JANUARY 20TH, 2022 DEVELOPMENT UPDATE

Posted by: Microsoft Flight Simulator Team

Screenshot by MihamaBlend (Twitter)

Our Dev Q&A is just around the corner (January 26th at 10:30am PT or 1830Z on twitch.tv/msfsofficial). We will be closing the forums for questions EOD Friday, so if you haven’t yet, please go upvote for your favorite questions or post your own if you don’t see it asked. We will also take live questions during the stream, so there will be ample opportunities.

– MSFS TEAM –

 

DEVELOPMENT ROADMAP

Click here for the web-friendly version.

 

FEEDBACK SNAPSHOT

Click here for the web-friendly version. To learn more about Accessibility in Microsoft Flight Simulator, click here.

KEY
SU = Sim Update (6, 7, 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 this issue
Not Planned = We will likely not work on this
Not Started = We have not begun investigation on this yet
Started = Development work as started on this item

 

COMMUNITY TRIAGE UPDATE

Click here for the list of Known Issues.

Here is an update on a few of the most popular bugs currently being discussed in the forums:

• Performance Decrease when Using Pop-Out Panels – The team has found a fix for this issue and are targeting Sim Update 8 for release.
• Xbox Thrustmaster Hotas One Sensitivity Settings do not save – The team has found a fix for this issue and are targeting Sim Update 8 for release.
• Losing Mouse Control on Xbox – The team is actively investigating this issue. If you are experiencing this and have repro steps, please continue to post them in the thread for our devs. Thank you!

 

SDK UPDATE

• General
  • Like we mentioned last week, we will meet you again for a new Live SDK Q&A on February 9th! Please ask all your questions here: https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/sdk-q-a-feb-9th-open-for-questions/489615/20 , and we will be more than happy to answer live with Eric, Alyzée & Jorg!

• Dev Mode
  • Work has started on the weather API for WASM (exposing the same bitmaps that are available in JavaScript).

• • Statistics Profiler:
    • We added a new column “Total Vertex Count” which shows the sum of Static Vertex count and Skinned Vertex count. The Vertex/Max Vertex ratio column now uses this total vertex to compute the ratio.
    • We added a new Hiding option in the Hiding menu to hide objects with no active occurrence.
    • We changed and added some tooltips.
  • Scenery Editor:
    • We reworked the hierarchy system to provide more intuitive and flexible groups, better filtering, drag and drop feature, etc.
    • We fixed the control towers without sceneries.
    • We renamed “Tower” to “ControlTower” in the object list.
  • Aircraft Editor:
    • We added two new entries “Drag” and “Ground Effect” to the Debug menu which provide access to the corresponding debug tools.

 

3RD PARTY UPDATE

• We are very excited about the release of the Twin Otter by our partners at Aerosoft today. Congratulations on the launch!
• As of 01/16, we have now approved 228 (+0) third parties into the in-sim marketplace and – so far 133 (+4) have released 858 products on PC (+3) and 554 on Xbox (+28).
• In total, 1,724 products (+38) have already been released in 3rd party stores and the in-sim marketplace. Beyond that, another 450 products (+44) from 3rd party developers are in production (276 announced, 174 unannounced). In total, over 2,174 3rd party products (+82) are either released or are in development.
• Airports:
  • 1,285 airports (+12) are either released or are in various stages of development.
    • 1069 airports (+7) have been released on the platform so far in various stores.
    • 613 airports (+9) have been released in the in-sim marketplace.
    • 107 airports (+4) beyond the released airports have been announced.
    • 109 airports (+1) are not announced, but the dev let us know that an airport is in production.
• Aircraft:
  • 275 aircraft (+4) are either released or are in various stages of development.
    • 98 aircraft (+6) have been released on the platform so far in various stores.
    • 64 aircraft (+3) have been released in the in-sim marketplace.
    • 152 aircraft (+1) beyond the released aircraft have been announced.
    • 25 aircraft (-3) are not announced, but the dev let us know that an aircraft is in production.
• Scenery:
  • 540 sceneries (+58) are either released or are in various stages of development.
    • 485 sceneries (+19) have been released on the platform so far in various stores.
    • 99 sceneries (+12) have been released in the in-sim marketplace.
    • 17 sceneries (+1) beyond the released scenery have been announced.
    • 38 sceneries (New) are not announced, but the dev let us know that scenery is in production.
• Mission Packs:
  • 74 mission packs (+8) are either released or are in various stages of development.
    • 72 mission packs (+6) have been released on the platform so far in various stores.
    • 8 mission packs (+2) have been released in the in-sim marketplace.
    • 0 mission packs (+0) beyond the released missions have been announced.
    • 2 mission packs (New) are not announced, but the dev let us know that they are in production.

 

MARKETPLACE UPDATE

This week’s marketplace update will be released tomorrow, January 21st. We will update this page with release products at that time.

 

TWITCH UPDATE

We stream weekly on Twitch.tv/MSFSOfficial! We have already streamed our weekly fly-in this week as we celebrated with Aerosoft on their release of the Twin Otter and spoke with Twin Otter expert and aerospace engineer ‘picstloup’. To view the VOD of that stream, click here. 

 

COMMUNITY VIDEO

Long before the days of satellite navigation using GPS and magenta lines, and even before VORs, DMEs, NDBs, and other radio navigation aids, it was common for pilots to chart their course using a centuries-old technique borrowed from the age of sail: celestial navigation. By taking a fix of objects in the sky such as the sun, moon, stars, and planets, navigators could plot their location with a high degree of accuracy. Did you know you can use this navigation method in Microsoft Flight Simulator? It’s true! YouTuber Top of Descent shows you how to do it in this short tutorial video.

 

SCREENSHOT CHALLENGE

You can now submit your screenshot via Twitter with #MSFSchallenge or the Weekly Forum Post! This week’s screenshot challenge: Aircraft Engines

This past week our Screenshot Challenge was “Region – Baja California“. Here are our runner ups this week:

Screenshot by A___LIVAS (Twitter)

Screenshot by Filippo20032222 (Forum)

Screenshot by Chtybeau (Forum)

Screenshot by Yan2295- (Twitter)

Screenshot by Chqnces04 (Forum)

Screenshot by isaiahnparadise- (Twitter)

Screenshot by soruse- (Twitter)

Screenshot by HeKa48 (Forum)

Screenshot by PythonXcE (Forum)

Screenshot by simok0 (Forum)

 

NEXT DEVELOPMENT BLOG UPDATE – January 27th, 2022

Sincerely,

Microsoft Flight Simulator Team

Edited January 20, 20224 yr by ChaoticBeauty

Thx

I feel a bit uneasy about that Bugfixing SU VIII. What comes after SU VIII? Right, SU IX. With new features - and new bugs? I would have preferred measures for an ongoing quality control, notably omitting trivial bugs. I've been waiting for many weeks now for the mouse working properly under VR and it still doesn't.

Speaking on VR: According to the latest Navigraph Survey, 15 % of users use a VR headset for flight simulation. I understand that the basic set of Navigraph respondees is not identical to that of MSFS users, but the above VR snapshop makes me really, really sad.

Kind regards, Michael

Thanks for the update,

So what will be implemented in the SDK, weather or terrain API? Top wishes and SDK update seems to contradict each other

Nice touch that they’re making a brief comment on status on the wishlist.

BTW, hope whoever keeps giving these updates 1 star as soon as they’re posted is also giving a like to the poster. 

No plan to open up the weather engine to 3rd party is very disappointing! Hopefully they will consider it in the future.

I just hope they eventually (the coming week) get their heads together with PMDG so they can get their NG3 out the door.

6 minutes ago, pmb said:

I feel a bit uneasy about that Bugfixing SU VIII. What comes after SU VIII? Right, SU IX. With new features - and new bugs? I would have preferred measures for an ongoing quality control, notably omitting trivial bugs. I've been waiting for many weeks now for the mouse working properly under VR and it still doesn't.

Presumably starting this month is their new cadence of bi-monthly updates, as World Updates are not supposed to come with code changes anymore (they will probably just pop on the Marketplace as soon as they are released). Their plan is to allow for longer beta-testing phases which could help with quality control, of course it remains to be seen how this will pan out. They said that Sim Update 8 will focus on legacy bugs that have existed since launch, and hopefully we won't need more clean-up updates in the future.

I agree that the current state of VR is not very good though. They said they had plans to make it really great by the end of 2021, but only recently did they start going over the bug reports and feature requests in the snapshots.

5 minutes ago, scotchegg said:

BTW, hope whoever keeps giving these updates 1 star as soon as they’re posted is also giving a like to the poster. 

They are not, and I can also confirm that they really, really dislike me. This has been going on for over a year now. 😄

1 minute ago, shamrockflyer said:

No plan to open up the weather engine to 3rd party is very disappointing! Hopefully they will consider it in the future.

I recall that it has to do with licencing issues between Microsoft and Meteoblue, so it is very unlikely that they will reconsider. It's worth noting though that the mirrored textures have moved to "Under Investigation" today, so never say never.

After the Hotfix for SU7 MSFS is running excellent for me. I hope it won't broke again after the new update. Anyway looking foward to it.

I'm praying the World Update in 11 days time gives me back the aircraft sounds that I have currently lost but I'm guessing that's unlikely (more likely in a Sim update than anything if a file gets overwritten).

Forgot this was Thursday. 
 

🌲🌲 time.

1 hour ago, ChaoticBeauty said:

Presumably starting this month is their new cadence of bi-monthly updates, as World Updates are not supposed to come with code changes anymore (they will probably just pop on the Marketplace as soon as they are released). Their plan is to allow for longer beta-testing phases which could help with quality control, of course it remains to be seen how this will pan out. They said that Sim Update 8 will focus on legacy bugs that have existed since launch, and hopefully we won't need more clean-up updates in the future.

I agree that the current state of VR is not very good though. They said they had plans to make it really great by the end of 2021, but only recently did they start going over the bug reports and feature requests in the snapshots.

They are not, and I can also confirm that they really, really dislike me. This has been going on for over a year now. 😄

I recall that it has to do with licencing issues between Microsoft and Meteoblue, so it is very unlikely that they will reconsider. It's worth noting though that the mirrored textures have moved to "Under Investigation" today, so never say never.

Actually they put Terrain API instead of weather API.  Was that maybe a typo (more or less).  I thought the WX API was under investigation.  We'll take terrain too...lol.

Also, While yes, the licensing issues, the main thing was creating a security issue with having a million FS users passing through the MS server to the Meteo Blue servers and then back.  We only need the end result from the sim side.  I think Jorg talked about that a bit in the last Q&A.

 

2 hours ago, pmb said:

but the above VR snapshop makes me really, really sad.

I feel for you 🙂

Foveated rendering - Isn't this a bit like DLSS, where faster moving images or stuff at the edge of the screen isn't bothered with so much?

Also...  'Let users adjust the render scale by increments by 5'.  This has already been in for a few updates now.  Have they forgotten they have already done it?

Edited January 21, 20224 yr by bobcat999

8 hours ago, RXP said:

I feel for you 🙂

Only goes to show their ignorance of VR!

3 hours ago, bobcat999 said:

Foveated rendering - Isn't this a bit like DLSS, where faster moving images or stuff at the edge of the screen isn't bothered with so much?

Yes but it is more like Variable Rate Shading, where the image in the edges is simply rendered at a lower resolution. Eye tracking can also be utilised, if the VR headset supports it, to dynamically reduce the resolution out of the focal point.

DLSS can be used too, if the engine supports it, but since Asobo think it is a worse solution than their TAAU...