Supersonic flight is officially supported in MSFS after SU7?

[MrNuke 59]

On 11/17/2021 at 4:10 PM, Ray Proudfoot said:

For FS Labs to even contemplate a Concorde for MSFS the SDK would have to be far more complete than now.

According to who? As others have pointed out, we have multiple other big name developers that seemingly feel confident enough in the state of the simulation to develop on the platform either internally via the SDK or via external solutions. The latter of which had been employed by developers to various extents in previous simulations as well.

On 11/17/2021 at 4:33 PM, Ray Proudfoot said:

Well given Concorde flights have been going on on VATSIM for quite some time and can be linked back to the main developer I’m not sure where you’re getting your info from.

  I think we've had this conversation before on another thread, but while that is certainly a good sign I'm not sure all how much it actually means. FSLabs like any other developer or business for that matter has a limited set of resource that they can allocate. In pure economic theory, the time they've spent on Concorde is a sunk cost and shouldn't impact any future decision going forward. The marketing case for Concorde in P3D isn't the same as when the product was announced. Other developers i.e. their 4 letter Boeing counterpart that put out equally detailed quality products in FSX or P3D have decided MSFS is in a state they can work with. As such, the longer this draws on without Concorde being released the more I'd be willing to bet on the potential that said resources are going to be diverted.

On 11/18/2021 at 3:53 AM, Ray Proudfoot said:

Speaking personally I doubt a MSFS version would be a huge seller because the price would put off all but the very dedicated.

  This really makes no sense at all. Concorde in P3D isn't going to be a huge seller because of the price point either and more importantly a good chunk of the simulator market has moved on with more moving by the day. If PMDG or Fenix get their products to the market before FSLabs can get Concorde to P3D the situation is going to look even worse.

On 11/18/2021 at 7:34 AM, MarkW said:

One question I would have in MSFS for supersonic flight is the weather model at high altitudes.  You really need somewhat accurate ISA temps at Concorde cruise levels to properly simulate the cruise climb performance and fuel use.  Looking forward to what FSL has to say on this, although they are not the most communicative bunch so who knows when we will hear anything.

  Weather in the simulator ISA and wind wise is currently good to 150 mb or roughly 43,000 feet; obviously just below Concorde's cruise block. However, you still be good for nearly the entire climb and decent. My assumption (perhaps incorrect) would be that metoblue's weather model forecasts above this. If so that would be seemingly easy fix. If not it becomes a bit more problematic. Understanding the more locked down nature of MSFS' weather engine, developmentally speaking this still seems like a bit of a redherring given in P3D to accomplish this you'd be relying on a third party.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,956]

@MrNuke, why are you asking me questions or putting scenarios to me I’m unable to answer?

I’m not the developer. Only they can make these decisions. As I don’t have MSFS and don’t follow discussion for that sim I have no idea as to the state of the SDK. If it’s that complete then complex aircraft will appear and hopefully not get broken each time a huge update is released. Up to 7 now I believe.

It sounds to me that you just making assumptions without anything to back them up. The last posts from FSL were that development continues and I have no reason to disbelieve them.

And as this is the MSFS forum and not the P3D one discussion about a 64-bit FSL Concorde is in the wrong place.

[abrams_tank 7,422]

34 minutes ago, MrNuke said:

  I think we've had this conversation before on another thread, but while that is certainly a good sign I'm not sure all how much it actually means. FSLabs like any other developer or business for that matter has a limited set of resource that they can allocate. In pure economic theory, the time they've spent on Concorde is a sunk cost and shouldn't impact any future decision going forward. The marketing case for Concorde in P3D isn't the same as when the product was announced. Other developers i.e. their 4 letter Boeing counterpart that put out equally detailed quality products in FSX or P3D have decided MSFS is in a state they can work with. As such, the longer this draws on without Concorde being released the more I'd be willing to bet on the potential that said resources are going to be diverted.

 

I agree with MrNuke.  I don't want to divert this thread from the topic which is supersonic flight is available in MSFS now, but I hope people that read this thread and don't come from a background of business studies, understand what a "sunk cost" is in business.

When you run a business, a "sunk cost" is a cost that you have spent already but that you cannot recover.  A rational business owner will not try to recover the "sunk cost" but will make the best decision to maximize their business's profit moving forward.  For example, if FSLabs is thinking rationally and determines that from today moving forward, any costs spent further on developing the Concorde for P3D would be more than any revenue they gained from the sales of it, their most rational decision would be to drop the Concorde project for P3D.  Alternatively, if FSLabs is thinking rationally and determines that they can generate a profit with the Concorde by switching to MSFS, their most rational decision would be to prioritize the Concorde for MSFS.  Of course, this doesn't take into consideration the state of the SDK for MSFS, which may not satisfy everything that FSLabs needs for their Concorde.

You can read more about "sunk costs" and the "sunk cost fallacy" here: https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/the-sunk-cost-fallacy/.

Edited November 22, 2021 by abrams_tank

[MarkW 1,493]

14 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

If it’s that complete then complex aircraft will appear and hopefully not get broken each time a huge update is released. Up to 7 now I believe.

 

In fairness P3D has had at least 5 major updates and multiple smaller updates that have also broken all aircraft at times. This is a minor issue that developers seem to be able to deal with very quickly.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,956]

34 minutes ago, MarkW said:

In fairness P3D has had at least 5 major updates and multiple smaller updates that have also broken all aircraft at times. This is a minor issue that developers seem to be able to deal with very quickly.

As a late adopter of P3D v3-v5 I've not experienced any issues with aircraft 'broken'. I suppose that's the downside of buying early.

The only on-going problem is with MilViz Weather Radar which was 'broken' by HotFix 2 of P3D v5.2.

[abrams_tank 7,422]

Twitch removed the original Q&A video where the Asobo answered the question about whether supersonic flight is available in the MSFS SDK for other 3rd party developers. Fortunately, Youtube has a copy of the Q&A video and I was able to locate the question about supersonic flight being available for 3rd party devs in the Youtube video.

However, I can't edit my original post because it was posted a long time ago. Because I can't edit my original post, here is the Youtube video with the same question asked, and the answer from Asobo on supersonic flight being available for other 3rd party devs: 

 

[WestAir 2,522]

On 11/17/2021 at 5:10 PM, Ray Proudfoot said:

For FS Labs to even contemplate a Concorde for MSFS the SDK would have to be far more complete than now.

 

On 11/22/2021 at 4:09 PM, Ray Proudfoot said:

As I don’t have MSFS (...) I have no idea as to the state of the SDK.

 

On 11/22/2021 at 4:09 PM, Ray Proudfoot said:

It sounds to me that you just making assumptions without anything to back them up.

No offense Ray, but from an outside perspective these statements appear to conflict with one another?

In any case, supersonic flight isn't yet at the level of DCS, (you can even watch the altimeter change as you go supersonic in DCS! It's wicked cool) but AFAIK FSLabs hasn't said the SDK is a hurdle to bringing the Concorde onto the platform. Speaking purely from conjecture, I'd imagine some of the next gen tools could make it even more realistic than its P3D counterpart. (Imagine if the cockpit of the MSFS version stretched during supersonic cruise!)

[Ray Proudfoot 8,956]

9 minutes ago, WestAir said:

No offense Ray, but from an outside perspective these statements appear to conflict with one another?

In any case, supersonic flight isn't yet at the level of DCS, (you can even watch the altimeter change as you go supersonic in DCS! It's wicked cool) but AFAIK FSLabs hasn't said the SDK is a hurdle to bringing the Concorde onto the platform. Speaking purely from conjecture, I'd imagine some of the next gen tools could make it even more realistic than its P3D counterpart. (Imagine if the cockpit of the MSFS version stretched during supersonic cruise!)

FSL have made no announcement at all about their intentions for MSFS so any discussion about Concorde is just guesswork.

The instruments on the 32-bit FS Labs Concorde react as the aircraft passes through Mach 1 so if that’s what you’re referring to with DCS it sounds similar. And the gap between the FE panel and the bulkhead is modelled in that version too.

What concerns me more about MSFS is not the state of the SDK. It’s the unreliability of the sim itself and how things like weather don’t appear to be stable. Until the huge updates end I don’t see any 3rd party aircraft developer going anywhere near it. Just my thoughts you understand.

FS Labs published another announcement today but no mention of Concorde for P3D was included or even anything about MSFS. Don’t hold your breath for any MSFS news any time soon.