Flight Sim Labs status update 2017

Via Flight Sim Labs is er weer een uitgebreide status update binnengekomen met veel informatie over de komende A320 release voor Prepar3D en over de verdere plannen voor 2017. Ook wordt er wat dieper ingegaan op de cockpit builder features. Lees direct hieronder het volledige persbericht:

I wanted to start this post by wishing you all a Happy New Year!

2016 has been a wonderful year for us at Flight Sim Labs as it was the year we finally released the A320-X for FSX. We wish to take a small moment to humbly thank you for the overwhelmingly supportive comments it has received and for the fact it’s now a candidate as the Best Aircraft add-on for 2016 (feel free to vote for us here: https://fselite.net/editorials/fselite-2016-user-awards/ ).

So let’s talk about what’s to come in 2017:

The next update in line for the A320-X for FSX (which should come very soon now) will feature several bug fixes (autoland flare and the MCDU freeze among the more significant pain points with the current release) as well as improvements in handling (the “sticky” comma key for using the tiller and rudder pedals with a single axis). Expect a more complete list with the update itself which is now in beta testing, as Andrew already discussed.

We’ll continue issuing more updates down the line, eventually reaching a large “Service Pack” update which will include some generally wanted missing functionality (detailed WINDS, SEC FPLN etc). We’re working on that as we speak, but to do that successfully, we’ve broken the tasks into smaller updates which fix bugs that you guys have identified, as well as improvements that you feel are necessary to enjoy the aircraft more or bring it in-line with customarily accepted “sim-isms” that might part with what happens in real life, but are helpful when the simmer is using the aircraft without all the necessary hardware that a line pilot has in the cockpit.

What about the P3D version?

Simultaneously with the testing of the FSX update, we’re also beta testing the A320-X for P3D. The main part of the work is done, there are no ‘major bugs’ remaining that are stalling the release currently on our end. A few of you have wondered why we have still not released it therefore, even though the FSX version has now been out for a few months. We are also a bit frustrated with this, however the reasons for the delay could be understood if you also visit the LM forums to notice what’s been going on with the latest v3.4 hotfix releases and the issues people are having with memory usage and DXGI_DEVICE errors. We feel that there are still some problems with the current version of P3D that is available and that until the good people at LM have had a chance to resolve those, we are hesitant to release a product only to start receiving complaints for situations which are not quite caused by our software. As such, we’re working closely with them to do everything in our power to help them identify and correct those bottlenecks. We’ll do our best to keep you updated with our progress on it.

What’s going on with the “cockpit builder” features?

We had the opportunity to meet with several hardware vendors during our Lelystad visit in November. All of them were very impressed with the quality and depth of the A320-X and were very eager to have our software drive their hardware (or vice versa?). We’ve had several discussions with the larger vendors and we are going to be providing interfaces to their hardware to allow such usage. Those interfaces will be available once we have the cockpit builder licensing ready and we expect that we can be providing hardware-specific add-on modules to our A320-X in collaboration with those vendors. So – if you are an interested vendor party or you are a customer who loves particular hardware, feel free to tell your vendor to contact us directly so we can discuss options.

We are also looking into interfacing for freeware vendors (such as LINDA) to allow communication with particular hardware supported by those solutions, but we haven’t yet decided the exact licensing specifics for this effort, so more to come on this, a bit later on.

“And the forum? I can’t easily find what I need there…”

We have already taken steps to improve the forum structure – you may have noticed we cleaned up our main A320-X support forum, moved helpful “readme first” topics into their own sub-forum and are working hard to further improve or even add some new support facilities. We’re examining several options to provide a more streamlined knowledge base as well as an open issue tracking system. You all know we’re a small team, so this might take a little longer than we’d like, but please be patient with us as we are doing our best to provide the best experience for everyone! The work continues!

Again – thank you all VERY much for your wonderful support in 2016 – we’re looking forward to better serving your simulation needs in 2017 and beyond!

Lefteris Kalamaras – Flight Sim Labs