<>That's actually not quite right :->This is the structure ACES is going with moving forward:We have a Core Platform team, which Phil is the PM for. This team will be responsible for things like the terrain engine, weather system, SimConnect, etc.We have one officially announced product being developed called Train Sim 2 which will be based on that Core Platform. This team will add the Trains specific stuff (a rail system, engines, rolling stock, etc)We have one not officially announced but hinted at quite a bit product FS11 (or whatever it winds up being called) that will also be based on that platform. This team will add the Aircraft specific stuff (ATC, Flight Planning, Airport systems, Aircraft systems, etc).We have a newly announced product called Microsoft ESP that is also building off of that Core Platform. This team will take a snapshot of the Core Platform at some point in time (for ESP V1, that point in time happens to be roughly equiv to XPack/SP2), remove any content that we don't have redist rights to outside of the entertainment space, add any extra stuff to support our (oh yea, I'm on the ESP team now :-> ) customer base (for ESP V1, that mostly consists of the new licensing model to make this market possible, plus a few tweaks we thought would make it more usable by our customers), and it also comes with a higher level of after the sale support (fairly standard requirements to sell to some of the folks on our list :-> ).So, we have these at least 4 different teams, focusing on their specific subset of the whole product, and at various times durring the varying ship schedules I imagine there will be some sharing of people between teams (I was actually on loan to the ESP team from the XPack team for 2 weeks before I officially transferred over, to do some quick updates/modifications to the dialog boxes/UI elements). This is all new to the studio and we're still working out all the "who does what when" type issues, but it should mean really cool things going forward for both the entertainment and commercial sides of the studio and for you guys our customers.

:-beerchug VERY WELL SAID JEFF :-beerchug

Thanks for this clarification Tim. I'm really looking forward to seeing what comes out of this!Colin

>We have one not officially announced but hinted at quite a bit >product FS11 (or whatever it winds up being called) that will also >be based on that platform. This team will add the Aircraft specific >stuff (ATC, Flight Planning, Airport systems, Aircraft systems, etc).Hey, look guys - look at the order Tim talked about features for FS11! Yippee!! Maybe some improvements in ATC and Flight Planning coming down the pike, eh?I hope so.I know, I know, no commitment here, and I won't be expecting any till it's fully baked, but what you said is at least encouraging. These are definately features I'd like to see grow and improve.I know there was some thought that people won't need standalone ATC anymore with the improvements in multiplayer, but, to me, that's kind of like saying fighters don't need guns anymore because they have missles. Doesn't quite work that way.Anyway, thanks for the detailed discussion. I really do enjoy feeling like I'm involved in the improvement and development of the product, even if I am only one of the ants. Discussions like these go a lonngggg way towards that.Thomas[a href=http://www.flyingscool.com] http://www.flyingscool.com/images/Signature.jpg [/a]I like using VC's :-)N15802 KASH '73 Piper Cherokee Challenger 180

Wow, thanks Tim for adding to the discussion. It

Looking forward to it all and I am happy about the legitimacy ESP will bring to the "serious games" market.

<>That was just the order they occured to me in (mostly because I had just looked at an issue related to ATC and IFR flight plans in ESP earlier that day). Don't read anything into that :->

Ahhh! But the conspiracy theorist in me tells me that they occurred to you in that order for a reason! Hahaha (evil laugh)(Hmm, I'll have to see if I still think that's funny in the morning. I should probably stay away from late night humor)(Plus, I'm allowed to dream, right :-) <-- Dreaming of improved ATC)Thomas[a href=http://www.flyingscool.com] http://www.flyingscool.com/images/Signature.jpg [/a]I like using VC's :-)N15802 KASH '73 Piper Cherokee Challenger 180

Yes, you have to have the whole world included because there would not be enough customer base to make it worth while (money wise) Look what happened to flight unlimited. The terrain and visuals were fantastic, but it only covered the western US so not much interest otherwise and they are gone.