This month stream introduces a new face! David Dedeine Creative Director at Asobo Studio.
Game of the year edition
Jorg – Yesterday we released the SU6 and are happy to see all the positive feedback – special thanks to testers. We are going to have longer flighting period starting next year.
Timestamp – New visual ID + new content
GOTY version will also includes enhanced airports.
We have a new partner, Flight Sim studios contributing to these enhanced airports.
David reminds the chat that all these contents are for free.
Chat question – Is the Game Of The Year edition will be replacing the standard edition of the sim?
Jorg – It is, all versions of the SIM (Standard, Premium, Deluxe Premium) will benefit from it for free.
Community question – Does the arrival of the Super Hornet in MSFS mean native supersonic flight and support of collimated HUDs?
Seb – The F18 is fairly realistic in the flight model. The maximum airspeed curve goes from mach 1 at sea level to mach 1.6 around 30,000 feet just like the real one. The fuel consumption and acceleration are correct. It has the holographic cockpit.
Regarding the F18 Hud David precise that we did some improvement on the engine allowing us to display the holographic cockpit. This is also accessible for third parties.
Community question – “DX12 preview“: What does it mean and what can we expect from DX12?
Seb – This is going to be in the option menu. Basically, when you boot up the sim you’ll be in 11. If you decide to opt-in you’ll have to switch it on in the option menu. Unless any optimization in drivers or graphic card, the performance should be the same. We didn’t do anything special. Currently it’s the DX12 version of the same sim. The goal is to find issues.
As we can’t test all configurations, there will be issues to report.
Chat question – Are the Windows 11 celebration locations are a secret or is there a list we can find somewhere?
Jorg – Good idea to make them secret, but unfortunately places have been shown in a video.
Community question – Will the new GOTY/SU7 planes included be easy to mod by the community or will they be DRM restricted?
Jorg – We are not quite locked on giving access to the file as mentioned in a previous Q&A. We like how mods shape the sim, so I’m all for it. We still need to find the right balance. To be clear, some of the manufacturers don’t want us to this. We would need to double check with them before doing anything. We’ll keep you updated on this.
Community question – Regarding the new tutorials, will there be any expanded tutorials for the A320 / default 747 to help new simmers?
David – We are not yet focused on Airliners. We basically added 2 types of tutorials: on with the Icon and the Cessna, the key aspect of it is the G1000, this will help beginners to fly IFR and get a deeper knowledge and aviator’s skill. Airliner tutorials will come later.
Chat question – What do you mean by rework weather system for this GOTY edition?
David – We knew that we needed to rework the weather, especially for Vatsim simmers because the METAR implementation wasn’t perfect. We took advantage of the rework of the weather to improve the whole system. The intent is to get fresher data than the current half a day forecast data.
The METAR will be merged/blended with this new forecast data system.
Chat question – Are there going to be any more videos or footage released of the F-18 before it comes out?
Jorg – Yes, we are going to make a trailer at some point.
Chat question – Do we know if there is an afterburner effect on it already?
David – Yes
Timestamp RENO Air races:
Jorg – Why RENO, we try to embrace our history. FSX had the acceleration pack (including F-18). Before we launched on PC, we wanted to do this again.
David – We are proud and excited to release the RENO air races expansion soon. RENO is the fastest motor race in the world. Pilots are close to the ground and piloting skills are up to their extreme limit. This is exactly what we tried to reproduce in the sim. Each plane is unique and customed by passionate teams of engineers.
We have improved the place where RENO is happening. We enriched the area. Mountains are sharper, the airport is better and crowded. The speaker (the same caster of the actual RENO) will comment your race.
Chat question – Will the race work in VR
David – Sure.
Timestamp RENO Races videos
Timestamp In-game introduction
Timestamp FX
Timestamp G-force
David precises that G-suit and level of training (resistance to G forces) are options impacting pilots in different ways just like in reality.
Do you need the Xbox live Gold for Xbox and PC or Just Xbox?
Jorg – On PC you can play without Gold, but on Xbox it’s locked behind gold
If you buy the base Reno expansion and then later want the full version, is there an upgrade patch?
Jorg – The answer is yes. If you get the 20$ bundle, it will be taken into account if you want to upgrade. You can buy each class and you can also buy each plane.
Are all 40 planes modelled the same? What is the difference besides the liveries?
Jorg – We got plane stats from pilots and mechanics and they are as authentic as we can make them.
David – regarding races, everyone will have the same performance, but as soon as you play in trial or free flight, you’ll have the exact same plane as in real life. Keep in mind that each plane is different.
Will aircraft to aircraft crash detection de added?
David – Yes, it’s the case in RENO. If 2 players crash into each other, we have a ‘back on track’ feature allowing them to continue the race.
If users don’t have the extra models, will they still see then or generic aircraft?
David – Even if you haven’t purchased the plane, you’ll see them in the menu. If you play against players who have different plane that you don’t own, you’ll still be able to see them. The only restriction is that you won’t be able to play with it.
Will the race timing functionality also be released as part of the SDK for the use by developers?
Jorg – That’s our goal, but for the beginning it might not be enough robust to do so.
Will the Reno DLC be multi-player only, or will you be able to race against AI?
David – No, there is no AI in RENO, the intent is to focus on the competitive aspect with real players.
Can mods and 3rd party planes be used for Reno races?
Jorg – Longer term, that’s the goal
Is there private matchmaking in RENO air races?
David – It wasn’t the intent initially because we wanted to have as many people in the lobby, but yes, we will probably add custom game modes. However, this won’t be the case for release.
Are going to be able to spectate races?
David – It’s not the case right now but it will be part of future content we may add to this game mode.
Seb - Helicopters – The goal with helicopters is to make these tiny little surfaces being able to move very fast. On a propeller, for instance, a surface can do several spins in one frame.
We started simulating that.
Helicopter plates have several different effects.
Jorg – Chinese localization – It’s going to be done for January and delivered in February.
Jorg - Replay functionality – We are going to use the same tool as out video team is using, and this is part of Sim Update 7 (November 18th). We are going to improve the UI and UX over time.
Jorg - DX12 – It’s coming
Jorg – Scenery Getaway system – Asobo will hire somebody
Jorg – Glider, Sailplane – We have picked up partner that will be announced for the next Q&A
Jorg - Disappointing Mountain Terrain – As mentioned before, this is related to the quality of DATA we get and we’ve planned out the next 2 years for world updates and I’m optimistic that we’ll get some data from 1 to 3 meter range. It’s currently 30 meters range which would explain the rounded aspect. As we do World Updates, it’s going to be better and better.
Jorg – AIG – Now that we have more time, this is something we are going to do.
Seb – Shared cockpit – We’ve been working on RENO multiplayer feature lately. Shared cockpit will benefit from this but no update on this topic for today.
David - Ability to change Meteorological Visibility on VR – It’s something we are working on. You will see great improvement on this side.
Seb – Vegetation Render Distance slider – It’s been on the Sim, if you go to options and go into vegetation, there low/medium/high/ultra, that’s the vegetation render distance. Maybe the question is can we go further than ultra? Ultra means everything we can do at maximum capability. We trying to push it further and further.
Timestamp New development Partner
Andrei Tsvirenko from ATSimulations – Antonov announcement
Jorg – This new aircraft is also the start of a new serie of aircraft “Famous Flyers”. Aircraft from these series will come out for Sim Updates. Famous Flyer are fascinating planes (largest/fatest and so on).
The estimated price is 15$, we are trying to be as friendly as possible when it comes to prices.
Jorg – Manuals – Simmers like the checklist system but would like to have traditional manuals. My goal is to deliver this. We don’t know when yet.
Can you update us on the status of the issue where avionics go black after a long flight mostly on the Xbox Series X|S?
Seb – We posted a message on this on the website. What we found is that several root causes can result in having the black avionics issue. One is Xbox related, it’ most likely linked to a memory leak. When the system runs out of memory it shuts down the glass cockpit.
There was an issue on planes where the starter button doesn’t automatically turn off and drains the battery. If there’s no battery, avionics go black.
The other issue comes from some external devices.
There are maybe some other issues but for now we are looking at these 3 issues mentioned.
Will we ever get cirrus clouds and other types of cloud formations?
Seb – Cirrus clouds are high altitude clouds; they can take any form and shape. You can already set you own cirrus clouds using the cloud preset. Clouds shapes are infinite.
In the future, our plan is to improve anything related to sky and clouds. We are going to introduce more options.
David – It’s part of the improvement for the weather.
There is shine/shimmering on buildings and trees. What have you found out about this issue?
Seb – We found one issue. If you increase the render scale, it tends to reduce a little bit. Basically, the lower the render scale the more you see it but you’ll see it anyway.
Xbox liveries - Do we plan on adding more in the future?
Jorg – Yes
Will the terrain shifting, and morphing be investigated or fixed?
Seb – As mentioned, it’s all related on data and location. In the longer term we could improve this so it’s not that abrupt.
Jorg – Our goal is to have the best DEM representation of the planet you can get.
Why do we have outdated Bing Maps?
Jorg - It depends on what do you mean with ‘Bing Maps’. There are 3 things, TIN cities, Areal, DEM data.
3D cities: We are congruent with what they have. There are some cities that we have that are on Flight Sim and not on Bing map and vice versa. There will be a time when Bing will have some cities that we don’t have yet on Flight Sim, and some work will need to be done to those cities to work in MSFS (tree removal/Watermask/Color correction).
On the DEM side, Bing team need is not necessarily the same as our. Therefore, we are building this new team now on the Flight Sim side. Also, Bing map is 2,5D, we are 3D and some extra work needs to be done.
Will AI and live traffic be further developed by Asobo or will you let other devs help with it?
Seb – Martial would be the best person to answer this question – Live traffic goes through a similar system to multiplayer planes. I know that they work on improving missing data as wee need to augment the data to be able to display planes sometimes. It can be a piece of trajectory missing on AI live traffic.
Jorg – Flight Aware has a bunch of live data and we are currently not displaying all flights which is something the team is looking into. We talked about the actual meshes which we are virtually building and that we call our library of ‘passive planes’. We need to be careful of not impacting our Framerate. Imagine an international airport with all the different planes there. It needs to be carefully done. Models are being made; livery contracts are being signed with airlines. It will take time and we don’t want to rush.