DECEMBER 14TH, 2023 – DEVELOPMENT UPDATE

Posted by: Microsoft Flight Simulator Team

This week’s Screenshot Challenge winner is Twitter user @Daisuke12J! If you’re interested in participating in our weekly Screenshot Challenges, check out the details in the Community section below!

While the year is quickly coming to a close, we have two final releases to share with you before we say goodbye to 2023! City Update 5: European Cities and Famous Flyer 8: Cessna T207A will both be launching next week on Tuesday, December 19.

On a solemn note, the Microsoft Flight Simulator team was very saddened to hear of the recent loss of a wonderful member of our community, freeware mod creator Anton Logvynenko. You can read our memorial article to Anton here. We send our deepest condolences to all those that knew and loved him.

Most of the Flight Simulator team is taking time off over the holiday season to spend time with their friends and families. This will be our final full Development Update for the year. There will be a regular Marketplace update next week on December 21 but not the following week on December 28. We would like to wish everyone in the MSFS community peace, joy, and comfort throughout the holidays. However you celebrate, we hope you have a wonderful last few weeks of 2023. This has been a fantastic year for us, and we’re so excited for an even bigger year in 2024!

– MSFS Team

 

FEEDBACK SNAPSHOT

Click here for the web-friendly version of the Feedback Snapshot.

MARKETPLACE UPDATE

This week, we are excited to bring you a new release exclusive to the in-sim Marketplace from CJ Simulations: the CJS Rafale!

The CJS Rafale is a twin-jet fighter aircraft able to operate from both an aircraft carrier and a shore base. The fully versatile CJS Rafale is able to carry out all combat aviation missions: air superiority and air defense, close air support, in-depth strikes, reconnaissance, anti-ship strikes and nuclear deterrence. The CJS Rafale entered service with the French Navy in 2004 and with the French Air Force in 2006. CJS Rafale is one of the most seasoned fighters in the world. It has been combat-proven since 2007. The export success of the CJS Rafale has been vindicated. It now has more export orders than French orders.

This incredible aircraft is available in the Marketplace for both Xbox and PC. Check it out:

MARKETPLACE RELEASES

Click here for the web-friendly version of the Marketplace Update.

There are 60 new and 39 updated products in today’s Marketplace Update.

MARKETPLACE BACKLOG

Current Backlog: 339 Total

BACKLOG: NEW PRODUCTS

	Testing Status
Content Type	In MS Processing	In MS Testing	In 3P Testing	Total
Aircraft	10	6	34	50
Mission	8	0	42	50
Scenery	0	19	2	21
Livery	12	6	14	32
Airport	26	20	20	66
Other	10	0	7	17
Total	66	51	119	236

BACKLOG: UPDATED PRODUCTS

	Testing Status
Content Type	In MS Processing	In MS Testing	In 3P Testing	Total
Aircraft	8	4	16	28
Mission	0	0	0	0
Scenery	4	6	2	12
Livery	2	0	4	6
Airport	20	10	15	45
Other	4	0	8	12
Total	38	20	45	103

 

SDK UPDATE

ASOBO

• No update this week.

WORKING TITLE / MSFS AVIONICS FRAMEWORK

• MSFS Avionics Framework
  • The MSFS Framework has been updated in conjunction with the release of SU_14 to v0.7.0.
  • Updated NPM packages have been released as well in conjunction with the release of SU_14.
  • Check out MSFS Avionics Source Code Mirror to access the latest Avionics Framework source code.
  • Find documentation about the avionics framework here: MSFS Avionics Frameworks and Instruments.
  • Key SU_14 Framework Updates:
    • G1000: Added framework support for in-cockpit keyboards.
    • WT21: Added support for avionics variants with PFD/MFD control button on the side of the PFD/MFD.
    • Full v0.7.0 Changelog available here.

 

THIRD PARTY UPDATE

• As of 12/10, we have now approved 245 (+0) third parties into the in-sim marketplace and – so far 209 (+2) have released 3,012 products on PC (+53) and 2,729 on Xbox (+51).
• In total, 3,881 products(+32) have already been released in 3^rd party stores and the in-sim marketplace. Beyond that, another 860 products (+0) from 3^rd party developers are in production (351 announced, 509 unannounced). In total, over 4,740 3^rd party products (+29) have either been released or are in development.
• Airports:
  • 2,235 airports (+16) are either released or are in various stages of development.
    • 2,004 airports (+13) have been released on the platform so far in various stores.
    • 1,477 airports (+10) have been released in the in-sim marketplace.
    • 114 airports (-2) beyond the released airports have been announced.
    • 117 airports (+5) are not announced, but the dev let us know that an airport is in production.
• Aircraft:
  • 777 aircraft (+5) are either released or are in various stages of development.
    • 325 aircraft (+5) have been released on the platform so far in various stores.
    • 247 aircraft (+3) have been released in the in-sim PC marketplace.
    • 232 aircraft (+5) have been released in the in-sim Xbox marketplace.
    • 214 aircraft (+1) beyond the released aircraft have been announced.
    • 239 aircraft (-3) are not announced, but the dev let us know that an aircraft is in production.
• Scenery:
  • 1,073 scenery packs (+5) are either released or are in various stages of development.
    • 1,018 scenery packs (+6) have been released on the platform so far in various stores.
    • 572 scenery packs (+8) have been released in the in-sim marketplace.
    • 21 scenery packs (+1) beyond the released scenery have been announced.
    • 34 scenery packs (-2) are not announced but the dev let us know that scenery is in production
• Mission Packs:
  • 239 mission packs (+2) are either released or are in various stages of development.
    • 207 mission packs (+3) have been released on the platform so far in various stores.
    • 146 mission packs (+3) have been released in the in-sim marketplace.
    • 1 mission packs (+1) beyond the released missions have been announced.
    • 31 mission packs (-2) are not announced, but the dev let us know that they are in production.
• Livery Packs:
  • 378 livery packs (+6) are either released or are in various stages of development.
    • 300 livery packs (+5) have been released on the platform so far in various stores.
    • 292 livery packs (+5) have been released in the in-sim marketplace.
    • 1 livery pack (+0) beyond the released scenery has been announced.
    • 77 livery packs (+1) are not announced, but the dev let us know that scenery is in production.
• Ships & Watercraft:
  • 38 ships & watercraft (+0) are either released or are in various stages of development.
    • 27 ships & watercraft (+0) have been released on the platform so far in various stores.
    • 21 ships & watercraft (+0) have been released in the in-sim marketplace.
    • 0 ships & watercraft (+0) beyond the released scenery have been announced.
    • 11 ships & watercraft (+0) are not announced, but dev let us know that scenery is in production

 

COMMUNITY FLY-IN FRIDAY

On December 17, 1903, the world changed forever when the Wright Brothers completed the first successful powered flight near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina! To celebrate this immensely important milestone in human history, we will begin our Community Fly-In this week at Kitty Hawk!

This will also be the beginning of the next evolution in our weekly Fly-In events. Starting from the birthplace of flight in Kitty Hawk, our group will spend many, many weeks flying completely around the globe in a grand World Tour, visiting the capital cities of every UN member state! We’re very excited to explore our entire planet this way and hope many of you will choose to join us!

Event details are available here. All are welcome to participate!

TUBELINER TUESDAY

We’ll be back with a new Tubeliner Tuesday in 2024, we hope to see you all then!

COMMUNITY VIDEO

For the final featured Community Video of 2023 we join A330 Driver (formerly 737NG Driver) who takes a trip in the Cirrus SR-22, which was updated for all Premium Deluxe owners in Sim Update 14.

Departing picturesque Zagorje in Slovenia and arriving into Klagenfurt in Austria, A330 Driver shows off the new changes brought in Sim Update 14. We really enjoyed this stunning VFR trip through Europe, and we hope it’s inspired you to visit these beautiful locations in the simulator.

Thank you to every content creator for all of your creations throughout 2023. We look forward to featuring more Community Videos in 2024!

SCREENSHOT CHALLENGE

This week’s screenshot challenge: A New Dawn

Please note that due to the holidays, this screenshot challenge will run until our next Development Update on January 4th.

This past week’s Screenshot Challenge was: You Can Be My Wingman Anytime

Weekly Screenshot Challenge Winner: @Daisuke12J (Twitter)

Screenshot by DaveBGaming (Forums)

Screenshot by @pommes_l (Twitter)

Screenshot by UnsealedKarma36 (Forums)

Screenshot by @CpuGeta486 (Twitter)

Screenshot by THECHIZINATOR (Forums)

Screenshot by @BasedRaccoon (Twitter)

Screenshot by HeKa48 (Forums)

Screenshot by @Yuus_429 (Twitter)

Screenshot by FlyingSubset2 (Forums)

Screenshot by @Ikulin09 (Twitter)

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NEXT DEVELOPMENT BLOG UPDATE – January 4th, 2024

Sincerely,

Microsoft Flight Simulator Team

Edited December 15, 20232 yr by David Mills

Please note that Asobo will post no Development Update on December 21st nor on December 28th. They will resume on January 4th, 2024.

 

As I said and feared, snow coverage is now marked green although the underlying basics are stll equally bugged. What a bummer to be right, those folks at Asobo start to annoy me seriously...

I know this is a flight simulator, but I'm really excited to see the improvements to traffic and roads that have been announced for MSFS2024. One of the biggest takeaways for me from the initial MSFS2020 trailer was how much of an impact the road traffic had on me (from the Seattle low flyby shot), adding to the sense of them having created a 'living' world.

Now that we're used to the current traffic, we're probably mostly seeing its shortcomings — but if it behaves more realistically (and is much denser than now) I think that will add massively to the immersion — at low altitudes at least 😉. 

 

6 hours ago, AnkH said:

As I said and feared, snow coverage is now marked green although the underlying basics are stll equally bugged. What a bummer to be right, those folks at Asobo start to annoy me seriously...

Hm, that sounds pretty entitled, and it annoys me i noticed. Maybe you should go back to FS95 for a while and thoroughly learn to appreciate what is achieved nowadays.

A320 now listed as SU15.

Which I guess technically is a few months away.

 

  

6 hours ago, AnkH said:

As I said and feared, snow coverage is now marked green although the underlying basics are stll equally bugged. What a bummer to be right, those folks at Asobo start to annoy me seriously...

It's listed as improved, not fixed. And it is improved in some areas.
During the beta it said there would be even more improvements later on.

Edited December 15, 20232 yr by Tuskin38

8 hours ago, David Mills said:

no Development Update on December 21st nor on December 28th.

Well-deserved holidays, the same applies to you @David Mills. 🙂

43 minutes ago, Wildblue said:

Hm, that sounds pretty entitled, and it annoys me i noticed. Maybe you should go back to FS95 for a while and thoroughly learn to appreciate what is achieved nowadays.

Not sure if you are misusing the word entitled Eric, but that is a bit harsh.  If you pay for a product you expect it to work properly, and likewise, if it says 'fixed' in a log, you are entitled to ask questions why it isn't. 

Me personally, the snow thing doesn't bother me so much, but the swapping tiles in DX11 and DX12 does. 
One (DX12) is now slated for MSFS2024, and the other (DX11) they also claim is fixed (in a recent twitch session) - but it isn't.  Annoying to say the least.

And saying this is acting 'entitled', it isn't, it is just questioning the accuracy of their responses. 
The option is, everything is alright then and we should say nothing.  That isn't a good response either, as we all want things to get better.  

Edited December 15, 20232 yr by bobcat999

10 minutes ago, bobcat999 said:

if it says 'fixed' in a log, you are entitled to ask questions why it isn't. 

Well the snow doesn't say fixed, it just says improved.

Edited December 15, 20232 yr by Tuskin38

From what I understand, if an item is yellow that's basically "no action taken yet" (but they might've made some assessments on it or are investigating), if an item is red then they've determined no action will be ever taken, and if an item is green then action has been taken or started with various statuses. Only if the green status is marked as "fixed" can we assume they've deemed it finished. In this case the action was to fix snow coverage improvements for specific scenarios in SU14, and as they said in the recent Q&As, will continue in future SUs (thus it's marked "improved" rather than "fixed")

Transcript of September Q&A: https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/september-2023-live-developer-stream-transcription/610612

Seb: "Now, regarding snow coverage, we’ve identified a specific issue related to unit changes in the data. It turns out that we’ve been displaying ten times more snow than intended when there is snow. We’re actively working to adapt to this change, and our team believes this adjustment will resolve the majority of snow-related issues.

Additionally, I’ve reviewed feedback concerning various maps. While there is data available for ocean temperature and ocean ice coverage, our goal is to have comprehensive coverage for all water bodies, not just large oceans. We’ve also noted several inaccuracies in the ocean ice coverage maps, particularly in accurately representing coastlines. As a solution, we’re focusing on snow coverage depths, which provide data on snow accumulation. We use a threshold, currently set at 20 centimeters, to determine when water bodies in an area start to ice"

"And that has been working very, very nicely until the unit change happened, which means that now we’re basically covering the water with ice when there’s two centimeters of snow, which is completely wrong. So people are thinking that just fixing this is going to resolve most issues. And we will obviously, once that’s done, we will continue to look into the data. Maybe we can move around the thresholds a little bit. I think having a little less ice would be better. We really tried to match the ice data that was there in real-time, but I have seen inaccuracies in the data, where sometimes it just leaks from the mountains over the fjords. Currently, this is happening in Chile. So we have more work planned with the data provider to sync with them and try to improve the way they handle the data or maybe we can improve the data handling on our side. But the goal is to get more of the data that is there right."
 

Edited December 15, 20232 yr by lwt1971

1 hour ago, Tuskin38 said:

Well the snow doesn't say fixed, it just says improved.

OK, but then we can say "how is it improved?".  Is it really? Because a lot of people can't tell the difference at the moment - it looks like nothing has changed.  But anyway, for me, the snow is the least of the problems at the moment.
I understand this isn't their data by the way.  They say it comes from MeteoBlue or something like that, but sometimes it is better off just to say they have limitations and they can't get it exactly accurate.

Edited December 15, 20232 yr by bobcat999

It seems that the two things that I'd like to see fixed are probably never going to be.  KFNT still doesn't have a terminal building since launch, that's 40 months. And a fix to the multi-monitor perspective.  Multi-monitor works well when you are physically sitting in the middle of the middle screen.  When you don't not so much.  Neither one of these is going to rise to the top of the lists based on voting alone.

18 hours ago, David Mills said:

On a solemn note, the Microsoft Flight Simulator team was very saddened to hear of the recent loss of a wonderful member of our community, freeware mod creator Anton Logvynenko.

I have his UKKK and Chernobyl add-ons. He also made some good quality digital art.

I know it's a politically-sensitive subject, but as nobody else has referenced it, very sad to see this unfortunate news. Died defending his country. Enough said.

On 12/15/2023 at 1:04 AM, AnkH said:

As I said and feared, snow coverage is now marked green although the underlying basics are stll equally bugged. What a bummer to be right, those folks at Asobo start to annoy me seriously...

Why be annoyed over a development process?

sp

On 12/15/2023 at 7:21 PM, Sabre57 said:

 

It seems that the two things that I'd like to see fixed are probably never going to be.  KFNT still doesn't have a terminal building since launch, that's 40 months

 

This is what the scenery gateway system is for. Once that is up and running, improvements to forgotten airports like KFNT can be added to the sim.