What we believe is good or bad isn’t really very relevant to the decision-making process. Our knowledge of the mechanics under the hood of the simulation is superficial at best, so theories are pretty much just theories.
If you think it’s a “Marketing statement” feel free, but the reality of the issue is that this simulator already goes a long way to support the simulation of forces that other sims don’t even come close to touching, and the underlying changes that are obviously being made indicate the geometrical opposite of your belief.
It’d be VERY easy for them to just call it a day on the level of realism that they have, and it’d simplify their life tenfold. Despite what some people completely out of touch with reality and too lost in their small bubble believe, this is an extremely successful product, and not catering to a few hundreds of people screaming in a niche forfum wouldn’t change that one bit.
People that don’t know how development work keep saying that they should “focus on the core simulation” but simply adding content and basically doing nothing else would be much more beneficial in terms of pure product success, and it would require a lot less effort and resources.
The fact that they continue with experimenting shows the opposite of this being just a “marketing statement.”
I am. But that discrepancy you appear to see is something I can only identify as non-existent.
Agreed. These complaints annoy the heck out of me. They obviously have never been involved in the development of a product.
Back to my original point. I don’t mind experimenting. I just don’t want to see placating the people who have no idea what they’re talking about by doing what they ask to become a regular course of action.
They’ve got the basics to do great things…, I don’t mind waiting for it to get better as they work on it. And, yeah, it doesn’t super bother me that they break things along the way. But I want it to break for the right reasons…
Though, it would be nice if they improved their configuration management.
To add to my point, check out the world update trailers.
Now, I’m not saying that it’s an absolute indication, but read the comments and take a look at the like/dislike ratio.
This is the mainstream that those “In the bubble” tend to ignore in favor if their tunnel vision, aptly represented by the “big” press that writes stuff like a guide to engaging the autopilot that tells you to give control to the AI copilot (not a joke. It’s real, and it’s a major PC website) and keeps spamming articles drooling on the fact that they can fly over their home (I honestly expected this to go out of fashion after a few months, but I saw another one just a few days ago).
I don’t like patting my own back (ok, I like it a bit) but one of the main purposes of this interview was to be something that could be of interest to both general gamers and enthusiast simmers, not something written by a complete incompetent that would dislocate the jaw of any dedicated simmer with yawning because it’s full of platitudes and stuff they have heard about a million times. Yet, believe me, it’s hard to do because the platitudes are what the vast majority of people actually want to hear.
Asobo and Microsoft could literally drop the sim updates into the bin and just keep chugging out world updates for the rest of the lifetime of the product, perhaps letting third parties add features here and there, and they’d have an easy life for the next several years letting the sightseers throw money at the screen.
I can guarantee this with absolute 100% surety.
The fact that they keep working on the flight model, physics, weather, and more doubtlessly shows that they obviously want to pursue the most accurate representation of reality that they possibly can. This simply isn’t as straight a path as some believe.
I don’t think that’s what the intention is, honestly.
I think this is more a case of their understanding of reality changed and they are trying to adapt.
There is a reason we still use wind tunnels and test pilots. Sometimes the equations that worked on the blackboard don’t when exposed to the immense variabilities they were supposed to encompass.
Occasionally, the only answer to a complex question is an adjustment. Lambda made an unstable universe stable again. But until the cosmological constant was determined the math didn’t work. When that happens we have to simplify what we perceive as reality to just get it to work until we can refine the math and thus refine our reality.
I know, wow, that was eclectic. But it does explain why, in complex software development we need to roll back to something simple, that works, kind of, because the more complex option is too unstable or unpredictable. In aerodynamics we would throw it into a wind tunnel or hop in the cockpit and “Give it a go”. Can’t do that inside a computer. Too much interdependent stuff gets broken.
But it bothers me so much people thought the fix to the problem was to reduce the force of the elevator. Just one variable. Flying happens because of a balance of forces. If I reduce a force here, it’s gonna cause problems everywhere else. You can’t just change one thing when it comes to flying. And it’s a LOT of work balancing everything else every time you change anything.
Technically, you’re going to have to go back into all your equations and change lots of things. Nothing is ever simple.
Here’s my take. Yes, they could easily rest on their laurels and pump out World Updates. But all the other things in progress (seasons, flight dynamic adjustments) show that they are trying. It may not always come out right, and will require an adjustment or a fix, but they ARE improving the sim and are moving forward. That takes balls to do. They ARE doing work… and if that results in overall furthering of this sim and the standard that it’s setting (let’s face it, when it comes to certain aspects, they ALREADY have set the bar high - NO ONE has been able to achieve some of the things these guys pulled out of the hat), I am ok with occasional missteps.
In reply to somebody up above, somebody said that they were worried about whether Microsoft would continue to support the product in a year and a half or so after sales have dropped precipitously.
I think the improvements to the sim… across the board… and maybe the addition of some awesome tutorials and documentation, hint, hint… will continue to find customers
Even more important, there are technologies in this sim as @BostonJeremy77 just pointed out, that are huge for many different businesses within Microsoft, so I see it very much as an advertising platform for Microsoft for their future.
Things like Azure…“Hey look what we can do with it here, imagine what YOU could do with it”, Weather simulation and prediction they are delving into, the graphics engine, the VR eventually, streaming, multiplayer on a grand scale hopefully some day…so many technology applications for so many other businesses and needs. Mapping and photgrammetry is HUGE business across many disciplines. Demonstrations like this could mean millions, probably billions of dollars worth of business for Microsoft.
Might turn out that there is a Simulated Cosmological Constant. We can just insert it at the beginning and the whole simulation universe “just works”. We could call it 'eta. All the other good Greek letters have been assigned to a constant and it just kinda works for aviation.
Oh it will. And not only, the world updates are pure marketing genius. Sure. They are free. But I’m fairly positive that a lot of people from the UK purchased the sim (or subbed to Game Pass) when they heard that it would accurately reproduce their country. To that you add those who don’t live in the UK but want to visit.
All that’s needed is a nice trailer with atmospheric music and plenty of sights and some big media outlet dangling a juicy article with plenty of screenshots about how oh so spectacular the new London is in front of the masses’ collective nose. It happens every time, and it’ll keep happening.
They ensure that a whole batch of new customers will get into the sim every two months to see the sights. Many will likely not last long, but in the grand scheme of things, many will, and the money is in the bag.
Satya Nadella’s Microsoft may be a bit hipster, but it definitely ain’t stupid. As part of my job, I have to look in-depth at their financials, and they’re making cash like never before.
Since release, I have tossed around the idea of creating a manual of sorts. A section on the UI. One for basic navigation. Another on systems and AP. Finally an appendix of default aircraft SOPs. Unfortunately even the UI has been in flux and with the changes and bugs in the systems about the only thing that has been static is, “How to navigate”, and the POH numbers.
How to navigate and how to land would be simply awesome. Those are the things I think most people have issues with. “Why is my plane floating forever down the runway???”
How to use the autopilot, how to use GPS, how to create a flight plan, what is FS going to do that you may not expect (i.e. the big turns, turning 180 to go back, user waypoints), POH numbers to set up at each stage of a landing process…
I can’t remember which airport it was exactly, (I can figure it out), but it was a default airport up the coast of Maine. Might have been the old P-3 Navy base that is now KBXM in Brunswick, ME (I think it used to be KNHZ) executive airport. I suppose I should check it again.
I was landing and I can’t remember which way I was crabbed, but as I approached the runway, my attention switched to the Windsock which was straight out all the way pointing left straight across the runway (nearly 30 knots I think), and yet I was being blown TO the windsock towards the right, messed me all up…
Haha! I have a theory for the windsock direction problem then…
Here is: they get the wind data as true north direction, or maybe mag north instead, but if they use a simvar for which they add the magnetic declination if it is already included in the data source for example, it might account for some of the difference maybe!
Well, as I said before, it works fine if the windsock object is oriented at zero degrees in the scenery. The problem occurs when a developer places a windsock but forgets, or doesn’t know to, to set the orientation to zero. When you place objects in a scenery, the default orientation is 180 degrees. So you have to take the extra step to also turn the object around, an object you can’t actually see because the SDK tools don’t show you the windsock. So, unless you interrogate the object, there’s no way to know what its orientation is.
Point being, there are user sceneries, and I suspect even Asobo sceneries, where the windsocks are incorrectly oriented.
As you noted, the default behavior of the windsock is calculated on a position from zero.
Hence, since not all windsock objects are oriented the same, you can’t just change the behavior.
You’re right, most sceneries have it right, but not all, and you never know which are wrong.
Asobo needs a tool that fixes bgl’s to orient all windsocks to zero.
Thanks for this, I didn’t catch this point earlier. I agree it is not helping at all and they should be able to devise an automatic tool for checking all the default ones.
Last posts were non-constructive and there’s been this ridiculous flagging war between few members.
This topic is now closed.
Thank you for your understanding.
