They will give news when they have something to share as they are an old school developer (ESP) from the 2000’s, they just don’t give info like most of the new FS developers hyping things and keep hanging people on a string for months or even years without a product. They don’t work that way and they are also a commercial developer who take their product very serious as close to perfection as they can for a desktop. (Give them time) Patience is a virtue they don’t rush things to satisfy impatient customers.
They used to be very communicative with frequent in-depth development updates in video format.
When I purchased the B-17 for FSX back in the day Scott Gentile even randomly called my phone number that I put down in the store, asking if everything worked fine and how I liked it. Now that’s communicative!
They somewhat dialed down their interaction with customers over the years.
I guess it’ll get here when it gets here. Gotta say, I’m looking forward to this more than MSFS2024.
Aaaaah, back in FSX. Back when the global flight sim community was just few hundred thousand people, and everyone looked forward to things and got excited about things and the devs felt like part of the community.
The community has changed a lot since then. When devs post updates about planes they’re developing now, at least half of the replies will be people asking will it be for xbox, will it have support for the GTNs, have they fixed …, I’m not buying anything from you until you fix …, who are you I’ve never heard of you, you guys suck why couldn’t [my favourite dev] make this, you said 2 years ago you’d be releasing it last month where is it, yada yada yada.
A small but growing number of devs now only talk about upcoming products on their discords, to people who’ve made the effort to find and follow their discord. Forums and facebook find out about things when they’re released.
I wonder how many projects are in ‘shelter in place’ mode waiting on the 2024 SDK to make sure they’re not going in directions that need major changes. Kind of like the FlightFX Piaggio that fell off of a cliff for updates. Ironically, both aircraft were at about the same development stages a few months back.
Quite a few I imagine. Black Square have been pretty quiet about the Beechcraft Starship since the initial teaser video a while back.
If I was a dev I’d definitely wait for the 2024 SDK before releasing complex airplanes. I don’t think releasing new stuff with 2024 imminent makes much sense anyway, because everybody will be busy playing with the new features and included airplanes. Better to let the dust settle and wait for the appetite for add-ons to start growing again (whilst taking advantage of everything the 2024 SDK has to offer in the meantime).
So I think the near future will be lacklustre in terms of new add-ons, but we’ll have MSFS 2024 so all good. And when the Aerostar is finally released I will buy it day one
Depending on the SDK, some projects may go to '24 only. Apparently the capability to build a tube aircraft and cover it with flexible cloth might be a thing in FS24.
Still holding out for this one- when it’s ready I’ll be ready!
Are there any news on the 600 for MSFS2020?
Nope. Latest update from November.
I can’t wait either, dunno. This is a really long time at this point.
It’s probably going to be epic when it comes out, but at this point c’mon guys. I work in software, and let me tell you there is no perfect and there is no done. I think taking the time to do things right is way under appreciated in the general software field but also gotta recognize good enough. The awful msfs24 release illustrates the problem in the software development culture/system about deadlines>quality, however the Aerostar constantly slipping back illustrates what would happen if you let the engineers run everything with no supervision(lemme tell you I’ve been very guilty of taking way too long to make something perfect)
Even me being on Xbox right now, this is really the only aircraft I want moving forward. The Blacksquare Baron will have to tide me over until this beauty arrives.
As for me, I think I’ll let them run their company however they see fit.
I’m not sure how to read your post? Are you ok with them taking so long to develop the Aerostar, or are you suggesting they’re trying too hard to make it perfect?
Personally, they only got access to the 2024 SDK and the myriad huge changes to aircraft design when we got the sim, in mid-November, so I think further delay is expected. It’s going to take them quite a while to digest all the changes, then they essentially have to redo all the modeling they’ve done if they want to, and probably should, release it as a 2024 aircraft.
I wouldn’t expect release until June, if we’re lucky. It may come earlier, but, 2024 is a huge change.
Considering the current state of the FS market, I thank the gods that we have at least one company ruled by this kind of principles. Let it take as long as it needs to take. I have literally been waiting and dreaming for years, since FSX, for a classic Super Cub made by them. I have learned to be patient with them, and despite not making my dreams come true, they have never let me down.
Yeah valid confusion because the answer is both. I think my point was that I’m more than okay with them really taking their time to do things right. I wish I could do that in my job and always produce something I’m 100% proud of. However, in the world of software development there is no ‘done’. It can always be better. To run a parallel to a career we all here at least have an interest in, a pilot can always perform a better landing. There is no perfect. However, once you’ve landed, whether it was rough or smooth, as long as the plane is not damaged and the passengers are unhurt you’ve done it. You’re done, you’ve succeeded. You can always sharpen your skills, but in your day to day job you need to takeoff at point A and get the passengers and aircraft safely to point B. You can fall into a very dangerous and deep rabbit hole of perfectionism when you’re writing software that means you never actually get anything done.
As someone who works in a different software industry but also on a very small dev team I completely understand the silence from esp the very small but very high quality teams like A2A and Black Square. If I were in their shoes and had the Aerostar or Starship almost ready to go in 2020 yeah, that’s a conundrum. Do we push on and release in 2020 and then upgrade to 24, or just start upgrading immediately and forget the 2020 release? I don’t know what I’d pick. As a customer, I’m still running both sims and I’d prefer they just released for 2020. But I don’t run their business and I don’t know the numbers on people still either exclusively running 2020 or willing to still use it for add ons they like.
From what I’ve gathered over the years A2A make most of their revenue with contractual work with the military and flight schools (kinda like Milviz).
Consumer flight simming seems to be only a side hustle at this point, so they can afford to take their time. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
I’ve heard the same rumor but they also haven’t officially said so and they say their top priority is consumer sims so idk.
If it’s either of those probably military, that would explain how they keep the lights on with the slow pace. I’m sure if they were making training software for like Lockheed or Northrup that would be a very tight lipped affair, if it were flight schools they’d probably be releasing their work to consumer sims also, I can’t see why not
Flight Schools need a stable, proven patform that doesn’t pull the rug from under them every so often, so they probably still use FSX or P3D. Their FSX/P3D Accusim aircraft are readily available.
Righttt yeah that makes sense. Scenery doesn’t matter so no need for them to be on the newest sims. And as I understand it a lot does transfer over sim-to-sim but that’s really mostly intellectual capital and data, probably soundset, maybe basic 3d models but totally different from the software side so not a small undertaking to port stuff around.