappy payware AND freeware that isn't study level and there will be amazing payware and freeware that is study level. Payware != study level is, I think, the point.

[MattNischan 3,778]

5 minutes ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

are you saying you can?

Yes.

[cwburnett 1,809]

1 minute ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

there are very obvious limitations that a developer can't overcome to bring features to the same level as FSLabs, ProSim, PMDG

Without knowing specifically what features you're referring to, I can't really answer. I keep reading this here on Avsim, though, so it must be true.

I've railed my fair share about the SDK, so I don't mean to be difficult about this, but then I could do a whole page on the P3D/ESP SDK also. I just can't get on board with a blanket generalization that "it can't be done" - if someone wanted to talk specific capabilities - I'm always happy to do that, but I'm not going to guess at what you or they are talking about...

[dsmbell 36]

What a great subject - just what I had been thinking.

In P3D I had both FSL A320 and PMDG 737 and was definitely planing on getting the PMDG 737 for MSFS as soon as released but my view on this is changing. To me it will be very interesting to see how far the mod version has got by the time these come out and whether at that point people will be willing to pay the price for them. Given how the mod has developed in a matter of weeks the longer these 'study level' aircraft take, the harder the decision will be.

[cwburnett 1,809]

1 minute ago, dsmbell said:

In P3D I had both FSL A320 and PMDG 737 and was definitely planing on getting the PMDG 737 for MSFS as soon as released but my view on this is changing.

I just want to be clear that I am not discouraging anyone from buying payware and I am not discounting payware developers. I have said before and will continue to say that 3PDs are an important part of the ecosystem and I support their efforts. And I own MANY of their products. And I will buy many for MSFS also. 👍

There's room enough for all.

Now, I really need to get some work done...

[Mace 1,902]

13 minutes ago, cwburnett said:

LOL Robert, I'm going to change my 'title' on avsim to this I think. I'm sure my friends on the WT team will not thank you for this...as I will now also make them call me the supreme coordinator.

In all seriousness I agree with everything you said. There is nothing currently 'study level' in MSFS and the term itself as you and others have pointed out is all but meaningless. What are we studying? How the plane flies? Or how the FMS loads a flight plan.

"Study Level" should be one of the seven banned words, in my opinion.  (George Carlin reference). 

 

[dsmbell 36]

Just to clarify - my view is not changing due to this thread - just due to progress on the mod a320. 

[Nyxx 6,993]

1 hour ago, cwburnett said:

but rather those at FSL have "real" jobs and this is a side project - because it couldn't support them financially otherwise.

Just FYI, and just to me 100% as this is a forum, this takes nothing away from what you and other mod'ers are trying to bring us and is very much appreciated.

The main Guy at FSL worked for PMDG and left to start FSL, as far as I know him and Andrew worked on the FSX Concord and after that full time on the A320, I have never heard of them doing or working on or for anyone else. There are full time developers. Many said an Airbus simply could not be done under in FSX. Them guys over at FSL have a very bad case of OCD.

I hope your guys also suffer from it to brings us the best you can 🙂 

[Dominique_K 10,133]

 

 

17 minutes ago, cwburnett said:

 .

   Payware != study level is, I think, the point.

Payware and study level are two different things all right but, looking back since, say, 2k2, I see that most of the progress made in designing more convincing aircraft has been payware, the freeware in the top tier category are rare exceptions.   And that makes sense.

 

[cwburnett 1,809]

2 minutes ago, Nyxx said:

Them guys over at FSL have a very bad case of OCD.

LOL yea it is so easy to get in really deep. I respect the FSL attention to detail. I mean DETAIL. Our "study level" enforcer is @FNAL - who is our only 'professional' pilot on the team, and the one with current access to the CJ4 that we've been measuring and modeling and testing with.... but he flies something bigger now 😉 I have my commercial license, but don't actually fly for $ so can't claim to be a professional pilot. Anyhow, he's the one that makes us adjust the code to properly replicate a bug in the real PL21 FMS...he's that guy, lol...

 

[Chock 17,769]

1 hour ago, MattNischan said:

You'd be surprised at just how many pilots who fly the real aircraft are willing to poke and prod the airplane for you. We have a former CJ4 pilot on our team, for example, and taking actual measurements and getting real photo and video references of the actual plane and various instrument and FMC edge cases has absolutely been part of our process. Just because we're not making anyone pay for it does not also mean we're just guessing at how things work on a whim. 😉

 

I know that there will be such people involved, I'm not suggesting people are taking completely uninformed guesses at things. I have quite often provided people with info on airliners from when I either was, or had previously worked on them either in the cockpit, or working on the avionics, or loading and towing the things around. But I can tell you that when you are at work, you are not being paid to poke and prod around stuff and so you don't always have permission (more often you don't have the time) to do the stuff you'd want to - for example, taking photographs is kind of tolerated, but technically you should be getting permission to do that on a commercial airfield on a commercial aeroplane which is in service at the time, so even when you are right there, working on an aeroplane, it doesn't always mean you can do whatever you like. Thus it is very different from being given free reign with an aeroplane specifically for the purpose.

Edited October 28, 2020 by Chock

[MattNischan 3,778]

3 minutes ago, Chock said:

but technically you should be getting permission to do that on a commercial airfield on a commercial aeroplane which is in service at the time, so even when you are right there, working on an aeroplane, it doesn't always mean you can do whatever you like. Thus it is very different from being given free reign with an aeroplane specifically for the purpose.

We are definitely acutely aware of the difference, and we're very lucky folks in that regard, and that's about all I'm at liberty to say about that. 😉

Edited October 28, 2020 by MattNischan

[Chock 17,769]

Just now, MattNischan said:

We are definitely acutely aware of the difference, and that's about all I'm at liberty to say about that. 😉

Don't worry, I know what you mean. This is exactly why some of my videos of me working on planes are not that great cinematically shall we say, because primarily my concern was doing the job properly and safely whilst happening to have a camera on me, rather than the other way around!

[MattNischan 3,778]

Ah, my apologies, I edited my response there, as I thought my intent might be interpreted the opposite as I meant!

 

[Ricardo41 5,936]

1 hour ago, GSalden said:

PMDG is a team that works continuously on their ac. 

 

It took them over 15 years toi deliver a Boeing biz jet....