Continuing the discussion from Wind socks blowing the WRONG way:
I may be wrong on all the following discussion (especially since I did notice a change to windsocks in I think it was in the current SDK (might have been 11), and I still had to turn it 180 degrees for it to work right), but, the following is my interpretation of the windsock saga based on the discussion from the last SDK Q&A. I can’t say I’ve seen actual directions on how to place windsocks, or explicit directions on how to fix old ones, in the SDK, but I may have just missed it. But, apparently the process is spreading by word of mouth (telephone game anyone?)?
Well, yes. Rather than rewrite the code so it doesn’t matter which way the object is placed, they apparently just reversed the way the object works in how it interacts with the wind, so people who place them from now on don’t have to turn each one 180 degrees, they can just place them and move on.
Which means all the windsocks that were placed correctly in the past are now reversed, and developers have to go back in, fix their windsocks to the new direction, recompile them, and re-release them. This is according to Alyssa (sorry if I butchered your name) from Asobo from the last SDK Q&A.
It’s never a good idea to let a software developer come up with a solution to a problem (I’m not blaming anyone in particular here, this is just a grossly hyperbolic statement because well, I’m a little upset Not much, just a little. No, seriously, just a little).
Yes, it might make sense on the surface, it kind of fixes the immediate problem for future work, kind of, but, really? Did they really think this through?
It takes me forever to package releases, and the process is fraught with ways to make mistakes. The solution should have been that the simobject doesn’t need to depend on the orientation of its placement, (from day one in fact). And that this change HAS to be backwards compatible, IOW, the code recognizes windsocks, and does the right thing.
I can’t say I’m really all that psyched to go through my old releases and fix them, especially when there’s a good chance they’ll implement the above change since it was discussed in the last SDK Q&A.
Anyway, my sceneries do kind of need work, I’ve learned a lot along the way (but I still can’t figure out how to get my water runways to say “water” instead of “surface undetermined” (it does say (water) next to the runway orientation), so I’ll do it. But, it’s going to be a problem across the board if I understood what Alyssa said correctly.
But, then again, I might be all wrong on this, because it seems like the windsocks on my sceneries are still blowing in the correct direction. So, to top it off, I’m a little confused.
Don’t get me started on those times I landed in a crosswind, and my plane was blown into the windsock, and the windsock was facing in the correct direction. Winds on the ground at airports seem to be a bit better now, but I still get this really weird “POP” to the left on takeoff, suddenly, right at 70 knots, in the Just Flight Arrow III. It’s strong, though a rudder dance can overcome it, real Cherokees experience nothing like this. So I think there’s still work to do, likely on both sides, flight dynamics on the ground and ground winds in general.
I swear these problems happen because they try to dumb things down for new users, and instead it bites them in the but. Whereas if they just did the real thing, everyone could learn how to deal pretty quickly.