April 15th, 2021 – Development Update

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

APRIL 15TH, 2021 DEVELOPMENT UPDATE

Posted by: Microsoft Flight Simulator Team

Screenshot by Steeler2340

 

Based on community reporting, the team is preparing a hotfix for a few issues that are affecting the community. We will be sure to keep the community updated on the progress and potential release time frame, but it will be soon!

The issues we will be including:

• WASM stand alone modules used in some add-ons are no longer working
• Cockpit screens can be unresponsive if the RTC is not skipped

In addition to the team is also aware that some users have had an issue with their log book where they end up losing all their hours. We understand the importance of this issue and the entire team is fully onboard investigating this issue and while we have nothing to report today, we will be sure to provide an update as soon as we know more. As always we thank you for the feedback and reports on our recent World Update!

Don’t forget we have our first SDK Q&A next Wednesday, April 21st at 10:30am PDT (1730Z)! We hope to see and chat with anyone who has been interested in asking questions about our SDK. The team is also excited to partner again with NVIDIA this week on our Screenshot Challenge – check here for details!

– The MSFS team

 

 

DEVELOPMENT ROADMAP

Click here for the web-friendly version.

 

FEEDBACK SNAPSHOT

Click here for the web-friendly version.

KEY:

SU = Sim Update (3, 4, etc.)

WU = World Update

ASAP = As Soon as Possible

TBD = To Be Determined

Several Releases = Fixes will come over a series of updates

Ongoing Fixes = An item we will continually be working on

Planned = Scheduled to be worked on

Under Investigation = The team is currently looking into the issue

Not Planned = We will likely not work on this

Started = Work as started on this item

 

THIRD PARTY UPDATE

• ORBX announced their 2021 roadmap and it includes 11 new cityscapes, 3 regional scenery packs, 9 airports and, for the first time, one aircraft. It’s great to see the momentum of this important partner.
• As of 04/10, we now approved 149 (+0) third parties into our marketplace and so far 75 (+0)  of them have released 306 products (+5).
• In total 826 products (+24) have already been released in 3rd party stores and the in-sim marketplace. Beyond that, another 304 products (+18) from 3rd party developers are in production (176 announced, 128 unannounced. Over 1,130 3rd party products (+42) are either released or are in development.
• Airports:
  • 721 airports (+26) are either released or are in various stages of development.
    • 528 airports (+20) have been released on the platform so far in various stores.
    • 249 airports (+0) have been released in the in-sim marketplace.
    • 87 airports (+10) beyond the released airports have been announced.
    • 106 airports (-4) are not announced, but the dev let us know that an airport is in production.
• Aircraft:
  • 126 aircraft (+0) are either released or are in various stages of development.
    • 30 aircraft (+0) have been released on the platform so far in various stores.
    • 23 aircraft (+0) have been released in the in-sim marketplace.
    • 74 aircraft (+0) beyond the released aircraft have been announced.
    • 22 aircraft (+0) are not announced, but the dev let us know that an aircraft is in production.
• Scenery:
  • 257 sceneries (+16) are either released or are in various stages of development.
    • 242 sceneries (+4) have been released on the platform so far in various stores.
    • 20 sceneries (+0) have been released in the in-sim marketplace.
    • 15 sceneries (+12) beyond the released scenery have been announced.
• Mission Packs:
  • 26 mission packs (+0) are either released or are in various stages of development.
    • 26 mission packs (+0) have been released on the platform so far in various stores.
    • 3 mission packs (+0) have been released in the in-sim marketplace.
    • 0 mission packs (+0) beyond the released missions have been announced

 

SDK UPDATE

• Documentation:
  • Added a special Xbox Series X|S page in the documentation area where we compiled all available information about “How to adapt your content for Xbox” (including samples and guidelines)
  • Updated the modelling documentation.
  • Updated the Project Editor pages.
• Dev Mode:
  • In the Scenery Editor, we disabled a false positive error message box that appeared randomly when building aircraft packages.
  • We also fixed a crash when editing runway terraforming profiles.

 

MARKETPLACE

New Marketplace items are being added today! We will update this post once they are available.

 

COMMUNITY VIDEO

Pilot Emilie answers questions all about ATC!

 

COMMUNITY SCREENSHOT CHALLENGE

This past week we challenged you to take a screenshot of a My Friends and I. The winner is the featured screenshot in todays Development Update. Thanks to all those who participated! Our next challenge is sponsored by NVIDIA and includes a GRAND PRIZE! Details and how to participate can be found here.

Last challenge’s Honorable Mentions:

Screenshot by PundaPCVR

 

Screenshot by Filippo20032222

 

Screenshot by Steeler2340

 

Screenshot by Nerbulus

 

Screenshot by CarneyUK

 

Screenshot by minpat1uk

 

Screenshot by Steeler2340

 

Screenshot by gopensgo291

 

Screenshot by Netiense

 

Screenshot by EvilerGlitter37

 

NEXT DEVELOPMENT UPDATE BLOG – 4.22

Sincerely,

Microsoft Flight Simulator Team

Edited April 16, 2021 by ChaoticBeauty

[scotchegg 4,170]

45 minutes ago, ChaoticBeauty said:

Based on community reporting, the team is preparing a hotfix for a few issues that are affecting the community. We will be sure to keep the community updated on the progress and potential release time frame, but it will be soon!

The issues we will be including:

• WASM stand alone modules used in some add-ons are no longer working
• Cockpit screens can be unresponsive if the RTC is not skipped

In addition to the team is also aware that some users have had an issue with their log book where they end up losing all their hours. We understand the importance of this issue and the entire team is fully onboard investigating this issue and while we have nothing to report today, we will be sure to provide an update as soon as we know more. As always we thank you for the feedback and reports on our recent World Update!

Encouraged to see immediate acknowledgement of issues and assurances of updates.

[Flyfaster_MTN002 412]

"Partially Fixed" = GREEN ?!  Wouldn't that be more like a YELLOW ?! 🙂

[Chock 17,769]

2 minutes ago, Flyfaster_MTN002 said:

"Partially Fixed" = GREEN ?!  Wouldn't that be more like a YELLOW ?! 🙂

Nope, that'd be a red and certainly not a green or even a yellow. Something which occasionally works is more annoying than something which just doesn't work at all, because when something's bust, at least you know where you are with that.

[Twenty6 692]

1 hour ago, ChaoticBeauty said:

if the RTC is not skipped

What is RTC?

[marsman2020 1,310]

34 minutes ago, Twenty6 said:

What is RTC?

"Real Time Cinematic", the cinematic showing your aircraft taxing to the runway which shows when you choose to start hot. 

[DAD 2,650]

4 hours ago, scotchegg said:

Encouraged to see immediate acknowledgement of issues and assurances of updates.

Yes but discouraged to not see anything related to the multiplayer performance issue

[RaptyrOne 1,398]

I just wish they would recognise tree LOD is too small. To them, it appears that this is simply not an issue. If that is the case, it will never be fixed.

Such a pity.

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

6 minutes ago, RaptyrOne said:

I just wish they would recognise tree LOD is too small.

It looks fine to me... but why not ask for an adjustable setting.. that way you can have it bigger and I can keep it the way it is..

[March Hare 720]

1 hour ago, RaptyrOne said:

I just wish they would recognise tree LOD is too small. To them, it appears that this is simply not an issue. If that is the case, it will never be fixed.

Such a pity.

I thought, in the most recent Q&A, they mentioned adding more sliders for trees in the future, and increasing LOD generally -- going beyond ultra settings.

[Grindathotte 46]

Is there a seagull density setting somewhere?

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

1 hour ago, Grindathotte said:

Is there a seagull density setting somewhere?

Yes, there is a new fauna density slider in the Traffic settings menu.

[RaptyrOne 1,398]

4 hours ago, Bert Pieke said:

It looks fine to me... but why not ask for an adjustable setting.. that way you can have it bigger and I can keep it the way it is..

No it's not fine. I have indeed voted for the adjustable tree LOD slider but as I mentioned in another thread, community voting is an odd way of doing things. So far, around 460 odd people have voted. How many sim users? Maybe 460 users represents 0,1% of users?! What software dev is going to invest time and recourses to create what is merely a "nice to have" for a 0,1% minority. Probably, 95%+ of people that see this issue won't vote. They don't even do chat forums. On the other hand almost everyone on Avsim that is flying in MSFS will acknowledge this as an issue. Whether it bugs them or not is another story.

And yeah..... even the seagull density slider is broken.....

 

 

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

5 minutes ago, RaptyrOne said:

So far, around 460 odd people have voted. How many sim users? Maybe 460 users represents 0,1% of users?! What software dev is going to invest time and recourses to create what is merely a "nice to have" for a 0,1% minority.

Actually they had already said that adjustable sliders for tree parameters are being created in the last Q&A, which means that they were probably already working on that before this wish appeared in the Feedback Snapshot. Usually, new bugs and wishes are marked with an Under Investigation or Not Started/Planned/Not Planned status instead of Started right away.

As for whether this amount of votes can do anything, I think it can. Two examples:

1. ~400 votes for the flickering clouds (and me bothering the community managers a couple of times to actually get it to appear on the Feedback Snapshot) got them to fix the issue, even though they were adamant on immediately ceasing support for older hardware.

2. Jörg said in an interview that they are listening to what the community wants when it comes to World Updates. 366 votes were enough earlier last month to add an Italy World Update to their roadmap.

I think that tree sliders are (thankfully) a locked-in upcoming feature for now.

[RaptyrOne 1,398]

2 minutes ago, ChaoticBeauty said:

I think that tree sliders are (thankfully) a locked-in upcoming feature for now.

I hope so. I also hope that the maximum position of the slider does not render trees where they are now at LOD 200.🌳🌳🌳