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Thoughts on the next project

Previews, discussions and support for projects by John Young.
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Victory103
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Re: Thoughts on the next project

Post by Victory103 »

Have more warbirds been mentioned yet? Running through some currently flying models we don't have as I watched IRL a B-29 flying and quickly added the JYAI model in.
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Re: Thoughts on the next project

Post by Firebird »

I know that a lot of us are very keen to help John with ideas but he has said that he is working on something from this side of the pond.
This sounds like he has a project. I think it would be more helpful to wait until he is low or out of ideas, rather than flood the market when he has something planned.
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Re: Thoughts on the next project

Post by John Young »

Yes indeed, I'm quite well into with what I'm doing now, having done the FS9 models and just started on the FSX/P3D versions. I'll share what I am up to shortly, once I have some FSX screen shots to pick from.

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Re: Thoughts on the next project

Post by John Young »

I’m in a dilemma with FS9.

My recent plan was to drop FS9 modelling in favour of MSFS, but the latter version still needs development of the AI engine to enable it to do what we can do with FS9, FSX and P3D. I don’t want to design for 5 sim versions, and I’d rather not design for 4, particularly where projects involve scenery.

Counting the downloads for my last 10 projects, the total is 5752, of which FS9 accounts for 2236 and FSX/P3Dv4 and v5, 3516. So, FS9 accounts for 39% of the total. Surprisingly, I don’t think that’s changed very much over the years.

What has changed is the number of downloads, which perhaps better reflects the potential migration of users to other offerings, like DCS or X-Plane, or to other games completely. The average downloads, from around the world remember, for my last 10 projects, is just 224 and 352 rounded, which is way down on what was possible 10 years ago, but time will grow those numbers a bit.

There seems to be 2 types of AI user – those that like to enhance their flying experience in perhaps defines areas of interest and those that collect AI for the whole world, like postage stamps. It’s that latter user that bothers me and it seems more common with FS9 users – witness the number of pleas for FS9 versions on the forum for anything that is produced for FSX/P3D. I’m not sure I want to spend countless hours producing for FS9, when the models just get stored on a user’s hard drive in such numbers, they really can’t be seen that often.

I would have thought that the enormous efforts, by the team to convert most of the FS9 legacy packages for FSX and P3D might tempt FS9 users to migrate to those systems, which are at least graphically, far superior. I hope so.

It's that 39% figure that is the dilemma.

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Re: Thoughts on the next project

Post by Firebird »

It goes without saying that I can't speak for the majority of people, but this is my reasoning and decision making over sims.

Got FS9. Added to it and built it up. When FSX came out and I found that there were incompatibility issues I had to make a choice over what to do.
I decided that I had invested too much time and effort into FS9 that I did not want to start again for FSX. So i left it alone.

Now when P3D came out built from the FSX source I again left it alone for the same reasons.
Over time P3D slowly evolved and offered more especially in scenery terms and reality. The question still was one of dumping FS9 for P3D. Now for me the vast reduction in time I spent actually flying meant that I could not justify the expense of P3D and hoping that all the AI I had installed was eventually available in P3D.

Now comes Matrix. This it seemed was a game changer. I resolved myself to switch to P3D once the Matrix project was completed.

Then there was the announcement of MSFS. This altered everything again. The question became which way would the user base go? I resolved to wait.

Now to where we are today.

It does seem that if you were starting a fresh today in sims that people would choose MSFS. Why? because it is an ever progressing single version of a game. It does not have the history of version update issues that P3D does. The graphics are superior as is the game engine, but it is severely lacking in support for AI.
However, to my mind, the ongoing additions, fixes and upgrades to MSFS has pointed me to the fact that they will get AI sorted out and my feeling is that it will be better than is offered by P3D et al.

Therefore I have got MSFS and I am waiting, sometimes patiently - and sometimes not, for the AI engine to get developed/sorted.
Once it is I will move completely from FS9 to MSFS.
I think one thing that will not help P3D is that you can convert models from FSX to MSFS. Once the method/system/tools are fully developed and available I think that we will see a massive influx of conversions at first, a definitely possibility from the MAIW stable.

Now for producers of models I think that what will happen is that FS9 models and schemes will cease almost immediately that MSFS gets AI up and running.
FSX may still get new models, especially in the early days, as they can/will get converted to MSFS. The big unknown will be will developers still bother with P3D versions or will they stick at FSX and MSFS versions, especially if the FSX versions can be used in P3D as is.

From my view the logical outcome will a decline in P3D addons as time goes by. I think that a bigger percentage of its user base will be for what it was originally intended for, flight training.

In short I feel that in 18 months time that JY will be producing FSX and MSFS versions. If P3D versions are produced or not will be up to how he feels at the time.
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Re: Thoughts on the next project

Post by gsnde »

I think Steve sees this correctly under the condition that MSFS gets more stable between releases and the AI implementation will not take as long to be done right like the rest. I am not 100 percent sure that Asobo can do that in time.


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Re: Thoughts on the next project

Post by hawk_sh »

John, first of all thank you for still producing FS9 content.

To be honest, I have not even downloaded everything that you produced lately.
The main reason is lack of time and that my interest shifted.
I also stopped downloading everything that is available because I try to focus on certain topics.
For example I do not really have a use for the retro Metor packages or the the Little Bird package - at the moment.
But this will propbably change.
I regularly find myself downloading content that was produced 10 or even 15 years ago.


I did an analysis of the download numbers back in June after reading some comments here on the forum about decreasing FS9 download numbers and FS9 becoming obsolete.
My personal feeling was that these comments did not reflect the facts and the numbers confirmed that.

I made a list of each package that is available as a separate FS9 and FSX/P3D download going back the year 2011 fromt the MAIW hangar, AVSIM and flightsim.com. It includes complete AI packages but also repaints.
The majority is your work John or related to your work!
All the download numbers were taken on the same day during a period of two to three hours.


From April 2016 until the end of June 2021 the FS9 percentage of these packages was 31,5%.
What I could also see was that the newer the package was the higher the FS9 percentage was.
Which is exactly what you saw in the recent data from the last 10 of your projects.


This is a chart showing the FS9 percentage of the packages that are available as separate FS9 and FSX/P3D downloads.
On the lift side are the newest releases.
100% would be the number of FS9 downloads plus the number of FSX/P3D downloads.
The black vertical line is when the MAIW download hangar was established
This chart contains data until the end of June 2021, the newest package included is the "AI AgustaWestland AW101 Merlin - Various Air Forces"- package.

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Re: Thoughts on the next project

Post by TheFoufure »

Very nice analysis. And indeed FS9 is not dead. He still has a bright future ahead of him.
Thank you for this analysis.
And thanks to John and the other designers for all of their work.
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Re: Thoughts on the next project

Post by John Young »

That's a useful chart Hartwig that does support the constant split of FS9 downloads over time, as I found. The actual decline in FS9 demand is better represented by actual numbers of downloads. An average of only 224 from around the world for my last 10 packages is not exactly alive and kicking.

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Re: Thoughts on the next project

Post by Jim »

With apologies to FS9 folks, I sometimes downloaded FS9 scenery & models from here and other sites when P3D versions were unavailable, and did my best to convert them myself.
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Re: Thoughts on the next project

Post by hawk_sh »

Jim wrote: 18 Dec 2021, 12:50 With apologies to FS9 folks, I sometimes downloaded FS9 scenery & models from here and other sites when P3D versions were unavailable, and did my best to convert them myself.
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This is irrelevant for this chart.

My analysis includes only packages the were published at the same time in FS9 and FSX/P3D format.
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Re: Thoughts on the next project

Post by Muckinator2005 »

Even so I own MSFS from day 1, so far it ain't much more for me than a very impressive slideshow. I'm sure they'll, wth the help of the guys over at AIG, get AI going eventually, but nobody known when this will be. Until that day I'll stick to P3D.
I can fully understand John's problem with developing models for four or five different versions, but I think there could be a rather simple solution for this. FSX models can be used as a starting point for both P3D and MSFS. So if you concentrate on creating models for FSX the conversion team surely can make them available for P3D and MSFS.
Gavin Cole's guide to model conversion using MCX has been my starting point for P3D and I'm sure we're pretty close to have something like this for MSFS and once it exists I'm willing to give it a try and I guess others will too. This would reduce John's workload to two versions (FSX and FS9) while it'll keep me busy with the conversion process :D .

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Re: Thoughts on the next project

Post by TheFoufure »

John Young wrote: 18 Dec 2021, 12:38 That's a useful chart Hartwig that does support the constant split of FS9 downloads over time, as I found. The actual decline in FS9 demand is better represented by actual numbers of downloads. An average of only 224 from around the world for my last 10 packages is not exactly alive and kicking.

John
224 may not be a high number for the whole world. But if 224 is 35% of downloads, the remaining 65% is only 416 downloads ... which isn't huge either. The graph speaks of proportions. 1/3 is not negligible.
Of course I preach for my parish because I am still a user of FS9 ;-)
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Re: Thoughts on the next project

Post by hawk_sh »

The current figures for the last 10 packages: as of today around 14:20

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The average total download numbers for FSX/P3D are not that much higher: 258 vs.404
I think that these total numbers after such a short time that a package is available are rather inconclusive.


The KC10-package is far below average
I suspect because there is already a KC10 AI model available for FS9.

The Augusta Wildcat and Merlin package is also quite low.
I have seen similar low percentages for other UK themed packages like the Gazelles, the Typhoons and the Tornados.
My conclusion is that the majority of users interested in UK themed packages (probably the people that actually live there) are using FSX/P3D. This most likely means the percentage of FS9 users in the UK is well beyond average.
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Re: Thoughts on the next project

Post by asdro »

In this FS9 forum where many known developers are active like Gregory Putz, Edward Cox ,MFSG from Malaysia, Kobus van Wyk, Emmanuel Mwandosya, Albysim, the AI models at MAIW, especially from John Young, are well promoted.

http://fs2004.team/forum/index.php?boar ... i-verkehr/
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Re: Thoughts on the next project

Post by TimC340 »

I honestly doubt that the FS9 hardcore are going to be tempted away from that platform even when MSFS becomes AI-friendly. Often, the reason given for not moving to FSX or P3D is cost, and MSFS is not cheap. FSX:SE is cheap, and yet that hasn’t made that much of an impact on that 39% who’ve stayed with FS9, even though all of the sceneries are easily convertible to be compatible (most need no conversion) and most of the AI can either be used as is, or have already been converted.

FSX:SE is stable and relatively undemanding of hardware. It has known limitations, but it is still on sale (often for very little dosh), and still supported by payware heavyweights. It has the advantage for a developer in that most stuff made for FSX will work in P3D, though it won’t exploit some of the improvements that P3D now offers. If users haven’t moved to it by now, it must be assumed that they never will.

P3D is a bit more expensive, though still not a lot for what it offers, but the Academic product that most of us use has suffered occasionally because of poorly-implemented features intended for the professional-level versions of the program. Even the latest v5.3 has brought in new problems for some users. Actually, in that respect it mirrors MSFS - each upgrade brings new problems! But the changes to lighting and materials alone mean that the visual picture can be hugely better than FS9 or FSX. However, because it is largely backward-compatible with FSX, very often the screenshots don’t look a lot better when a lot of FSX-compatible scenery is in shot. Indeed, in some circumstances screenshots can look worse than in FSX. I think that maintaining compatibility with FSX in their products is limiting developers’ potential, but I understand why they (and I) do it. But, at its best, P3D can be gorgeous.

Like Jean Claude, I remain unimpressed by MSFS. It’s pretty, but it’s a pain to get into, the flight models are often weird, and the in-cockpit visual manoeuvring is bizarre. I think that they’ve made the overall visual experience worse rather than better since release - compare the original videos with the grainy textures which now populate the world. Scenery development seems to be a black art in which the secrets are devolved to a few chosen developers, and the freeware community are left in the dark. I see absolutely no compelling argument to move to it - yet. The potential remains just that.

So, I don’t see much reduction in FS9 use coming, and I don’t yet see a mass leap of MAIW uses to MSFS being just around the corner. As DCS is moving to a whole-world model, there may be some interesting MAIW possibilities there (as a flight simulator, it is just stunningly good), and X-Plane 12 is just around the corner. I’ve not looked in depth at X-Plane since v10, when I found it less approachable than FSX/P3D in most respects, so I can’t make a judgement on whether 12 will move things on much.

Even though I see FS9 soldiering on for a while longer, it is so long-in-the-tooth that I won’t spend time on developing new sceneries for it; the compromises required make it frustrating and profitless (intellectually!) and I can better use that time learning Blender and the graphics techniques that will allow me to make the best of P3D and hopefully, eventually, MSFS.
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Re: Thoughts on the next project

Post by Firebird »

I can see where Tim is coming from.
I think that most people consider me FS9 hardcore, because I have stuck with it. That I can't really argue with.

In simple terms, according to my logic, FS9 is dead (no longer supported by producer), FSX is dead (no longer supported by producer) - hence part of the reason I never moved on to that sim.

DCS I had not considered but I feel that it is more geared to flying than watching AI - please correct me if I am wrong.

This leaves us with two. At the moment there is only one currently viable AI solution available. However I don't believe that this will last for ever.
The biggest problem I see with MSFS was the rush to get it out of the door to market to get money in as the pandemic hit.
What I am willing to give credit to them for is the constant updates to address issues and produce improvements that are obvious to all users.

My guess is that most people will only take a path once the MSFS AI system is in place finally, or not, and then make a decision.
Until then my guess is that FS9 people will stay with that. FSX people will stay with that. P3D people will stay with that.

Why would anybody change without marketplace certainty.

I have gambled on MSFS. After years of watching the wind I feel confident enough to prepare for change.
I will stay on FS9 for my Ai needs until MSFS is ready for that.
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Re: Thoughts on the next project

Post by asdro »

Many FS9 users will stay with this platform, including me.

I would not agree that FS9 is dead. Many still use it in UK, germany, russia, US ect.

The MSFS is overhyped and after two years it still is not a finished product.
At simmarket two third of uploads are for MSFS, and many of these addons, like light enhancement addons, I expect them to be standard in the sim.

Regarding lights i would say that Xplane 11 is still better than MSFS.

Another point is that I would not be surprised if Microsoft and Asobo are already working on a new MSFS version in secret. Like Lockheed Martin did with P3D.
May be we will see P3DV6 next year or in two years.

I think that MS will try to take advantage of it as it worked for Lockheed Martin, too.


And like it was mentioned before, the new sim is expensive.
Who wants to spend 20€-30€ or more every week for addons?
I could not effort that.

Personally, what is very disapointing to me in MSFS is the atc. It doesnt sound natural for me. It sounds like the voices and phrases were created with google translators.

39% /one third of downloads for FS9 is a good amount.
It shows that there is a loyal fan base for FS9 at MAIW.
Last edited by asdro on 19 Dec 2021, 05:58, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Thoughts on the next project

Post by TimC340 »

Yes, DCS is definitely primarily for piloting and in that, it is superb. The move to a whole-world model rather than individual, bounded theatres opens it up to at least the possibility of 'free' AI - it already has constrained AI in abundance for the campaigns. How much that could be adapted for our purposes, I have no idea. As the platform itself is freeware, I really must go and have a look!

I think P3D has plenty of future in it as long as LM wants an in-house vehicle for its professional military simulation products. X-Plane has a big fanbase and is the basis for many flightschool classroom sim trainers - I understand it's getting on for the size of FSX these days, so I can't see that going away. MSFS will take the bulk of the game market, but I don't see it having any professional application for now. DCS could take on the pro military training market (it's already making some inroads there), but will remain primarily a (very impressive) game-based product for now. So I think long term those four will take the bulk of the popular flight sim market. Which will be best for MAIW's needs? I find it difficult to see past P3D for now.

I'm sure there will still be some people using FS9 in 10 years time. Some of them may have even developed the ability to create content by then. :wink:
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Re: Thoughts on the next project

Post by asdro »

I would like to give an idea for a possible new project.

Would the

MD901/902 Helicopter be interesting?
I like the design of the carcass which looks higher than similar helicopters. Also the bleed air tube instead of tail rotor makes it interesting.

There are also military versions like

MD969 Combat Explorer and MH-90 Enforcer

https://www.thedrive.com/content-b/mess ... quality=60

https://www.mdhelicopters.com/assets/ga ... rer/56.jpg




As Alternative i would propose the new Airbus Helicopter and medium flagship H160.

This helicopter costs 14 mio$ and the first examples were already delivered. For example to Japan.

The French Air Force has ordered many of this helicopters for the army, naval and Gendarmerie which will be delivered in the coming years.

Also orders were made from Canada and Indonesia.

https://esut.de/wp-content/uploads/2020 ... 427571.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... s_H160.jpg
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