New announcement Fenix A320

[Manuel1989 34]

"Aamir":

Good evening

 Some short service announcements for you all and general updates on the company as a whole.

I’ll start with the not-so-great news, progress on the IAEs (and by extension - the external engine model) has been slower than expected due to the conflict in Ukraine. The developer taking lead on the integration of the external engine model is, unfortunately, regularly without power and heating for days. The recent large scale missile strikes in the region have only served to worsen the situation, and we do not expect the circumstances to improve in the near future. With that being said, work does continue where possible, and last night we managed to clear an important prototype milestone - the implementation of fast lookup algorithms, making the engine model math more performant by nearly 1000x.

I have not shared many details about the engine model as yet, but we are being ambitious with our goals - and the set of data we’re using to build it is absolutely enormous. This fast lookup algorithm clears a large hurdle in making the implementation possible. We are inching closer to having a prototype flying, but as ever, we will not be providing a timescale for this given the variable circumstances around it.

Please take this as a subtle reminder that while we are all extremely committed to what we do here at Fenix, sometimes life takes a front seat instead, and the welfare, comfort, and safety of our developers will always come first.

In other areas of the company, we are approaching the 400 man-hour mark on the EFB rewrite. A reminder that this “update” will see no changes made to the front end, but instead, is a robust rewrite of the underlying architecture to support the performance, scalability, and maintainability of the EFB. This is the backbone of future features such as a more robust state-saving system.

Something else we've been hinting at is the major visual upgrade that continues along in the background. The art team have been very busy over the last several months almost entirely rebuilding the visual model of the aircraft. It wouldn't surprise me if we were the first to start active development of an airliner in MSFS back in 2019, before any art or development tools were available. We begun R&D as soon as alpha access was granted, finding ways to port across models, investigating systems, and get a good 'feel' for development possibilities. In doing so, we played it pretty safe on the visuals - keeping the polycount and texture utilisation very similar to existing simulator platforms. Now MSFS has mostly matured and stabilised, it's clear that we 'undershot' a little bit on this front, and left a lot on the table. Dubbed 'V2' internally for the near total-rebuild, this will be a substantial, and free, upgrade to our A320 product; hopefully making it the benchmark for visual quality and accuracy. We're not ready to share anything major on this yet.

Our new installer system with delta-update capabilities is also soon approaching a point where it will be deployed into testing. We are currently undertaking some API work with our licensing/activation servers, and here we must tread with some caution as we do not want to introduce loopholes and potential security vulnerabilities. We will keep the new installer in testing for an extended period of time to also ensure it’s reliable when placed in your hands. I’m sure most of you are excited about the prospect of no longer having to download an entire 2GB installer file (and manually installing it), much in the same way I am excited at no longer having to pay for the server costs associated with distributing a 2GB installer file everytime we deploy a new build.

 

 Also, we are expanding! We’re currently actively looking for developers with an interest in flight simulation to work on the A320 and SecretOtherStuffTM. I’ve put together a small snippet of the skillsets we’re looking for. If you feel like you’re a good fit, please shoot us an email at jobs@fenixsim.com, we’re looking for developers in a few different areas. Keep in mind this a guideline, not an absolute! 

Requirements:

C# .NET Framework Intermediate C++ knowledge Intermediate aircraft system understanding Will be a plus but NOT required: Aviation engineering experience Flight Sim experience Multi-process and distributed systems Multi-threading experience Windows desktop: WPF and/or WinForms 2D Graphics: Direct2D or anything similar (skia, GDI+, HTML5 Canvas etc) Basic understanding of 3D graphics

jobs@fenixsim.com

CVs welcome!

[omarsmak30 4,068]

I hope all the best for developers in Ukraine! 
 

Also awesome news about model v2, although the existing model is super good, they seem want to reach perfection 😍

[polosim 841]

Best wishes to all great teamwork.

 

Sorry but I have to mentioned:

We need a remote MCDU capability, badly!

Keep it up ! You’re doing a great work.

[Wise87 1,281]

Well now we know what has been going on behind the scenes. I also hope for the best for the developers in the Ukraine.

I wonder if the slower progress by Fenix will benefit another well know Airbus developer. I am interested to see what 2023 has to bring for the Payware Airbus community. 

Edited November 26, 2022 by Wise87

[JBDB-MD80 1,473]

IMO they need to charge a fee to any extension to the current product to stay in business. A product at this level of detail needs to be compensated for their work. No other developer (payware) offer this in what Fenix is doing. They could make more money selling the IAE and sharklet wing for a small fee and keep development moving forward. Asking another $20-30 for a engine model and sharklets is not asking too much and anyone serious flying the most detailed A320 in MSFS would not have any problem with that.

Edited November 26, 2022 by jbdbow1970

[harrry 322]

The existing costs have probably been paid for already by its current user base.  Future development ensures that the product remains sellable to new buyers with their payment paying for future improvements and profit.

Those who do not update their products run the risk of the product not making any new sales and also upsetting the current user base who if asked to pay may do so relucttently but will consider another developer for new purchases.

[F737MAX 5,604]

1 hour ago, jbdbow1970 said:

IMO they need to charge a fee to any extension to the current product to stay in business. A product at this level of detail needs to be compensated for their work. No other developer (payware) offer this in what Fenix is doing. They could make more money selling the IAE and sharklet wing for a small fee and keep development moving forward. Asking another $20-30 for a engine model and sharklets is not asking too much and anyone serious flying the most detailed A320 in MSFS would not have any problem with that.

Have to agree. While I think they've wasted a ton of money on server costs with full package releases for updates, they cannot continue to maintain this level of development, for free, and forever.
It's a balance between the vocal minority who will scream until they're blue in the face about any paid updates and a larger, quieter group who are willing to pay.

A happy middle ground would see the release of a free IAE engine type on the Fenix v.1 variant (if possible) and a paid update ("v2") for everything new, including the new external-to-the-sim engine calculation model, artwork, look-up algorithm, etc.
 

[carlanthony24 576]

1 hour ago, F737MAX said:

Have to agree. While I think they've wasted a ton of money on server costs with full package releases for updates, they cannot continue to maintain this level of development, for free, and forever.
It's a balance between the vocal minority who will scream until they're blue in the face about any paid updates and a larger, quieter group who are willing to pay.

A happy middle ground would see the release of a free IAE engine type on the Fenix v.1 variant (if possible) and a paid update ("v2") for everything new, including the new external-to-the-sim engine calculation model, artwork, look-up algorithm, etc.

They must be doing well if they can still offer the IAE and Sharklets for free. If they do plan other variants then they will most likely be charged E.G A321 wing tip fences but free upgrade for Sharklets. It amazes me how people think they can't stay a float with what they are doing. They have their business model so they know exactly what and how they are doing. They want to be consumer friendly. In the discord things they have said proves this.  

Edited November 26, 2022 by carlanthony24

[guenseli 1,591]

4 hours ago, polosim said:

We need a remote MCDU capability, badly!

This!!! 

[darshonaut 237]

While I don't doubt that you quoted correctly, please give the source for this In fact, always giving a source when you quote something would be a good idea on the internet.

There is zero news update on the company website or blog.

 

 

Edited November 26, 2022 by darshonaut

[pete_auau 1,159]

3 minutes ago, darshonaut said:

While I don't doubt that you quoted correctly, please give the source for this. In fact, always giving a source when you quote something would be a good idea on the internet.

There is zero news update on the company website or blog.

 

 

first place  to check for  info in the  fenix  for  first hand news is  their  discord  channel

Edited November 26, 2022 by pete_auau

[darshonaut 237]

11 minutes ago, pete_auau said:

first place  to check for  info in the  fenix  for  first hand news is  their  discord  channel

that is propably right. So is discord the source of this quote ?

Or are you saying it's propably better to diregard avsim for Fenix news and be connected on their discord if you want to know what news they publish.

I did find the news on the discord of fenix just now. so thanks for the heads up. Very interesting what they posted there. The quote in the OP was not complete. Aamir posted more in that posting on discord than what was quoted on avsim. Maybe not important to some, but they did. That's why you give sources, so people can fact check and see if the quoter in a forum left something out for whatever reason.

 

 

Edited November 26, 2022 by darshonaut

[pete_auau 1,159]

5 minutes ago, darshonaut said:

that is propably right. So is discord the source of this quote ?

yes,  just check it  out  for  your  self, lots of  other  good info  as well

Edited November 26, 2022 by pete_auau

[Paladin2005 436]

I have only two wishes for the Fenix A320:

- a remote MCDU (why not support e.g. Aviaworx?) Its a joy to use my PMDG 737 FMC with my iPad and the reason i dont fly Fenix so much.

- compatibility of Honeycomb Bravo Autopilot (at least the basics speed, HDG, alt) with the Fenix Autopilot.

Then - its perfect.

[tull 290]

Awesome awesome job done by the Fenix team..... that would put the icing on the cake for sure!👍😀