That’s certainly not ideal. Relying on developers to make a proxy aircraft and have people download them. But it was something a developer could do now. Maybe it’d catch on, maybe not. But if it did start catching on then Asobo could take steps to aggregate and distribute them, include them in the base sim data, etc.
Ideally when an aircraft reached visible range the aircraft being flown would “broadcast” it’s model. But with textures and such, that could really tax bandwidth and drag cpu on the broadcasting PC.
The only practical thing is for Asobo to take all the aircraft it puts in the Marketplace into the sim data as “seen” aircraft. And freeware obviously people could just download any aircraft they want to be able to see while flying.
Until that time, the only option I see is for devs to make a free version for people who want to see, but not fly an aircraft.
The very least would be to improve the model matching rules. Two friends were flying in a tail dragger (purchased through the market place) but show up in my view are nose wheel aircraft with “strange” attitude. The default X-Cub model would have been a much better match.
Redesigning the model matching priorities (1. MTOW, 2. Gear config 3. Engine config 4. Wing config) would help while we are waiting for a better solution such as described by the OP.
Wait until the Xbox release and the backfire online, then, maybe, this idea will be taken seriously! In the meantime this is quite depressing isn’t it?
Hopefully someone with good knowledge might be helpful to me? I fly in a small group in multiplayer and we have installed the same pay-ware aircraft. The problem is that we can only see each other’s exterior lights only, no airframe! If we buy outside of the marketplace we don’t get any problems. Is this a glitch or similar problem with model matching 3rd parties above in this topic?
It should be simple for MSFS to stream the medium LoD models and textures of third-party planes. This is not a hard problem to solve and they already stream tons of world data to you. So why not stream also the planes?
Anyway I dunno if MSFS devs read this but if they do, then yo, get 'er done, or the ghost of Chuck Yeager will haunt your dreams!
I see a lot of potential in this platform, and I’m really enjoying it so far. Besides the lack of socialization options right now, the one thing that seems to be a huge flaw to me is how someone won’t see you in your plane you’ve purchased from the in-game store, unless they have also purchased that plane.
A lot of people like to roleplay and have fun with these sorts of games. Maybe they just want to know how others are viewing their character. At least for me, if I pay a very generous price for a jet, I want others to see me flying it. I buy the plane because it’s cool and interests me and I want others to see that and know that aspect of my personality. What I don’t want is to be seen as some generic plane because they haven’t bought the specific plane yet.
I don’t understand the issue here against implementing this. Here’s a solution I propose:
1.) Implement a ‘display nearby third-party aircraft’ option in the graphics menu. If you don’t want the model permanently cached on the user’s PC (to help prevent against stealing it), you could encrypt it or just clear those models when the user signs off. The user gets to choose between downloading a tiny amount of extra content for a more rich and varied experience, or maintaining a smaller disk space. This gives them that choice. If this has not been implemented to prevent stealing assets, I think some basic encryption would “keep honest people honest” as they say, which is all you can really hope for with software. Anyone willing to deal with circumventing encryption to fly a $20 plane is probably going to get their hands on it either way.
2.) This would also encourage more sales of add-ons from the ingame store. As it stands, there’s not much incentive to actually buy a plane from the store when you can get ones elsewhere for free of equal/higher quality sometimes. If someone can’t be certain (and knows it’s unlikely that) other players will see them represented how they want to be seen as a pilot, in that plane they love and purchased, why even buy it if there’s alternatives?
By allowing us to see models of planes purchased in the ingame store, even if we have not purchased it ourselves yet, not only will we increase customer satisfaction as a whole (more varied experience, buyers more satisfied with how they can represent themselves ingame), we’ll make the marketplace more relevant and meaningful to use, and encourage new creators and purchases.
At this point, I would even pay for a 3rd party add-on that has simplified 3d models of the planes released by 3rd party developers. Of course, a solution from Asobo would be optimal, but I am afraid this is low on their priority list (like 2022 low).
I’ve updated the OP with direct links to some of the posts in order to further detail some of the recommendations and to list new ones. I’ve add more over time to keep this topic current, thank you for contributing!
@Severeeno
We shouldn’t have to come to this. Microsoft has the server resources to automatically generate lower poly models from the source, in a very convincing and efficient way. They have also purchased a company specialized in this technology a few years back and they could use this ( https://www.simplygon.com/ ).
In general I have found a trend with anything Microsoft is that their game seldom offer the means to customize much of the graphics/text parts, and I believe this is a very conservative measure intended to prevent anyone from abusing this with “visually offending” material… I’m certain this is also the reason you can’t add a “clan” prefix to your Gamertag. I’d tend to believe the main problem is not technical nor resources at all.
@Kaedewulf
This feature wouldn’t pose a threat at all regarding piracy. It would stream lower poly count models for visual purposes only, which means they are just looking alike from a certain distance and don’t have to be to the same level of details even up close. The MP models just have to conserve the shape aspects and specific details relevant for the aircraft. These won’t be flyable aircraft and the model won’t have any cockpit but just the parts which are visible, with no gauges.
This is why it can be automated by default on Azure or whatever certainly in a very effective fashion from the source model. But this is also why I believe in making this by default automatic, it will be the best way to entice 3rd party aircraft vendors to also build their own MP models to replace the automatic one, because in doing so, they can portray their aircraft which others can purchase from the market place in the best shape they deem minimum and attractive, yet with minimal content so that it can’t be used or moded as a fully flying aircraft!
This pic with the short caption perfectly demonstrates the issue. It should be made a meme at this point. Can anyone make a meme? I’ll be using it to draw more attention to this.
A inbuild updater for liveries that search for the most usual liveries for Airliner and GA aircraft and the newest and most popular Aircraft skins createted by the forum automatically. The accurate Livery would be shown then for every user equal on every airport and in the sky’s.
For example,
Actually someone spawn with a Lufthansa Livery next to me on the Airport. I need the Lufthansa Livery too to make the right Livery of the other user next to me visible. But the most of us don’t have every Skin on stock in the Community folder.
In my opinion it’s necessary on Multiplayer that every user have the same Livery package on stock that shows the accurate Livery of al users.
And hey… It’s just nice and more realism to see all the nice liveries around the world flying or landing on Multiplayer and not just a white or manufacturer Body
Greetings Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 Germany Facebook Group
I was googling for an answer to this issue and google brought me here. I straight away vote after treading the post. As seen in the picture I’ve been buzzed by a propeller airplane doing mach 1 or 2
Stream all the MODS in real-time to clients as they are within visible range of another player who is using that mod!
All MSFS2020 Clients can see all mods in existence (mods such as airports and planes would be streamed in realtime like the photogrammetry data, so local storage is not necessary on clients end), but only those who paid can use the payware mods!
Modders both freeware and payware would get so much more exposure if everyone can see their mods in action in the SIM, and if it’s payware, then those Players would have go to the marketplace to pay the payware modders to actually use them.
Example: Landing at some random airport, a player see’s a PMDG 737 they can actually see it and watch it fly around, but if they actually want to use it, they would have to go to the main menu and select the pay option to open access to using that Addon aircraft!
