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JSilva

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Posts posted by JSilva

  5. Posted

    3 hours ago, Jazz said:

    Indeed. I seem to have similar expectations to you. I'm very pleased that SID's and STARs are included. It was my biggest complaint. As long as the vectoring is no longer absurd I will mostly be happy.

    +1. When I started to use addon aircraft, I stopped using default ATC for that very reason. The SIDs and STARs are a welcome addition.

  6. Posted · Edited by JSilva

    1 hour ago, paintedfutures said:

    I really don't think you need to apologize for the core of your message (that is, "Madeira could be improved to make it more life-like). You're providing feedback, not demanding that Asobo drop everything they're working on and fix the issues you mentioned like some people seem to think.

    When they read your feedback, the devs could think "we don't care" (unlikely given the care and attention to detail they've shown elsewhere), "thanks for the feedback, we'll add it to our list of things to fix", or "we don't have time for this before release, but we will provide the tools for users to fix it themselves". Either way, it's far better to give devs the option of responding to feedback rather than hiding it and keeping it to ourselves. 

    Asobo seem dedicated and pretty well-organized, so I'm sure they have the ability to prioritize different work in response to what we say. We don't have to worry about burdening them with too many requests.

    Thanks. Though I do see where they're coming from. It's just the way I worded it seemed to fly over other people's heads. Though at the same time, I never said the scenery is awful and I thought it was taken out of proportion some of the responses (though some is cleared up). I made the post because I have good faith Asobo would read this. I know they read posts from Avsim. What they do with it however is a different story though. If they changed some details, I would be happy, but if they leave it as-is, I can understand. Plus, I did like the runway platform is there, which is the defining feature of the airport in real life.

    Honestly, I am not a fan of the way undulated runways are presented. While I do see why they did it this way, which is to definitively prove that undulated runways are in the sim; however at the same time they were overdone, at least in LPMA. This is because other than before the dock, Madeira never had undulating runways to begin with. The three videos I showed are proof of this, plus the extra to show even before the runway platform, it never undulated. In reality, from runway 5 the slope is 0.8% to 1.0% incline going up. It's still flat, but is sloped. However before the bridge, the runway slope decreases until it reaches the platform. After that, everything is flat and leveled (0.0% incline). This is according to charts from November 2018. Plus, I saw an earlier screenshot of LPMA back in April 24 (the ones from simtom112), and there was no undulations like the one in this update, so I thought those screenshots are more accurate. I do admit there isn't enough screenshots of LPMA to get the whole story behind how much is depicted in MSFS.

    Plus, the one thing I was confused about with a few reactions is the threshold markings. Especially since I doubt LPMA is the only airport that uses these markings. I pointed out that out of the 30 busiest airports in Britain, at least 10% of them used similar threshold markings to LPMA. Also one of the changes in the change log mentions runway surfaces, which is why I completely disagree with anyone who thinks it's impossible for Asobo to improve LPMA. Again, I wasn't trying to come across as entitled, just pointing out the threshold used in LPMA isn't uncommon for smaller airports, especially in the UK at least.

    I do need to point out I do not regret posting this, not one bit. Just the way I worded could've been better or better balanced out with some positives such as the runway platform. Plus, I got to talk with a few users on the forum, which is nice. I will still point out discrepancies with future screenshots or videos of LPMA, but at the same time keeping in mind how I word it so that I avoid these types of reactions (or at least minimize it).

    • Like 3

  7. Posted · Edited by JSilva

    4 minutes ago, 2reds2whites said:

    Ha! Apologies JSilva, I meant more videos of the sim! 

    I'm familiar with Funchal, I've landed a jet there a few times. But it's still good to watch these videos.

    Ah. I see. I though you're talking about Funchal undulations in real life.

    Yeah, seeing these videos are fun. I personally like the one showing the history of the airport pre-extension, which is why I wanted to include it.

    Yeah, I do wish to see more of LPMA in MSFS. I'm happy they showed some of the runway platform in this update, but I would like to see more of it, as this is the most defining feature of the airport.

  8. Posted · Edited by JSilva

    4 hours ago, Deleted said:

    LPMA is not the only airport in MSFS. Yes, opinions are good, but your detailing about your airport is totally over the top.

    Yeah, it may sound a little over the top based on my wording originally (and I apologize for that once again), but for the runway appearance and sloping, not exactly impossible for Asobo to do and not as over the top as you're making it out to be. Again, not sure if LPMA is a part of the 80 detailed airports, but I think it has a shot being there. The runway platform is definitely there in the sim (which I consider a huge positive), not to forget LPMA has some notable features that make it stand out in real life.

    In addition, this update's change log has these two lines mentioned under "Airport Specific Changes":

    • Surface types on airports runways, taxiways and aprons (First Pass)
    • All of this is based on Bing Aerial imagery

    I don't know how the airports are done (Episode 6 of Feature Discovery shows they edited the airports by hand), but it is possible for the runway appearance to change if they wanted do. I know this isn't a priority, but I don't really think it's impossible to change the parts of the runway before the threshold to be light gray, or using the correct threshold. Again, this can be changed after release using the SDK if I wanted to so it's not a big loss if they didn't change it.

    Though not many airports have similar runway thresholds as Madeira, it's not uncommon for small airports to have such markings. The image on https://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Runway_Designators with the caption "Runway designator and threshold marking", the example on the right is the one Madeira uses. I can name some examples of airports in the UK that uses these thresholds (Southampton, Norwich, and Isle of Man comes to mind and these three are in the top 30 busiest British airports as of 2018).

    The trees though, looking back I don't think I should have mention them in the original post as I think this is a more general issue rather than with the airport.

    • Upvote 1

  9. Posted · Edited by JSilva

    5 hours ago, 2reds2whites said:

    Would love some more videos, the screenshots are great but videos would be lovely.

    More than happy to. I'll just show three videos.

    On that one, the only undulating part is a little after the runway platform.

    Again, except for before the platform, nowhere does it show undulations.

    Like the second video, there is no undulation on the runway (mostly). Though there is some undulation in the taxiway.

    I know I said three videos, but I'm going to throw a bonus, from before the extension. No cockpit video, though.

     

    • Like 2

  10. Posted · Edited by JSilva
    Grammar

    4 hours ago, 2reds2whites said:

    The runway undulation isn't extreme at all. That's what sloping runways look like from the cockpit. You're end on and the undulations are very obvious.

    As for the runway colour/markings/the occasional bush, feel free to correct these things when the sim is released! Large elements of the design of these airports is entirely procedural. They absolutely cannot adjust these small parameters for each airport and still bring us a sim within the next 5 years. It's just not how the process works. The aim of the sim should be to give a reasonable representation (which it absolutely is) which can be improved upon using the tools of the sim (which it looks like you absolutely can).

    For the runway appearance, you do have a point. I can always edit these properties if I wanted to. Then again, I honestly don't believe it's impossible for Asobo to make these changes. One of the changes in the change log mentions runway surface types, so I have no doubt if they wanted to, they can. Plus, they confirmed about 80 airports in the simulator are going to be detailed, and while LPMA hasn't been confirmed to be a detailed airport, I think the chances of it being on the list is high considering LPMA isn't exactly an obscure airport. It's known for being a tricky airport to land on (in fact, it appeared on a few top 10 airports that are dangerous to land on). That, and the infamous runway platform that has been around since 2000. I understand where you're coming from with the aim for the sim being a reasonable representation. As said a few times, they did a good job with LPMA since they got the surrounding terrain right, and the runway structure being there (even for default, this is already a major positive). Compare that with FSX default, and you'll see what I mean. In fact, even if LPMA isn't going to be a "detailed" airport, I'll still take the MSFS version over FSX (and even XPlane 11) any day.

    However with the undulated runways, I completely disagree. I can't comment with the other airports, but I can talk about it with Madeira. Thing is I can even see a little bit of undulations on the runway platform on the second screenshot. I am certain this should be flat, because I find it hard to believe a man-made structure such as this was designed to undulate. The other airports you can perhaps argue, but not Madeira because half the runway is built on a platform, not on land. Even ignoring the runway structure and talking about the other parts of the runway, this still doesn't undulate that much in real life. I've flown to Madeira and out multiple times, and I can attest that I never saw undulation to the same degree as the screenshots from the cabin. I even looked at cockpit videos, and still couldn't see any undulation. The only time I saw it is slightly before the runway platform starts. I would argue the April 24 screenshots are more accurate with runway undulations in Madeira than the screenshots we're seeing in this update.

    This may be a useless detail, but during the late 90s when building the runway platform, the runway was redone (originally, runway 5/23 was 6/24), so there was a bit of land work going on. I saw a video showing Madeira airport pre-extension and I still couldn't see any undulation no matter how hard I try, even in the 70s. If the runway wasn't undulated back then, I doubt the runway would become undulated after the extension 20 years ago. There aren't many videos or screenshots of Madeira Airport before the extension, so I couldn't find one with a cabin or cockpit.

    • Upvote 2

  11. Posted

    4 hours ago, badderjet said:

    Now isn't this forum funny. People whine about the length of grass blades, and once someone makes a substantial and sound comment about something actually aviation related, he shall "get some perspective". No comment. But great that you finally got your undulations, even where there are none irl. Last time I checked Madeira, it didn't look that way. But before someone jumps on that, yes I am glad we have sloped runways, a feature that actual FFSs also have nowadays. Yet I wonder what their data source is. I can't comment on the other places they showed but they certainly seem to be extreme examples. More on topic, I fail to see what's so bad about pointing out the runway markings are wrong. If you had followed the Airport episode, you would know they place a ton of features according to Bing imagery. Since FNC seems to have quite decent satellite data, it's questionable why the markings are off in the first place. The feature to have the numbers right on the threshold marking was already existent in FSX.

    About the argument I had with the two people you quoted. The second person you quoted after mine, Carts85, we cleared everything up so there's no reason for him to be included. Sure I wish I communicated better on my original post, but at the same time, I still think the response from the first person (quoted after me) was uncalled for as I never said Asobo made Madeira looked bad. I only thought some details don't match up with both how I remember and from photos and charts. There's a difference between saying something is off and something is done badly. I'd understand if I said something like "offensive initials not allowed are you doing Asobo, you messed up the runway threshold! You're the worst!", but I would never say something that unconstructive in that tone ever to Asobo because other than the fact that wouldn't help anyone, I recognize that although the runway didn't look right, they got the other parts right, and that's fine. In fact, this is already a million times better than FSX. I just want them to make some more improvements, that's all. The change log for this update mentioned surface types on runways, so I know Asobo can improve the threshold and the color of the beginning parts of the runway if they wanted.

    4 hours ago, badderjet said:

    You are correct. Plus there are not these elevated approach light posts in front of the threshold.

    Funny enough, I did notice the approach lights before the runway (I assume that's what you're referring to, if not I apologize), but decided not to mention it in the original post because I only felt like mentioning three notable discrepancies with LPMA at the time, the threshold and beginning runway colors (they go together to me), the runway over undulating, and some of the trees surrounding the airport.

    • Like 1

  12. Posted · Edited by JSilva

    1 hour ago, Carts85 said:

    No problem at all...I missed that, good point. I think with such an iconic airport like Madeira there will be that extra bit of love and care put into it. I believe Asobo highlighted 80 airports that would get the very highest VIP treatment, maybe Madeira is on that list possibly who knows.. But worst case am sure a third party dev will come in an do a great job of it if there’s inaccuracies.

    Yeah. Plus, I am from Madeira, so that's why I brought some attention to it. I do hope LPMA is on the list of highly detailed airports, not just because I'm from Madeira, but this is one of the most infamous airports for both being the runway platform and for being a difficult airport to land on (more so in the 90s).

    • Like 1

  13. Posted · Edited by JSilva

    9 minutes ago, Carts85 said:

    Yep, just seen an thats fair enough. Like you say I think it was just the wording seemed hyper critical but you’ve explained and I get your point.

    Yeah. Glad you understand. Again I apologize for poor wording on my part on the earlier post. I can see why it was too critical, and I could've balanced it out better to avoid this problem. BTW, I did see the change log again, and saw something about surface types on runways. So hopefully Madeira would look even better. Again, they did get most things right such as runway platform, airport building, and surrounding terrain, which I'm happy about.

  14. Posted · Edited by JSilva

    18 minutes ago, Carts85 said:

    Exactly... Get some perspective my goodness.

    Are you talking about me? Because I replied to the post you quoted, clarifing what I meant. I feel some people are getting the wrong idea of what I meant. I'm not trying to bring Asobo down, and I never said Asobo ruined the scenery for me. I only pointed out what I thought looked off from real life. I admit I could've worded better and I apologize if anyone got the idea I'm making a big deal about minor things about an airport. Though I admit I am nitpicking on my original post, I do recognize that as a default airport, this is miles better than FSX.

    • Like 2

  15. Posted · Edited by JSilva
    Formatting

    9 hours ago, polosim said:

    Understandable, but remember, this is the scenery for default, a highly detailed airport will be work for third party developers.

    That is true. I know the scenery is meant to be default, and for default scenery, it does look spot on to real life. I mean they even got the runway platform, which is a major plus for me.

    • Like 3

  16. Posted

    6 minutes ago, andyjohnston.net said:

    OMG.

     

    Do you realize they are working on 40,000+ airports around the world, and you're complaining about the exact details of the way a number is painted on one runway?

    I think you're overreacting a bit. I admit these are minor nitpicks and could've chosen my words better, and I do recognize there are tens of thousands of airports in the world. Not trying to be abrasive or anything. Just pointing out some discrepancies. Plus, I did say that other than the runway, Asobo got the other bits right.

    • Upvote 1

  17. Posted · Edited by JSilva
    Formatting

    Hate to be that one guy, but doesn't Madeira seem a little off. While I praise Asobo for depicting Madeira better than FSX and appear closer to how it is in real life, the runway appearance doesn't seem accurate to me. The start of both runways are supposed to be light gray in color rather than be the same as the entire runway. In addition, the runway number should be where the threshold markings are. In this case, there should be three lines to the left and right of the runway numbers each.

    Also, doesn't the runway look too undulated. I hope these are only overdone just to prove some guy wrong about sloped runways, but in real life while Madeira does have sloped runways, I'm pretty sure it's not undulated to that extreme. From the perspective of the second Madeira screenshot, the runway platform is supposed to be completely flat (0.0%) from 191ft, then after the platform the runway slopes downward 0.8-1.0% (still somewhat flat most of the way but is sloped) to 146ft according to LPMA charts from November 2018. I looked at the 4/23 screenshot (the one from simtom112) of what I believe is Madeira, and the runway sloping (at least for runway 5) appears normal to me (save probably the trees).

    And finally the trees. I'm pretty sure they're either bushes or small trees on the right of the runway (from the perspective of the first Madeira screenshot). Just, the height of the tree (on the right) should never reach the runway height. I think the inclined plane on the left is fine though. Just pointing out what I believe are discrepancies from what I remember and from a few images of the airport. As someone from Madeira, I really want Asobo to get Madeira right.

  19. Posted · Edited by JSilva
    Adding the link.

    If I'm interpreting this right, the Dynamic Weather reads data from the METAR that DTG sets for the climate of the area, with maybe different sets of METAR depending on time of day (say temperatures generally being low at night compared to the day) and season of the year (for example, sunny weather being more common on summer, while snowy weather being more common at winter). Finally, when the flight crosses an area with a different METAR, the weather slowly transitions within a window of a certain amount of time (a minute or so? maybe less or more?). Correct me if I'm wrong with this.

    Either way, this sounds great.

    EDIT: When Steve Hood mentioned METAR, there was a link explaining METAR. http://www.hko.gov.hk/aviat/wxobs_decode_e.htm

    • Upvote 1

  20. Posted

    55 minutes ago, ca_metal said:

    I'm not sure if P3D team is that large nor if they have a large budget to work on. Sure Lockheed Martin is Huge, but I'm not sure about P3D's team size and budget. If you look P3D development, they have a really slow development. If I remember right, It took 6 years to get where it is right now.

    I should've phrased this part better, and I apologize for this. What I meant was DTG isn't as big as LM. While it's true that P3D isn't progressing any faster than DTG, it's still unrealistic to expect major improvements to come in days, they're mostly in months, given the size of DTG's team. While I'm not sure myself of P3D's team or budget, I was under the impression that it's bigger because LM is a large company. Once again, sorry for the confusion.

  21. Posted

    1 hour ago, theohall65 said:

    In other words, a whole slew of things, almost all of which are actively being incorporated or have been listed on DTG's roadmap to incorporate.

    This is where I get annoyed with folks complaining about the 3rd party stuff when someone picks one or two DLCs to bash, which I'm not buying because they add nothing from my perspective, and bashes DTG whose only involvement is giving that 3rd party early access to the SDK - which helps develop the SDK.  What's wrong with that?  

    Haters going to hate while ignoring basic facts.

    I agree with this. I'm already sick and tired of hearing the complaints for that reason. Even if the DLC was bad, Steam has a good refund policy, if you don't like the addon, it's not like you'd lose anything (except maybe for time). Lets not forget that DTG's team is not as big as, say, P3D, along with not as high of a budget, so they couldn't implement features that quick. We're talking about months, the things they plan to do in their roadmap, stuff like Dynamic and Real Weather, PBR on terrain, Dynamic Lights, and even jets, takes months, not days. It took two months for TrueSky to be implemented after early access, and the SDK is planned to be released to the public near the end of this year). Also, most of the DLC aren't even by DTG to begin with, making most of the complaints stupid and pointless. I feel like they actually want DTG to fail (I've seen comments like stop focusing on the SDK (TPDs are why flight simulators are kept alive), or pull the plug like FSc (the same lessons and aircraft in FSc are also in FSW, so by technicality they're sort of merged)), so they're looking for something to bash about, even contradicting themselves (or getting facts wrong), to prove their so called point. And about that 100 users using FSW, this is Early Access, right? Aerofly FS2, another Flight Sim in early access, has 40 users using it, and even have DLC (payware too), so why do they get a free pass? I've never seen anyone say the same thing to Aerofly (I don't have anything against Aerofly, just making an example of how ridiculous the basis of the argument is). I'm not saying this to excuse everything DTG does, they do have a long way to go, but stupid complaints like this is giving me a headache due to how nonsensical this is, and they seem to forget other factors too.

    • Upvote 3

  23. Posted · Edited by JSilva

    4 hours ago, DTG_Cryss said:

    Development certainly does take time, especially for some of the larger features. 

    Since we're a small specialized team, when pieces of content have been finished, we're eager to put them out there. It means there are big hits like trueSKY (which did take a LOT of work well into before we launched), but with lots of quality of life changes to slowly alter your experience with the sim.

    No great flight sim was built in a day, but we're eager to continue building upon FSW :) 
     

    Good to hear.

    This is one thing I'd like to see improved. It's not really a big feature (in fact, more of a minor feature). It's about time zones, and DST. Some parts of the world seem to have incorrect time zones (more so outside the US and most of Europe), or not observing DST when they should (like most of Canada, some of Australia, New Zealand, and so on). One example is Madeira, where the local time should be the same as the UTC Time (or an hour ahead if in DST), but in FSW, it shows an hour behind UTC. There are also places where there are places with 30 or 45 minute time zones (Newfoundland (-3.5, and -2.5 in DST), India (+5.5), Nepal (+5.75), Northern Territory and South Australia (+9.5, or +10.5 if DST only in South Australia)) I have made a topic about this in the Dovetail forums (and pointed out as many areas, where the time zones are wrong, as I possibly can in a text file I attached (timeanddate.com is my source for Time Zones and DST)), see here for more details: https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/time-zones-and-dst.2431/. Will time zones (and by extension, DST) be looked at sometime in the future.

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