Now that the FBW A380 is out, the consensus I get from many people is that the fidelity of the FBW A380 is quite good and can be easily flown on VATSIM from A to B.  Of course, the FBW A380 is not "study level" at the moment.

Having said that, iniBuilds is known for releasing pretty good fidelity level planes in MSFS, albeit they are probably not "study level" to the extent that PMDG or Fenix planes are in MSFS (I know people have a different definition of "study level," but for the sake of this post, I refer to "study level" as being at least PMDG's level, or above it, such as Fenix).  Since the FBW A380 is free and will continue to improve throughout the next year, I think this puts further pressure on iniBuilds.  iniBuilds would probably have to release an A380 that is much higher fidelity than the FBW A380, not to mention that when iniBuilds releases their A380, the FBW A380 will have improved throughout that time. 

Now when the Fenix A320 was released, it was "study level" and it was so much better than the FBW A320, that it enticed enough people to buy it (yes, I understand that one is a CEO and the other is a NEO, but they are still competing in the same "A320" market space).  I would think iniBuilds needs to release a "study level" A380 to entice people to buy their A380 over the free FBW A380.

I have no idea how iniBuilds will do it.  Interesting decision by UBaid to announce that iniBuilds is making the A380 for MSFS though, and I wonder if UBaid put a lot of developer resources on the A380, which cost iniBuilds money. I will say, because the FBW A380 is not on the XBox, there might be a space for iniBuilds to make money off the A380 still, even if the iniBuilds A380 isn't "study level."  But on the PC market, I can see the FBW A380 really hurting sales of the iniBuilds 380, if the iniBuilds A380 is at a comparable fidelity to their A300/A310/A320 in MSFS.

Edited November 3, 20241 yr by abrams_tank

Good question!

 

I'd personally far prefer to see inibuilds focus the time and effort on making the best A350 they can make.  The FBW will get better and better.  Assuming they can be successful optimizing it, I don't see a huge need to replace it.  

How they compete?. Inibuilds will be available for the marketplace and XBOX and FBW will not if that counts for something. Ini should focus on the A350 for now as its the most popular lounger in the future airliner for now. Ini should not also rely on sales from a A380 as they make plenty of money in the MSFS market and don't really rely on that (A380) product to stay in business.

 

 

Edited November 3, 20241 yr by JBDB-MD80

6 minutes ago, micstatic said:

I'd personally far prefer to see inibuilds focus the time and effort on making the best A350 they can make.  The FBW will get better and better.  Assuming they can be successful optimizing it, I don't see a huge need to replace it.  

Yes, indeed. I'd like that to see too. FBW a380 and IniBuilds A350.....PMDG and iFly Boeing's.....and Fenix \ FsLabs A32x, a319, a330 

 

Isn't the A350 ahead of the a380 on iniBuilds' timeline? Why are people worries about the A380 taking time and resources away from the A350?

1. Xbox 2. Possibility that ini can push out a more compete product before FBW’s volunteer team

1 hour ago, micstatic said:

I don't see a huge need to replace it.  

That depends. There are certain elements of the avionics that have been missing from FBW's offerings for years now and we saw little progress in these parts.

Such as Constraints (in the case of the A380 also the Step Climbs), Fix Page, Non Precision approaches. Sure their aircraft function fine without it, but these are all helpfull planning tools for the pilots that the Payware offerings usually have. 

At this point I'm not sure which of these will ever be implemented, considering how long they spend on perfecting other parts.

Edited November 3, 20241 yr by Farlis

All fair points 

Better performance… which is saying something because ini is not known for their performance lol

Edited November 3, 20241 yr by UAL4life

The FBW is not feature complete, but what’s done surely is study level, and on par or above even Fenix standards. 
I mean the fluid in hydraulic reservoirs move, the pitch of the RAT changes and it’s visibly moving, seats are connected on correct electrical bus, and the passenger farts impacts cabin temperature, electrical pumps are physically simulated and their rpm is controlled by a current controller like the real pumps, you can grab the gear lever on ground and try raising it: you’ll see it moves a tiny bit before hitting the lock mechanism  looooong is the list of features that are not even their in Fenix level aircraft’s 

it will be hard to get more study level than this 😉

Now it will only improve by getting those features missing added after some time. 

Edited November 3, 20241 yr by Crocket

40 minutes ago, Farlis said:

That depends. There are certain elements of the avionics that have been missing from FBW's offerings for years now and we saw little progress in these parts.

Such as Constraints (in the case of the A380 also the Step Climbs), Fix Page, Non Precision approaches. Sure their aircraft function fine without it, but these are all helpfull planning tools for the pilots that the Payware offerings usually have. 

At this point I'm not sure which of these will ever be implemented, considering how long they spend on perfecting other parts.

Huh? There are constraints. How else would VNAV work? Fix page is on the A32nx so shouldn’t be a problem for the A380. And the A380 has separate MCDUs already for example

 

i believe the lack of progress on the A32nx was largely due to the team focusing on the A380. So that might not be a problem here anymore.

all that said of course a freeware team will likely be limited in what they can achieve in the end. It’s natural. People leave, lose interest, get a real job and or family etc

 

 

If anything, I hope the FBW A380 release will take the iniBuilds A380 further than it may have been originally planned. Who knows if iniBuilds would have included the OANS or BTV functionality, but I'm pretty sure they will now, otherwise everyone will say “Well, the free FBW A380 has it, why didn't you implement it?”

20 minutes ago, Crocket said:

The FBW is not feature complete, but what’s done surely is study level, and on par or above even Fenix standards. 

FBW has done a great job on the A380.  Especially for a plane that is in alpha and has a long road ahead of it.  But are you kidding?  It's most certainly not on fenix standards yet.  

13 minutes ago, Fiorentoni said:

There are constraints.

No. You can't change them. Pick any Waypoint in the FMS go to Constraints and all the options will be greyed out and a big amber message saying: "ALT CSTR NOT ALLOWED AT ----"