June 2024 Developer Live Stream Main Discussion Areas

Discussion Hub General Discussion
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[Edit 1: Changed the title of this post to reflect that the livestream has ended.]

[Edit 2: Twitch stream can be viewed here
Minor changes made to some times & topic descriptions.]

[Edit 3: The transcript is now available here.]

Here is a timeline of the major discussion areas. Not all of the questions asked & answered are listed below, and the timeline is approximate - the times & topics are as accurate as my in-real-time one-fingered typing would allow, so probably contains some errors & omissions. :woozy_face:

Time Topic
06 Introductions
07 Start, Thank You
08 Feedback on SU15 (stability, performance), A320Neo v2, City Update 07 and The Short SC.7 Skyvan
12 Roadmap 2024
13 Questions - Tech
13 Will we see an updated GDK before the next SU?
15 Livestream Question: Dynamic LOD & Avionics (memory management on XBox S & X)
20 Livestream Question: ATR Bugfixes or Updates
21 Livestream Question: When will we get a new version of Bing data (Aerials, DEM, TIN)
22 Is it possible to remove the Object Limit of 1,000?
26 Can you explain what is meant by “Main Thread”?
30 What is the update to the cloud opacity fix. Can you provide an update on the Weather Radar API
36 In-game ATC - what source is used for runway landing decisions?
40 Livestream Question: Can we have multiple different views on multiple different displays?
42 Livestream Question: Is there any update to fix London Photogrammetry?
43 June 6th is D-Day Celebration, so we are releasing FamousFlyers 09 - Douglas C-47D and Waco CG4-4A.
44 Can you share the number of players for each platform?
45 Will incorrect timezones be corected in current or future sim?
51 “Red Flag” / “Green Flag” connection lost offline message questions.
54 Livestream Question: Is the Famous Flyers 09 free?
54 City Update VIII - Las Vegas
55 Q & A - Marketplace
55 Can we limit how many releases developers have per week?
57 Livestream Question: World hub update
58 Livestream Question: Will the SDK be available prior to launch of 2024?
59 Will it be possible to apply discounts to products based on other products purchased previously.
61 Livestream Question: Is there any update on the freeware version of the marketplace?
62 Have any improvements been done to DRM?
63 In-sim advertisement topic.
64 Top-Rated Aircraft Sale - June 9th to 16th, 2024
65 Livestream Question: Will default traffic AI be replaced by other models?
66 Livestream Question: Question about the units of measurement in the game.
68 City Update IX: USA Northeast, inc. Washington DC
69 Famous Flyer 10: Boeing 707-320C
70 Roadmap 2024
71 Top Gun Update: Staying in Marketplace until 07/25
72 MSFS 2024: Aircraft / Developers announcement (Cessna 188 AGTruck by Carenado; Erickson S-64 by Blackbird; Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II by DC Designs)
73 FlightSim Expo 2024 June 21-23.
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And a new London is on the way that is going to be something else

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Did they mention during the livestream what the World Update for July will be?

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No. They announced what the next two city updates will be, but didn’t cover the next WU.
Regards

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Thank you for taking the time to do this. Rookie question here - what’s the difference between the SDK and the GDK? I see the GDK mentioned here quite a bit.

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The developer livestreams are great and I hope they continue for the foreseeable future! Thanks for the timeline above :slight_smile:

Could it be worthwhile making a kind of “FAQ” to collect all the common questions (and answers so far) in one place?

This could help both the developers, moderators and users to save going over old ground every livestream. After each livestream, additional progress notes or new blockers on a topic could be noted. It could be a useful point of reference to signpost people towards. (Since the weekly dev updates don’t go into detail on the lists of top-voted topics.)

It could be moderator-maintained and consist of one or two short sentences/paragraphs per topic. It would be easier to digest than the written-up notes of each livestream. Also much easier than having to review the ‘wishlist’ or ‘bug’ threads that describe each issue in detail.

Some of the common topics that come up more or less every livestream, and which might benefit from being in an FAQ list, are:

  • Weather API / radar - many people don’t seem to understand (or remember) the reasons why this is not so simple given the Meteoblue agreement. Jorg wants to discuss with MB and considers idea of using Active Sky as a bridge (if I understood correctly)
  • Requests for specific region/city updates - this is dependent on data being available/obtainable, but many feel ‘ignored’ if their chosen region hasn’t been updated yet and can’t understand why
  • Camera API
  • Crashes / Xbox black screens
  • ATC / live traffic improvements
  • Traffic model-matching - something coming in 2024
  • Aircraft updates in the works
  • World Hub plans - full release after Bing aerials update (with 2024 release)
  • Marketplace - various topics (freeware, low quality ‘spam’ etc.)
  • Units (metric/hybrid/US) / transition levels (caused some confusion today)
  • Snow coverage improvements
  • Time zone improvements (new for this livestream but good to know)

Just an idea. If there’s something out there already, point the way!

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Without being a game developer, I would assume it’s a fany SDK for developers to use who wants to Target Xbox. And I believe it also kinda unifies the APIs Used for both pc and xbox.

Check this

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Game Development Kit (GDK ) if used to develop games on Xbox and Windows.

GDK (Game Development Kit): While not as commonly referred to as SDK, a GDK can be considered a specialized type of SDK that’s specifically tailored for game development. It includes tools and libraries designed for building games, such as graphics engines, physics engines, and other game-related functionalities.

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This isn’t exactly large enough to scroll in and read, but because Seb asked for this to be shared, here is the Main Thread screenshot from the Dev Stream today.

image001
image0012562×1074 80.4 KB

Cheers!

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Regarding the July 4th City Update (Washington DC), Jorg mentioned a few other cities are in the process of maybe being updated. If normal City Updates include 5 cities, I would guess Boston, Philadelphia, New York and not sure which other city is known for our Nation’s Independence, would be updated, unless someone else has an idea, unless they only do 4 cities.

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London! :rofl:

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I am surprised to see the time zones were addressed. Though I did recently (about two months ago) list the areas with incorrect time zones, and asked a question about this in the form for today’s Q&A as well as the stream itself. I am happy that they did get around to fixing this and looking forward to SU16 and MSFS2024.

As for different units in ATC, I was the one to ask that on stream, and I admit I could’ve worded it better with better examples. I know China uses metric units unlike many other countries in the world, but I was thinking mostly on altimeters. The U.S., Canada, and Japan are the only three countries to my knowledge that uses inHg whereas everywhere else uses hPa. My question is would ATC automatically switch between these units depending on region as this is important for international flights. For volume and weight, I would like to see instead of Metric, Imperial, and Hybrid as we’re seeing now, I would like to see options to change units per section in the settings menu (and in the case of altitude and altimeter, I want an option to leave that to ATC).

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Another great stream with a lot of answers to questions, thanks.

On the weather radar I feel that there’s a disconnect between what is asked for and what is needed.

They were taking about people asking for a full 3d query API that exposes the current weather state externally to the sim. Already from the technical issue of this info being largely managed within the GPU, the obvious licensing issue with Meteoblue is that they don’t want to give this data away and that is fair enough.

IMO what we need is not a full weather API but instead a properly implemented weather radar in the sim, that developers can integrate into their planes.

It needs to work properly, ie. Like a radar which can show only some kinds of weather as would be represented by reflected radar returns off water. It needs to have the characteristics of radar, eg. shadowing where it cannot see behind heavy rain because the radar waves are reflected and do not penetrate.

It needs to be configurable so that it can be made to look like the radar which is in the respective plane (colours, shape etc).

It needs to be controllable like a weather radar, eg. gain, tilt. (I was quite surprised that none of the panel knew what radar tilt is.)

IMO this should be possible. There is already a simple radar implementation that just isn’t good enough, but if it was to be properly improved then most of those people calling for a weather API don’t need one, they just want working radar. Dare I say it, imagine if Working Title could focus on this?

Obviously it would help if there were discussions directly between the lead developers, Fenix, PMDG, etc and Asobo to establish how a sim provided weather radar could be designed without introducing a full weather API.

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I skimmed the video tonight, but I’m unclear of the whole Freeware Marketplace status. what’s going on with that?

side notes but related to the stream- Hoping to see a new trailer this Sunday, or some info at the xbox event. and then def FS expo will have stuff.

also curious how recent the updated Bing data will be once pushed for 2024 release and if there will also be new/expanded Photogrammetry as a result. I’ve asked a few times to the devs pre a stream but my question hasn’t been addressed. (not complaining but might just be a wait till released & see)

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Oh that freeware answer was a mess. I’m starting to wonder whether Jorg really gets freeware or not because he always talks about it as a thing in the marketplace but yet all the feedback we ever get from any accepted developer is that they are not allowed to give stuff away for free (with the single exception of mods that may enhance accessibility).

This time round he went off on a tangent about the thread where we can all say which new developers we want fast tracked into the marketplace (still waiting to see any outcomes from that?). However that thread is not about freeware at all, these are payware developers and even those listed that have freeware on fs.to, most are looking to get into the marketplace and sell their addons. (And I don’t blame them for that either.)

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Gotcha, yeah it was confusing. I was looking for a clear response indicating if there will or will not be a “Freeware” dropdown in the Marketplace. Guess we’ll see in time, that and if it would be on Xbox too.

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Very disappointed with the livestream, a lot of the questions they choose were useless information.

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  1. Create a category in MP called ‘Community Modifications’
  2. Set the price of everything in that category to $0.01
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Excellent post, thank you! Definitely clarifies what’s needed.

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I’m not sure they understood the tilt question asked on stream.