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Matt McGee

Orbx Team
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Everything posted by Matt McGee

  1. My phone's news feed just had an article from FSELETE saying that FSA Flight Simulation Association is hosting a livestream interview with Orbx and Laminar Research. I don't know if they will talk about a roadmap or not and I don't really know anything about FSELETE or FSA, but the article said the following: “X-Plane creator Austin Meyer will be joined by Orbx CEO Anna Cicognani and Sante Sottile, Orbx’s Community Manager. The 90-minute interview will cover the latest X-Plane 12 news and find out more about what it takes to develop scenery and aircraft add-ons in the popular and versatile X-Plane platform.” The live interview will take place on July 16th 2022 at 21:00 UTC and will see the group discussing what the future holds for the next generation of X-Plane. As you will have seen from our extensive Dev Deep Dive series, there’s a lot to unpack about X-Plane 12. I'm just a beta tester and the only info about future plans that I know about is in this thread started by the Orbx CEO.
  2. I don't know anything about future plans, but Orbx's TrueEarth scenery sure does make a huge improvement to XP11 and I too would like to see ID, UT, & CO get the TrueEarth treatment. I don't see any TrueEarth products for XP11 listed in the "What we are working on - 2022" posted back in February. (Just YBBN and KBUR for XP11.) There are six months left in 2022, but there are also quite a few of the listed products still pending. XP11: YBBN and KBUR MSFS: YMML, YBCG, YMLT, NZNV, LIPB, LIPH, ENGM, unnamed aircraft. P3D: KPBI, OpenLC Asia, TE Eastern Alps (Hope I didn't miss any announced products.) I would be a bit surprised to see an unannounced TE scenery area get released. They are a lot of work and can take a lot of time to test, so I would assume they would be part of the master plan. An extra airport from one of the indie developers wouldn't surprise me as much, but they are still a lot of work too. Again, no insider info here, I'm just looking at the named "working on" products, the pace of the releases so far, and the time left in 2022. I am also curious about what will happen to the pace of XP11 scenery development with XP12 in the works. (I haven't been following the progress on XP12.) Whenever there is a major change to a sim, especially one that requires paying for the new version, you can't tell what is going to happen. Will old scenery work in the new sim? If yes, customers can keep buying scenery, but if no, some may stop buying until the new sim is released. How many people will make the switch to the new version? If lots of users stick with the old version, there could be demand for the old scenery for some time. If everyone quickly switches to the new version, and if it is incompatible with the old, demand for the old scenery could dry up quickly. I'm sure the developers would love to know what we crazy customers are going to do!
  3. Unless I'm missing something, there is one set of "Default" bindings, period. Each default aircraft does not get its own set of "default" bindings. This is not a case of people complaining to Asobo about control bindings for third party aircraft. It applies to their own default aircraft as well. I don't know about anyone else, but when I fly the default A320 vs the default C172, I'd like to have different bindings for some of my limited number of controller buttons. It isn't the end of the world to have to go the controller menu and individually select your saved bindings for each controller whenever you change aircraft. It is just inconvenient. Just like needing to reselect my favorite aircraft liveries and weight & balance/fuel load when I load a flight. Not the end of the world, but it sure would be nice to be able to save your favorite configurations for each aircraft and have them load automatically. DCS has had separate key binding automatically applied to different aircraft for over a decade. Frankly, Asobo should have included this ability from the start IMHO.
  4. To quote Chevy Chase, "I was told there would be no math."
  5. I'd like to see Cairo airport get developed. For VFR flyers, it would be a nice place to start from to look at the pyramids. For those that like longer flights, it would be a good stop between some of the Orbx European airports and their Dubai scenery. I wonder how difficult it would be for a developer to get good access to the airport to get all the photos needed to develop the scenery?
  6. Orbx has a dedicated "Orbx Release Announcements" sub-forum so you can see what products they have released or updated. It looks to me like they have a constant stream of new scenery and updates being released. I've certainly been busy beta testing.
  7. Yes, openLC North America covers North America. BradB is correct that both openLC and TrueEarth products can be installed at the same time and TE will automatically take priority. Just FYI, FSX and P3D scenery is made up of separate layers that stack on top of each other to make the complete scenery that you see. The Global openLC User Guide has a good explanation with images. (You can access it from the product page on OrbxDirect.) https://Orbx-user-guides.storage.googleapis.com/Orbx-global-openlc-northamerica-user-guide-449757.pdf Global openLC is replacing the default Landclass layer. TrueEarth products use photoreal imagery instead of a LC map and painted textures. They also include distinct textures and autogen for their coverage areas.
  8. The flashing green and white light is an airport beacon. EICK BCN.mp4 Looking at the airfield diagram for EICK, it looks like the actual position of the beacon should be on top the control tower, not on the terminal. The star indicates the location and "ABN FL W/G" means Airport Beacon, Flashing, White/Green. FYI, military airfields have a green / double white beacon. (This is MSFS default RAF Lakenheath.) EGUL BCN.mp4
  9. I'm just a tester and not on the Orbx staff, but I've seen the same sort of question asked in the past. Orbx is dependent on the developers to provide them with updates to their products. There is some inherent delay due to the software needing to be provided to Orbx, configured and uploaded to the servers, and tested to make sure it works. I think you'll find the same delays on other marketplaces too, including the MSFS marketplace. I have also heard that some developers release updates on their own sites first and delay providing them to other marketplaces as a way to encourage people to purchase directly from their own web stores. I have no idea if Big Radials does this, but I wouldn't hold it against any developer for wanting to promote their own stores. I have no idea what the timeline for Goose update is, but it probably won't take too long. The Goose looks like a nice plane.
  10. I just downloaded the airport and the companion airshow scenery. Wow!
  11. Your trivia for today. When the seasons start depends on who you ask. Astronomical seasons start at the equinox and solstice dates. - Winter begins on the winter solstice. - Spring begins on the spring equinox. - Summer begins on the summer solstice. - Fall begins on the fall equinox. Meteorological seasons start on arbitrary dates. - 1 December, winter starts. (Summer in the southern hemisphere) - 1 March, spring starts. (Fall in southern hemisphere) - 1 June, summer starts. (Winter in southern hemisphere) - 1 September, fall starts. (Spring in the southern hemisphere) Various countries and culture use other dates too. Some arbitrary and others based on nature. I think Ireland starts "Spring" on 1 February (St. Brigid's Day). Iceland celebrates the "First Day of Summer" on the first Thursday after April 18th. Some people use holidays. For instance in the USA some people consider Memorial Day as the start of summer and Labor Day as the start of fall. Some places use the date that certain temperatures are first reached or when agricultural events are started (planting, harvesting). Some parts of the word use different seasons entirely. Southeast Asia uses Dry, Hot, and Wet seasons. When I lived in Panama as a kid, I think we just used Wet and Dry.
  12. I'd love to see all the airports that Orbx has done in the PNW for P3D also developed for MSFS! In P3D, it is fantastic to have such a high density of quality Orbx GA airports in a region since it gives you a lot of options. If you a pressed for time, you can take very short flights between many Orbx airports, like Jefferson County - Diamond Point, or Anacortes - Orcas, or Sekiu - Sequim. If you have more time, you can just add more add more airports to your flight plan. Friday Harbor - Orcas - Skagit - Israel's Farm - Concrete - Darrington - Harvey - Monroe. You can also choose to have longer legs between more distant airports, like Squamish - Fall City or Sekiu - Cle Elum. The PNW is also a very scenic region with varied terrain and scenery. Fun place to fly!
  13. https://forum.orbxdirect.com/forum/217-Orbx-release-announcements/
  14. I think a flash mob dancing in the terminal or a conga line of passengers heading out to their plane would be brilliant!
  15. Yes, I highly recommend a good set of rudder pedals. (nice if they have toe brakes too) Rudder pedals make it so much more realistic than having to use keys or some other axis switch or buttons for yaw control.
  16. I'm not sure how hard it is. (No pun intended!) The developer has to get the dimensions and elevations of the hardened area right so they match the visuals, or else aircraft can look slightly floating or sunken after landing. I'm not positive, but there may be a performance penalty with each additional hardened area since the sim has to account for them all. Perhaps someone with more development knowledge will chime in.
  17. I really appreciate it when helipads are hardened! There are several helipads and an Indian Navy heliport included in Landmarks Mumbai. I'd like to see a Landmarks Honolulu for MSFS. Orbx's P3D version includes a bunch of helipads.
  18. TheUKDave, I share your desire for simplicity in add-on management! I wish MSFS had some sort of alert on its' home screen when an installed product had a update available. When MSFS finishes loading, I'm always itching to fly and forget to go to the content manager screen to look for updates. Earlier this week I actually remembered to check and found 23 updates available! Over the years I've gone gone back and forth between buying from the developer versus a distributor or a game's store. In general, I find that distributors (like Steam) make management and updates pretty simple. However, purchases from developers often get faster updates and sometimes have additional content. For instance, if you buy the MilViz Corsair from MilViz, it comes with bombs. If you make the purchase from the MSFS store, no bombs. Not trying to change your mind, just something to consider. Hope you enjoy Dubai as much as I do!
  19. Don, Nick was faster than me. What he said! Additionally, I think M.2 is technically about the form factor of the drive. M.2 looks a lot like a stick of RAM and can plug directly to the motherboard. A "standard" SSD looks like a slim box that attaches to the motherboard via a SATA cable. As Nick said, the drive's specs and whether it is NVMe or SATA will determine the performance.
  20. High housing prices benefit realtors and governments. Realtors' are getting their commission percentage of a larger amount. Government gets more tax income from everyone's property because it is now "worth" more. It is essentially a tax increase that people didn't get to vote on. People who sell their home for big bucks are seldom better off because they now need another place to live which will probably be overpriced as well. The exception being those who can sell in an overpriced market and then take that money to an area that has a lower cost of housing. (Good luck finding one of those!)
  21. Yes. The silver "coolie hat" shaped switch on the top of the X52 joystick. Crom UK is correct about the sticks on many military aircraft having the hat switch labeled both IRL and in the sim. In real aircraft, the hat is normally just 4 positions (up down left right) and not an 8 position "POV" hat. I use Thrustmaster joysticks and both the Viper and F-18 sticks have their trim hats labeled "Nose Up" , "Nose Down", " LWD", and "RWD" (Left / Right Wing Down).
  22. I just use my joystick's trim hat for pitch and roll trim. I also have a Saitek Multi-Panel which has a trim wheel. It works, but I still normally just use the trim hat. Having the trim wheel mapped to the pitch trim axis is realistic when flying something with a trim wheel IRL. However, it doesn't free up any extra buttons for me. Since a trim hat is realistic for a lot of the aircraft I tend to fly, the hat still needs to be mapped to trim as well. IMHO a trim wheel is nice, but nothing to spend a bunch of money on unless it is part of something with a bunch of extra functions and/or buttons that you also want.
  23. No worries! My guess is that most people will get the free UK update to MSFS and therefore need the upcoming update to Orbx's Landmarks London City. But it is nice that there will be a version if someone chooses not to get UK update.
  24. To get the UK update, I had to go to the "Marketplace" tab in MSFS and then "buy" it for free.
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