Just 4 weeks since their previous appearance, Jorg Neumann, Sebastian Wloch and Martial Boussard have once again joined MSFS’ Senior Community Manager Jayne on the company’s Twitch channel to make a handful of announcements relating to new features, updates and aircraft coming soon to MSFS 2020.
Although the community continues to be abuzz with questions about the upcoming release of MSFS 2024, something which Jorg himself remarked is now only 14 weeks away, this stream focussed almost exclusively on updates and announcements relating to the current 2020 iteration of Microsoft’s Flight Simulator.
It was promised in the previous stream and re-iterated here that we would begin to learn more about the upcoming 2024 release around September. When that information does drop, you can be sure FSElite will be the first to bring it to you in full uncompromising detail.
World Update 18: Switzerland, Germany and Austria
The first major news item was the reveal of the location of the next world update. This free package will focus again on Europe and, specifically, the Alpine nations of Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. Jorg acknowledged that a lot of community members have been requesting other countries in Eastern Europe like Greece and Turkey, but that obtaining TIN (Triangular irregular networks) data in these countries has proven tricky for many reasons ranging from legal hurdles to military considerations.
For instance in Turkey, Jorg spoke about how there is a law in place that states any data of the kind MSFS would want to use (photogrammetry, DEM, TIN) must be stored within the country. For this reason, the team have been looking at whether they can build a server in Turkey to stream that kind of data. On the other hand, the European Union has made the necessary “high value” data which features in this particular update freely available to the public, making it a prime candidate for a revisiting by the development team.
The update will include the usual array of photogrammetry cities and hand-crafted airports courtesy of Gaya Simulations. In Germany, we can expect photogrammetry for Berlin, Karow, Potsdam, Frankfurt Am Main, Frankfurt Hanau, and a hand-crafted Munich Airport (EDDM). Simmers who have been about since the inception of MSFS 2020 may remember that before Gaya Simulations went into partnership with Microsoft, Munich and Stansted airports were both planned payware releases which now appear to have migrated into the core sim as part of World Updates 18 and 17 respectively.
In Austria, simmers can take in the sights of Linz, Vienna and Salzburg, departing from a new hand-crafted Salzburg Airport (LOWS).
Finally in Switzerland, photogrammetry for Zurich has arrived, complementing the existing hand-crafted Zurich Airport (LSZH) that came to MSFS with the Game of the Year update. The city of Bern is also being covered, and a new detailed rendition of Bern-Belp Airport (LSZB) rounds off the list of locations included in WU18.
The update will also come with the standard plethora of custom-made POIs across all three countries, a selection of which we are included below, and will be released next week.
World Update 19: Brazil
It was also confirmed right at the very end of the developer livestream that the long-awaited Brazil world update is next to follow after Germany, Switzerland and Austria. No preview images or details on what will be included were shared. However, Jorg did say that the team are currently aiming to release this update in December.
Sim Update 16
The next Sim Update coming to MSFS is now delayed until at least after the release of 2024. The delay is apparently caused by “a platform feature” which, at present, is missing from the Xbox. The MSFS team can do nothing about this on their own, unfortunately. Results from preliminary internal testing of a SU16 beta build on the Xbox showed that right now the update is too unstable for release on console. The Xbox team that can remove this hurdle has been working for a while on the issue, but with things now being so close to the release of the upcoming simulator and the full team’s focus going into that, the decision has been taken to delay.
Aircraft and Avionics Update (AAU) 3: A310, A320neo and PC-6
In place of what would have been Sim Update 16, we are instead getting a third Aircraft and Avionics Update. This will be focussing on the stock Airbus A310, A320neo v2 and Pilatus PC-6, produced by iniBuilds and Hans Hartmann respectively.
Joining the team on stream, Cameron from iniBuilds talked about some quality-of-life improvements that will be coming to the A310 at first. These include upgrades to FMS predictions, magnetic bearings when tracking VOR radials, as well as fixes to some tail numbers. Community feedback has also been addressed and added to the 310 according to Cameron, although it was left quite ambiguous as to specifically which feedback items have been actioned.
Moving swiftly on, Cameron spoke more in-depth on the A320neo. He says that for this aircraft, some of the quality we have come to expect from iniBuilds’ payware offerings like the A300 are being brought to the A320neo. One such improvement is a completely rewritten LNAV code. It was demonstrated on stream how the aircraft is now much more effectively able to handle turns, beginning to bank some way before the aircraft reaches its next waypoint to ensure that the autopilot can track the green navigation path on the MFD with absolute precision.
A terrain radar has been integrated too, which according to Cameron works with zero performance hit. The update is also bringing independent systems to the left and right side of the cockpit, meaning you can have different map zooms on the Captain and FO’s nav displays among other things.
Changes have also been made to the aircraft’s rotation logic and takeoff power following pilot feedback. You should now notice the aircraft requires a little less stick input to get it off the ground, and de-rated takeoffs using the FLEX thrust lever position are a little more oomph-y after the team found that these FLEX takeoffs were a little underpowered. The aircraft now has functional ‘radial in’ logic too, a feature which is used on almost every approach to landing in a real aircraft.
It was asked in this segment’s Q&A whether the Pratt and Whitney engine variant will make an appearance at some point. Jorg said on this point “Not in this update, but we are discussing this. It’s not a firm plan yet, but we’ve heard the feedback”. While not a definitive ‘yes’, this answer seems to strongly suggest the PW engines will make a debut at some point in the future.
A full walkthrough of the new features was given on stream. To skip to straight to that segment, click on this link.
AAU3 is currently slated to arrive on MSFS users’ systems at some point in mid-September, but we’ll let you know at FSElite if that estimate changes between now and then.
The Pilatus PC-6 has also been vigorously worked on in the background by Hans Hartmann. Hans was unavailable to give a more thorough rundown of the changes on stream due to being busy with another project, that being…
ATR Freighter Variant
In the last developer stream, Jorg confirmed that the team was working on a new special STOL variant of the ATR aircraft for the sim after being offered the chance to do so by ATR themselves. Artwork for this new variant has now been completed, but by far the bigger announcement from this section was that the freighter ATR 72-600F will finally soon be coming to existing customers of the ATR at no additional cost. This variant along with the 42-600 STOL will be released sometime in September, although Jorg was unable to give a specific date as work is not quite finished. However, all of the relevant teams working on these aircraft feel that September is a sensible estimate to push these planes out to customers.
Local Legend 19
Keeping with the Germany, Switzerland and Austria theme, the team revealed on stream that the next Local Legend for MSFS is the Focke-Wulf 200 “Condor”. This was a quad-prop German airliner manufactured in Bremen during the early 20th century. It achieved its primary design goal of making a non-stop trip from Berlin to New York in 1938, however, due to the events of the Second World War the Focke-Wulf 200’s legacy is unfortunately often overlooked.
Jorg told the fascinating story on stream of how the airframe was seemingly lost to the sands of time until in the late 1980s a wreck was recovered from an underwater location near Trondheim in Norway. Since then, a team of aviation lovers have carefully restored the plane and in 2021 the fully rebuilt 200 Condor was finally completed in Berlin.
Jorg said he and the team approached the museum housing the restored aircraft offering to help and have since paid for the acquisition and transport of a full 200 Condor cockpit from a collector in Switzerland to the museum, the process of which has aided the team in producing a detailed digital replica.
Oliver Moser and iniBuilds are the software developers behind the aircraft, and Oliver joined the team on the stream to give a brief walkthrough of the aircraft. To view his segment, click the link here.
Boeing 707: Famous Flyer 10
Readers who have been taking a particular interest in the 707 will recall that it was initially slated for the July 4th update and has now been pushed back several times due to the plane not being fully ready for release. However the developers and MSFS’ in-house aviation expert have now signed off on the aircraft and a release date has been drawn up as September 17th.
Other News
We’ve covered the major announcements coming out of this update above, but there were plenty of smaller news items which were covered in the stream as well as some information that came out of the developer Q&A which I am highlighting below.
- TOP GUN MAVERICK DLC EXTENSION: Readers of our last dev stream recap will remember that Microsoft and Asobo were in the process of seeking a license extension from Paramount to continue selling the Top Gun DLC, ideally in perpetuity. While Jorg’s team may have fallen short of a lifetime agreement, the DLC will now remain in the marketplace and purchaseable until at least 2026.
- DLSS BLURRY GLASS COCKPITS PROBLEMS: Martial responded to this one by explaining how this issue is caused by NVIDIA’s upscaling technology which is present within their DLAA anti-aliasing methodology. Unfortunately, Martial was unable to say that there is any fix in sight, stating that while the team is continuing to work at the problem, right now what we see in the sim “is the best that is possible”.
- HELICOPTERS CAN’T SPAWN COLD AND DARK FROM HELIPADS: Martial again brought bad news here. Following conversations with the Head of Quality at Microsoft, the answer to this is basically “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature”. Whilst a flag has been put into this issue, for now there is no change or fix in sight.
- SUPPORT FOR 6 THROTTLE AXIS… IN 2024: A question from the previous developer stream was whether support would be implemented for aircraft with more than 4 throttles in future, specifically the AN-225. The answer here is yes – but only in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.
- MORE UPDATES FOR GENERAL AVIATION/LIGHT AIRCRAFT IN THE PIPELINE: Asked whether more GA aircraft would receive updates in line with what the Cirrus SR22 has now received from the most recent Sim Update, Jorg said that “the entire fleet” of aircraft is being re-done with input from Working Title for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. Reflecting on this, Jorg recalled the initial release of the iniBuilds A310 and said “we can never go back in quality”. Seemingly great news for lovers of light aircraft.
- DISCOVERY SERIES TUTORIALS ARE BACK: Asked whether there would be a deep dive into 2024’s new flight planning features, Jorg said that the Discovery Series tutorials that accompanied some of MSFS 2020’s updates and features will be making a comeback for the new sim. The team will also be sharing a lot more information on the upcoming 2024 sim in future developer livestreams.
- DUPLICATE COMMUNITY FOLDERS: Asked whether there would be any conflicts caused by having MSFS 2020 and MSFS 2024 installed on the same machine, we learned that the two games will not be able to share a community folder, meaning a lot of our third-party addons will have to be duplicated on our systems. The team’s reasoning for this, which does seem valid to me at least, is that a lot of the addons we currently enjoy will be updated to take advantage of 2024’s new computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and therefore would no longer be compatible with MSFS 2020- hence the need for separate community folders.
- WORLD HUB CUTOFF DELAYED: Following the news from the previous developer stream that submissions to the World Hub would be paused until the release of MSFS 2024 when new aerials are made available, some creators who were in the middle of building projects for the hub wrote in to ask for an extension and advance notice of the cutoff date. As such, the date for World Hub going offline has been pushed forward to next week and will coincide with the release of World Update 18.
- LOCAL LEGEND 20: This was confirmed on stream to be the CAP-4 Paulistinha, a popular trainer aircraft in Brazil. A release will likely coincide with the World Update being pushed out, which we already know is targetted for December.
That’s about all from today’s stream. As mentioned, Jorg and the team have said more details are coming soon on MSFS and the next developer stream in September will include a full list of the aircraft that will ship with the base tier of the new simulator. Stay tuned to FSElite for all of the latest updates as we move ever closer to one of the flight sim genre’s biggest ever releases.
