FPVSteve

Hello everyone - I am the developer of SLC and normally I do not comment on this type of thread because ... well, it tends to open up a can of worms. But I feel like I probably should in this case. I want to draw attention to alanj44 in this case as a prime example of the issues that I, as a developer, face. This is not a sympathy-seeking post - I know I'm at fault in terms of the deadline but I'm also genuinely working on releasing SLC as quickly as I can. Believe me, no-one wants this update out more than me at this point. The simple fact is that the v1.6 update is due for release and is a significant upgrade to the v1.55 release that is currently available. I have been working constantly on it for months now - not only in building functionality, scrapping things that didn't work and redoing them, but also managing support for customers and running the company in terms of taxes and similar responsibilities. This is why I also, as Alan semi-correctly pointed out, recently brought my wife onboard - to manage the accounts and paperwork that I do not have the time to deal with on top of development responsibilities. My failing with this update release has been one of miscommunication and over-optimism in terms of the timescale. I should not have announced a release date I wasn't 100% sure I could meet, because I have hung myself out to dry when the deadlines were not met - all the while working my backside off to try to get the application updated and released. There is no worse feeling then being accused of being a fraud when you're trying your best to push a new release. It's demotivating, sucks your energy out and... unfortunately there are a very vocal minority who seem to take great delight in not only pulling developers such as myself to pieces when they do not meet such a "deadline", but then extrapolate their thoughts into false narrative that serves their opinions further - look at the huge post Alan made above. None of it fact, yet all of it down on "paper" and being "liked" by people who take it as gospel. It is a lose, lose situation here - all I can do is work and prove otherwise by releasing the application. It is for this reason that I temporarily closed the Discord server - not because I thought it was a brilliant idea or that I wanted to hide from anyone or "kill the community", but because it was impossible to continually deal with things like the above while still working on development - it was not a good use of time at all. I would spend an hour talking to a single user only to have someone else start another thread 15 minutes later making weird accusations based on their misunderstandings and then the same thing would happen on random obscure forums. Sometimes the best course of action is to say "you know what, I know the software needs to be released - I'm going to simply work on it and not argue with anyone any more". Otherwise that arguing becomes your entire life - and then there's YouTube comments start, other Discord servers kick off etc ... it's a pointless exercise. So I chose, rightly or wrongly, to shut it off for the time being. Unfortunately that has an unintended consequence with that as well ... "he's disappeared!" "he's ripped us off!" "it'll never come out!". Look - I could make excuses all day but I'm not going to - I screwed up. And for months now I have been working to put it right by sitting writing code - which is why I'm excited for the release of v1.6 not only for it to come out but for people to realise I wasn't actually pulling a fast one on them and am 100% committed to the project. In fact, it is my full-time job at the moment - I just cannot release it broken and I cannot spend my time arguing about missed release dates when there is still work to be done. It is my intention to release SLC v1.6 as soon as possible. I have a couple of remaining bugs to fix in the new pilot scoring system, some write-ups to do in the user manual explaining the new features, some website updates and some tutorial videos showing how new features work - oh, and a compatibility issue with the Fenix A320 (it reports 20 degrees pitch and 29 degrees roll at all times via FSUIPC, which isn't exactly ideal). Once v1.6 releases I will be publishing an updated roadmap on the website for the continued development. And it will be being continued as there is much more to be done. All the best and I hope this post is received the way it is intended. I profusely apologise for the delay to anyone who reads this post and is waiting on the software to release - it's coming, and I hope you like it when it arrives. Steve

Good morning everyone. I am the developer of Self-Loading Cargo and this thread was brought to my attention by someone via email (thank you to that person 🙂 ). I don't normally get involved in forum discussions (because it never ends well!) but I just wanted to publicly state that, despite "information" to the contrary from uninformed parties, SLC is very much alive and kicking and is in-fact my sole focus at the moment. I am anxious to get it released not only because I believe people will really enjoy it, but because I'm acutely aware of its delay and the fact that people think I am "full of it" - I get it. I've not communicated well and the delay on this release is something I did not envisage at all - I can only apologise for that, it has been fairly overwhelming to be honest. But rather than continue to apologise and make excuses I decided I simply needed to get my head down and do the work to fix the situation - which brings us onto the Discord server. My reason for putting Discord into read-only mode for the time being was because it became apparent that no matter what information I did put out, there were still a hard core of the membership for whom that wasn't enough and seemed determined to post either misinformation or argue with me. It became a massive timesink which, not unironically, started to have even more of an affect on the slipping timescale that the same people were complaining about. So, I believe it was the correct call to put it "on hold" as it were - Since then I have been working on SLC flat out without distraction and am happy to inform you that it is much closer to release. When that happens, Discord will also be opened back up and it can become a useful tool for support again. Why no more videos or website updates etc? Well it takes quite a bit of time to produce and edit those - this takes away from the goal of actually releasing the software which I'm sure everyone would much prefer! It's a lose-lose situation which I totally understand, but since I have to choose a path I'd rather put out the release sooner than put out more promises and extend the timeframe further - so that is what I am doing. Does that make sense? I do want to correct one thing that was said above though - I have *never* banned anyone from the Discord and "stolen their account", that's ridiculous. I have however banned a few people for constantly causing trouble (and they were asked very nicely multiple times to stop beforehand), and I have removed one customer (*and provided a full refund of their purchase*) because their attitude was disgusting, abusive and they were out of line. I'm not obliged to provide any kind of service to anyone like that and it was dealt with appropriately. Anyone who does get banned from Discord is still free to email me though, they're not cut off from support. I would also like to point out that some of the people who were banned had their ban revoked straight away after a frank, adult conversation - I'm not a monster and I do understand people get a little hot under the collar at times - we're all human 🙂 But there is a point where it gets too much and sometimes it's best for involved parties to simply cool off. So, this has turned into a little ramble - I'll end it here with thanks. Not only for your support with SLC but for your patience. I'm on it, I understand your concerns about the delay and I am working to put it right which is all I can do. However, I know I won't get out of this thread alive without providing a date for its release. So *sucks air through teeth* ... I will be very disappointed if people aren't able to use SLC v1.6 on their #CTP22W flights which, by my reckoning give me less than four weeks. I am on it.

Why not 🙂

@guenseli out of interest does GSX expose the number of passengers it is boarding onto an aircraft? Does it expose how many it has boarded / deboarded?

Well - if GSX finishes earlier you already have the option of simply right-clicking the boarding button on SLC to "instantly" complete it, same with deboarding.

@Dazkentyes you can easily add your own sound packs just by providing files with the same name in another folder within "/soundpacks" you do not need all files, just the ones you want to use and SLC will revert to "Default" ones for the ones which are missing. It's quite flexible in that regard.

Hi guenseli ... I thought we had spoken via email? If not, my apologies but for sure I will answer here: A few people are asking if integration with GSX is possible - I do not honestly know. What I do know is that I need to deliver on the "early access" features before I start adding much more new things and I have a development roadmap in place. I have to assume that not everyone owns GSX and so it needs to work without - if the workaround for now is that SLC needs to be operated alongside GSX then I see no real hardship. Having said that, I am absolutely interested in building integrations - once it is all constructed. I myself own GSX so will be happy to attempt an integration if I can because it is something that makes a lot of sense to do. Regarding compatibility with major addons - this is a slight point of contention. SLC does not talk to the addons directly- it talks to FSUIPC/SimConnect/XPUIPC to read simulator data. If 3rd party aircraft do not update the data within the sim, then FSUIPC will not read it and subsequently neither will SLC. Most addons I have tried work - but some, such as the FSLabs A320 do not update datarefs like landing lights .. so I have had to program a workaround. In this case, the workaround was pressing the seatbelt sign ON-OFF-ON on the SLC GUI to enter the Takeoff phase and notify the cabin crew to take seats - this happens automatically with other aircraft. What I can say is that I am constantly working to improve it based on user feedback, while further developing the functionality of the app - it's all anyone can do really within the confines of what we have.

ITU6800: Haha yes - the crew are not subject to "sanitised" simulation yet - they are there now because I'm progressively releasing the software as it's built - the functionality will improve in new versions over the coming days / weeks / months. I did fix the issue with 2yr olds being drunk - I blame the parents 🙂 F737NG: I was having a discussion about the landing rates with members of the Discord server - we feel that maybe landing rates should be handled by those tools which are specifically written for that purpose, and that SLC should use more of a "feeling" measurement (pax would not know the actual rating after all). i.e. "great landing" "a bit hard!" etc instead of -155ft/min ... what would your thoughts on that be? A strawpoll resulted in a slight skew towards the landing rate being left alone but my gut tells me that I should display the "feeling" instead. I will take note of those TTS issues - might I ask you to send me an email (its on the website) telling me some details such as aircraft / simulator / etc and exactly what happened? I'm using TTS on most of my flights and its working great but I'm happy to take a look for you, no problem.

Actually SLC does penalise on bad flying (excess bank / pitch / gforce etc) and each passenger gets affected in their own way based on their individual anxiousness / nervousness etc. It just does not currently penalise based on things like landing lights not being turned on (primarily because the passengers don't care about that anyway).

Hi Alberto, Yes - I know that FSPassengers used to do that type of thing but I get the impression that a lot of people didn't enjoy it because some airline's SOP allowed them to perform actions that FSPassengers penalised them for. I suppose it would be possible to allow different configurations though. I do have this functionality "on hold" at the moment, I will add some notes to it and have a good think about the best way to allow enabling pilot performance as a factor in the flight.

Hello there, Author here - yes, Self-Loading Cargo is still being actively developed and I appreciate the kind words ... I'm always open to suggestions and ideas. The development road map is already in place, but it is fantastic to have more opinions / debates over things that are possible, things that aren't needed etc. My aim is to simulate the "feel" of a flight with passengers onboard the aircraft. I'm a simmer myself and am very (very) familiar with the monotony of a long, empty cruise - my goal with SLC is to bridge that gap and bring a little more immersion to the simulator. Being entrusted to deliver those in the back safely and comfortably, it's important that they feel nice after a flight :) Thanks! Steve

No, it is automated after purchase. There have been a couple of people who's email addresses have caused the system to fail but based on their payment receipt I've set up an account manually and had them up and running as quickly as their support email comes in.

Hi - author here. Thanks for the feedback 🙂 It does a best guess of a realistic number of passengers for the current aircraft, and you can override it at start up with the number of passengers you'd like to simulate if you're not happy with the suggestion. There is a maximum of 600 (!) which is more than enough 🙂 As for a minimum ... there is a product roadmap > http://slc.lanilogic.com/changelog which I plan to allow for GA aircraft ... it is not currently in progress however, there are more pressing things.