I think this is hardly warranted. To be super fair, our position was always that the sim was already capable of doing most of what you needed to make study level instruments, and we were able to work extremely well to show that was the case with the CJ4. Our opportunity was created because we wholly embraced the new way of working, which does, unfortunately, include a sandboxed environment. I agree with you that our G1000 is not finished (although it does use the native flight plan and AP, so it actually does sync up with the sim nav data and has no database of its own), but we’re also going to be using our learnings while building the next big version as takeaways for how to make a framework that leads people into the “pit of success” as I call it, where it is clear how to get great performance and work quickly.
I’m a huge fan of Jean-Luc, I’ve owned a number of RXP products over the years, it’s all really really great stuff! Me pointing out those architectural limitations isn’t an attempt to downplay the high quality that he has produced. Just pointing out that there are indeed other avenues for creating 1:1 recreations of those instruments that don’t involve those same architectural limitations, which may be worth considering and pursuing. Yes, the accuracy of the awesome RXP trainer based products is amazing, as are the technical achievements, but just because that specific way of working is not possible doesn’t mean that the same fidelity is not achievable via other means. And we’re happy to speak directly to Jean-Luc about his use cases so he can get his goals reached in ways that don’t require direct hardware or native code access.
My job with the MSFS team is absolutely to open the most doors possible for making development modern, easy, and streamlined with the fewest pitfalls. But part of that modernization is definitely a team focus on security, and so sometimes there are just going to have to be other ways of solutioning. That’s not me purposefully putting up walls to box out “competitors”, that’s just a reality of modern game addon design that we all have to deal with, myself included.
As an aside, you don’t have to speak with me long to hear me rue the lack of information sharing and high level of boxing out that is the standard in the FS third party community. My goal is to slowly erase those knowledge gaps and even the playing field for everyone, so that everyone from the two decades old study level gurus to the first time devs have the same opportunity to make something great for simmers. Yes, there will sometimes be non-negotiable limitations, but the goal is to make it possible to still achieve super awesome things even given those, for everybody and everyone.
-Matt | Working Title