Location Manager 2 for MSFS 2024 is Here!

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Exciting News! Location Manager 2 for MSFS is Here!

Hello Flight Simmers,

I’m happy to announce the release of Location Manager 2 for Microsoft Flight Simulator! This new version brings a host of exciting features designed to enhance your flight simulation experience.

Key Purposes of Location Manager 2 [V1.0]:

  • Location Management: Easily manage and organize your favorite flight locations
  • Rapid Takeoff/Landing Skills Training: Practice and perfect your takeoff and landing skills anywhere in the world.
  • World Discovery and Exploration: Explore new and exciting locations with ease. Use the dedicated flight mode map interface to scout interesting locations for activities on the fly. Multiple map sources and types, with expansion to OpenAIP and Bingmaps via your own API keys
  • Export/Import of saved locations. Share your favorite locations in specialized lists. Storage limit from 200 to 1000.

Location Manager 2 works well with the new EFB app, both handling different tasks that complement each other in the area of skills training and world discovery.

For more details on these features, check out the tips section on our Location Manager 2 project site Location Manager 2 for MSFS 2024 - Sonicviz . You can also view various screenshots illustrating these features.

I’ve got some great ideas planned for future updates as MSFS 2024 delivers on the vision it has set, as the SDK unlocks new features and possibilities.

Why the Rewrite? Due to the file locking policy introduced in MSFS 2024, I had to rewrite Location Manager 2 to enable core map selection functionality of Airports in the MSFS database, ensure compatibility, and optimal performance. This rewrite allows me to provide you with a smoother and more reliable experience, taking full advantage of the new capabilities in MSFS 2024.

I hope you enjoy using Location Manager 2 as much as I enjoyed creating it.

Blue skies and Happy flying!

Best regards, The Sonicviz Team ( of 1, wearing many hats)

Feel free to share your thoughts and feedback with us via the official support form at the bottom of the page at Location Manager 2 for MSFS 2024 - Sonicviz.

We look forward to hearing from you!

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While I am happy for you as a team…I am probably not the only one saddened by the fact that every time you come out and show your customers something new. The perspective (our perspective) is it will never get used while all your half completed new 2024 aircraft and now all the grounded 3rd party aircraft got their engines pulled.

I really am sad that your resources and focus might be misplaced. I was 71 last week…Please…I don’t have much time left. :wink:

~Mike

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I’m not sure what you mean here. As far as I can tell it has nothing to do with my OP at all.

I’m a team of 1 (didn’t you read my joke?) and I have no affiliation with either Microsoft or Asobo in the aircraft production line.

I’m a solo independent developer and don’t produce aircraft, I’m focused on usability improvements for using available aircraft to explore and learn about this digital twin of Earth, whether it’s the 2020 or 2024 version.

I tested extensively against many of the 2024 standard edition aircraft and while some crashed there are more than enough for great flight experiences, even with the sim in its current state.

And that’s coming from someone who has been experiencing 3 or 4 CTD’s or total system freezes while A DAY for a month+ develop a working addon for MSFS 2024.

Location Manager 2 is the next generation of my MSFS 2020 addon, which is referenced here: Aircraft Manager Pro + Location Manager Pro now available - #158 by Sonicviz

Location Manager 2 is also backward compatible to MSFS 2020, so you can immediately use it there for as long as you wish to use MSFS 2020 and then transfer your saved data to MSFS 2024 if and when you deem it suitable.

You’re also not that much older than me, I started programming on punched cards and COBOL, which are ancient computing history now. Computing has come a long way, and over that same timeframe MSFS has always pushed technical boundaries. Could they have done the 2024 release better? Sure. Should they have? Double sure. But it is what it is now, so you have to roll with the punches, and find what works for now. And I assure you, it does, in some spots.

As to time left, none of us know how long we have left, no matter what age you are. Sadly, a lot of people have unfortunately found that out the last few years, especially since the advent of covid and the newest generation of highly lethal kinetic warfare afflicting the globe.

So, a matter of perspective. You have options. MSFS 2020 isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and MSFS 2024 will improve as time goes on.
Enjoy either one, for however long you can, in the best way possible, is my advice.

Flightsimming is a great activity to participate in for many reasons, from relaxation to real world reinforcement learning (procedural, mainly) to education about the history and bleeding edge of aviation. Many people don’t even have that opportunity, so I advise focusing on the aspects that work (and many do, if you make the right choices) and avoid (for now) the aspects which are not quite there yet.

Location Manager 2 is designed to help you do that, whichever version you wish to use.

Blues Skies and Happy Flying.

PS: I’m also still using an RTX 2060, so on that we agree! A great workhorse of a GPU, and can still run MSFS 2024 on medium if you can find the magic NVidia driver settings combination😉

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Interesting. But can I enter an ICAO to jump to a new location on the map and then teleport? Or do I have to navigate the map by mouse dragging, zooming out, zooming in, drag around some more and zooming in to final? Thx

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Good question.

Doing a general ICAO search is not in this version, though I already have it on my todo list to look into. Even the EFB doesn’t do a full ICAO search. Last time I tested it a couple of days ago I noted it won’t search for heliports, for example, only airports.

I know there is an ICAO search function I can hook into in the Avionics framework (the same one the EFB uses, with same issue I suspect), but I haven’t tested it yet, hence todo list. If that works, I’ll add that in, and you can either add it to the grid or just show it on the map to TP there. No timeline on that atm as I want to get a couple of weeks feedback on the current release to triage any issues, but it’s on the top of the todo list.

The Location Manager workflow atm moment is to save your target ICAO’s to the grid as a saved location, which is a one-time activity for a group of ICAO’s you want to work with. Sure, you need to find it, but generally you already know where the ICAO you are searching for is, and moving around the map isn’t as onerous as you make it sound. Different base maps also give more in overlays than the MSFS map, so it’s more functional for exploring and discovering new ICAO’s or airports that don’t exist in the MSFS database (via the OpenAIP overlay).

Once you save a location, you can use the grid’s filter on ICAO column to search for specific ICAO (or just sort on ICAO column and scroll to it) and then just click the alt cell to load it into the map, which will auto pop open the tp panel.

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Thank you for the details! To search only airports and not helipads would be fine for me. For a specific heliport you could also use a nearby Airport ICAO and go from there which would still be quicker.

I would frequently want (need) to jump to a new airport that most of the time would not be saved yet. A tool like this would save the trouble of the menu surfing in order to get to that new location. Like Escape - End Flight - Are you sure? - Free Flight - Enter ICAO there - Select Spot - Start and Start Flight finally. A quicker way of doing this would be very cool.

Not a big fan of mouse dragging though. I forgot to mention resizing the map window in that process, to see enough of the target area. ICAO search is best I would imagine - can keep the map window small and just enter the four letters to get there on the map and then teleport with two clicks probably. :slightly_smiling_face:

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No problem, I understand.

I would frequently want (need) to jump to a new airport that most of the time would not be saved yet.

Could you elaborate a little more on this need and why?
Just out of interest, I like to understand the problem context being solved.

Thanks,

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Sure. It has to do with Career Mode and a second PC I use for Flatscreen Ambience in the room while the flying is in VR on the 1st PC.

So, the second PC needs to ‘follow’ to that new location all the time for the big screen ambience between the flights - like when taking a break and doing other stuff the 1st PC can stay in the Career Mode Interface for example while the 2nd PC shows rotating camera of current location on big screen.

Maybe it makes sense a little bit. There are a few technical reasons why the first PC cannot do both.

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Interesting, thanks for the insight. I love to hear the different ways people use the sim!

tl;dr: ICAO search is top of the todo list so stay tuned for results of that investigation asap.

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Awesome! Thank you. Any idea how long that discount will be on? I probably looking to buy within two, three weeks or something.

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I’m thinking 2 weeks at the moment.

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.removed 10 ch

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Doesn’t seem to actually demonstrate features? Seemed to me just to be reading a feature list with a screen active, not what I was expecting. I prefer to read feature lists as text.

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It’s a short video explainer of the benefits/features, nothing more, as stated in the post above aka “Short video explainer”. It’s not a tutorial.

There’s an extensive tips section on the website that walks through each main function, and it also has inbuilt help if you want to access it in game.

A dozen screenshots on the website also illustrate different use cases/settings.

I’ve done a full ~40 minute tutorial before and <20% watch more than 10 minutes. Perhaps I just need to do a 10-minute tutorial instead or do it more engagingly, but then most people will bug out after 2.5 minutes going by the stats, so I’d need to make it even shorter😂 (j/k)

This time I opted for more in app help/tips, users can discover how to use it their own way. Text help is quicker to refer to anyway if you need a quick reference or refresher, and also easier to expand/update in real time.

All that said, if enough people want me to do one, I’ll do one, but current users seem aok with it so far.

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Hello, it’s compatible with career mode? thanks.

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Unfortunately, MicroSobo have disabled all toolbar apps (aside from efb I think) from being used in Career mode (and Discovery), and there’s nothing I can do about that at the moment. It’s similar to how they’ve locked the UI and planes down from modification. (and also blocked simconnect teleport now)

People should lobby them them to allow a quick play or creative career mode that people can play unlocked with all available toolbar apps. It’s single player game after all, people should be able to play how they like.

Personally I’m not touching career mode until it does.

As to Location Manager 2, you could explore more in Freeflight.
Set your own goals, make your own decisions, explore a virtual world without the constraints of game design issues that just frustrate you until they address them.
Fly free, like a bird.

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Is Location Manager 2 fully compatible with msfs 2020?

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13/1/2024:
Due to a recent MSFS 2020 update breaking Map resize functionality in LM2, I can no longer guarantee MSFS 2020 compatibility for Location Manager 2. It was my intent to support both sims to allow an easy transition while MSFS 2024 stabilised, but this recent breaking change has also broken my capacity, and patience, to be able to do this. I have no idea what they’ve done, why, or if they will reverse it. I’m puzzled why they even released an update that breaks this stable functionality.

As a result, from this point on Location Manager 2 is now only officially compatible with MSFS 2024.

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Update:

Release Notes

Location Manager 2 Release Notes 1.0.1
Date: 13/01/2024

  • Added ICAO Search
  • Fixed issues with grid name/tags/notes input and keyboard bindings [except for backspace, which is an MSFS bug. Unbind it]

Location Manager 2 Release Notes 1.0.0
Date: 10/12/2024

  • Initial Release for MSFS 2024/2020
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I do have a question regarding the:
Training Aid: Train for takeoffs and landings by setting specific positions, heights, and speeds for practice sessions. Visualize the chosen pattern & start position on the map.
Does this mean that i can make my own pattern/circuit visible on the map? At this moment the circuit of my home airfield is incorrect and i would like to train the right circuit/pattern.