NEW FSX. 4 Boeing 737-800 X2 Aircraft

[Chock 17,769]

Somewhere in their documentation, Ariane need to make it clear that both weights and CofG need to be within specific limits in order to allow the input. They also need to delete those entries in the FAQ.

To be completely fair to Ariane, they actually do make that fairly clear in the documentation (the documentation is a bit 'up its own &@($*' in places incidentally in the way it comes across, but it is actually pretty good for all that, and does treat you as though you are a serious simmer, even offering hints for people who want to do things absolutely realistically). Studiously following the documentation is why I didn't have problem when doing stuff. Because I'm effectively doing it 'by the book', since I have to be fair to the product when reviewing it, I saw that about the weight in the documentation, and therefore never had an issue.I also followed the instructions in there with regard to dropping the default (i.e. overloaded) passenger weights, and then stuck the figure into the CDU from the load sheet in FS, and it went in fine. Yes, you do have to key in three decimal places (because that's the way it writes it in FS), but that's hardly going to break anybody's heart is it? You don't have to press shift+2 on a real Boeing either, so to complain about that seems a bit churlish. It didn't even occur to me until after doing so that I had not paused the sim.Dropping the passenger/cargo weight is clearly fairly realistic where the big 737-900ER is concerned, since it has a massive passenger and fuel capacity, and even though the real thing has the short field performance tweaks from Boeing on it by default, if you want to do derated take-offs, then it's probably not a great idea to try it with full fuel and 215 passengers on board unless you fancy howling over the airfield perimeter fence at fifty feet desperately trying to get the thing in the air.Ariane are certainly not alone in having people complain about a product because they have not read the manual; you can take a look on pretty much any FS add-on forum and see the same thing happening, it just seems to me that people have got a bit hung up on that notion where Ariane are concerned. Nevertheless, I realise that not everyone does RTFM, but where a simulation of a 65 million dollar aircraft is concerned (or 23 Million if you are Ryanair LOL), to not read the manual and then claim there's a fault because one cannot get the thing working is probably not the way to go and not fair to any developer, be it PMDG or Ariane.By the way, has anyone noticed this thread has now had over ten thousand views?Al

[wilko81 0]

Curiosity has got the better of me and I've bought it lol. See how long it takes to get activated now. Hope Bob is right and I have no trouble activating and then re-activating in a couple of weeks when I finally get round to my PC upgrade.

[Chock 17,769]

Well, since this topic is currently a hot one, I daresay the attention it is getting will mean you get a fast activation, so there is that at least. Let us know your impressions of it.Al

[David Roch 2,008]

Well, since this topic is currently a hot one, I daresay the attention it is getting will mean you get a fast activation, so there is that at least. Let us know your impressions of it.Al

:-)I wish I'll get the manuals I ordered in the next few days!Who knows?

[Chock 17,769]

Maybe there's an obscure religious holiday in the UK again that only printers abide by - calm down Ariane fans! That was a joke.Al

[pontiuspilotus 6]

Well if they're in Scotland some 'Shires do have obscure Local holidays. :(

I'm sure the statement earlier in the thread said this sim was aimed more at the professionals?

Perhaps they meant well heeled doctors and lawyers.

[wilko81 0]

I gave it a quick flight in FSX before with the dead cockpit, everything seemed very smooth, first impression of the engine sounds were good, and I was suprised to see a steady 60FPS, (Q9650 with only an ATI HD3870) I can see FPS going down once the systems become active though. Reading through the manuals now while awaiting activation. VC does actually look better than the screenshots would suggest - some parts aren't that detailed but the areas that matter are.

[Petraeus 147]

Ariane are certainly not alone in having people complain about a product because they have not read the manual; you can take a look on pretty much any FS add-on forum and see the same thing happening, it just seems to me that people have got a bit hung up on that notion where Ariane are concerned. Nevertheless, I realise that not everyone does RTFM, but where a simulation of a 65 million dollar aircraft is concerned (or 23 Million if you are Ryanair LOL), to not read the manual and then claim there's a fault because one cannot get the thing working is probably not the way to go and not fair to any developer, be it PMDG or Ariane.Al

I don't have the product, so I don't have a copy of the manual, so I can't judge how clear it is or otherwise. However the FAQ is completely misleading. It doesn't say "Have you checked that your Gross Weight and CofG are within limits?" Instead it says...

A problem with entering the GWQ A problem with entering the GW (174.7 for the 900). Sometimes it works good, mostly I get the message: "invalid data entry" (maybe because of not having full tanks?) AIf you sit at the gate or on the ramp for a while with your engines running, you are using fuel up and your fuel weight is going to change and affect your GW/ZFW. Press pause or try entering the complete data without the decimal. ie: 179.23 would be entered as 17923.

...which is completely misleading, and brings in the spurious issues of fuel consumption and the "Pause" button, which as we know now, are completely irrelevant to solving the problem.Of course users often do not RTFM, and can make mistakes because of that. However it's reasonable to expect that FAQ's will point them back in the right direction, and not send them on a completely wild goose chase.

[sargeski 17]

I'm going to keep this short and simple. I'm still seeing alot of speculative posts regarding Airane's aircraft and that's exactly what they are specualtion.I only have about 10 hours logged thus far and really enjoy this aircraft. The cockpit ambience IMHO is second to none. I'm tired of hearing all of the "its too expensive for what you get" comments when those making the comments are making them from hear say. I seem to recall all the ######ing about the PMDG MD-11 being too expensive when it was released but those who wanted it bought it anyways. Then many of the complainers and nay sayers jumped on the band wagon and purchased the MD-11 also. I took a leap of faith and purchased the product contrary to public consensus and I now am actually quite happy that I did. I can truely say that I'm not dissatisfied for what I received for my money although another may be dissatisfied with the product. Such is life. If you want to talk about my feelings on initial customer service and activation that is entirely another issue and any following this thread will know my thoughts.Give Alan a chance to perform his review and let Ariane's product stand on it's own merits.Regards,Bob Modrowski

[signmanbob 592]

Also I heard a rumour they are making a 767, so perhaps maybe 737 isnt all that they do!

I hadn't heard about that. Maybe..

Thanks for the lesson in Business, but I think you didnt read what I said, or have repeated again above, Price isnt a issue for me, if it was

[TerrenceK 0]

I'll be honest with you, I'm yet to be convinced it actually is worth over 100 Bucks. It's a nice thing to be sure, and if you want an NG in FSX then maybe the price you pay, is the price you pay for wanting it. i.e does being three times the price of the Wilco 737 that works in both FS9 and FSX mean that it is three times better, and if it isn't, is the price justifiable.Other developers are coming up to that price point for fancy add-ons, so I think the deciding factor is likely to be just how much the limited functionality of the FMC weighs against other add-ons for the same price that are without that limitation. I'm still investigating on that score before I can really say how much it limits things, although I suspect it's not as bad as it at first appears. Let's not forget that there appear to be a lot of plusses in its favour too, notably the Virtual Cockpit, which I think it is fair to say has a good claim to being the best one there is. But I'm not exactly in love with the fact that you pay for repaints either, although in my case I tend to do my own paint jobs, so that's less of a worry for me, but I have to remember that many users aren't inclined to paint the things themselves. So that should be born in mind too if you are undecided.Al

Hello Al,Let me introduce myself, while I mingle into the conversation and perhaps give other participants of this topic (bashers and rooters) in insight into the wonderful world of textures. We started the Ariane project about a year ago, at that time still a prospect, while we were in the midst of the E-Jet project. After a trial set and weeks of negotiating, we started working on the 800v3 (FS9) in October 2008, followed by the 800x2 (FSX) a couple of weeks later.Before I continue (very important) :Signmanbob, somewhere in this topic I read you justifying Ariane's high price, cause they 'have to pay McPhat Studios'. Please, if you want to speak for Ariane, go ahead, but do not speak for us. 9 months into the project and we are literally bleeding money here. I will get back on this subject later on. Now, back to Alan.We left of in October. It is the end of March now. Between October and March, we made almost 240 liveries. 120 for FS9, 120 for FSX. As the X2 is differently mapped and of course it sports specular and normal maps, the FS9 liveries are not 'just an easy port' and therefor we see a X2 livery as a seperate one. With 240 liveries in 6 months time, we did an average of 40 liveries a month, more than one a day.As you paint planes yourself, I should not have to tell you how much work goes into a single livery, but perhaps for the other participants it is 'funny' to know : I'd say, with a by us customized kit, we average 8 hours per livery. So basically, 1.8 FTE, in our case painters of Texture Artists worked on the Ariane Project for the past 6 months, every single day of the month. So no monday to friday workdays, nope. Monday to Sunday. By the way, with a 'by us customized kit', I mean our Lead Texture Artist spend a month, before we started the actual 'painting', building and customizing a paintkit. Fulltime that is.Now, a little longer intro than I expected. Back to Bob : We do not set the price for the Ariane Upgrade Boxes. That price was already set before they contracted us. But in the end, as you can read from my 'little intro', people work, full time, 60, 70 hours a week, months at a time to deliver the work we do. So yes, in the past we did a lot of freeware work (which you can also find here in the AVSIM library btw), but that was when we were still 'free little birds', occasionally roaming the skies of texture land now and then. ;)Another example, for both Bob and Alan in this case, (and anyone still reading). Next to the actual textures, we also make the screenshots for Ariane's website. 12 for each livery. 238 liveries, 2856 screenshots in total. With an average of 3 minutes per shot (taking 10.000's of shots, picking the right ones, resizing, cropping, editing, naming, packaging, uploading). That's a rough 9000 minutes, 150 hours. Almost one full working month, spend only... on making screenshots."What is your point Terrence?", is a question that might rise after reading this all.Well, I have two. A. It is hard work. andB. I am happy, if in the end, if me and my fellow artists will make a normal man's salary. Cause for some reason, everybody talks crap of Ariane, but the number of pirates out there is amazingly high, according to the download numbers.Last but not least : Alan, I have a good amount of liveries here for ya, if you want to review them. Even though it is hard work most of the time, I still enjoy it to the fullest and am very proud of the X2's were doing at the moment.To all the rest, the FS business is a cut throat business. At least, for most of us. We are not making Rockstar GTA money, our Quality Controller does not drive around in a Ferrari, cut those devs some slack now and then. I go to work on my 10 year old rollerskates, Nicolas comes to work on his bike.Oh, and before I forget. I am assigned to the wings, one of my colleagues mailed Ariane, asking for an update they made on those wings. That was before Easter. After the Easter holidays, I waited, and waited for that update. You know what Ariane told us? Hold up, we'll get to you as soon as we handled the tons of customer care emails, we received during the holidays. My first reaction was : 'WHAT?', I am bleeding money here, and you tell me to WAIT?'... That is where they put their customers, above us.You treat people with respect, that is what you get. You come to 'MY HOUSE', talking crap, to me. That's what you get in return : crap. You send me a polite email telling me I made a mistake on the wings, I'll fix it, at that very moment for you. You email me and tell me I f'ed up, and what an arse I am for f'ing up, I'll tell you to come of it and take a hike, refunding you in the process so I don't have to deal with your high horse attitute in the future.So relax all, enjoy your add-ons and stop acting like ya'll paid 50 million dollars for a full motion simulator.Terrence(Head Honcho McPhat Studios)

[Guest jlm]

nice one Terrencewaiting eagerly myself for a pack containing a virgin blue livery for the X2 seriesbest regardsjohn

[Bubi42 1]

TerrenceWelcome to the discussion.From what you've said, and looking at your work, thre's no doubt that McPhat deserves all the praise you get. Your liveries and textures are fabulous!But, that said, I can't see what exactly that has to do with Ariane's pricing policy.....? Firstly, McPhat do liveries for a number of developers, including Ariane. And I'm sure you put the same effort into the work you do with all your clients as you do with Ariane. Yet other developers who include your liveries etc seem to have more 'competitively priced' products than Ariane.Your work doesn't fully justify Ariane's pricing - it's part of it. It can also be noted that Ariane has been criticised on pricing for a long, long time, well before McPhat started to work with them.I'm sure Ariane fully appreciate your input here, as well as those like Bob who avidly support them. What I find amazing, and always have done, is Ariane's refusal to 'come out' and speak directly to their public, here on this Forum as well as others.I have personally spoken to the supposed boss of Ariane on this point a couple of years ago, and told him that in my opinion Ariane will continue to have to fight negative publicity until they stop 'hiding behind rocks' and persuading others to 'fight for them'. Of course, this isn't rocket science. The days of 'Tishma' are well and truly over (...or are they?) and as such, why not 'be open' just like pretty-well all the other developers rather than acting like a clandestine operation with loads to hide?Nothing has really changed with Ariane. From time to time, they seem to make the right noises but in practice, seem to do very little - hence the ongoing 'problems' reported by customers."You can take a horse to water - but you'll never make it drink."Toni.

[wilko81 0]

Still cant enjoy my new purchase, almost 24 hours in and no activation :( Longest I've waited for an activation, and I have the Maddog which is a similar process. Cant wait to get this thing fired up!

[tcxcadet 0]

How does burning fuel sat at the gate affect the Zero Fuel Weight?Can the ZFW be entered first so the FMC calculates GW?Mike