Microsoft Flight Simulator Team has yesterday taken to their official website to share yet another development update for the simulator. It is the first development update that has been shared after the recent patch release.
Although the post is rather brief, it contains a few interesting information about the VR Closed Beta invitations, new products in the in-game Marketplace, and at last, an updated Feedback Snapshot and an update on the third parties and SDK.
First of all, a new wave of invitations were sent out today to the VR Closed Beta to non-WMR headset owners. Together with that, sign-ups for the beta testing have been closed as the team has enough testers at this time.
Furthermore, as mentioned in the introduction, an updated version of the Feedback Snapshot has been released confirming bug fixes that will be coming in the upcoming updates and updating the status of the top wishes submitted by the community. The Snapshot can be seen below. The Development Roadmap has not changed since the last update.
At last, an update has been made on the SDK and third-party developers. Based on the post, the Microsoft Flight Simulator Team has received over 1,000 applications to the Partner Program including over 200 from known payware companies. As of right now, there are 70 approved partners and nearly 60 products in the in-game Marketplace.
The team expects 150 sceneries to be released in 2021. Regarding the aircraft, there are currently 4 aircraft in the in-game Marketplace while 60 aircraft have been announced and 20 additional have not been announced publicly yet.
As usual, the post summarized new, and updated, products in the in-game Marketplace. New products are: Atlanta Airport (KATL) from ImagineSim, Notodden Airport (ENNO) from Orbx, Arcadia Municipal Airport (X06) from DC Scenery Design, Hamburg Airport (EDDH) from Brekod3D, Casablanca Airport (GMMN) from PrealSoft, Greenville-Spartanburg Airport (KGSP) from Verticalsim, Barcelona-El Prat Airport (LEBL) from LatinVFR, Saint-Tropez Airport (LFTZ) from PESIM, Basel Airport (LFSB) from JustSim and, at last, Patrocinio Airport (SNPJ) from DC Scenery Design. Updated products are Mexico City Landmarks from FlyMex, Copenhagen Airport (EKCH) from FlyTampa, and Wycombe Air Park (EGTB) from Pilot Plus.
An SDK update can be seen below.
SDK Update
- DevMode:
- The console interface continues to be improved and we are now close to making it available in production. Internal tests still need to be completed before we release these improvements in a future update.
- The new asset creation system from within the Project Editor is still a work-in-progress.
- The node-based Visual Effects System is now ready for internal production. At the same time, we are still working through some performance issues, fixing bugs and addressing feedback from our internal power users before making it available to the third party developer community.
- As a background task, the DevMode team is always working on improving the overall stability of the DevMode, with special focus to the Project Editor, Scenery Editor, and Aircraft Editor. The community’s feedback continues to be helpful in identifying & fixing bugs which ultimately makes the tools better.
- WebAssembly:
- We added support for standalone WASM modules. These should be placed in a “modules” folder located at the root of the package, and will be loaded automatically when the said package is mounted. The “module_init” and “module_deinit” functions will be called upon loading/unloading.
- We are investigating several SimConnect bugs while also trying to expand its capabilities to suit third party developers’ needs.
- We are still working on improving iteration times and the debugging experience.
