Hi LM,
Just a few notes and observations regarding V4.3 I have and still enjoy using P3D, it lifted the simulation platform to new heights, with DX11 and 64 bit.
But unfortunately progression has been very slow. And evidently it appears that LM are placing the task of expanding and innovating the platform, squarely on the various addon publishers.
As P3D runs on my computer at the moment, I have 2 shader addons, 3 weather/weather texture addons, numerous landclass/Mesh/Night lighting/city expansions in my sim, countless airport addons, tons of AI and custom AFCADs installed.
This is all good, but it is astonishing just how much help this sim needs to run at a height that captures my imagination and attention.
I think also that the production is prolonged for addon producers that need to find ways to hack, bypass or manipulate the basic platform, in order to run or display properly.
LM work at a tiresomely slow pace on major issues. It took LM 6 months or more to correct the simconnect window issue.
I am getting very disapointed with the slow progress we are seeing in P3D. 64 bit was a big thing, but the AI/ATC engine is from FS2002, same goes for much of the ultra rigidity of the AFCAD systems in use.
In an interview with FSElite LM representatives talked in positive communication style and stated that they left many improvements up to the "community" because they are so good at it.
The problem as I see it is, that many developers have to invent hacks and tricks to work around limitations in the systems, because LM does not improve the platform. I think LM should do more to raise the bar. A raised bar would create a whole new vantage point for developers to work from, taking the platform to even higher heights.
Here are just some of the fixes and improvements that have been lacking from the sim since 2006!
-ground friction bug (been on the platform MS Flight simulator times)
-adf dip not simulated
-turboprop simulation is severely broken. No beta range is simulated or a realistic startup. It's not even close to realistic.
-piston engine simulation also has a few issues (try a constant pitch propeller plane. If you add power without changing rpm, you will hear the engine working harder. In a real airplane, you will not hear this. Only if you change rpm. The opposite happens in P3D)
- All planes veer to the left no matter what on take-off default and addon a legacy bug that's been there since 2004!
-water dynamics also severely broken. It takes quite a bit of power to get the airplane to start moving on water.
-no icing simulation
-no slippery runways simulation
-ground handling is lacking in several areas
-general physics should have been better
-flight dynamics are not the best
-helicopter simulation is a big joke and far from realistic
-startup animations could also have been improved for all engine types (piston, turbofan, turboprop)
Other issues:
-outdated nav database world wide (data from 2006?)
-missing winter textures for taxiways and apron (we have them on runways)
-2D sprites cloud system (Sky Force fixes this somewhat, but not perfect)
The most major ones in P3D right now is the ground friction bug, broken turboprop simulation and the water dynamics. Since P3D is a professional product, I'd expect more from it on the simulation side. Still, people are complaining about the graphics, and requesting graphic related features. Before they start adding new features or do anything else, they should fix the severely broken simulation of basic stuff and fundamentals first. It's a flight simulator, not an arcade game.
Thank you for listening.
Kind regards
Duncan Odgers
Some Prepar3d notes about the platform improvements and fixes
Re: Some Prepar3d notes about the platform improvements and fixes
Totally agree. I recognize parts of this post are things I have written in previous posts on avsim but also here on this forum, which is okay. I really hope LM would look into this. I've been using this platform since v1, and really love it and have a ton of addons for it. But unless something more is done to improve the platform's basic but very important areas listed above, I'm afraid I will be a full-time XP user within a 1-2 years timeframe. I don't expect everything to be done overnight, but I do hope we will start to see positive changes and improvements on the platform.
