Future of p3d ?

[SimeonWilbury 220]

10 hours ago, Rafal said:

The Holy Grail of flight simulation. Discussing it further will always lead to VATSIM (I loved it when I used it).

ATC is a difficult nut to crack generally. I personally decided to ditch realism for convenience and only have ATC/ Traffic at all when I [rarely] fly on Vatsim. The convenience of being able to set up a 7hr flight and not come back to it until descent in order to focus on other things ended up being preferable to realistic traffic for me (I also did so partly for performance/ stability reasons). The advantage is that when I do take out the time to do a Vatsim event I find it all the more enjoyable.

I haven't any experience of how MSFS deals with ATC as I haven't used the sim but any inbuilt ATC that gives more freedom regarding procedures compared to the old FSX/P3D would be a positive were it to be implemented.

As to whether it's actually implemented I'd agree depends on priorities as that middle ground between Vatsim-level realism and basic but functional ATC is a difficult one to fill.

Edited November 16, 2021 by SimeonWilbury

[kevinfirth 1,396]

2 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Thanks for the comprehensive reply Kevin and apologies for my brief reply. Not personally but I experienced Pro-ATC-X several years ago on a friend’s system and wasn’t impressed. It may have improved since but given I’m happy with RC4 I haven’t really investigated. If you’re happy with your wife you don’t look for a new one do you? 😉

Neither do you statistically tend to marry your first and only girlfriend! Btw, VoxAtC and Pro ATC X are completely different 🙂

[Iadbound 211]

13 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

It is difficult to debate one sim without reference to others. It’s interesting that few have mentioned XP which suggests few have both P3D and XP. Does that suggest XP is not seen as a viable alternative to P3D users disillusioned with new products having dried up?

Ray -- I've got P3D, XP and MSFS 2020.  I do think XP is a great sim and a solid alternative for P3D users who want a lot of airliners, active developers, etc., but who do not want MSFS 2020.  I've definitely wasted a fair bit of money having all three sims, but it's also been a great experience as a newer simmer because I've learned a lot more about what I like/don't like and what would be my ideal setup.  

My gut is that MSFS 2020 is where I will end up spending most of time, but that will likely happen when I've got PMDG, Leonardo, FS Labs (maybe the Fenix if it's great) as options. In the meantime, I keep picking up sceneries and utilities for MSFS and P3D when discounts are available, and I'm thinking about adding the Toliss A340 to my XP collection too.  Looking forward to Black Friday!

Edited November 16, 2021 by Iadbound

[Ray Proudfoot 8,961]

13 minutes ago, kevinfirth said:

Neither do you statistically tend to marry your first and only girlfriend! Btw, VoxAtC and Pro ATC X are completely different 🙂

Many people do. VoxATC is voice driven I believe  I'm not interested in voice-driven ones.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,961]

23 minutes ago, Iadbound said:

Ray -- I've got P3D, XP and MSFS 2020.  I do think XP is a great sim and a solid alternative for P3D users who want a lot of airliners, active developers, etc., but who do not want MSFS 2020. 

I have hardware and some software that would either require a lot of work to get it working in MSFS as well as it does in P3D or will not work at all. I'm not going to put myself through hours and hours of work for that. It's just too soon.

One question to those who fly in MSFS in time zones many hours away from yours. How do you get weather for the departure time in the sim when there's no historical option?

So as an example, if I want to depart KLAX at 10:00 Local I can download the historical wx in ASP3D. Either you have to depart LAX at 18:00 my time or use the weather as it was at 02:00 local. Is that realistic?

[Bob Scott 7,721]

OK folks, this is the P3D forum, and a thread about the future of P3D.  Back to the topic, please.

[RXP 2,338]

6 hours ago, kevinfirth said:

XP I have no experience with at all I'm afraid.    

You might want to watch the keynote (time stamped):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnQxD1Y_N0w&t=1625s

NB: He his the developer of Traffic Global and he is now working for LR implementing the new ATC system.

edit: @w6kd sorry for the off-topic, you are right. Please feel free to delete this post.

Edited November 16, 2021 by RXP

[G-RFRY 1,712]

1 hour ago, w6kd said:

OK folks, this is the P3D forum, and a thread about the future of P3D.  Back to the topic, please.

Good luck with that in todays sim forum`s🤨.

[Sparkrite 188]

4 hours ago, w6kd said:

OK folks, this is the P3D forum, and a thread about the future of P3D.  Back to the topic, please.

Would you not agree that the future of P3D may well be somewhat dependent/affected by the sale of competing flight sims.?

So, 'to that end', the discussion will have to, in some shape or form, mention those other sims. and in doing so their inherent advantages/shortcomings as perceived and

reported by their users. Such advantages/shortcomings could very well persuade people as to whether they 'stay put or jump ship' which will ultimately have an effect on 'The Future of P3D'.

However, I take on board what you are saying and equally do not wish to see another thread full of sim comparing/bashing.

Which, I personally don't think this thread is.

 

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

45 minutes ago, Sparkrite said:

Such advantages/shortcomings could very well persuade people as to whether they 'stay put or jump ship' which will ultimately have an effect on 'The Future of P3D'.

I think that is right on the money... The future of P3D may well depend less on any actions that LM takes, and more on whether users and third parties hang around..

[coastaldriver 920]

I understand the need for a comparison but it is not relevant to compare P3D with MSFS. P3D was never aimed or marketed for amateurs, gamers or as a hobby it was developed to provide a basis for PC based but networked linked systems providing training - pilots, drone drivers, ship drivers, land vehicle drivers. You only have to have a good look at the tools available for Scenario development to see how that focus and performance is delivered.  Our good fortune was that LM provided a means for us to participate in and continue to use what was basically FS9-FSX rebuilt for a 64bit computing environment (see numerous threads about licensing issues). 

I guess we are all frustrated by a longstanding issue with LM - we are not the primary market nor the primary concern for LM and given their own internal reporting and development priorities we find it hard to recognise that concerns and issues (and they have been extensive as we have all gone along with this development of this platform). I think LM have stabilised the sim as far as 64 bit processing is concerned - there are a number of niggles such as API;s HTML and the shift to complex mathematical modelling of sim functions such as light, cloud, motion etc. So all I expect the future to bring is slow incremental improvements to the Scenario functionality, True Sky implementation and light management. I hold out no great hope that they will do anything more with AI ATC simply because in a real training environment these functions are incorporated via instructors or role players operating on another system and effectively doing what VATSIM does now for simmers. The second key is that scenario or flights are heavily scripted in a logical progressive way to fit a training program but most importantly they are portable and I mean portable so what they do on the ground in the sim is then simply uploaded into the real aircrafts FMC and it can then be redone real time in a real aeroplane in the real world (think of it as a very fancy flight plan). 

I think we all need to recognise that we have reached the end of the road with P3D as far as flight models and developers building or introducing new or improved models into this environment for P3D - after all if I am training pilots to fly a PC21 or an F35 or even a C17 what use is a nice rendition of historical jet or piston aeroplane - absolutely none! I do expect continuous improvement but it will be incremental - I have no performance issues or other problems with P3D at all ( yes I know many do for various reasons) so that tells me it is stable and bug free - any problem I have comes from the fact that I am still using 1st generation texture/modelled scenery or models that have guage or FDE issues. 

I had MSFS - I really liked its graphics either scenery or the aircraft - it is very nice but there is little doubt of its focus also - gamers and xbox so despite what those of us who desire or want a serious flight simulation (IFR etc etc) I do not think we are going to ever get it in that platform you will get very nice looking aeroplanes in a very nice virtual world but the functionality will always be limited and constrained - gamers do not want that - we might but we are not the market here its gamers folks so get used to it!

If you want a serious sim then its P3D its future is guaranteed as long as LM is around. You just will have to live with the lack of product development as we have been used to. 

[G-RFRY 1,712]

2 hours ago, Sparkrite said:

Would you not agree that the future of P3D may well be somewhat dependent/affected by the sale of competing flight sims.?

So, 'to that end', the discussion will have to, in some shape or form, mention those other sims. and in doing so their inherent advantages/shortcomings as perceived and

reported by their users. Such advantages/shortcomings could very well persuade people as to whether they 'stay put or jump ship' which will ultimately have an effect on 'The Future of P3D'.

However, I take on board what you are saying and equally do not wish to see another thread full of sim comparing/bashing.

Which, I personally don't think this thread is.

 

Nothing that is said on the forums will have any influence on the sim developers none at all.

LM P3Dxx will not be affected by user numbers they don`t do it for us. 

Edited November 16, 2021 by G-RFRY

[Shomron 251]

On 11/16/2021 at 6:34 AM, Ray Proudfoot said:

Many people do. VoxATC is voice driven I believe  I'm not interested in voice-driven ones.

I've tried all 3 - RC4, Proatcx and PF3.

Always go back to RC4.

I find PF3 and Proatcx vectoring to be really poor to a point I can never use them again.

I think the concept of Proatcx is the best however there are many other bugs around the functionality which just make it a no go for me.

[kevinfirth 1,396]

1 hour ago, Shomron said:

I've tried all 3 - RC4, Proatcx and PF3.

Err, 4 including VoxATC....???

[Dominique_K 10,149]

On 11/16/2021 at 4:04 PM, w6kd said:

OK folks, this is the P3D forum, and a thread about the future of P3D.  Back to the topic, please.

What strikes me in this thread is that almost nobody tackles the issue carried in the topic title, what to expect from P3D in the future. There is the usual parade of worn out clichés about MSFS (just a sightseeing sim, suuure 😋 ) and the usual diversions to other topics (ATC, XP)  but not much on what does a P3D user of today expect for P3D to stay relevant in their own computer. 

I left  FS5.1 for Fly! and Flight Unlimited in their time, left the latter for F2K2, FS9 and FSX , left the latter for P3D, then left it to MSFS. because each time the sim I gave up was less relevant, I was expecting more.

Is P3D5.2 so relevant that it is the future of P3D, maybe with some marginal improvements for a V6 ? Or does it need more to stay relevant in your computer ? It seems to me that it was the interesting question that the OP was asking.