stalz

For me just the ability to inject historical weather was worth $25. Depiction is a personal preference, but from what I've seen it does dial-back the 'drama clouds', offers more variety and visibility is handled differently. I haven't experienced any technical issues with the software itself, but I think there have been two or three updates since launch to correct issues others have experienced and fine tune things a bit. Also of note, the price increased at the beginning of May so it's now $32 instead of $25.

I also own the TFRP and find that they don't center very well. Mine seem to have a bit of play in their construction, so they often sit just a bit off-center. I also think the built-in curve is very aggressive, so even if they're just a bit off that translates to a lot of input in-game. If you do a quick Google search you'll see a lot of people discussing how sensitive they can be. I read somewhere that rocking them back and forth before starting the sim can help 'self-calibrate' them, but I often forget to do so and have no idea if it's really true. You could try setting a larger dead zone in-sim and also try flying with the rudders disconnected in order to rule them out as the cause.

I saw the same issue earlier this week after I installed the Dune expansion and tried one of the activities. I'm not in the beta nor do I use the adaptive LOD mode. Exiting and relaunching the game seemed to fix the issue for me, but I later removed the Dune expansion just in case and haven't seen the issue return.

The top selling marketplace products for 2023 by gross revenue list is very interesting. I wonder if that should get it's own topic?

Having been on both sides of acquisitions involving large companies, survived multiple layoffs and dealt with the disruption caused I'd say the last thing you want is for your favorite small development studio to be bought by a larger company. At best you're looking at delays, potentially cancelled projects and lots of stress on both sides. A bigger risk is that key people will leave, get removed or shuffled into the larger organization leaving you with nothing but a brand name and stagnant products. Big companies have a bad habit of forgetting that the most important part of the company being acquired is the people who work there. WT seems to be an exceptional case and were of course working for free before being hired on. I'd say that as long as your favorite developer is financially healthy and producing good products, just let them be.

Obviously it would be great for everyone involved if MSFS add-ons continue to work perfectly in MSFS 2024, but the stated goal for 2024 is more aggressive than just a few updates. Looking at the FAQ again, updates to flight dynamics, aircraft systems, failures, wear and tear and avionics are all mentioned. All of those things could change underlying parts of the sim that would affect existing add-ons. While the FAQ does say they'll continue to support MSFS after the launch of MSFS 2024, they've never directly stated how long or in what manner. Plus, plans change and not always in what others would consider a logical manner - especially when very large companies are involved. The transition from P3Dv4->v5 wasn't exactly transparent. It took developers a while to update their products and many never received any official update other than perhaps a new installer. XP 11->12 is another example of a less than perfect transition. Even with MSFS it seems like a few developers completely missed the boat and some of the larger players have been slow to roll-out their back catalog from previous sims. No one should be surprised if after MSFS 2024's launch at least a few developers decide to focus their limited resources on new products rather than updates to old ones that have already exhausted their sales potential. Anyways, I'm just stating the worst case scenario. Hopefully existing add-ons work perfectly in MSFS 2024, but the reality will probably be somewhere in between the worst and best possible outcomes. I agree, although my point was basically that while I'm sure everyone including Asobo and Microsoft would love all existing add-ons to work perfectly in MSFS 2024 we'll almost certainly see some bit of disruption in market immediately after MSFS 2024's launch. I know you were just estimating, but 90% is probably optimistic even for the Marketplace. The simpler stuff might be okay, but I have a feeling a lot of the third-party stuff will need at least some level of work after the new version launches. Also, considering how long it takes products to get through the current vetting process let's hope there's a plan in place to fast-track existing add-ons before and after MSFS 2024 launches. You'd expect there to be, but when two companies (more if you consider third party developers developing first-party aircraft for Asobo and Microsoft) work together on a complex product all sorts of things can go wrong or get deprioritized.

I wonder if they're hoping to cash-in on the same sort of sales boost the CRJ received by being the first (semi-)complex add-on for MSFS. It didn't turn out well over time, but a lot people were happy just to get anything when it first launched. Of course, that assumes they have the A330 ready to go when MSFS 2024 launches. I'm a bit skeptical about how smooth the transition from MSFS to MSFS 2024 will be when it comes to complex add-ons. Looking at the MSFS 2024 FAQ again, I just realized they're sort of specific that 'Marketplace' add-ons will be supported which gives them some wiggle-room when it come to breaking non-Marketplace add-ons. They also use the phrase 'virtually all', which gives them another out if some of the more complex add-ons in the Marketplace break. The FAQ also states that Marketplace add-ons won't need to repurchased, but what's to stop individual developers from deciding to release 'Airplane X - 2024 Edition' instead of continuing to support their existing products. Hopefully the existing aircraft will just work, but 'support' could mean something closer to, "It'll load and basic simulator features will work, but the flight characteristics might be off and some of the custom features developers have created won't work without more development time on their end."

In the old Milviz support forum for the PA30 there's a topic referring to the KAP140 not working in P3Dv4. In that topic you can find the fix for the autopilot issue, which also works for P3Dv5. It's just a .zip with a few replacements for the model files. I have no idea about the lighting issue, but I imagine the models were never updated for P3Dv5. I had a similar VRAM issue with the the PC-6. It's been a few years, but I think the culprit was the RealGlass/TrueLight files, which I think had to be removed or replaced with empty files. It might be worth digging around in the PC-6's support forum for more info.

I've been into flight sims since the days of Tandy and Commodore, but didn't realize P3D existed until around 2017 or 2018. I remember seeing a few third-party aircraft for sale in physical game stores as far back as the late 90s for various versions of Flight Simulator, but I didn't really understand what they were. It probably didn't help that they were most likely stuck on a shelf somewhere in the back with other brands that couldn't pay for a place up front. I had no idea a serious third-party industry and market even existed until I discovered P3D and that was a complete accident. I imagine that MSFS's marketplace opened a lot of people's eyes to the existence of third-party aircraft and other add-ons but I also think that few people who try MSFS actually buy more than a handful, if any at all but that's still a much larger number than before MSFS existed. The rise of YouTube and other types of social media have also probably helped grow the market, because people can get a better idea of what third-party aircraft actually offer.

I also got hit by the 'Please Insert the MSFS Game Disc' message yesterday, for the first time. MSFS worked fine the day before and I hadn't made any changes to the game or my system since, so it was definitely a frustrating surprise. I use the MS Store (Game Pass) version and the error resolved itself after about an hour, so I imagine it had something to do with lots of people rushing to make purchases on the marketplace before the big sale came to an end.