April 21st, 2022 – Development Update

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

APRIL 21ST, 2022 DEVELOPMENT UPDATE

Posted by: Microsoft Flight Simulator Team

Screenshot by A___LIVAS (Twitter)

Thank you to everyone who submitted or upvoted a question in the forums for our upcoming Dev Q&A! We are taking a look now and are looking forward to chatting with you next week, April 27th at 10:30am PT (1730Z) on Twitch.

As we near the end of our Sim Update 9 Public Beta, we will provide an update at the end of the week on how to transition smoothly between your Beta build and the public SU9 build next week for each platform. We hope you enjoy Sim Update 9 next Tuesday, as well as the release of our next Famous Flyers, the Gee Bee R2 and the Model Z.

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.

 

SDK UPDATE

• Roadmap:
  • Here is a glance at the team’s current work, and a list of features that will be made available on the upcoming update.

Sim Update 10

• • • • Terrain & Weather APIs
      • Aircraft Editor V2
      • Game rendered in a window in the DevMode
• General:
  • • The flighting for Sim Update 9 is almost over. Your feedback on DevSupport allowed us to investigate & fix several critical issues. Thanks for all your time and your great engagement!!
• DevMode:
  • We fixed potential issues in the Replay tool.
  • We’re polishing the “Game rendered in a Window” feature and it will be available in the next Sim Update.
  • Visual Effects Editor:
    • We fixed the double scroll-down bar in SimVar unit dropdown menu.
    • We fixed the multiplayer contrails that were no longer visible on Sim Update 9.
  • Aircraft Editor:
    • We have removed the Debug windows from the Aircraft Editor, allowing you to access them without opening an aircraft project first. You will soon be able to find them under “Options > Debug drawing > Aircraft”.
    • We are still polishing the new Aircraft Editor. A first version will be made available ASAP!

• WASM:
  • We are polishing the Weather & Terrain APIs and creating samples to help you understand the usage.
• SimConnect:
  • We fixed FacilityGetAirportList.

 

THIRD PARTY UPDATE

• As of 04/17, we have now approved 246 (+0) third parties into the in-sim marketplace and – so far 143 (+0) have released 1,045 products on PC (+15) and 756 on Xbox (+20).
• In total, 2,057 products (+20) have already been released in 3rd party stores and the in-sim marketplace. Beyond that, another 553 products (+27) from 3rd party developers are in production (292 announced, 261 unannounced). In total, over 2,610 3rd party products (+47) have either been released or are in development.

• Airports:
  • 1,470 airports (+14) are either released or are in various stages of development.
    • 1,237 airports (+6) have been released on the platform so far in various stores.
    • 699 airports (+3) have been released in the in-sim marketplace.
    • 119 airports (+0) beyond the released airports have been announced.
    • 114 airports (+8) are not announced, but the dev let us know that an airport is in production.
• Aircraft:
  • 358 aircraft (+6) are either released or are in various stages of development.
    • 123 aircraft (+4) have been released on the platform so far in various stores.
    • 82 aircraft (+1) have been released in the in-sim PC marketplace.
    • 55 aircraft (+1) have been released in the in-sim Xbox marketplace.
    • 157 aircraft (-3) beyond the released aircraft have been announced.
    • 78 aircraft (+5) are not announced, but the dev let us know that an aircraft is in production.
• Scenery:
  • 697 sceneries (+23) are either released or are in various stages of development.
    • 617 sceneries (+9) have been released on the platform so far in various stores.
    • 153 sceneries (+2) have been released in the in-sim marketplace.
    • 16 sceneries (+0) beyond the released scenery have been announced.
    • 64 sceneries (+14) are not announced, but the dev let us know that scenery is in production.
• Mission Packs:
  • 85 mission packs (+4) are either released or are in various stages of development.
    • 80 mission packs (+1) have been released on the platform so far in various stores.
    • 17 mission packs (+1) have been released in the in-sim marketplace.
    • 0 mission packs (-1) beyond the released missions have been announced.
    • 5 mission packs (+4) are not announced, but the dev let us know that they are in production.

 

MARKETPLACE UPDATE

Click here for a web-friendly version.

There are 49 new and 16 updated products in the Marketplace today. Marketplace updates generally go live on Thursdays between the release of this blog post and 5pm PT.

49 NEW PRODUCTS: 25 ON PC, 24 ON XBOX
New on PC and Xbox ✅	New on PC and Xbox ✅	New on PC and Xbox ✅
New on PC and Xbox ✅	New on PC and Xbox ✅	New on PC and Xbox ✅
New on PC and Xbox ✅	New on PC and Xbox ✅	New on PC and Xbox ✅
New on PC and Xbox ✅	New on PC and Xbox ✅	New on PC and Xbox ✅
New on PC and Xbox ✅	New on PC and Xbox ✅	New on Xbox ✅
New on PC and Xbox ✅	New on PC ✅	New on PC and Xbox ✅
New on PC and Xbox ✅	New on PC ✅	New on PC and Xbox ✅
New on PC and Xbox ✅	New on PC and Xbox ✅	New on PC and Xbox ✅
New on PC and Xbox ✅		New on PC and Xbox ✅

 

16 UPDATED PRODUCTS: 8 ON PC, 8 ON XBOX
Updated on PC and Xbox ✅	Updated on PC and Xbox ✅	Updated on PC and Xbox ✅
Updated on PC and Xbox ✅	Updated on PC ✅	Updated on PC and Xbox ✅
Updated on PC ✅	Updated on Xbox ✅	Updated on PC and Xbox ✅
	Updated on Xbox ✅

 

TWITCH UPDATE

We stream weekly on Twitch.tv/MSFSOfficial ! Tomorrow, April 22nd, is Earth Day! In recognition of this day, we have invited a special VIP guest to join us on our Community Fly-In Friday livestream. Gregory Davis is a commercial pilot, aerospace engineer, and President & Interim CEO of Eviation, makers of an upcoming all-electric commuter plane known as Alice. Greg will be here to answer questions from the community and share his expertise about the future of environmentally-sustainable aviation. All are welcome to join! Click here for the flight plan and details.

If you would like to learn more about Greg, we published a Community Spotlight article about him earlier this week that you can read here: Community Spotlight: Gregory Davis

Next Wednesday, join us a few hours after the Live Dev Q&A for Flying Lessons on the C172! Next week we will be learning about float planes. Click here to learn more!

 

COMMUNITY VIDEO

The upcoming Boeing 737 from PMDG is one of the most-anticipated addons for Microsoft Flight Simulator, and it’s launching very soon! PMDG has granted pre-release versions of this plane to several content creators to showcase to the community. YouTuber British Avgeek recently posted a short demo video of the PMDG 737. Check it out here!

 

SCREENSHOT CHALLENGE

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

This past week our Screenshot Challenge was “Alpenglow”. Here are our runner ups this week:

Screenshot by AlphaSierra5534 (Forum)

Screenshot by CuzDawg3 (Forum)

Screenshot by Filippo20032222 (Forum)

Screenshot by HolmesCZ6127 (Forum)

Screenshot by isaiahnparadise (Twitter)

Screenshot by Matt_Photomode (Twitter)

Screenshot by MihamaBlend (Twitter)

Screenshot by shizhe85511526 (Twitter)

Screenshot by tsujiKa_air (Twitter)

Screenshot by zkdos (Forum)

NEXT DEVELOPMENT BLOG UPDATE – April 28th, 2022

Sincerely,

Microsoft Flight Simulator Team

Edited April 21, 2022 by ChaoticBeauty

[iFlySimX 751]

Looking forward to SU10....Whenever that is 🙂

[Tuskin38 6,524]

1 minute ago, iFlySimX said:

Looking forward to SU10....Whenever that is 🙂

July.

[cmpbellsjc 2,963]

🌲🌲

[DylanM 1,069]

Awesome that the AN225 is now planned as a Local Legend

[pmb 5,137]

Nice to see work on Seasons started. Work on (repair of) Bush Trips is also welcome. I gave up on them in the mean time (but there are alternative approaches these days as the pdf-converted trips or Migman's World tour).

Did anyone find the Vegetation distance slider noted as "completed"?

Kind regards, Michael

 

[regis9 4,014]

1 hour ago, DylanM said:

Awesome that the AN225 is now planned as a Local Legend

Yes that was a fantastic surprise!  

[penta_a 429]

5 hours ago, pmb said:

Did anyone find the Vegetation distance slider noted as "completed"?

Kind regards, Michael

 

I think they mentioned in one of their Q&A that it is already part of terrain slider

[pmb 5,137]

2 hours ago, penta_a said:

I think they mentioned in one of their Q&A that it is already part of terrain slider

I watched this Q&A but didn't get the gist of it, perhaps because I am not a native English speaker. Setting tree radius via the TLOD slider has been with us forever, I think. What people requested was a separate slider to decouple the tree radius from terrain LOD, which I don't see (not even in the latest beta).

Kind regards, Michael

[Beardyman 604]

wondering when they will fix piston engine simulation so flying WW2 era warplanes will make sense?

[March Hare 720]

2 hours ago, pmb said:

I watched this Q&A but didn't get the gist of it, perhaps because I am not a native English speaker. Setting tree radius via the TLOD slider has been with us forever, I think. What people requested was a separate slider to decouple the tree radius from terrain LOD, which I don't see (not even in the latest beta).

Kind regards, Michael

That's because they can't be detached from each other. The trees depend on the map data being loaded, so how far out the map data is loaded (the TLOD) determines the maximum distance the trees can be drawn. Without the map data, the AI doesn't know where trees should be populated.

[saifs 153]

13 hours ago, DylanM said:

Awesome that the AN225 is now planned as a Local Legend

Where did you read that? 

[Tuskin38 6,524]

15 minutes ago, saifs said:

Where did you read that? 

Very top of the Wishlist. 

[sd_flyer 6,042]

Happy to see AN225! I'm lucky duck who actually tried An-225 full motion sim for the whole week (inside Antonov company)

[Simple B 141]

6 hours ago, March Hare said:

That's because they can't be detached from each other. The trees depend on the map data being loaded, so how far out the map data is loaded (the TLOD) determines the maximum distance the trees can be drawn. Without the map data, the AI doesn't know where trees should be populated.

I have not seen the qa yet but I am in the beta and using the tree debugger.

If you open it you will see, that unless you have your tress set to ultra, there is little change to tree distance at lods above 200.

The tree setting is effectively the slider.

The debugger includes a table, that shows you the effect the terrain lod will have when you set trees to low, medium, high, and ultra at lod 100, 200, 300 and 400 and the relevant distance you can expect to see trees. You can also turn them red to see the effects.

Essentially there is no new slider, the tools just allows us to understand the effects the old settings have when adjustments are made to in conjunction with each other.

What i need to understand is what else the terrain lod adjusts aside from the trees.