Live Dev Q&A: Guided Question

[Jummivana]

The next Live Developer Q&A on Twitch will be 2021-03-10T18:30:00Z.

Here is the agenda:

• First, we will delve deeper in the the specifics of Sim Update 3 - exploring the changes we have made, bug fixes, and address any issues if they crop up.

• Secondly, we will then talk more about the upcoming World Update 4: France/Benelux.

• Lastly, we will take live questions from chat.

There might a surprise in there somewhere, too.

That being said, we would like to keep our main conversations around Sim Update 3. We ask that you submit questions around the following topics:

• Avionics
• Flight Planning for Airport Approaches
• Input/Controls ( + accessibility)
• Flight Model

Please respond to this thread with the template below. We will pick questions that stand out to us and ask them during the Sim Update 3 portion of the program.

We ask that you save your general questions for the live portion at the end of the Q&A.

If you see a question you like, feel free to ‘like’ it instead of creating a duplicate question.

Template

    Category - mark 'x' to indicate which category your question applies to:
    [ ] Avionics
    [ ] Flight Planning for Airport Approaches 
    [ ] Input/Controls
    [ ] Flight Model

    Your Question:

Note: Duplicates or responses that do not follow the above template may be deleted without warning. This thread is not for conversation, but rather submitting questions.

[CHorne83]

[ ] Avionics
[ ] Flight Planning for Airport Approaches 
[ x] Input/Controls
[ ] Flight Model

Will it be possible to have our saved flight controls profiles settings linked to the different aircraft we have set the controls up for when we load up the aircraft we chose? I have different sensitivity and switch settings on my yoke depending on which aircraft I choose to fly, this would help in cutting down time when starting a flight in the sim

[HRHighness4588]

@Jummivana

    [ ] Avionics
    [ ] Flight Planning for Airport Approaches 
    [ X] Input/Controls
    [ ] Flight Model

Could you please speak to whether Microsoft or any other hardware manufacturers have expressed interest in resurrecting force feedback devices for the sim.

And another question in the [x] other category if there’s time do the XBox live services and related network settings in Windows 10 (e.g. NAT strictness) have any impact on data streaming or photogrammetry or is it just limited to multiplayer?

[ChaoticSplendid]

[ ] Avionics
[ ] Flight Planning for Airport Approaches 
[X] Input/Controls
[ ] Flight Model

Are there any plans to make the controls settings menu more user-friendly, or at least provide a generic joystick profile for those that are not supported? This is something that most previous versions of Flight Simulator had implemented, making it much easier for a beginner to get started.

[CasualClick]

    [X ] Avionics
    [X ] Flight Planning for Airport Approaches 
    [ ] Input/Controls
    [ ] Flight Model

Will Asobo integrate the Flight Path Marker into the base Primary Flight Display?

Will Asobo integrate Virtual Pathways into the base Primary Flight Display?

Will Asobo address or fix the ability to fly Direct To on any Nav Point/ Nav Aid regardless of the plan loaded?

[gadwin777]

@Jummivana

Category - mark 'x' to indicate which category your question applies to:
    [x] Avionics
    [ ] Flight Planning for Airport Approaches 
    [ ] Input/Controls
    [ ] Flight Model

Does the “Direct To” work in the G1000 for the upcoming Sim Update 3? Some real life pilots have stated “Direct To” does not work like the G1000 in real life.

[DaveS815857]

Will there be further enhancements to the sdk for 3rd party offline AI traffic? Specifically with Alpha India Group (AIG) ?

[SubtotalGuide81]

Are we allowed to question and criticise this new guided question format or will it be closed down too?

[FoxMike1080]

[ ] Avionics
[ ] Flight Planning for Airport Approaches
[ ] Input/Controls
[X ] Flight Model

When will the DV20 fly again?

DV20 Center of Gravity CG abnormal (nose down)

The DV20 is unflyable after the latest patch (1.11.6.0)?. The Center of Gravity is out of the normal range (nose down) and cannot be centered by fuel or payload. Has anybody used the DV20 with 1.11.6.0 and same issues?

[Jummivana]

We will be testing this format for the upcoming Dev Q&A and will restructure if it doesn’t work well.

[CptLucky8]

[X] Avionics
[ ] Flight Planning for Airport Approaches 
[ ] Input/Controls
[ ] Flight Model

Here are links to some Avionics questions:

(main point highlighted - link for context)

@Ramuss

I can’t even use this sim for any decent IFR flight until Reality XP or A2A Sims come, and who knows how long that will be!

@SlushiestMars33

Wouldn’t that be an amazingly huge improvement in the experience if we could use Reality XP’s GTN750 !!! It’s what is holding me back from flying in FS more right now.** Just some bush flying for me, flying in VR and the GTN750 is a match made in heaven, and one that I have enjoyed in Xplane for the last couple years now.

@BostonJeremy77

I was sitting here recently wondering when someone is gonna come and bring GTN into MSFS… What’s stopping you right now? I don’t know technical details of SDK or software development, but it’s not possible for us to get a GTN or GNS product from third parties?

@CptLucky8

TL;DR: we do need a proper ‘override’ system for simvars which is paramount to a whole category of add ons which can’t be offered on MSFS2020 because of the SDK sandbox.

Let me illustrate: from FS9 up to P3D5.x the only way to integrate our GPS products into the simulator autopilot system is to hack the code inside the simulator in order to ‘override’ the stock GPS code which is otherwise hard-coded in the autopilot system (in-process detours like approach). Similarly the only way to override what any 3rd party HSI gauge is displaying is to hack the simulator to add the capability to ‘override’ the XML, and the C SDK variables, which are otherwise read only.

This is just a glimpse of some of the limitation in the FS2020 SDK inherited from the FSX SDK. Please note the X-Plane SDK doesn’t have any such limitation because it is offering what 3rd party vendors are needing from the get go.

@GAParadise

He is Reality XP

@CptLucky8 Jean-Luc I do hope Asobo reaches out to you to establish some sort of cooperation.
You have provided so much excellent feedback in these past few months.

.

[ ] Avionics
[ ] Flight Planning for Airport Approaches 
[X] Input/Controls
[ ] Flight Model

Here are links to some Input/Controls questions:

About Input/Controls acceleration bug (aka 10 deg increment bug):

(main point highlighted - link for context)

@CptLucky8

I believe, like I’ve written before, the main if not the only problem is FS2020 accelerating inputs regardless of the input source, and this is the same bug since FS9 (in 2004). In other words, it goes like this:

@CptLucky8

@Jummivana I’m glad they’ve announced correcting this problem, I just wish they won’t just issue an alternate set of commands and events to map to Honeycomb switches but instead they will re-implement the input event acceleration logic properly, otherwise, it won’t solve the problem at all whenever you use you’re keyboard to continuously repeat a command, like flaps down, and you turn an autopilot knob with the mouse for example.

.

[ ] Avionics
[ ] Flight Planning for Airport Approaches 
[X] Input/Controls
[ ] Flight Model

Here are links to some Input/Controls questions:

About Input/Controls, both from the 3rd party devs side and the end-user UI side:

(main point highlighted - link for context)

@CptLucky8

you might want to take a look at the Alpha manual and see how the entire concept of named events and commands in X-Plane is vastly superior to the antiquated FS5 area enums and ids… It takes no additional driver nor config to setup the Alpha with XP11, it takes a special tool to map the Alpha to events with Prepar3d/FSX only because there is no way for 3rd party developers to intercept and override standard control events unlike X-Plane (standard SDK feature), which makes 3rd parties having to create their own alternate simvars the Alpha must interact with via a special application mapping the controls to these alternate simvars…* There is so much to get inspired of the XP11 SDK which would tremendously benefit 3rd party devs, and this one is a perfect example in my opinion.

.

[ ] Avionics
[ ] Flight Planning for Airport Approaches 
[X] Input/Controls
[ ] Flight Model

Here are links to some Input/Controls questions:

About Input/Controls game design decision (Simmers vs Gamers):

(main point highlighted - link for context)

@CptLucky8

yesterday I decided to try our the 747 which I didn’t flown for a long time. And what strikes me is how “gaming oriented” it is designed in the controller response. Here is:

I have a long time aversion for cockpit animations which most 3rd party developers are coding on a 1sec time span. When I click a switch, I don’t want this switch to animate for a full second from off to on, I expect it to switch position instantly (or nearly instantly for the sake of animation something like 200ms is enough, at 50fps this still gives you 10 frames of animation to see it moving). Most FS2020 aircraft switches and controls animations are coded exactly the same way with unnecessary 1sec long animations.

But the other problem I’ve spotted in the 747 is that the yoke roll angle animates slowly and doesn’t match your hardware control. […] The same control input flaws (to me these are flaws) can be seen with steering tiler, and brakes.

This is wrong to me for a flight simulator for simmers, but I believe it is right for piloting the game with an XBox controller where you have limited input range (you can’t compare a controller 1 inch stick to a Honeycomb yoke roll amplitude for example).

.

[ ] Avionics
[ ] Flight Planning for Airport Approaches 
[X] Input/Controls
[ ] Flight Model

Here are links to some Input/Controls questions:

About Input/Controls game implementation decision (Simmers vs Gamers):

(main point highlighted - link for context)

@CptLucky8

I’d recommend FS2020 Controller Settings be in clear text and accessible outside the game GUI. It is important for backing up copying, sharing and restoring purposes, but also for any other user editing which is not possible with the GUI because of its Xbox oriented design.

An good example of this is how you can never precisely adjust curve sensitivity with the mouse because the slider range in pixels is less than the number of percentage values you can select from.

There is really no useful reason to hide these inside the convoluted file/folder naming convention in my opinion (see details below) and this further reflects the opposite of a simulator for simmers as well. I strongly believe a differentiator between a game and a simulator is the level of low level access to configuring one’s simmer experience and manual access and editing to these files is paramount to the simmer experience. It has been this way for decades with every single other simulator.

Furthermore, in un-hiding the settings system, it would make it easier to solve this topic question (backup/restore) but also other problem reported in this discussion:

Ability to have separate control setups for each plane without having to manually switch between 20+ controller profiles?

[CptLucky8]

.

[ ] Avionics
[ ] Flight Planning for Airport Approaches 
[X] Input/Controls
[ ] Flight Model

Here are links to some Input/Controls questions:

About Force Feedback implementation (DirectInput vs XInput):

(main point highlighted - link for context)

@CptLucky8

@Jummivana Force Feedback codebase is not there at all and I believe Martial is thinking about XBox Controller Rumbling instead. This has nothing to do with Force Feedback though otherwise I believe it would be picked up automatically if FS2020 is already implementing both XInput and DirectInput isn’t it?

Rumbling is an XInput feature:
Getting Started With XInput - Win32 apps

XInput is an API that allows applications to receive input from the Xbox Controller for Windows. Controller rumble effects and voice input and output are supported.

Furthermore, XInput has support for force feedback with rumble, and just rumble. Calling the force feedback functions do nothing, and the XInput caps structure reports force feedback is not available. Xinput only supports rumble, not full force feedback. XInput was build to support the Xbox360 controller and only supports features those controllers provide, it has no provisions for additional buttons, axes or full force feedback. All that stuff from DirectInput was left behind to create a much simpler API.

Force Feedback is a DirectInput feature:
DirectInput | Microsoft Docs
DIEFFECT Structure | Microsoft Docs

[BlackChamber487]

[ ] Avionics
[ ] Flight Planning for Airport Approaches 
[ ] Input/Controls
[X] Flight Model

Question: Can you share some more details regarding the new effects system; such as the contrails?

Will tire smoke and prop/jet wash be featured in Sim Update 3 as well?

[pmb2019]

If I am allowed to say this, I preferred the former open format. I know there are urgent questions moving the community which do not fall into the categories above. The live Q&A portion is rather chaotic, contains a lot of slang and is hard to follow, notably for non-English speakers like me.

I know that’s a mods’ decision which shouldn’t be questioned, thus this will be my only hint on the matter, which I excuse for.

[CptLucky8]

[ ] Avionics
[ ] Flight Planning for Airport Approaches 
[ ] Input/Controls
[x] Flight Model

Here are links to some Flight Model questions:

About the goal and scope of the “1000 elements” approach:

(main point highlighted - link for context)

@CptLucky8

I don’t believe it is what it is actually doing. Instead, it makes concessions because they decided it was better to make FS2020 flying FSX ported aircraft like in FSX so that 3rd party devs could port their add-ons faster to FS2020. It is not dissimilar to what I’m saying about the FS2020 systems and gauges SDK either and probably for the same reasons as well. Given the number of “sophisticated” aircraft available and “ported” from FSX, this begs the question whether this is a good decision from the get go.

Which raises another question to me: in making their normalization algorithm "bending’ their 1000 element model to match the FSX historical flight model behaviour, didn’t they just cut out what could have made their new engine a key differentiator from the past and from competing simulators?

@CptLucky8

the FS2020 documentation about XP11 is wrong because it doesn’t take in account the latest XP11 developments in the flight model since XP11. It looks in fact as-if the FS2020 SDK docs was redacted by the time they started developing FS2020 and this relates to XP10 area flight model docs

NB: Please read the rest of the discussion for the pros and cons between what seem to be FS2020 and XP11 flight modeling respective technologies.

[stekusteku]

[ ] Avionics
[ ] Flight Planning for Airport Approaches
[ ] Input/Controls
[x] Flight Model

Questions:

As a real world private pilot - PPL(A) SEP(L) 300h, I’m probably at the similar level as Seb. I’m pretty sure that Seb, fresh from his training and the hours spent with the flight instructor (not to mention the flight theory exam) is very well aware of the different forces acting on the plane, missing in the sim.

I experience the following deficiencies in the C172 classic (which is probably a representative case for small GA plane) flight model and I would like to know if/when whe should expect the improvements:

1. Are you going to implement “flight model realism” sliders, to allow proper plane behaviour for experienced pilots, while keeping it easy for casual players? During last Dev Q&A you mentioned you deliberatebly tune the flight model down (into more arcadish behaviour) to keep it easy.

2. Small GA plane usually requires positive application of right rudder during take-off run to counter combined effects of torque, P-factor, gyro precession, spiralling slipstream. This is not currently modelled properly, aircraft in the sim requires alternating left/right rudder pedal input during take-off run. This may be related to sim limitation in modelling assymetric flight conditions (see the questions below).

3. In small GA plane to counteract crosswind during take-off or landing, you typically need to apply some aileron into the wind to use adverse yaw as a force counteracting the tendency of turning into the wind. Is this going to be modelled?

4. In the simlated C172 generally I don’t feel the adverse yaw much. Is this not modelled or deliberately limited to make sim easier for inexperienced pilots?

5. At the initial phase of turn (on top of lack of the adverse yaw) the simulated aircraft has the unrealistinc tendency to climb and only later to descent; which is not realistice, the real small GA in turn tends to descent (or to slow down if corrected by the elevator).

6. I’m unable to properly use “one wing low” (or side slip) crosswind approach method. Despite having rudder pedals and yoke I find it extremely difficult in the sim to keep the plane steady in the side slip. Is this modelled?

7. This leads to general questions - side slip is assymetrical flight condition. Is the flight model allowing it? Any plans to implement failures system like one flap failure?

8. I’m aware that lack of force feedback requires different trimming technique in the sim. However I find it very difficult (10x harder vs. real live) to trim. When the aircraft speed incerases also the lift increases so there is a climbing tendency, so the whole process of trimming requires several steps - speed increase, more trim, spped increase, more trime despite the contant power setting. This leads to urealistic tendency of flying the aircraft by the trim and not by the yoke. Are you aware of this trimming issues?

---

[x] Avionics
[ ] Flight Planning for Airport Approaches
[ ] Input/Controls
[ ] Flight Model

Questions:

1. In VR the GPS devices in C172 classic appear like having different on-screen colors (magenta, blue, white etc.) at different depth. Are you aware? Any plan to fix?

2. Are you going to introduce any “tablet” device in VR allowing to display pdfs (charts, checklist)? The lack of charts in the VR cockpit is the total immersion breaker as you need to remove your headset to consult the charts or you need to use 3rd party tools to bring the app or even the entire desktop to the VR, which are acceptable for SteamVR, but rudimentary for Windows Mixed Reality.

[Boobbuster007]

@Jummivana

 Category - mark 'x' to indicate which category your question applies to:
    [ ] Avionics
    [X] Flight Planning for Airport Approaches 
    [ ] Input/Controls
    [X] Flight Model

    Your Question:

Will there be an option to add custom waypoints to a vfr flightplan?

Will there be a fix for the turbo prop engine logics?

Thanks in advance

Sim pilot Mark

[Bullhorns78]

Category - mark 'x' to indicate which category your question applies to:
[ ] Avionics
[ x] Flight Planning for Airport Approaches 
[ ] Input/Controls
[ ] Flight Model

Your Question:

Are you aware that many of the STARs and approaches are not being handled correctly by the sim, and will you fix this? Ie, you program a STAR and an arrival for an airport in Europe, and not all the waypoints will get entered into the MCDU, FMS or G1000. USR waypoints get entered as well, which is not the correct name for the waypoint. Also, sometimes the airplane (like the a320) will just ignore the rest of the flightplan when it gets close enough to the airport, and just go straigth for the arrival airfield.

[omarsmak]

@Jummivana

[ ] Avionics
    [ ] Flight Planning for Airport Approaches 
    [ x] Input/Controls
    [ ] Flight Model

Now with more complex airliners that are coming to the sim, for example FBW that is getting more exmplex everyday and the CRJ, can we get a tiller axis so we can control the nose wheel steering on the ground instead of using the rudder?