Milviz twitch live stream

[Torsen 424]

10 hours ago, Slayer68 said:

Sorry Torsen that is not entirely true. There was an FMS in FSX and pre 64 bit P3D. The developer that made the FMS is no longer with Milviz and we didn't have the code to port it to 64 bit as he took it with him. Redeveloping another FMS and autopilot for a product that was already released was just not going to happen as many people are not willing to repurchase the aircraft again. The cost of developing a new FMS probably would  not pay for itself in new sales as many in the community think it is a simple "port". The hard decision was made to remove the FMS and not develop another one was a hard pill to swallow but not worth the financial investment.

Sorry, you're right. I missed the 64bit... but the 32bit feels so long gone that I did not even think about it. (Yes as a VA admin I know there are a lot of people still out flying 32bit, but as they are a small niche in regards of sales they are not in focus at all anymore). I followed the discussion of the fms back then and I was fine with it. Not happy but fine. Luckily one had the chance to fit some free or payware alternatives in the center console as there was still the placeholder left. Visually not appealing but a working solution for a wonderful classic bird.

And you have a very valid point with the purchase thing that I totally understand. The last years showed up a big move to "ey, not free? then big discount, no discount, no way" behavior (and partly unprofessional ranting included) that I personally don't share. On the other hand with the p3d move to v4 and v5 and the constant need for adjustments and product updates following the sim updates makes it hard for the customer to follow the argument and sadly its always easy to blame the dev for that. One of the main problems is that a lot in the community simply have no clue what it means to do IT/software dev projects and their lifecycle support.

But I still have some hopes that we will see the 732 flying in msfs with a fms 😉

Cheers

T.

[Slayer68 62]

Just some clarification. The 737 may go forward but the porter and Otter will probably be first. Our aircraft will be coming.

We are also going to be using features like the assisted checklist that I understand other developers do not.

Do you want a full featured version or a rush job?

[SquawkModeCharlie 32]

Is the Milviz ATR dead and buried?.

[Slayer68 62]

1 hour ago, SquawkModeCharlie said:

Is the Milviz ATR dead and buried?.

No, it's actually in beta testing right now. They had screen shots in the stream. P3D only for now though.

[leprechaunlive 1,846]

1 hour ago, Slayer68 said:

Just some clarification. The 737 may go forward but the porter and Otter will probably be first. Our aircraft will be coming.

We are also going to be using features like the assisted checklist that I understand other developers do not.

Do you want a full featured version or a rush job?

Some devs already use the checklists 🙂

[Slayer68 62]

1 minute ago, leprechaunlive said:

Some devs already use the checklists 🙂

I understand that, just not trying to call anyone out.😁

[JB3DG 225]

18 hours ago, MattNischan said:

I don't want to go too strong here and say it's just stubbornness or aversion to new technology overall. I think the only thing that I'm trying to get across is that there is an avenue forward that does already exist, and that the platform is capable of amazingly full systems depth today, despite some misunderstandings. Whether or going in a new language or API direction makes sense from a financial and risk perspective is an entirely different question.

The other thing I will add is that the JS/TS API has a total of zero documentation. It does, however, have a ton of examples, with all the current planes being built in it. So, I get it, there are definitely plusses an minuses. But it isn't a platform issue, it's a time/knowledge/cost/risk issue. The platform is plenty good for all manner of complex systems and navigation sim.

-Matt

As Slayer mentioned, there is the issue of protecting our IP. Going the route that you are taking is essentially the same as leaving our source code open for the world to see, which we cannot, and will not do. Neither will PMDG, nor A2A, nor any other high end developer. The only route to protect our code currently is the WASM system, and for reasons I will not go into here due to NDAs, it is not ready for our plans, or PMDGs plans etc.

[MattNischan 3,410]

10 minutes ago, JB3DG said:

As Slayer mentioned, there is the issue of protecting our IP. Going the route that you are taking is essentially the same as leaving our source code open for the world to see, which we cannot, and will not do. Neither will PMDG, nor A2A, nor any other high end developer. The only route to protect our code currently is the WASM system, and for reasons I will not go into here due to NDAs, it is not ready for our plans, or PMDGs plans etc.

This is not really true. WASM bytecode can be turned back into readable Javascript, which has about the same readability as minified/uglified/obfuscated Javascript. So, the IP can be protected roughly the same amount in either case, which is to say not infinitely, but relatively well either way.

Additionally, the JS code can be protected by the Asobo provided DRM system as well if you want to prevent access.

-Matt

Edited December 15, 2020 by MattNischan

[raymar 961]

21 hours ago, MattNischan said:

Right now we have this, and we'll be doing a couple of additional videos for the new features as well.

(250) How To Fly the Working Title CJ4 - YouTube

-Matt

Matt,

What is this updated CJ4 going to be named in the forums here? I don't want to miss it.

Regards,

Ray

[cwburnett 1,808]

8 minutes ago, raymar said:

Matt,

What is this updated CJ4 going to be named in the forums here? I don't want to miss it.

Regards,

Ray

It will get a new thread soon, it will be Working Title CJ4 v0.8.x and it will be released as a beta, with 0.7.3 still available for those wanting to not beta test the new features. We've been testing with a relatively small group of beta testers for a little over a week, and we'll move to an open beta this week sometime.

[regis9 3,572]

At risk of jumping to conclusions, is what I’m reading here that the biggest issues for large payware developers moving to MSFS (and the comments around the SDK not being ready yet) are an inability to protect IP or are there other significant technical issues that freeware developers have found a way around?

[raymar 961]

1 hour ago, cwburnett said:

It will get a new thread soon, it will be Working Title CJ4 v0.8.x and it will be released as a beta, with 0.7.3 still available for those wanting to not beta test the new features. We've been testing with a relatively small group of beta testers for a little over a week, and we'll move to an open beta this week sometime.

Thanks, this is really very good news. I am so very impressed with the dedication and technical expertise that is constantly being demonstrated with this project. It really is truly amazing, not just the leaps and bounds, but, also the amount of dedicated time and effort by the team.  I for one greatly appreciate every single improvement.  Now, if I could just find some printed documentation for the CJ4.  .  .  .

Best Regards,

Ray

[omarsmak30 3,899]

1 hour ago, MattNischan said:

Additionally, the JS code can be protected by the Asobo provided DRM system as well if you want to prevent access.

 

Just the same like Asobo 787, is protected by the DRM, hence nobody can do anything. 

[kevinfirth 1,301]

7 hours ago, Slayer68 said:

Do you want a full featured version or a rush job?

One that works, unlike the KA350 please 🙂

5 hours ago, Slayer68 said:

6 hours ago, SquawkModeCharlie said:

Is the Milviz ATR dead and buried?.

No, it's actually in beta testing right now.

Please make it not suffer persistent DXGI HUNG errors... 🙂

Lest my list be interpreted negatively, I managed to get the KA350 started and off the ground ONCE only, and have to say I was pretty impressed with it. However, as it stands, unless I've missed something, I've tried all the recommended 'fixes' to avoid DXGI errors without success and it's 100% inop ATM.

[cwburnett 1,808]

13 minutes ago, regis9 said:

At risk of jumping to conclusions, is what I’m reading here that the biggest issues for large payware developers moving to MSFS (and the comments around the SDK not being ready yet) are an inability to protect IP or are there other significant technical issues that freeware developers have found a way around?

Purely my opinion, but there are three buckets I think.

First, just like with prior ESP/FSX/P3D sims, SDK documentation is weak. There's a lot in there, but in none of the SDKs is there good guidance on how to code in the relevant languages. For example, if you read the P3D SDK, there's no step-by-step guide on how to code a FMS - and neither is there one for MSFS. The challenge is that the new sim relies on newer development languages, so while the old sims didn't have great documentation, the devs had figured it out and had a large base of knowledge to work from. Now it is all new and without strong documentation, one has to figure it out by looking at existing aircraft and code. Basically that's how we did most everything we've done - by reverse engineering the default aircraft. It helps to know the languages and we were fortunate to build a team of people that really understand JS/CSS/HTML - and that's a new framework for flight sims.

Second, as you and others have mentioned, protection of IP is a concern. In the ESP/FSX/P3D world, code was compiled into DLLs and the like; reverse engineering that by decompiling is more difficult (sometimes nearly impossible), providing developers with security against IP infringement. MSFS offers 3PDs a DRM capability, but there does seem to be some resistance to that. Some 3PDs have availed themselves of that already - for example I believe the Carenado products rely on this. But, as with all things new, there are probably a lot of unanswered questions about it and I admit that I haven't looked extensively at that so can't speak to potential pitfalls.

The third bucket comes down to momentum vs change - for example we've been told by some well known and liked 3PDs that WASM wouldn't support autothrottle/FADEC - basically that the WASM/simconnect interface wouldn't allow us to intercept throttle events. This proved to be misinformation, as we've been able to do it without trouble. So, there is some general misinformation floating around that people tend to take as fact and it gets perpetuated. This isn't helped by the lack of documentation. I suspect some won't believe it can be done until we actually release publicly our WASM-powered FADEC for the CJ4 that fully intercepts hardware and software throttle events, and I bet even after we release it, a few will still insist that it can't be done, evidence-be-darned.

I think there's an opportunity for a new way of working together as a community, but change is hard. I have tremendous respect for many of our 3PDs and I own dozens and dozens of their products for P3D. However, like it or not, the flight sim world is changing – or maybe already has. The door was swung wide open by building the default panels on the HTML/JS stack – it is modern and easy to work with and, yes, a by-product of that is that it is also more open. How many industries have we watched fight open source only to eventually embrace it? How many companies in the last decade (or two) have claimed they’d be forced out of business if they embraced open source, only to end up thriving. One of those companies is Microsoft. Don’t misunderstand me, there’s plenty of opportunity to charge for products and make money, but maybe there are now aspects of the sim that are best developed in the open – and maybe common flight decks fall into that category.

I guess my question is, what’s the risk? What’s the downside? In FSX/P3D there were plenty of payware planes that relied on default sim systems that were basically locked. We couldn’t very well improve the default FSX/P3D GNS530 – we just had to live with it. Now MSFT/Asobo have said, no…you CAN improve the default gauges and panels. You can improve performance, reliability and features. So in the old model, every plane developer had to write custom panels. But today, 3PDs have the opportunity to say, hey, we’re going to release a new plane and it’s going to work with the default G1000 (or the Working Title G1000, or another community supported product) – and we’re going to partner with the community to improve that panel - and as the panel improves, so does our plane. And for our next 10 planes, we’ll use that same panel. And, yes, my competition can also use that panel, but my flight model, my physical model, my systems are what set my product apart. Suddenly they can dramatically reduce their development time, make use of an open-source panel that is of very high quality and drive revenue by bringing more planes to market faster. Is it a major change in how we look at the market? Yes, but…might it be worth it to give it a try? If you can suddenly bring 2 or 3 planes to market in the next few months, I’d think that risk would be well rewarded in the marketplace.

Anyhow, just my musings on the subject...as someone that pines for some of my P3D faves to make their MSFS debut...back to tweaking VNAV for the Working Title CJ4... 😉