28 minutes ago, EGLD said:

This has always concerned me, as it seems that developing an advanced airliner for MSFS from scratch is perhaps more difficult than XP and P3D, as evidenced by the general lack of choice and the fact so many devs have had to rely on hacking at the Asobo default

Initially, the rudimentary SDK made developing a complex aircraft difficult. As Asobo expanded it, aircraft developers were able to achieve more.

So far, we've received Boeing 737NG from PMDG, MD-80 from Leonardo, Fokker 28 and BAe 146 from JustFlight in addition to the A320 from Fenix (and that's just the airliners).

It takes time to create a complex aircraft from scratch. By next summer we'll all be spoilt for choice, there's a lot of very interesting projects coming our way.

 

Edited November 21, 20232 yr by F737MAX
link added

On 11/20/2023 at 12:13 AM, ahmede19 said:

A320 and its variants are boring, the amount of manhours spent on making 5+ iterations of this aircraft, just so some people can simulate obscure circuit breaker failures or customize their IAE engine variant

Personally, I wouldn't buy an add-on airliner unless it was up to this standard

Take a look everybody in the Avsim bargains forum. what Mack84 post. $100 including shipping. A320 mini FCU

 

20 minutes ago, Fielder said:

Take a look everybody in the Avsim bargains forum. what Mack84 post. $100 including shipping. A320 mini FCU

That's not the miniFCU from miniCOCKPIT. It's an alternative from Winwing Sim.

One thing to remember is that to produce an aircraft accurately you need source data such as technical publications and technical data. The A320 is a digital platform developed in an analogue age where much of the information over time has been made readily available both physically and digitally. The A320 is also an extremely common aircraft and so the data is far more widely available, you can potentially source it from any number of willing (ex)operators.

Any aircraft built prior to 1990 will be difficult to produce because the publications are always hard-copy based in which case you need to buy it, that is extremely expensive. Out of service aircraft are even more difficult because the real aircraft often do not exist anymore and the remaining publications were probably sold or destroyed.

A good example is sounds, if you wanted to produce a B727 today then how would you replicate the sound of the switches, clicks, engine sounds? You can't really do that without access to the real aircraft however there are barely any B727's flying now compared to 20 years ago. It may be impossible to do it accurately and that's where developers may have to blur the lines.

I can understand why developers are likely to focus on the likes of the A320 or B737, there is plentiful cheap information and the real aircraft are still flying. The newer aircraft such as the A350 are a little more difficult because that information is still new and nowadays it's located in proprietary electronic tools. I can buy an A320 flight manual or even a complete maintenance manual on ebay, however try that for the A350.

There are many people and companies who produce this information, for example as part of a training package offered to an airline but there's zero chance that they'll offer it to a sim developer for free.

Edited November 21, 20232 yr by G MIDY

4 hours ago, EGLD said:

aren't all the airbuses just variations of what Asobo gave us?

No, the Ini A320 is completely new.

4 hours ago, EGLD said:

Other than the astonishingly good work by Aamir and his crew, aren't all the airbuses just variations of what Asobo gave us?

This has always concerned me, as it seems that developing an advanced airliner for MSFS from scratch is perhaps more difficult than XP and P3D, as evidenced by the general lack of choice and the fact so many devs have had to rely on hacking at the Asobo default

I'd say very much on the contrary and we're fairly spoiled for choice in everything but the long-hauler category as of now (and that's because most devs chose to focus on the short-hauler airliners and GA first since they are more popular). MSFS is only 3 years old so given that timeline it makes sense that short-haulers and GA filled out the market first, and now a whole bunch of long-haulers are in development to start dropping by end-of-year onwards. We already have the PMDG 737, Fenix A320, Leonardo MD80, default 787, default A310, etc... and the iniBuilds A300, PMDG 777, iniBuilds modern long-hauler airbus, FSL concorde and airbus, Fenix A321/A319 etc are all well into development and some close to entering beta.

The only hackery I know of is PMDG's EFB communications protocol given they were confined to a particular route thru the SDK based on their choice to use pre-existing code along with other factors. All other airliner devs have built on top of the MSFS FDE and anything deeper they want to simulate they extend and/or customize, that's par for the course with any aircraft development for a sim. Also, an aircraft doesn't necessarily have to be a big jet or airliner for it to be advanced/complex. We have numerous deeply simulated GA birds, bizjets, & helicopters available, both payware and in the default fleet.
 

Edited November 21, 20232 yr by lwt1971

I will probably never touch an Xbox in my life (playstation rules lol) but I am very happy to see Jorg's vision for compelling default aircraft being the norm, continue to become a reality with the iniBuilds A320. It is great that new PC players will also be able dive in and get a good A320 out of the box. This continued effort to get things right is also making me even more excited for 2024. Really looking forward to more upgrades in the default lineup (Like the glass Baron 🙂)

6 hours ago, EGLD said:

aren't all the airbuses just variations of what Asobo gave us?

the FlyByWire isn't, systems wise at least. They're still using a modified Asobo 3D model however.

Edited November 21, 20232 yr by Tuskin38

3 hours ago, lwt1971 said:

Also, an aircraft doesn't necessarily have to be a big jet or airliner for it to be advanced/complex.

True this. A valid argument would be that most GA aircraft that are in the sim are far more complicated than the A320, at least for me they are, in terms of how to navigate using older systems and knowing your way around all the dials and switches.

8 hours ago, F737MAX said:

That's not the miniFCU from miniCOCKPIT. It's an alternative from Winwing Sim.

Ok, thanks for that clarification.

10 hours ago, EGLD said:

fact so many devs have had to rely on hacking at the Asobo default

None of the current airliners have any code from their previous default state in them any longer (no shade at all to our amazing friends at Asobo). All the AAU planes were rebuilt from the ground up (just art and some cockpit XML that didn't need replacing still remain), the FBW is completely new now except art, the Ini A320 is entirely new including the art, etc. It's just that it takes massive time and resources to do. At one point in the stretch we had 15 people on the Boeings, and it was a massive 60+ person-month project. For smaller teams, this is a few years of work, easily.

1 hour ago, MattNischan said:

the Ini A320 is entirely new

Looks like there’s some disagreements about this in today’s episode of Flightsim Drama(tm). 🥳

22 minutes ago, kiwikat said:

Looks like there’s some disagreements about this in today’s episode of Flightsim Drama(tm). 🥳

well, from a certain point of view, it's not Asobo code so it's still new 😛

I'm being pedantic and teasing.

 

I'm also not going to take it seriously until there's a public announcement by one and/or both teams.

Edited November 21, 20232 yr by Tuskin38