A3XX: We need your support and opinions (please read)

[Octal450]

Hi,
I am assessing things, and want to know the interest level of those of you who fly my Airbus'. We've worked hard on it, over a year, and I've only seen the amount of users declining. Which, to me, means:
* FG Community is not interested in a study level airliner?

I've been wanting for months to finalize and get certain advancements to the FMGS etc out, but have not been motivated to do so, fearing it will further decrease the amount of users who will fly the Airbus'.... properly. (http://www.airbusdriver.net/)

So -- please, let me know below what YOU want in the A3XX series from IDG. Do you want study level Airbus'?

Kind Regards,
Josh

PS: If there is not enough interest in study level, we will restate the goals and features of V1.0, and it will come sooner and will not be study level (but close). If there is enough, it will convince me to get back to work.

[legoboyvdlp]

Although I am a developer of this aorcraft, I would be sad to see it fizzle out after so much work. I have always enjoyed flying the Airbus "properly", as it is really the best way to fly it. I can only hope that a majority share my opinion! Meanwhile, back to work om lighting


Edit: it seems hard to many to fly the Airbus properly. It really isn't. By v1.0 we will have a full manual and you can find out a lot of information on the internet. If you need help, just contact any IDG member

[Kristogratia]

Of course! Why not? This sim need a study level aircraft to increase the user of this sim. Let's show that the feature of FlightGear, especially the aircraft can compete with the feature of other sim (FSX, P3D, and XP11)

BTW, I really like all of your works guys. I have to say that your aircraft is the most challenging aircraft in this sim. It increased my flying skill.

Keep it up. We just need some adaptation with this aircraft. I want this project as the first study level aircraft in this sim.

Let's make this sim better than before

Best Regards,
Christogratia I. Simbolon

[Imran Anees]

Do not think that there is a decline in the number of users. I've always wanted a detailed simulation of an airliner in FG and I was extremely happy to see that there is an upcoming Airbus simulation
This project has been progressing well. Eventhough I never pop up on the forums or fly online(becos of the lack of a daily driver) I enjoy flying it.

It is the first plane I could do a complete IFR flight in and I would not like to see a halt in its development. I am asking you to develop a full study level aircraft.

Regards,
Imran

[Thorsten]

If there is not enough interest in study level, we will restate the goals and features of V1.0, and it will come sooner and will not be study level (but close). If there is enough, it will convince me to get back to work.

Piece of advice:

I believe it's a bad idea to tie your motivation to what others may or may not like, and you should never tie it to what 'the community' wants.

Whatever change you make to FG, there are always those who think it used to be so much better before. There's always those who think that it should be far more detailed and those who think that all these useless details just eat up framerate and take away from fun.

So - create the plane you can be proud of and you want to fly, work with the people who share your vision and can give you help or constructive feedback, ignore what the others say and do what you believe in.

Even if you have two others who are really passionate about what you're doing and delve into the details, that's better than two hundred who post a quick 'Well done' and then do the next thing.

[Richard]

I am assessing things, and want to know the interest level of those of you who fly my Airbus'. We've worked hard on it, over a year, and I've only seen the amount of users declining

Firstly I'm not exactly sure how you're measuring the number of users; it's hard to get detailed information about this.

Secondly, and most importantly, the work you are doing on the improved simulation fidelity of the A3XX is absolutely the right development path, and something that we can show to the community as another example of how to build a detailed model.

I don't fly airliners much; and most of my sim experience is in 737-200 and 737-300 but I'd choose a better simulation over a familiar aircraft.

You might also find that the pace of development is working against you at the moment; as there is so much being actively developed at the moment that those who just wish to fly would prefer a stable version; but that doesn't mean you should develop differently.

Keep on doing what you're doing and when it's at a suitable point release a milestone version[1] - this is something that I believe has worked well for the SpaceShuttle.

-----------------
[1] I think It also helps if there is a stable milestone version in FGAddon as that's still the place most people get their models from.

[Thorsten]

I might add to that that there was interest on FSWeekend in well-developed airliners from flightsim people outside the FG community considering a migration to FG - who generally seem to be very capable virtual pilots who probably are able to operate an original Airbus but unlikely to delve into repository lore to acquire an aircraft for trying out FG for the first time.

[sp-lcz]

Don't stop Guys! Everyday I am checking information about your progress. I cross my fingers for your final version. Flightgear needs high quality airliners, we need . I remember Josh when you told maybe one year before that you dream about high quality, as close as possible to study level, of A320 and 737-800. I am dreaming about it too. Good luck and hope that you will continue your excelent work!

Best regards,
Lukasz

[stuart]

Hi it0uchpods,

Just to re-iterate what Thorsten and Richard have already said: You should continue to develop it because you think it is of value, and you are getting satisfaction and learning from doing so, not because of what other people think right now.

I can sympathise that you might be feeling a bit discouraged given the size of the task. You can always pause the work for a couple of weeks and come back to it.

That said, I think having a study-level airliner is an excellent goal and very valuable to FlightGear, and wish you all success in your endeavours. Like Richard, I don't fly airliners much, but having a high-fidelity model with accurate systems would encourage me to do so.

Good luck!

-Stuart

[uvindu330]

Hi Josh,

You have make this airbuses very complex within a year.
So please don't stop developing this.We are enjoying your aircraft very well.

Thank you.

[Octal450]

To clear it up:

I've only seen the amount of users declining.

No, the aircraft isn't secretly tracking how long its been flown, I was basing my statistics on MPMap, FGTracker.

True what Thorsten says, but I get motivated by others enjoying my work. I wanted to make sure there was still enough interest, as there isn't any other airliner simulated to this amount of detail except the TU154. Its a big jump coming from less detailed models.

Thanks for the support. I didn't want to see this project die because of lost interest.

About FGAddon, I push updates far to frequently for that. Usually a stable version lasts at most 2 days before its out of date.

Kind Regards,
Josh

[Kristogratia]

No, the aircraft isn't secretly tracking how long its been flown, I was basing my statistics on MPMap, FGTracker.

This is my opinion:
I think the MPMap can't be used as reference to see people's interest in this project cause just like me, that I always fly offline.

It's already about 6 months if I'm not mistaken since the last time I fly online. But I always fly this aircraft on offline mode.

I believe that there are so many people fly this aircraft on offline mode.

One more thing: Keep the spirit to all developers

Best Regards,
Christogratia I. Simbolon

[Thorsten]

About FGAddon, I push updates far to frequently for that. Usually a stable version lasts at most 2 days before its out of date.

So do I - which is why there are milestones. Every six months or so, I stop development for two weeks, stress-test various scenarios, fix bugs and eventually tag a stable milestone which then gets to FGAddon.

It's actually not that unpleasant having two weeks of just flying around and not adding something new - and you get a well-defined and tested state as a result.

[Hooray]

[...]not exactly sure how you're measuring the number of users; it's hard to get detailed information about this.

Assuming that most people flying airliners on MP are going to be online anyway, it would actually only take 5 lines of Nasal code to make a http request - e.g. to flightgear.org to end up with useful stats in the form of http request logs - obviously, a dedicated server-side script would be more useful. But even just making an arbitrary http request in the form of http://www.flightgear.org/stats.php?air ... ersion=0.1 will show up in the logs

I think Gijs was the one to originally create certain scenery/livery related server-side scripts, but this kind of thing is actually trivial to do even for people just barely familiar with Nasal coding - all that is needed is hosting, and I assume that Curt may actually offer helping with that ?

On the other hand, 3rd party "hangars" could host their own stats handling scripts, too.

If people are interested in exploring this, I am offering to help with coming up with a corresponding Perl, Php/Python or Node.js script (whatever you prefer) - alternatively, there are certainly many existing solutions that could be used for this - I mean, even a conventional wordpress installation will do probably.

[Octal450]

@Kristogratia
True, you are correct.

@Hooray
I'm not so fond of that idea.

@Thorsten
Hmm, I consider doing that. But I've have to change the way revisions are handled, or my update system will be constantly giving a red Out of Date! message. The user could just press remind me later, but I don't think that is good.

Kind Regards,
Josh