RatRace

Well, I do not for one minute doubt the good intentions of Loki and Solicest, but as they keep re-iterating at STEAM, they have little say (in fact none) over what will happen to Flight in the future, and they appear to operate in constant uncertainty themselves. To me, their post confirms that 1) once top brass decide to discontinue the servers, we might end up with a "game" we can no longer play. OK, I do not expect this to happen any time soon (depending on how succesful Flight remains), but I'm having such a great time that I want to continue playing Flight forever so to speak (even without the Live connection) 2) there is definitely some unreleased content, but again, Loki and Solicest have at this moment no clue what so ever that they will ever be allowed to release it. To give you an idea of the uncertainty they are dealing with, here is what Loki had to say on STEAM: "To reiterate, production of future content on Flight has been discontinued. As we have stated we are unsure what work we can do code side, but we would like to fix bugs if possible. We are not providing specifics as we do not know ourselves. We are continuing to maintain content, servers and marketplace content, we just do not know what code changes we can make"

This statement however frightens me: "...we are going to be maintaining the multiplayer servers, marketplace content, as well as maintaining the content that has been released so that in adition to getting new content from the Marketplace, users can still use content they have purchased..." So, if they don't "maintain the content that has been released" (whatever that means), we may loose the content that we already purchased? Great, esp. after what Mathijs Kok had to say about MS being so "reliable"!

What's all this nonsense about a refund? I'm seriously considering buying the the Alaska Wilderness Pack, and probably the Cub DLX also. So what? Great sceneries, great flight model, and many hours of fun. Why should I demand a refund afterwards?

Well, at least Microsoft had the basic decency not to call it Flight Simulator 11

Genie Timeline works for me http://www.genie9.com/free_products/free_timeline.aspxA simple, "set it and forget it" backup and versioning program. I'd recommend the payware (Home) version though, as in the Free Editon the automatic backup feature is locked in at 1 hour intervals, and the feature to consolidate and purge unnecessary old files is disabled (possibly leading to maxing out your hard drive rather quicky if your work involves a lot of frequently changing large files).

The only reason I ever signed up for facebook was to join the 100.000 MS FS Fans Group. And I'm seriously considering "unsubscribing", 'cause I don't particularly like the facebook cult. :( It may not hurt to join another support group, but I very much doubt the use of it all.

Speaking of nitpicking, where has the c

I didn't see any animosity between n4gix, Jean-Luc and you (tkyler) until tasmanet made his troll remark.Neither do I think that n4gix meant to insult you or Jean-Luc. He got confused by the terminology. Hey, a vertex is a point, but not all points are vertices.

but as tkyler explained, it usually doesn't take very long to repair those dysfunctions, and Austin is very responsive. (BTW, in pre ACES times, the responsiveness of the MS FS developers wasn't exactly something to write home about).

it would seem PSS isn't the only Phoenix rising again :(

I love the smell of sarcasm in the morning

Yes, what he says - in a rather complicated way - is that cars are wheel-propelled vehicles, whereas aircraft wheels are unpowered. The engine(s) of the aircraft act(s) on the air, not on the ground. The aircraft wheels are not powered and thus don't push against the runway to accelerate the airplane. All I'm saying is that freely turning wheels, rather than the belly of the aircraft, are desirable in this instance. Unless of course the pilot sets the brakes.

they certainly help in reducing the friction tho :(

Frankly, I don't think Austin will ever stop tinkering with his "brain child". Also, I don't think he cares very much what others do with it. His motto seems to be: here are the bricks and mortar, build your own home.

Hm, it's not exactly a one man show anymore - 4 people (including Austin) work full time on XP. But still, a factor 25 less than ACES. :(

To completely understand the FSX air files you'd also need a degree in aeronautics engineering. Even though tables for induced drag and drag due to sideslip are strangely missing. Makes you wonder how Rob Young managed to create realistic sideslipping in the Real Air Scout for FSX. :( So I don't think the complexity of the flight model (point 2) is the real issue here (just my opinion).

Thnx. I have a MSDN subscription for other (work-related) reasons, so i wrongly assumed it was necessary.

Not quite. The MS ESP 1.0 flight model SDK includes a tool, Asm2Air.exe, allowing you to compile original assembler (ASM) air files into the AIR file of an aircraft (not to be confused with the aircraft.cfg file). The MSDN (microsoft developer network) website contains 5 sample ASM files (Single piston engined aircraft,Turboprop aircraft, Jet aircraft, Piston engined helicopter, Turbine engined helicopter and a legacy model of a Turbine engined helicopter) you can modify at will. BUT: 1) you require a MSDN subscription ($699)2) the ESP SDK will only remain available until March 31,2009 :(

I know Larry is a highly respected icon of the community, but i like to tease him every now and than, just "to keep him on his toes". :( Regards.

my word, i was only kidding (hence the emoticon). Some people really do have very long toes around here.

Oh no, in that case Larry will have to find something else to moan about :(

Microsoft did release a version for the Apple Macintosh in march 1986. The first Macs did indeed have a monochrome 320x240 monitor. Scenery included 5 areas, San Francisco being one of them (the others were Chicago, New York/Boston, Seattle and Los Angeles)

They already did. What a sorry lot we are ... :(

Well, i wouldn't exactly call the (poor) ATC eye-candy, but OK, better hardware has never hurt the game (only the wallet). :(

Fair enough, Ray. No use fretting over something we'll never know. :(