MSFS Asobo Dev Q&A ongoing now

[omarsmak30 4,069]

1 hour ago, Kaiii3 said:

last time i checked the job offer was still on their homepage (https://www.asobostudio.com/careers/atc-flight-planning-programmer-flight-sim-251)

I guess as long as this is open, we will not see much improvment in the near future 😞

Out of curiosity Kay, why don’t you apply for that opening? I think you are the perfect fit for it and you can bring with tons of AI experience to MSFS 😄

[DAD 2,667]

3 hours ago, lwt1971 said:

Hans Harmann (3PD development partner) on now... ATR is not yet in any testing phase yet

Gotcha, AS. That’s the reason the „pending updates“ for my CRJ are pending now since a couple of weeks ? 😉 

[icewater5 181]

1 hour ago, kakihara123 said:

What I don't understand ist that ATC doesn't have a higher priority and is rarely even talked about.   I know this is a difficult task, but it looks like they don't even understand the importance. 

Not being a programmer/coder i dont know how many people hours would be required to run a high level atc in msfs 2020. My guess is they know 3rd party programmers will 'pick up the slack'.(which is fine)  Maybe people using these programs could confirm.

[Maxis 1,905]

13 minutes ago, omarsmak30 said:

Out of curiosity Kay, why don’t you apply for that opening? I think you are the perfect fit for it and you can bring with tons of AI experience to MSFS 😄

That's not even a joke question. I think you should consider it seriously @Kaiii3. You know the ins and outs of it and what most people want out of the sim as it regards to AI.Sure you probably will get restricted in terms of liveries / ai models and such but at least you would be able to work to fix the fundamentals and let a third party group worry about flight schedules  models  and liveries. I think this may be the opportunity for you to fix  the ai issues from within.

 

Just a thought.

[Farlis 2,338]

3 hours ago, SubtotalGuide said:

Interesting choice of words, why not say meteoblue?

Because ALL of the live weather data comes from Meteoblue. "Other live data sources" means "other than METAR" not "other than Meteoblue"...

Should be obvious. But you were too busy being negative.

[Farlis 2,338]

2 hours ago, Bdub22 said:

You're making all of this up...

No, he is not making ALL of this up. Seb DID acknowledge in a some of the previous Q&A's that they limited updrafts because they thought people would believe something is broken in the sim when they stupidly flew into a thunderstorm suddenly facing 7000ft per minute updrafts that would shred their little Cessnas to pieces.

Edited May 25, 2022 by Farlis

[kakihara123 144]

17 minutes ago, icewater5 said:

Not being a programmer/coder i dont know how many people hours would be required to run a high level atc in msfs 2020. My guess is they know 3rd party programmers will 'pick up the slack'.(which is fine)  Maybe people using these programs could confirm.

I highly doubt it. The problem ist that there are fundamental issues 3rd party devs will never be able to solve. They cannot control any user planes. They also cannot control Live traffic at all. I don't expect anything totally impossible. Just a few things come to mind that would vastly improve the situation:

- Make calls from players be heard (and limit how often you can hear the same call and/or implement a mute system)
This would make a huge difference in terms of immersion for uncontrolled airports. As of now anything you do as a player is nothing but pretend. No one will hear any of your calls. 
 

- automatic vectoring. As awful as X-planes ATC ist, that worked well. So it is possible. Having to request direction manually is bafflingly stupid. I have no idea how anyone ever thought this was a good idea.

- If you are descending over mountains, it should analyze the lowest point you can go until you passed those and send you there. Atm it rapidly changes altitudes all the time. How can you notice that and say... yeah this is good enough? If this would happened occasionally I wouldn't even care, but this happens all the time. 

- max altitude it sends you to should be dictated by aircraft type. This should also limit the flight plans you file. If you try to use High altitude airways in a C152, let the game reject the plan on the flight map. But if you manage to file the plan, don't send me higher then I can. 
Another possible solution would be an unable answer, which could override certain things. This is a bit more advanced, but if you are unable to climb over a mountain, activate vectors around it automatically. 

 

- declaring emergencies . Also a bit more advanced. Could give the aircraft priority routing and some Firetrucks come after the landing. This would need a bit of a careful approach, not to annoy players too much, but I doubt it would be a huge issue. This could also be enhanced in various cool ways. Of course this will never reach anything near realistic levels, but ATC could simply ask for souls on board for a bit of added immersion and stuff like that. 

Sure regional accents, different transition altitudes and stuff like that are nice, but I think the points above are so much more important. The worse immersion killer for me is not the way ATC talks, but what it says. 

[icewater5 181]

27 minutes ago, kakihara123 said:

I highly doubt it. The problem ist that there are fundamental issues 3rd party devs will never be able to solve. They cannot control any user planes. They also cannot control Live traffic at all. I don't expect anything totally impossible. Just a few things come to mind that would vastly improve the situation:

 

First thank you for your detailed reply.

Maybe this is a seriously daft question, but why does atc have to 'control' user planes, can 3rd party programmers not improve atc just by seeing them. Where they are... altittude, gps position, speed and so on . I think i mean i dont quite know the difference between control  and recognition of the end user plane.

Edited May 25, 2022 by icewater5

[kakihara123 144]

3 minutes ago, icewater5 said:

First thank you for your detailed reply.

Maybe this is a seriously daft question, but why does atc have to 'control' user planes, can 3rd party programmers not improve atc just by seeing them. Where they are... altitude, gps position, speed and so on . I think i mean i dont quite know the difference between control  and recognition of the end user plane.

I guess some people don't care, but if the ATC cannot control user planes (or in case of the only 3rd party solutions available atm not even AI planes) then they can only router you around existing traffic. So you will always have to hold, never any other plane. For this Asobo ATC this also means that they ignore player controlled planes completely. So you can get a takeoff clearance while another user is on the runway. Or 2 players can get a landing clearance at the same time even though they are too close together. Griefing or AFK players could simply be turned invisible if they take too long. Or as I wrote before, they could simply be put on an ignore list by the player and that could turn them invisible. 

Ideally ATC should control any and all traffic, but they should at least improve the ai interaction to a somewhat reasonable level. 

[Kaiii3 1,983]

7 hours ago, omarsmak30 said:

Out of curiosity Kay, why don’t you apply for that opening? I think you are the perfect fit for it and you can bring with tons of AI experience to MSFS 😄

many reasons:

1) I have a nice job already (actual will start at a new position in a few days)

2) The offer they put there is way to generic

3) I currently see no big potential with just this one job opening there for AI traffic

4) The position is for a coder, I see mayself more as the brain behind the logic. Writing the stuff can do someone else, i do that just for fun as a hobby 😉

[MarcG 3,067]

6 hours ago, Farlis said:

No, he is not making ALL of this up. Seb DID acknowledge in a some of the previous Q&A's that they limited updrafts because they thought people would believe something is broken in the sim when they stupidly flew into a thunderstorm suddenly facing 7000ft per minute updrafts that would shred their little Cessnas to pieces.

Yes you are correct he did, I remember at the time questioning the "dumbing" down of this as it seemed like a terrible decision for a "simulator".

[MarcG 3,067]

17 minutes ago, Kaiii3 said:

many reasons:

1) I have a nice job already (actual will start at a new position in a few days)

2) The offer they put there is way to generic

3) I currently see no big potential with just this one job opening there for AI traffic

4) The position is for a coder, I see mayself more as the brain behind the logic. Writing the stuff can do someone else, i do that just for fun as a hobby 😉

5) Do you speak French? As that's a prerequisite for a job with them as well!

[Kaiii3 1,983]

1 minute ago, MarcG said:

5) Do you speak French? As that's a prerequisite for a job with them as well!

nope, and tbh i would wonder why they have something like that on an international team xD - one more reason not to go there^^

[MarcG 3,067]

7 minutes ago, MarcG said:

Yes you are correct he did, I remember at the time questioning the "dumbing" down of this as it seemed like a terrible decision for a "simulator".

@Farlis @Bdub22 Reference to this was made by Seb in the October 2020 Q&A.

[omarsmak30 4,069]

57 minutes ago, MarcG said:

5) Do you speak French? As that's a prerequisite for a job with them as well!

There was no French requirement in that position