Discussion: Live dev Q&A January

Yea it looks like it, as I wrote earlier “simmers” will always be at a disadvantage compared to gamers if the company is not fully focused on the simulators like Laminar or Eagle Dynamics.

BTW Asobo and Focus home interavtive studios has already started working on another story driven game. So what to add, maybe they are expanding but I would definitely like to see more people working on this sim.

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LOL yes, it could even be tied only to users having the crash disabled for example. Some dev leaving a variable check in a function with the wrong variable in it or a piece of copied code with that variable check in it. Oh I know the pain, but with such a complex piece of software running locally it must even be a multitude worse.

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How and when did that icing develop? What were the weather conditions and temperatures? Was this icing picked up at much lower altitudes and carried to higher altitudes? So much could have happened before that image was captured. We really need the background of the flight, the weather conditions, and what the weather system was trying to do. Also, was the user bypassing MSFS internal weather with an external program?

However, I agree with sublimnation at higher altitudes should be considered. I have seen icing slowly dissipate over time, is this MSFS attempt at sublimation?

No matter the conditions, I have never seen ice accumulation looking like this in real life. Ice might built up on the radome but to have the whole nose covered in ice like that is just way too aggressive. Looks like frost not like rime or clear ice, flowback is also not that extensive on the tail or engines in real life.

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Because most of us real-world pilots would never fly in extreme icing conditions. However, NASA’s Gleen Research Center has done a number of flights into icing. The videos and photos of post icing encounters are remarkable.

Spend less time critiquing the exact placement of the ice (artistic effect) and think more about the potential encounter that it may have represented. If Asobo is trying to show the airplane just came out of severe icing do you come away with a feeling of an extreme encounter?

But, it sounds like people will get their ice slider from the Q&A response so they can adjust the effect to their individual liking.

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I am flying in icing conditions all the time, almost daily this time of year. When flying in Scandinavia and the Baltics, icing is just part of daily life and a non-event really.

Although I’ve only encountered severe icing conditions once or twice and only for a short period, I’m still not convinced frost will form on non-frontal surfaces even in severe icing conditions. It looks very gamey to immediately have all windows covered in ice, ice on top of the wings, side of the fuselage.

I hope they come up with something more realistic and don’t try to “solve” every problem by adding sliders. I don’t want a slider to tune it “to my liking” I want it to be realistic and if not, the ability to switch it off completely.

99% of the time there might be a little bit of ice accretion on the wipers and leading edges when flying in icing conditions. In other words, no icing effect at all would be more realistic than the current icing effect.

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it absolutely doesnt matter in this sim, within every cloud or visible moisture with temperatures at 0 or below you will get this level of freezing (climbing through layer thick 2000 - 4000ft and you will get the same result)

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Really? That has not been my results in-game. I just flew the CJ4 from KMRY to KTEB into the icing in and around the New York greater area. The area that was covered by the Moderate Icing AIRMET and the results on the airframe was very much in line with light to moderate icing. A little on the nose, and leading edges of the wings, vertical stabilizer, and horizontal stabilizer. As well as a little ice along sharp surfaces such as the windshield frame. Very much what I would expect an airplane to look like.

It is interesting that there is such a huge difference.

Most of the time I was flying under the live weather so maybe moisture in the air is really affecting icing within the simulator.

It can be tested with custom modified weather, layer thick of 4000ft atleast, high moisture and low temperatures and second test with the same layer and temperatrues with no moisture and same aircraft with lets say 1000 ft/min of climb rate.

I always fly the CJ4 and there the icing looks more realistic to me. At least nothing to really complain about. But as mentioned before, the A320 looks like that on nearly every flight. And that’s just terribly wrong.

That’s great for people who are concerned mostly about the visual effect. For people concerned about a realistic flight model, it is no help at all, unless the slider goes from realistic at one end to something else at the the other end.

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The number one aspect is that developers are a business, so they are primarily here to make a profit, in reality they don’t care about mine yours or anyone else feelings or what level of realism, aircraft or whatever you want, if it sells and makes sales they will do the aircraft or scenery to fit the market.

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Seems right now everyone who has complained is concerned only with the visual effect. Has someone actually done the testing to confirm that indeed the performance effect is also unrealistic?

Even if it is noticeable what objective data do you use. There are hardly any AFM tables that provide performance with ice adhering to the airplane. Usually, it is just a performance hit for the use of anti-ice/deice systems for those airplanes affected.

Finally, are there any other aircraft other than the A320? Other than the individual who flew an airplane not equipped with anti-ice/deice into icing conditions.

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Would you mind letting us know your opinion about this? I read you’re real life King Air instructor, what about FS2020 King Air you can tell?

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This is hard to test objectively as this data simply isn’t available. I can only say that on the planes I’m flying, even moderate icing does not have any severe impact on performance as long as the anti/de-icing is working properly (taking into account the performance penalty of those).

On aircraft without de/anti-icing its hard to say, theoretically nobody should know as you aren’t allowed to operate in those conditions. The times I have encountered icing on a single engine piston without de/anti-icing, I didn’t stall out of the air with the aircraft looking like an ice cube. Yes the climb performance is affected and it might not climb at all at some point, doesn’t quite reach cruising speed.

It is subjective of course, but in my opinion the performance penalty on aircraft without de/anti-icing is way to extreme. On aircraft with de/anti-icing I haven’t had much trouble with performance so far. Anyway both performance and visual effects are a problem. Again NO icing effect at all would be closer to reality compared to the current icing effect.

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I have not flown the MSFS King Air 350 into icing. I’ll see if I can catch the NOREASTER before it moves off.

The reality is the MSFS B350 is so poorly done that I just don’t have the heart to spend much time in her. The Rockwell-Collins Pro Line Fusion should have been a joy to fly with, but they ruined the experience by dressing a G3000 inside of the Fusion’s bezels. There Turboprop engine dynamics has been a problem since Microsoft introduced the Turboprop to the FS line. Asobo has hinted at some propeller based aerodynamics updates and fixes to the Turboprop engine model so I have kept the King in the hanger until such time as they can make the fixes.

So I will take an aircraft that in my opinion already exhibits less than accurate flight dynamics and do subjective testing of how it performs in icing conditions.

Yes, I am spoiled that over the last decade everything that I have flown has been equipped for flight into known icing. I would never even consider taking an airplane not equipped with into conditions. I do remember a few articles on AOPA about some lucky survivors as well as a few crash reports of some not so lucky. However, there are a number of reports of icing causing crashes, so at what point does the magnitude of the encounter change from a white knuckle flight to an unsurvivable incident?

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I haven’t touched any single engine piston or similar in at least 5 years, I used to work as an instrument rating instructor before for 5 years or so. It does happen sometimes, ending up in visual moisture above the freezing level, especially at night where you aren’t always able to see the cloud layer. It isn’t good but I have found myself in icing conditions that way a couple of times. Past 5 years I haven’t had to worry about that, only flew proper aircraft since :joy:.

Of course the potential is out there to ice up, stall and crash, its not impossible. The problem is that in MSFS every visual moisture encounter below 0 OAT immediately causes severe icing, within 2 seconds all windows are covered in frost, not only the forward windshields, also areas which will never accumulate ice in flight like cockpit side and cabin windows (frost on the windshields in flight, really Asobo?) and performance and handling is immediately adversely affected.

I even had a situation once where on the ground the aircraft iced up below 0C but without any visual moisture, visibility 5 km, no precipitation, it was impossible to take off, even at a way higher speed. Maybe there was some phantom snow, I found that even in snow, far below 0C icing forms on the aircraft in MSFS. For comparison, I flew in the morning and evening that day, same place in the real world, no icing on the ground at all.

Be honest guys, how often do you encounter ice accretion on the ground? Yes the aircraft might be covered in snow or ice from melting and subsequent refreezing of water after being parked outside overnight. But to actually see a clean airframe icing up like that? Only in active frost, freezing fog, rain or drizzle for a long period of time, definitely not with snow, it is so remote that you could easily drop the effect entirely. So there definitely is some tweaking to do, both visual and performance wise.

Something else interesting is that icing affects the stall warning and angle of attack sensors in MSFS. In real life icing has no effect on those (which is part of the danger). Yes the critical angle of attack is reduced with ice accretion but there is no way for the angle of attack sensor or stall vane to “know” or correct for this… Some more advanced aircraft might apply lower AOA threshold for stallwarning activation when there is ice on the ice detector or automatically whenever de/anti-icing is selected ON by the pilot, but this does not apply for a Cessna, Diamond 62 or TBM with a conventional stall warning vane. Maybe again something which Asobo finds will “confuse the gamer”, when stalling out of the air in icing conditions without warning.

By the way, flew the Kingair as well myself, 90/200 with Proline 21. Not as much experience as you obviously on that type but yes the Kingair is easily the most poorly modeled aircraft in MSFS, it does not handle like the real thing for even 1%. I think the Cessna 172 in MSFS comes closer to the real Kingair handling wise than the Kingair itself :joy:.

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I’m not qualified to assess the realism of it, but I can confirm that I had the C172 stall on me once before I realized what it was that forced me to pull up more and more with full throttle.

It was ignorance, not carelessness that put me in that situation, and I’ve learned my lesson.:roll_eyes:

Yes, but mostly with the 787 as it seems to struggle the most with icing.
There are several posts here on it.