November 25th, 2020 Development Update - Microsoft Flight Simulator

Screenshot by Michelangelo729

We had a great time answering your questions today in the Live Developer Q&A. Thank you all for participating. Jorg, Seb, and Martial had a blast with everyone in chat. You can watch the video here on Twitch, read through some answers here, or wait for it to be live on Youtube next week with marked timestamps. For those in the United States, we wish you a Happy Thanksgiving! To everyone else, have a safe and wonderful weekend.

–MSFS TEAM-

PARTNERSHIP SERIES: INTRODUCING HONEYCOMB

DEVELOPMENT ROADMAP

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FEEDBACK SNAPSHOT

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SDK UPDATE

DevMode:
- Throughout this week, the DevMode team has been actively focused on the last fixes for Update 7. We hope you will enjoy the results -> check-out the SDK Release Notes!
- On the Scenery Editor, the Heightmap Editor is nearly finished. We are also working on providing an editable hierarchy for object instances, which was one of the top requested features in terms of scenery editing.
- The new Visual Effects are now coming to production, even though we still have work to do on process optimization. We’re also adding new SimVars, which is needed to condition the triggering of effects.
- Besides all this, the whole new asset creation system within the Project Editor remains a work in progress, of course.
- As a background task, the DevMode team is always working on improving the overall stability giving special focus to the Project Editor, the Scenery Editor, and the Aircraft Editor. The community’s feedback continues to be very helpful in identifying & fixing bugs and thus making the tools better.
SimConnect:
- We have fixed the functions related to AI objects and AI aircraft.

THIRD PARTY UDPDATE

The third party creator community is just amazing and we are quite literally overwhelmed by the volume and the quality. Just some numbers:
- Airports:
  - 214 have been released on the platform so far (that’s 27 since last week)
  - another 48 have been announced and
  - an additional 118 are in production by third parties but are not yet announced officially.
  - In total 380 airports are either already released or are in active production. Just stunning to see the amount of enthusiasm and productivity.
- Aircraft:
  - 9 aircraft have been released (+2 since last week),
  - another 56 are announced, plus
  - there are another 20 unannounced.
  - So overall, 85 aircraft are either released or are in production.
  - Just to mention it, we are super excited to see what Aerosoft, Hans, Stefan and the rest of the team are doing with the CRJ. It’s so rewarding to see a team embrace the SDK and create a complex aircraft with it. It’s just great quality and we are so excited to see this come together!
- Scenery:
  - 29 scenery add-ons have been released (+4 from last week) and this category is thriving. Great to see all the progress.

We also had several excellent conversations with freeware groups like Working Title and Fly By Wire. Each of these teams is very impressive and the quality of their work is excellent. We are hopeful to engage more deeply with these teams in the coming weeks.

Finally, thank you for the feedback regarding the airport gateway system. We really appreciate the insights provided and will formulate a plan on how to get this going in 2021! Thank you all. It’s immensely rewarding to be part of the hobby and to meet and to get to work with all of you!

COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT – TERADA

Terada is a Swiss videographer, content creator, traveler and virtual pilot! He presents himself a casual gamer, though, his impeccable control over the joystick says otherwise. Terada provides a fresh perspective on simulation through his cinematography and editing. Flight sessions range from long, contemplative journeys through winding, mountainous terrain to breath-taking acrobatic sessions. See for yourself: