https://forum.pmdg.com/forum/main-forum/general-discussion-news-and-announcements/258467-24jul23-pmdg-for-msfs-items-pending-this-week-and-a-few-notes

 

PMDG 737 for MSFS Updates Pending:
As I mentioned last weekend, Build 3.00.0070 went out via micro update, through the PMDG Operations Center on 21JUL23. That update was primarily structural for changes we need in place for the Universal Flight Tablet testing program, and bore no major changes that you can see until we get the tablet out to you in the weeks ahead.

Following up on that release, we have another update that is currently wrapping up it's test process, and that will include some small adjustments, a few texture corrections as well as refinements to the flight director control law and corrections to the engine spool rates. I have gone back and forth a bit on how fast you might see this next update, but as of this moment I suspect this coming week will work for it. There are other items we are still chasing and subsequent updates will appear along the way.

This inadvertently became a contentions topic this week, so I want to address a few things in detail. I mentioned last week that the engine spool rates was being worked on and would need further testing- but a member of the development team then discussed certain aspects of the changes in another thread- and his comments sewed some confusion as to whether or not the changes had been released to you in 3.00.0070. They had not- they had gone to the testing team, but since the devs are always working a couple of weeks ahead of the testing team- he lost track and mis-spoke. Sorry for the confusion- those changes are still pending to you and will roll out possibly in the next update cycle.

So What Gives With The Engine Spool Rates, Anyway?
We are working to balance proper engine acceleration rates against some problems we are having with the core MSFS engine that prevent the engines from being re-lit at high altitude. There are a number of tricks that we are applying to try and create a proper engine spool behavior model, but the platform itself has yet to reveal all of it's secrets in a manner that allows us to do this with grace and care. The three legs of this triangle are the rates at which the engine spools UP, the rate at which it spools DOWN, and it's ability to be re-lit in flight at various altitudes. Of course, you can't have all three. It is a bit like the old joke of "you can have fast, cheap or high quality; pick one."

Like many things in a "new" platform with many ways to solve problems- it takes a bit of time to settle on solutions that meet our needs and most of the time I think we do a good job of choosing the correct solution when we have to balance the capabilities of the simulator vs. what the real airplane does. In this instance, by changing the low RPM spool model in order to allow for the engine to be re-lit in flight, I think we made the wrong choice in that balance. Spool rates are something all of you interact with continually, but an in flight re-light is something that will only happen to those using some advanced options. While we were targeting a fix, we wound up breaking more than we fixed. Oops. It happens.

The nice thing, however- is that we are perfectly capable of adapting the product continually, so in the unusual circumstance where we mis-read the balance of capability vs. performance, we can always take another go at it- and this is what we are doing with this update. Our original data on the spool rates has been re-evaluated based upon work we did with a live airplane, and this has improved the spool UP model. We are asking Asobo to consider providing a spool DOWN model, because spooling down currently follows the spool up curve, but in reverse. This yields an engine that unwinds FAR too fast in correlation to throttle movement. In the mean time we are planning to work some of our usual PMDG Black Magic in order to ensure it goes up and down properly. As for the in-flight relight, we have made some progress there, but research is ongoing. It is likely there is some aspect of the way our customized engine model interacts with the sim that is problematic, but we also suspect that the underlying model that governs this for MSFS does **not** want to accept the engine run state data from our highly customized model- so we are still trying to wrestle the platform into behaving as we wish.

Universal Flight Tablet:
We have moved the tablet to the final stage of testing in preparation for rolling it out for 737 users. We are using some unusual techniques here in order to circumvent obstructions that exist between C++ mdules and JavaScript modules being able to communicate with the outside world AND with one another. This has been the difficult heavy lift, and it is so far working very smoothly in wider testing. We are engaged with the team testing the tablet to ensure we haven't missed any details that need mending before we make it live. I am waiting for a few goalposts to be cleared before beginning to the process of showing you the finished design- but we are not far from that moment now.

PMDG 737 and DC-6 Liveries:
We continue to push more packages of liveries for the DC-6/737 product lines through the marketplace intake process. I have read some folks who are upset that we have the audacity to charge $0.50/livery in packages of 10. This was not our choice. It is the only way to get the liveries fully available to MSFS Xbox users- and we don't have any way to make liveries available to Xbox users except to move them through the existing channel of Marketplace. For those simming on PC, liveries remain free to you via the PMDG Operations Center.

PMDG have made a strong commitment to support the Xbox community and welcome them to the PMDG family. While we continue to look for even more cost effective ways to provide access to liveries- we will work with Microsoft and the distribution mechanism to get the best value we can for that part of our customer family.

PMDG 777 for MSFS:
Things continue to go very well here. Not a whole lot to say other than this.
 

Edited July 26, 20232 yr by lwt1971

Better set this to "read only" asap.

21 minutes ago, ThomseN_inc said:

Better set this to "read only" asap.

You got that right. 

If people are truly interested then they will seek this out by visiting the PMDG forums themselves.

Quoting the entire post as happens here only serves to cause the usual trolls to appear, whether this is the intention or not.

Edited July 26, 20232 yr by DavidP

I appreciate the information. Thank you for posting it here. 

30 minutes ago, DavidP said:

Quoting the entire post as happens here only serves to cause the usual trolls to appear, whether this is the intention or not.

It most certainly was not intentional, and I also quoted most of the post since sometimes many don't even bother to go read what PMDG says before starting to snipe at them 🙂 Felt that RSR gave some good info here (unlike some recent updates), especially re: the engine spooling issues.
 

Edited July 26, 20232 yr by lwt1971

46 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

It most certainly was not intentional, and I also quoted most of the post since sometimes many don't even bother to go read what PMDG says before starting to snipe at them

Both points are true; I would probably never visit their forums if there was not something posted here, so I appreciate that; at the same time more often than not the thread seems to become a lightening rod for PMDG criticism, valid and not, and quickly unravels. 

1 hour ago, DavidP said:

If people are truly interested then they will seek this out by visiting the PMDG forums themselves.

Quoting the entire post as happens here only serves to cause the usual trolls to appear, whether this is the intention or not.

So voicing concerns about the state of the product you bought and paid $$$ for counts as "trolling" in your book. What avsim rules are being broken by commenting here?

here we go.....

1 hour ago, DavidP said:

If people are truly interested then they will seek this out by visiting the PMDG forums themselves.

Quoting the entire post as happens here only serves to cause the usual trolls to appear, whether this is the intention or not.

Lets be real people would rather come on here and read what has been posted than going onto a forum like that.... Don't forget to sign your name 🤣

Have to agree x amount of money spent and people can't voice concerns even though it does always happen to end up being the same discussions over and over again. Not trolling though.

Edited July 26, 20232 yr by carlanthony24

I love how every PMDG thread always needs an entire page of people saying "Oh boy here we go" and "Gee trolls are coming soon" and inadvertently getting the ball rolling themselves in some weird Streisand effect.

I just don't see a reason behind these updates expect that RSR wants us to say: just leave the updates, we don't need them. The EFB and 777 information could just have been left out, since it's not an update. Do you guys think, that the PMDG aircraft will get on sale in the market place or directly via pmdg.com? This is off topic, but who cares the purpose of this thread in itself is reductant.

It makes me laugh that the tablet is more desired than all those nice planes we already have in the sim. Jeeze🤣😂😂😂🤣 rofl.

15 minutes ago, Sethos said:

I love how every PMDG thread always needs an entire page of people saying "Oh boy here we go" and "Gee trolls are coming soon" and inadvertently getting the ball rolling themselves in some weird Streisand effect.

This... every.single.time

I wonder if PMDG would have been better off designing a custom external engine model like Fenix is doing; Because in the long run, they'll need it for the 777, 747, and all future aircraft.