I don't know how much work was involved, but find it hard to pay so much for something I expect the developers to fix eventually. Same reason I wont buy an add on weather application.

 

8 minutes ago, Romeo_Tango said:

I don't know how much work was involved, but find it hard to pay so much for something I expect the developers to fix eventually. Same reason I wont buy an add on weather application.

 

I understand this sentiment, I think the best thing to do is wait for previews/reviews of this addon to come out to really see what we're getting and if it's worth the price.

The documentation says they used some sort of AI algorithm to help them do this.

4 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

It seems Asobo don’t consider it a high priority issue.

Well, I'm not Asobo, but I can tell you it's something that the team have talked about.

Without getting into too much detail, it's a harder problem to solve than one might think at first.   There aren't many readily available sources of data for taxiways like there are for runways at even a regional level, let alone a national or global one.  They definitely exist, or you couldn't have products like Garmin's SafeTaxi, but it's not something one can readily just go and acquire.  You need to either manually gather, clean, aggregate, and assemble a bunch of disparate sources for any one area;  or spend time generating and tuning automated methods of doing the same; or try to convince someone who already has such a database to let you use it.

All of those are possible, with sufficient time, money, and resources, but none of them are trivial.   A solution would be great, it just needs to be prioritized with everything else based on the level of effort and the return on that time investment.

(Crowdsourcing is another option, but one with its own costs and drawbacks.)

If anyone is really passionate about this and knows of any data sources that might be useful for doing something like this on a large scale, definitely let me know.   It would be helpful.   But for sure, don't think the dev team haven't thought about or don't care about this one.  🙂

Edited July 20, 20214 yr by kaosfere

How was this done in FSX then?  Most airports had proper signage (well at least for 2006).

42 minutes ago, ryanbatcund said:

How was this done in FSX then?  Most airports had proper signage (well at least for 2006).

I'll be honest, I haven't used FSX, I was into XPlane at that time.     But what percentage of its airports was "most", and how does that compare, in terms of scale, with what would be needed to render the same accuracy onto every airport in the MSFS default database that accurately models the real-world taxiways at that field? 

Not rhetorical questions, I'm honestly curious.   I'm not convinced it's not just a matter of rosy memories plus us looking now at a much grander scope, but it's possible I've been missing something obvious.  

(Keep in mind, though, that scope:  any solution we put in place is going to need to be accurate for the large proportion of what's in the MSFS default scenery, or we'll immediately be hit with "My local airport, Podunk Executive, has a taxiway mislabeled.  What the heck, why can't you people get this right?!"  😄)

On edit, and to be clear, I'm not saying it can't be done.  It certainly can, and we continue to work on a number of possibilities.   My main point was that it's not an easy thing, thus it needs to be balanced with all the other not-easy things that everyone cares a lot about.

Edited July 20, 20214 yr by kaosfere

From what I remember signage was correct at default airports.  I had heard (after thinking about this) that Microsoft may have used some sort of database from Jeppesen.  Maybe it was too costly nowadays or just not high on Asobo's list.

Developers are free to test what kind of money we are ready to pay. If this is such a test, my answer is: you are going way too far this time. If I would buy it (which I am not going to do), I would give them a thumb up for higher prices.

5 hours ago, kaosfere said:

Without getting into too much detail, it's a harder problem to solve than one might think at first.   There aren't many readily available sources of data for taxiways like there are for runways at even a regional level, let alone a national or global one.

It didn’t seem a problem for its predecessor, FSX. Maybe Microsoft had access to Jeppesen data but Asobo didn’t for whatever reason.

The other thing to keep an eye on is runway designations changing in the real world and how quickly those are updated in MSFS.

14 hours ago, Will Fly For Cheese said:

This is nonsense. JF are attempting a land-grab on MSFS2020.

As some of us spoke about last year (after initial announcement of MSFS2020 and worries about Addons) - and someone on this thread mentioned - DON'T LET THEM GET AWAY WITH IT!

Boycott it! You don't need it. And at those prices; they're having a giraffe - in a bubble bath - with bells on.

Leave it to Asobo and BlackShark to fix - I'm sure they'll get around to it at some point.

13 hours ago, Matchstick said:

Grrr how could a British Company like Just Flight DARE do the American Airports first !!!! 🙂

The giraffe thing is MY line! 🤣

I'm not going to be too harsh on JustFlight because they are the publisher but not the developer. Obviously they get influence over the pricing but at this amount I'm minded to say in this instance the developer was the one driving such a high price.

7 hours ago, kaosfere said:

Without getting into too much detail, it's a harder problem to solve than one might think at first.   There aren't many readily available sources of data for taxiways like there are for runways at even a regional level, let alone a national or global one.  They definitely exist, or you couldn't have products like Garmin's SafeTaxi, but it's not something one can readily just go and acquire...

If anyone is really passionate about this and knows of any data sources that might be useful for doing something like this on a large scale, definitely let me know.   It would be helpful.   But for sure, don't think the dev team haven't thought about or don't care about this one.  🙂

FSX had correctly designated taxiways for the whole world (the only notable exception I can think of was Heathrow as the links weren't numbered, back when Heathrow had the outer and inner system). Perhaps the signs weren't always in the right places but the taxiways were always named as per real world and you could use the default signs to navigate the taxiways fine. It's one area that MFS seems to have majorly regressed and is very annoying.

8 hours ago, kiki said:

Developers are free to test what kind of money we are ready to pay. If this is such a test, my answer is: you are going way too far this time. If I would buy it (which I am not going to do), I would give them a thumb up for higher prices.

You mean a thumb-down, right?

This is something I expect the developers of the sim to fix. That they possibly won't fix it, means it's good to at least have the option if you want it so badly that you are prepared to pay for it, but I suspect I'd only do so for areas I used a lot, and since that doesn't include the areas lot covers, it's not something I'd buy just for the possibility that I might go to one of those airports once in a blue moon.

I'd possibly consider something for other airports I frequent most in the sim - Europe and Africa - but I'm not sure I'd be prepared to pay much more than maybe twenty quid for that; it just really does not bother me enough to spend more than that.

19 hours ago, quantumpion said:

Just curious, how many of the 5000 public airports are heliports, seaports, or grass strips? I'm not sure how or where to look it up but I'm guessing 962 encompasses most if not all paved airports that would have signage to begin with.

You are so vigorous in your defense of this product that it almost seems you have a vested interest, yet you don't even bother to do a quick search to verify your assertions?  None of those are heliports, seaports, or grass strips.  There are over 5000 airports in the US with *paved runways*, more than 4000 of those are over 3000' in length.  This pricey add-on will apparently cover less that 20% of them.

https://www.indexmundi.com/united_states/airports_with_paved_runways.html

Edited July 20, 20214 yr by Sigwolf

1 hour ago, Sigwolf said:

You are so vigorous in your defense of this product that it almost seems you have a vested interest, yet you don't even bother to do a quick search to verify your assertions?  None of those are heliports, seaports, or grass strips.  There are over 5000 airports in the US with *paved runways*, more than 4000 of those are over 3000' in length.  This pricey add-on will apparently cover less that 20% of them.

https://www.indexmundi.com/united_states/airports_with_paved_runways.html

How many of those are class C, D and Military? Those kind of airports are the ones the product is modifying.

I'm not defending the product here it is too costly IMO and I probably won't be flying out of 90% of the ones it touches.

I also imagine they might choose them based on how busy they are. There's probably some sort of logic behind the choices.

Edited July 20, 20214 yr by Tuskin38

10 minutes ago, Tuskin38 said:

How many of those are class C, D and Military? Those kind of airports are the ones the product is modifying.

I'm not defending the product here it is too costly IMO and I probably won't be flying out of 90% of the ones it touches.

I also imagine they might choose them based on how busy they are. There's probably some sort of logic behind the choices.

Class C, D, and military covers just two of the three products, the other being non-towered airports, so you left out a large part of what they are claiming to modify.  My post was made to refute the ridiculous claims that quantumption was posting like "You are getting 100% real and accurate airport signage and taxiways for every airport in NA for the price of 2-3 custom airports." Apart from the fact that they've already said it is not 100% accurate, it is not every airport in NA since it is US only and doesn't include Canada and Mexico, and it is only about 20% of the airports in the US, there is nothing wrong with that statement. 🤣

The next post he shows that the $60 bundle of Class C, D, and non-towered airports updates 926 airports, and then adds his own claim at this end "Again, this is like most of the functionality you get from a custom airport, minus the visual part, for every single Class C, D, and non-towered airport in the US."  (italics added) When someone pointed out that number is well short of the 5000 airports in the US, he deflects with nonsense about heliports and grass strips.  My post and link were just made to show that those are not included in the 5000+ number.

Whether this package is worth what they are charging is up to individual preference.  That does not mean there needs to be people on here portraying it as something it is not.