environmental_ice

I held out for so long before finally picking up the Feel There LGA last fall. Im normally not one to buy the same scenery twice (I own BMWorld KPHX and wont be buying Flightbeam's version) but this looks like a considerable upgrade over the Feel There LGA. I already own MKStudios KPHL and I enjoy it. Hopefully they continue to add more of these high end size 3 to size 4 airports in the USA that are underserved from the bigger scenery developers.

the recent patch is better but I see it broke some cosmetic things like you cant turn off the cabin visibility now. Also the cabin lighting is completely dark when you look at it from the outside at night even if you turn it on from the EFB. Also alot of people are posting about the turn knobs for things like cabin temp looking janky now instead of a realistic smooth turning motion. Hopefully they take care of this stuff shortly but none of it is a showstopper.

FSLabs really should have just pivoted to the A220, Instead they seem to just be sitting on their hands. I really think the A220 market is still very much up for grabs. That Inibuilds/synaptic partnership was good news but the synaptic team started work on the A22X back in 2021 and its now about to be May 2024 and we have yet to see a model. Everything has just been a rendering. That isn't serious in my opinion. Compared with the A380 from FBW they have footage of actual flight in sim. Unfortunately now that Inibuilds is a partner I feel FSLabs have lost the A220 market as well. Fenix has the A320 market on lock and I expect their A330 if announced would come along in quick succession and at a more reasonable price. I appreciate the devs that were pioneers in a way over the years but if you arent going to adapt/innovate you will get left in the dust. Flight Simulation is more popular than ever. In my opinion There really isnt anything left for FSLabs to capture. The PMDG 777 and A350 and likely the freeware A380 will be out already by the time FSlabs were to release an A330. I cant say alot of people would be interested in paying for another longhaul bird in their hanger unless you really love Airbus that much that you need 3 of them. But hey I guess FSlabs will have Concorde.

The KSAT thing is kinda ridiculous. I almost couldn't believe it the first time I flew into it. Their forums dont show any indication FPS will be looked at either. Normally those smaller airports you can take to the bank at being a smooth experience flying into frame rate wise. Comparatively I had decent frames on KLAX before this update with payware KONT nearby so the fact that KSAT is a stutter fest with nothing around is very unfortunate. So far their KSAT and KJFK are the worst airports I own performance wise from any developer, Meanwhile I can fly into payware KORD and KMDW just a few miles down the road and its a smooth experience for me. Maybe KSAT and KJFK need the SD - Standard Definition texture option in their iniManager. I see KLAX has it as does KDTW but I dont even need that option for those airports. I need it for KJFK and KSAT of all places. Regarding this new Update I felt there was a performance increase when I flew into it and am very happy with T3 being updated.

Is orbx going to come out with FTXglobal Vector one day? /s

Other than the slightly rough taxiways in a couple spots on the sloped runway side What is wrong with KFLL? I thought LVFR did a great job considering how hard that must have been. I worked there on the ramp as a Fueler for the G gates and F Gates and The airport looks correct to me. I cant really speak on TJSJ. Its fine to me as well but ive never been there to have a real opinion.

I know its still in beta but BATC looked really raw in the stream Easyjetsimpilot had the other day. However One thing that stuck out to me was how he kept saying the areas where vatsim has no coverage you can just fire up BATC. I cant recall any program Ive ever used that was that flexible. Over the years ive used Radar Contact, Pro ATC and I tried Pilot2ATC for MSFS. All of those programs needed you to start the controlling on the ground. It would be pretty cool if BATC is able to function without that requirement

are you sure you weren't at an uncontrolled field on vatsim? /s

That's actually a huge number when you look at other suggestions. The fact is there aren't a lot of people that use discord. It's not like you can find other suggestions with 5000 upvotes. This change is actually in the top 3 of any suggestion in the server. There is only 2 other suggestions that have more upvotes. More XP for long hauls has 68 upvotes and adjusting the number of generated flights has 60 upvotes. Also it's a realistic change in the end. Everyone says APL is simulating the life of a pilot but the simulation drifts from reality as you become a senior captain. Also keep in mind nobody is suggesting to get rid of the random generated schedules but if the Schedule generator won't be improved on then at least reward the most dedicated high ranking pilots with something real pilots get to do.

Someone already suggested it over 30 days ago with 59 upvotes. As usual most of the mods come off as against it which makes no sense at all. The only thing I will add to my last post is I do see an issue with being a senior captain at say AAL and changing jobs to work at UAL and picking your own schedule as a new pilot for UAL. That's not how it works in real life. Sure some airlines do hire direct entry captains but 99% of them will make you start as a first officer where obviously you wouldn't be picking your own schedule on your first day. either way hopefully this gets added in some shape or form other than "flight tickets"

Actually high Senior ranking Pilots do choose what routes they want to fly. A lot of airlines have a preferential bidding system (PBS) that pilots tell the system a ton of things they prefer or want to avoid. I won't bother going into all of them as it doesn't really matter to us virtual pilots but the short stick is the system will attempt to generate a schedule for you with your preferences as long as you can hold seniority wise what you entered into the bid. For example a new hire pilot asking for a long layover in Cancun can enter that preference but he/she most likely won't get anything close to that. Senior pilots bids are alot less complicated. They don't need to enter generic requests like a long layover in Cancun. A senior pilot can simply look at every single trip in the bid package and just enter the exact rotation number/trip they want to fly. Which is why it never made sense to me why senior captain L1 or higher cannot pick their own routes. Aren't I a Senior Captain? It's a hobby and we are all here for fun so I'm not saying a seniority system is what we need but the compromise would be senior pilot levels being able to pick their own routes to build their schedule how they want. Now it can be up to the dev if that level needs to be L1 or L5 or L10 which I don't even think anyone is at right now but to say pilots have literally no choice as a senior captain on their flying is completely false. The ability is already there with the flight tickets. We just don't want to pay for the flights and instead get paid to work them as long as it's the airline we currently work for. In my opinion Junior Pilots should be the ones paying for flight tickets. This change would at least give a perk to making senior captain as well as there really isn't any right now to be honest.

For camera shaking during turbulence does this mean it's time to retire FS Realistic? 😅

paying for early access with "promised" features down the road. Seems the community will never learn it doesn't benefit the customer at all and only benefits the developer. There is no reason to release an unfinished product as others have said all it will do is lead to complaints about bugs and it being unfinished at some point with constant request of when it will be updated. Also What is the point of having ATC if it isnt controlling any traffic around you? NO MORE EARLY ACCESS!

It feels like you are on an ice rink when trying to taxi and overall still flies like a toy compared to something like the Fenix. I actually really enjoy flying the FBW A32NX. I dont really enjoy the LVFR A21N even with the mod. but I will say the mod makes the purchase not a total loss.

this was written by a staff member in the discord before Block 2 was released regarding wingflex: "for what it's worth, we based it off of actual measured deflection under load, so the total amount of deflection is definitely on point. As mentioned before, the above mod simply takes a 'long way round' approach to changing this value in the flight_model.cfg wingflex_scalar =0.75 higher value = more flexy, lower values = less flexy - much easier to tune to your own personal preference that way too 🙂 for whatever reason, the mod does this change in the model.xml instead by changing the scalar there. changing the value of wingflex_scalar from 0.75 to 1.0 will have the same effect as the above mod, but with less chance of it breaking things" For what its worth I am assuming Block 1 had a wingflex_scalar =0.75 and I checked Block 2 now has it at 1.0. Regardless it seems you can adjust this value yourself and tune to your liking.

this doesnt even control AI traffic so im trying to figure out how "dead frequencies" on vatsim is a selling point. If I want to hear fake traffic calls I can tune live atc and play it in the background for FREE. having canned responses that dont care about what aircraft are actually doing nor vectoring me around said traffic isnt what I would pay anything for personally. Different strokes for different folks but Why would anyone pay 30 dollars a month for that especially if you mainly fly Airliners is beyond me.

im so thankful for Vatsim. The only thing I can look forward to with all these programs is getting rid of those who fly online Silently and those who drive controllers nuts but not answering radio calls. Skies will be a little emptier but hopefully its less of those kinda pilots. All these progams look terrible to me so far but I am personally intrigued by BATC.

We already know its going to be nice but more previews?

there is a settings tab bottom left of the livery manager

definitely ALOT better for me. I clearly see a difference so I am back to around 30-35 fps which feels great. It was almost like a slideshow taxiing around JFK yesterday. Today same airport but with weather and the experience is night and day

Going to give it another go with 4K textures instead

the fps kinda suck with B2 on my system. I didnt enjoy my flight much 😞

There is also a beta update to start continued schedule at a particular airport so those who want connected logbooks don't have to repeatedly click regenerate to get the airport they just landed at to start a new schedule. I think with this being added there is clearly a way to make certain airports be preferred or avoided. I personally feel senior captains L1 and above should be able to pick their own schedule via the flight tickets and should get paid for them as long as it's your own airline. I'm not sure what is so hard to grasp about this. It would give people something to work toward and rectify those that say Senior Captains get no rewards

This project was moving at snail pace. We have seen much more from the A380 by the FBW team compared to the A220 despite the A220 being in development since 2021.

I was hoping inibuilds would make their own A220 with how fast they are pumping out projects. At least the synaptic A220 has a chance to be released before 2025 now. I wasn't holding my breath they would release it this decade so I think this is great news. And now that it's payware we are going to have to see a model next preview. Enough of the renderings. No more freeware excuses this time