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Major News! LM Announce P3Dv6!

It's a shame, not a announce. On the LM forum, users dreamed of voxel clouds, integrated Google maps, new lighting. In the end the lighting is horrible, the textures are horrible, the terrain is horrible.
 
It looks like LM wanted to make clear that they aren't going to compete against XP 12 or MSFS 2020/2024, they're focusing on military training and basically making a step back regarding civil users requirements.
 
The enthusiast market is of little interest to LM. They indulged it while there was a significant number of developers willing to support it, but most of them have moved on to FS20/24 and XP12. I’ve no doubt LM will contract some of them for specific, task-related addons, but I think the FSX-style legacy users are now an encumbrance, not an asset.
 
These days, it has to be a monumental effort for a flight sim to simulate simulation. Since it is almost impossible to not make a high quality simulator with resources like Unreal Engine just begging to be utilized, the fogged canopies and cartoonish wildfires would have to be intentional on the part of LM, in a kind of haughty, "we don't need you casual simmers," leaving casual observers to wonder, what is the point of the highly detailed, DCS like fuselages, beyond eye candy for the shot jocks.

It seems like a careful calculation that someone like Dassault, or BAE, or even Eagle Dynamics could blow all to pieces. Who knows. Maybe the atmosphere is so simple, LM got all they needed of it from FSX: Acceleration, but it's kind of seeming like their flight sim provides more of an "added value," in relation to their more substantial products.🤔
 
We'll see when it's actually released whether there are any improvements that add to the experience for the hobby user. LM were already using UE4 for the True Skies feature, and I suspect that the much-trumpeted use of UE5 is for a similarly-limited part of the sim. The value for the professional military user is the sim's integration into several training devices, not just aviation. The improvements mentioned in the announcement all contribute to a better simulation of atmospherics and lighting - important in visual and infra-red targeting - and little or nothing in terms of vehicle behaviour or characteristics. I'm fairly convinced that LM will happily sell us yet another version, but aren't really expecting much in the way of hobbyist take-up. But we'll see.
 
P3D is a simulator. I can program things in P3D that I cannot program in MSFS (I've never tried X-Plane). MSFS is a game (no, I'm NOT starting an us-v-them run. Please read me out). I very much agree with Microsoft's decision to make it a total sandbox to try and make it as un-crashable as possible for the general public. The (possibly) colateral damage to this is that it is currently almost impossible to use it as a systems simulator (hence my classification of it as a game - it is not an insult, nor is it meant to be taken as one). I'm happy to ignore the lack of eye candy for the ability to make things work as they should do in real life, without being restricted by multiple layers of 'templates' to get to the underlying game core. LMCO also have to keep backwards compatibility with existing versions so as not to upset corporate customers (both civil and military); if you work though them, it becomes reasonably obvious that each new version is an incremental step over the previous one to achieve this. MSFS was a brand-new in-yer-face product that could and did make use of things like the Unreal Engine.

Also, do not forget that teaser trailer that did have the BlackSharkAI world and the UE running on P3D. IMO the time between that trailer and P3Dv6 is too close to see them in P3Dv6, but I wouldn't rule it out yet for a future version. Now that would put together anything I could ever want.

There is one last thing too that has nothing to do with eye candy and makes me prefer P3D over MSFS, even though the money is definately with MSFS addons. Well, it was anyway. Most developers know that Microsoft's Marketplace encryption has been broken and almost as soon as a new product is released, it appears on a pirate website. Because of the restrictions put in place by Microsoft i.e. they will not allow third-party licensing because their encryption is supposed to be good enough not to need it, I cannot prevent the piracy of the products that I work on for MSFS. The P3D products however are a totally different story.

All the above is my personal opinion and nothing more.
 
As the 2022 Navigraph Survey reveals, the enthusiast audience for FSX/P3D has reduced from circa 60% of the market in 2017 to somewhere around 6% now. If you can make that make financial sense, good luck to you! But I don't think LM can or will, and I think their support for the casual simming community will evaporate. They've created the market they wanted in military and civilian training, they have on board a few trusted suppliers who can work within the needs of that market, and they no longer need the incidental revenue from the hobbyist users. I don't think they'll explicitly say that for a while yet, and I'm sure there will be an Academic version of P3Dv6, but beyond that? I kind of doubt it.
 
Academic isn't written for the 60% nor the 6%. It's written for those who want to learn. It's not going to disappear any time soon. Since most people who purchase a flight sim these days are there to pretend they're a real pilot... the eye candy is what will get their attention the most. It's like a moth to a flame. MSFS 2020 and beyond may have eye candy... but, it's extremely limited in possible use in a training environment.
 
Lots of defense/aerospace companies offer flight sims. Everyone wants to want to know how to fly F35 "professionally." Dassault even has the obligatory "immersive" simulator, as well as an "enthusiast" oriented one. Most of these are not confused with video games and this is probably by design.
 
Having spent far more time than I care to remember in the Virgin A330/340 sims at CAE Burgess Hill as a professional user, I can assure you that none of the simulators there are ‘enthusiast’ oriented! They may sell the odd bit of downtime to non-professional (and well-heeled) punters, but they bear absolutely no relation to the publicly-aimed products of Lockheed Martin.

‘Academic’ is ostensibly aimed at the student pilot, but the vast majority of its market has been the leisure flight-simmer, in succession to FSX and in competition with FSX:SE and XP10-12. The professional versions of the program are most certainly used by civilian and military training organisations, but not in full-flight simulators - at least as far as I am aware, and certainly not without a great deal of control software which isn’t in P3D.

I have no doubt that Academic will remain available in v6. It may even be developed further and with a greater view to the needs of genuine aviation students rather than the leisure market. But that isn’t going to increase its market share nor its interest to this forum.
 
Oh wow, I got spoofed by Dassault, but spoiler alert, this post has a link to another flightsim, enthusiast or academic level and free. The CAE link is Dassault's "professional" sim. While I'd had the pages open, the live chat bell sounded and the pages refreshed to both being the Falcon 8x page. Dassault may have their sales teamed triggered, but the links above are identical. There's also the fact that I kind of feel like I'm in a back and forth conversation about opinions and that I'm less emotionally invested in LM. Below is a link to the page the second link above was supposed to point to, as well as a quote from the page.

Do you want to learn about the principles of airplane flight?

With its new “Aboard the Rafale” application, Dassault Aviation is offering you a chance to better understand how a plane flies.

This fun but educational application has theoretical phases, offering a series of simple animations to help you understand the combined effects of the forces acting on an aircraft in flight.
Click to expand...
www.dassault-aviation.com

"Aboard the Rafale" Virtual reality

With its new “Aboard the Rafale” application, Dassault Aviation is offering you a chance to better understand how a plane flies.
www.dassault-aviation.com www.dassault-aviation.com

The difference with LM's simulator from Dassault, is that LM tried to shoehorn an enthusiast level flightsim, into a military grade training simulator. LM quite likely forced the project to survive on its own, which would have led to the initial market confusion. Calling the effort "half assed," does not account for whatever portion of ass LM possessed before starting, but it's up and running. The observation that it is nearly indistinguishable from DCS, looks equally capable to train as Arma and has an entire field of similarly oriented sims to stay abreast of, remains. Whether LM actually intends to make a name for themselves as "the academy of military and professional tacticians," or is simply goosing their products with glitzy software, remains to be seen.
 
I’ve seen a couple of the professional (military) applications of P3D and it’s very impressive - as part of a greater training environment. It’s relatively cheap, though I’m sure the maintenance contracts aren’t! I’m sure you’re right that LM initially forced it into being an independent cost centre, but I suspect they’ve started to realise how much of an asset it can be in their professional training applications and that future developments will probably increasingly specialise the product and integrate it into their training offerings. It’s not going to appear in a FFS any time soon, but it’s more than good enough to provide a tracking and targeting environment for (say) weapons training. I just don’t see it remaining in the consumer field beyond this coming generation. To be fair, that means it’ll probably be on general sale for at least another four years.

I totally get where you’re coming from on the interest front. I’m still working on some mil stuff for P3D for MAIW, and will continue to do so until Asobo get AI traffic properly sorted on FS20/24. I’d dearly love there to be a consumer future for P3D so I could keep going with it, but I don’t see it beyond v6.
 
Purchased, downloaded and installed.

First impression: version 5.5. Some changes (improvements? YMMV!) to lighting and textures. For the casual user, the changes are minimal and barely detectable. Most v5 addons work. Orbx ObjectFlow doesn't, but I understand an update is inbound. I was underwhelmed, and I suspect I won't be alone.
 
Tim Collins said:
Purchased, downloaded and installed.

First impression: version 5.5. Some changes (improvements? YMMV!) to lighting and textures. For the casual user, the changes are minimal and barely detectable. Most v5 addons work. Orbx ObjectFlow doesn't, but I understand an update is inbound. I was underwhelmed, and I suspect I won't be alone.
Click to expand...
Yes, too many versions with little difference while breaking compatibility with lots of add ons. I'd rather one long release with backwards compatibility and a subscription.
I did see they have the legacy simconnect versions you can run in the install that can help with installing old aircraft etc.
 
Seems to be some disagreement about that! But it also sounds like Orbx are likely to update their stuff so v6 will play well with it. I haven’t yet tried to make it work, but I’m happy to wait a little while.

I have noticed that the dynamic lighting seems to have been significantly improved, but that seems to be the only really noticeable change. I was going to get another v5 licence anyway, as I need one for both the computers I use regularly, so the lack of major change between v5.4 and v6 is not a big deal for me. But I think it probably means the end of P3D as a big player in the leisure simulator market.
 
One issue is whether any fuller-featured aircraft will be available for V6. I've given up on whether airports and the like will be eye candy, but if the aircraft market is dry, it'll be harder to "sim" flight in this flight simulator. Many major fuller-featured developers have answered this question with: "I need to focus on the game market to make rent."
 
Tim Collins said:
Seems to be some disagreement about that! But it also sounds like Orbx are likely to update their stuff so v6 will play well with it. I haven’t yet tried to make it work, but I’m happy to wait a little while.

I have noticed that the dynamic lighting seems to have been significantly improved, but that seems to be the only really noticeable change. I was going to get another v5 licence anyway, as I need one for both the computers I use regularly, so the lack of major change between v5.4 and v6 is not a big deal for me. But I think it probably means the end of P3D as a big player in the leisure simulator market.
Click to expand...
Tim, I am keenly interested in your comment about v6 and Dynamic lighting. How is the "significantly improved" manifested...I am struggling with seeing any type of dynamic lighting. To clarify, I have moved MDLs and airport BGLs that had significant dynamic lighting, along with the associated "Effects" (all of which were generated with MCX), to V6 and "nothing". Where have I gone wrong?
Thanks in advance.
 
Hi Lemon

firstly, I haven't yet had time to move any v4 or v5 sceneries to v6 to see how they work out, so I can't really comment on what may (or may not) have gone wrong with the sceneries or objects you've moved. Neither have I had time to study the SDK to see exactly what has changed. However, I have had a look at the vanilla program and it's evident that dynamic lighting has been adapted to interact with environmental conditions, so light beams show in cloud and the like. I suspect that isn't a minor thing from a coding perspective, and I have - as yet - no idea whether this invalidates dynamic lighting produced with earlier SDKs. I've no doubt that Arno will be having a look at it, but whether he feels it's worth his while to adapt MCX to work with P3Dv6 it's impossible to say. I hope he does, but I'd understand if he feels the potential audience is too small to make it worth doing.
 
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