PT6A posted:

I think this is pretty positive news, but watching it is going to reveal a lot about Asobo and what we can expect in the future. If this integration goes well and is productive, I think we can be very enthusiastic about future potential with other groups as well. If not, I don't think it represents a huge loss over what we have now, but definitely a huge loss over what might have been.

i am kiss u now posted:

i am kiss u now posted:

I'm actually part of this team (not the core developers) but I'll give a quick rundown of what's actually happening.

- Working Title is made up of about 15 members, all volunteers (until recently). Some are real-world pilots (like myself), some are software engineers, and others are just enthusiasts.

- The 5 core members, the founders, the software engineers, developers, coders, whatever you want to refer to them as, basically formed an LLC.

- Microsoft (not Asobo) has contracted them to develop content for the base sim based on the work they have done with the CJ4, Garmins and their own SDK. They will be working closely with Asobo and other partners but not for them. What Microsoft and Asobo are most interested in are much of the core systems of these mods such as the flight plan manager, VNAV, chart integration and so on. The goal is for Working Title to develop out these systems, along with a few others, and the SDK, to slowly bring into the base game of MSFS. Microsoft wants to provide base users with a better experience while also providing a more robust and complete platform for third-party developers to more easily integrate complex avionics systems into their products. Carenado is often used because while their visuals are fantastic, and flight models ok, their avionics are quite often poor, at least the more complex systems. They don't have a specialized person on their team versed in the technical aspects of core avionics development like Working Title has so, the end goal is to provide companies like them with easier access to a develop a more complete product.

- The CJ4 and all the other mods will continue to be developed and open source for now. That said, down the road, some of the development may have to go into a closed group because now we're dealing with base simulation, beta versions and all that stuff that requires NDAs. This however, will not prevent anyone from doing exactly like they have, forking a branch from the github or starting their own CJ4 enhancement development. As far as I understand it, they will never become "premium products" or be encrypted.

- The integration into the sim will probably be a slow process at first that will take some time while they get all set up and integrated into the development team. Not all of the features found in the current version of some of the mods will be able to be brought into the core simulation for a number of reasons. Anything that is brought into the base game will obviously at the mercy of Microsoft but they seemed pretty open to what they're doing so far.

- The rest of the team, everyone but the 5 actual employees, will stay on and keep doing what we do, contributing in small ways and testing. They are really serious about keeping things the way they are but also have expressed a desire to subcontract anyone who is interested in future work on projects and paying them for their contributions, which is cool.

In the end, this only serves to benefit the greater community and developers alike as their work has proven to be top notch. They're a really dedicated and highly talented group of individuals and they're very excited to be able to access the core of the simulation and get paid for doing what they really love.

quote:

Hello everyone,

We wanted to give you all an update on what’s going on with the production of the Alpha Flight Controls and the Bravo Throttle Quadrant. First of all, we want to apologize to the many of you who still haven’t been able to purchase our products due to lack of inventory. We are producing at max capacity but are facing several problems which are impacting availability:

-The whole electronics industry is facing severe component shortages and we are especially hard hit as some of our components now have a lead time of 6 – 7 months. We originally had a backup inventory of those long lead time components but that has been depleted as well which means that our production schedule is dependent on when we get replenishments from our suppliers.

-There is an extreme shortage of container availability
from Asia as well which means that we sometimes have to wait several weeks for availability to ship products to our resellers.

We have allocated some of our inventory to ship directly to customers from Hong Kong and only charge 30% of the actual FedEx cost to our customers, but they are sold out almost as quickly as we make them available in our shop.

With that being said, shipments are on their way to our resellers, and we will have more units available to purchase very soon. We are truly thankful for your continued support and hope you continue to fly with us.

Anime Store Adventure posted:

Just a quick FYI too, though, that the honeycomb stuff has switches that are “always on” which currently creates a bug in MSFS where you can only adjust autopilot knobs by 10 for heading and 1000 for altitude.

There are workarounds but ultimately Asobo has said they need a fix (which they have ready, allegedly) but keep delaying it. It’s tough because while it’s not a game breaking bug, it’s annoying to take my flights from “several times a week” to “eh maybe I’ll fly today.” My perfect zen garden of a sim must not have any imperfections.

That said that’s about the only consolation I can give anyone hunting for honeycomb stuff as a downside - I’m super thrilled with both the alpha and bravo even though moving from a Rhino HOTAS I’ve had to more or less relearn how to fly smoothly.

No Mods No Masters posted:

Do you guys think a warthog hotas will ever sell for msrp again? Has it become a mythical lost price from the before times

PT6A posted:

Is that a bug with the Honeycomb though? I know with the TBM, it's just like "gently caress you, heading in increments of 10" and with the Baron, it seems to be perfectly fine to adjust one degree at a time using the mousewheel. It's a mixed blessing because gently caress me does it take forever to rotate the heading bug through 180 degrees, and you'll zoom absurdly far out 17 times in the process.

And speaking of "workarounds for flawed peripherals and/or simulators", to use the logitech throttle quadrants and have reverse thrust, what you must do is map the "click backward" (it functions as a button) to "decrease throttle". It's not perfect but it's probably the best you'll get.

Anime Store Adventure posted:

I think it’s not specific to the honeycomb but any peripherals that use that same sort of control where it’s always “held” or whatever. I saw some posts reporting it with I think the new Thrustmaster stuff? I forget.

PT6A posted:

In regards to the autopilot setting, which is what I assume you're talking about, my question is: does it depend on the aircraft? Because different aircraft, even among the default set, behave differently regardless of whether you're using a peripheral or not.

Zero One posted:

Not sure if it's been posted before but if you want to learn the A320 and especially the FBW mod this guy does some great tutorials: https://youtube.com/user/filanjix

I went from knowing nothing about the Airbus to flying like an expert in just a few videos.

Wolfy posted:

I can basically fly a real airbus now, right?

Merv Burger posted:

Meanwhile, I've been flying the FlyByWire A320 Neo and it's been fine?

Wolfy posted:

Say what you want about the cockpit, the plane works.

Zero One posted:

Yeah the FBW has been a lot of fun for me recently. Even with the sometimes (most times) bad ATC in the game you can still use the mod to fix most other issues.

I just wish they could do one for the 787. I love that big bird but the in game version is so simple compared to the FBW. Looks like the mod for that plane died because it's an encrypted file in the game. Very sad.

They are working on a A380. I hope they can add the A321 and A350 eventually too.

Combat Pretzel posted:

Yeah, some FBW 787 would be nice. Then again, the sole reason I keep flying it over the A320 is because I think the Airbus cockpits look pretty terrible. At least the A320 one, the A380 is somewhere in between. The teal certainly doesn't help.

As far as IFR and FBW goes, they've been implementing their own version of various game supplied functionality. It probably works better because of that.

And regarding the A380, I sure hope that teaser on Twitter wasn't just blowing their load too early, because on their Discord, you don't get any info or even loose timeframe, other than "when it's ready".

Merv Burger posted:

I know that Project Mega Pack (the people that make a ton of free liveries,) has a freeware A321 available. I don't know how well it interacts with the FBW 320 Neo, though.

They also have a freeware A330 available and there's a mod that makes the FBW A320 Neo work with it.

Steadiman posted:

I'd love an FBW 787! That plane is the reason I got the deluxe version and I'm so dissapointed in it. The cockpit looks absolutely fantastic though, it's a really nice place to be.Some people have made custom cockpit textures for the A320 though, there's a nice black/beige one that I've been enjoying. It really does make the Airbus cockpit a much more pleasant environment to be in. It's of course not realistic but I don't really care.

FBW also redid the cockpit textures, at least in the dev version, but I'm not a big fan of what they did. They added things like baked in shadows (I guess to simulate ambient occlusion?) and it just looks awful, way too exagerated. Also they bumped up the normal mapping on a bunch of textures and it's starting to remind me of older X-Plane cockpits now where you had to cheat things like that to get around the engine limitations. PBR textures should not have drawn in light shading/shadows nowadays anyway, the engine takes care of that and it looks "off" if the light isn't just right.

Zero One posted:

I saw on the FBW Discord they are still tweaking the textures.