what to expect from upcoming SP2 update?

[Guest delsimflyer]

what issues are going to be addressed in the upcoming sp2? right from fs8, ai traffic has been plagued by problems like go arounds, long runway occupancy time, ground traffic jams, hard landings, etc. The creators didnt do much to be noticeable in this area in the later two versions of the game.enabling proper sounds for ai planes has been a very good idea which almost doubled the airport realism, but problems like full throttling of engines on approach fix through landing crept in.also, braking and taxiway exit algorithms of ai aircrafts have a lot of scope to be improved. Things like rolling takeoffs, amount of reversers and brakes especially on long runways, choice of runway exit taxiway, etc might be given attention to.and ofcourse the airspeed instructions in the atccan some improvements such as these in the working of atc & ai traffic be expected?

[Geofa 108]

The short answer is no.All improvements sp2 are spelled out at Phil's blog site:http://blogs.msdn.com/ptaylor/http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpgForum Moderatorhttp://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

[Guest delsimflyer]

after reading, it seems only visual part of the game is being handled in sp2.I wonder why the fs team is not touching those most noticeable issues which have been left unattended for the past two versions of the game

[RFields5421 1]

Those are core issues about how the game is designed to work. Not service pack bug fixes.I fully agree that the entire AI operation needs to be redone, but that will only happen in a major rewrite of the entire program.My hope is that ACES has finally seen how those issues occur and how deeply it upsets a major segment of the FS community.FSX was too far down the development cycle for Microsoft's new communication policy to make much of a change.My perception is the ACES team now has an entirely new understanding of the FS community and their product as they work on FS11. At least I hope so.

[Geofa 108]

Reggie-I'd be interested in your perspective...Seeing as even today one can get live air traffic depicted in 3d on Google earth-do you see the future "fix" for this issue having streaming live real traffic in a similar vein in the sim vs. reprogramming the current ai methods? This of course would eliminate the present problems and one would be seeing reality going on vs. a simulation and thus approximation of it. The downside is those without an internet connection would be left in the cold.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpgForum Moderatorhttp://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

[rpowers 5]

I'm sure this has been addressed but will SP2 require another clean reinstall of FSX?Thanks,Ron

[n4gix 4,947]

>I'm sure this has been addressed but will SP2 require another>clean reinstall of FSX?Yes it has, and no it won't... ;)

[Guest jshyluk]

As to live traffic feeds:MyTraffic X has as close to a live traffic feed as FSX can get. You can get a air traffic observation program from http://www.airnavsystems.com/MyTraffic X gets their data "on the fly" from the FAA, which means that their live flight data is restricted to flights that originate, fly over, or terminate in the US of A. In addition, there is about a 10-minute lag in the data stream, which I believe is inserted at a security precaustion by the FAA itself.AirNavSystems is interested in world-wide flight tracking, and have a new "Radar Box" system for tracking flights outside of the US. It all looks very expensive, though, and probably would not appeal to the majority of MSFS users who don't mind Orbit, Landmark, etc.That being said, for MSFS to release using live traffic, they would also need to start using real-world airlines, hundreds of them. Currently, FSX has one real-world airline: Kenmore Air. MyTraffic X is also limited to portraying mostly airliners. GA aircraft that don't get tracked by the FAA, helicopters, gliders, military flights and so on are not represented due to the fact that they can be difficult to track. In practise, if you enjoy bush piloting, you feel like a guppy in the shark tank.I don't see that the traffic.bgl system for generating flights will be thrown out in the near or even very far future. To generate "live" flights, MyTraffic X simply rewrites the traffic.bgl file every time you start the application. If you don't update MyTraffic X, the aircraft run on the last schedule that's in traffic.bgl. This way, you can fly with traffic even if your Internet is down/nonexistent. The traffic.bgl, then, is like an emergency reserve for your scheduled flights, if your live feed was unavailable. Again, all of this is quite costly, both for the developers, costly on the Internet in terms of bandwidth, and certainly costly to the end user. Once the financial hurdle has been surmounted, then you could expect to see live streaming traffic for MSFS. Until then, like the first CD, laserdisc, DVD, or high-def disk players, this is a commodity only for the wealthy or the true enthusiast. Jeff ShylukSenior Staff Reviewer, Avsim

[Geofa 108]

That is the site I was thinking of. Since we are thinking 2-3 years from now I personally think many of the hurdles you mention will not exist then.Ms arranged a deal with jepp for data and weather-a deal with a provider such as flightaware.com might be easier than rewriting the ai engine and add another reality.Of course internet would be necessary-but perhaps there could be a hybrid ai engine.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpgForum Moderatorhttp://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

[Guest wyoming]

Simulation vs reproduction has been the core strategic issue since fly! vs MSFS. It also sometimes appears as game vs. sim. If we assume no computational limitations what would a flight-simulation be? My guess is that everyone would say a reproduction or real-time reality. Simulation is there because that is the best we can do with what we have, but not an end in itself, like games are. As the ability to reproduce increases (Satellite images, 3D towns, intelligent lighting, cloud formation etc...) the need for simulation decreases. We are near such a point. Economical variables not factored in.

[Guest jshyluk]

Jeppesen data vs. FAA data are comparing apples to oranges, in my view. The Jeppesen data powers the generation of a couple of dozen objects repeated in myriad ways: clouds and such like. Flight following data would power the generation of hundreds of different objects: the various aircraft + all their liveries. While it would be fun to be at the receiving end of a Microsoft paycheque for all of that texturing, I wouldn't want to be a part of that art department. Even if they started this minute, at the rate of 1 finished texture every 2 hours (which I believe is what the top AI aircraft texture artists can do), I doubt it would be easy get all of the airlines of the world covered in 3 years. Not impossible, though, just not easy. You'd also need at least an extra DVD in the box to hold those textures, which is something the Jeppesen folks don't need to ask for. Jeff ShylukSenior Staff Reviewer, Avsim

[Mace 1,904]

>>Of course internet would be necessary-but perhaps there could>be a hybrid ai engine.I think a hybrid AI engine is closer to what we'll see in FS11 (or maybe not FS11, maybe FS12) than anything else. Or possibly we won't see any live streaming features at all. Once again I worry that the majority of "upgrades" to the FS engine will be graphical in nature. I hope HOPE we fsfanatics have more impact this time around in seeing an augmentation of OTHER features such as the AI system.There are a number of limitations with a live feed for AI right now that I see, foremost among them the lack of worldwide coverage.A hybrid would allow these gaps to be filled with programmed bgl's to complement the live feed bgl's made when the AI data is downloaded.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian

[Geofa 108]

I think due to lawsuit/copyrights they probably would not be able to do textures anyway and would have to leave that aspect the way it is now.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpgForum Moderatorhttp://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

[Guest delsimflyer]

>To generate "live" flights, MyTraffic X simply rewrites the>traffic.bgl file every time you start the application.I dont see any difference to the ai working when real world ai flightplans are buffered to it in future; just the flightplans will be renewed, and not the way fs controls ai traffic. This means that fs will still control the ai planes using the instructions written in its modules.As rightly said: These issues will require major changes in the core working of the program, dont know why ACES has been avoiding that for past few versions, now that the visual and content part of the game has been enough done with, it is time for them to move their attention to this area of the game. If not now, when?