Aerofly FS2 Flight Simulator Aims To Move Out Of Early Access

  • Greetings fellow flight simmers,

    We are pleased to announce that within the next few weeks Aerofly FS2 Flight Simulator will be moving out of Steam Early Access.

    The strength of any structure begins with a strong foundation, and that’s exactly what we have now. Our focus has been to make a strong core to build upon and we feel that has been achieved.

    With the official release of Aerofly FS2 we can now focus on features and functionality knowing that a stable core is there.

    This does not mean that updates will stop, nor does it mean that development will slow down; In fact development is going stronger than ever.

    Will an innovative ATC engine be released? YES

    Will new features be released such as a logbook and improved VR motion control ‘VR Hands’ to name a few? YES

    Will additional aircraft be released? YES

    Will additional regions be released? YES

    Will our partnership with ORBX and other future 3rd party development companies continue? YES

    Moving out of Early Access is an important step in the evolution of Aerofly and we are proud of this achievement.

    To add even more exciting news, IPACS plans on releasing a boxed DVD version of Aerofly FS2 and we will also break down the walls and expand our sales points beyond the Steam Store in the near future.

    We want to thank all of you for your support as we wouldn’t have gotten this far without your valuable input throughout this process. We are very much aware that we have a ways to go here but with your continued support and our teams passion and determination Aerofly will become a force to be reckoned with. It only gets better from here!

    On behalf of Torsten, Marc, Jan, Michael, Andreas, Dietmar, Karl-Heinz, and myself (Jeff), THANK YOU!

    IPACS Development Team Member

    I'm just a cook, I don't own the restaurant.
    On behalf of Torsten, Marc, and the rest of the IPACS team, we would all like to thank you for your continued support.

    Regards,

    Jeff

  • @IPACS Team,

    Congratulations and best wishes for continued success. This product has room to grow but already has amazing features - it is certainly the most fluid VR flying experience that I can find. Continue to utilize your great level of expertise and focus on your vision - we users have our wide ranging agendas and listen to our opinions, but still choose your own path.

    Dave W.

  • Congratulations. It must be an exciting time for everyone at IPACS! I am pleased to see that you will be expanding your marketing efforts. That is sorely needed.

    Just to be clear, does this mean that you will move out of Early Access with the current feature set? You will be doing so before any new features such as ATC have been added?

    If so, what are the benefits of moving away from Early Access? Is it strictly a marketing move? In the past you have always used the Early Access status to explain the shortcomings in the simulator. Does this mean that those shortcomings, such as lack of ATC, night scenery, weather, etc are near completion? I fear that once the program is being sold as "complete", the omission of those features will be a severe drag on sales and overall customer satisfaction. It is one thing to counsel patience to Early Access adopters, but another to expect it of folks who are buying a "finished" product.

    In any case, I wish you all the success in the world and will continue to be a committed customer.

    Bill

  • Bill,

    by releasing AFS2 out of Early Access doesn't denote a finished product as I explained. The focus in Early Access was to build a strong core and that is what was done. Updates WILL continue once released.

    IPACS Development Team Member

    I'm just a cook, I don't own the restaurant.
    On behalf of Torsten, Marc, and the rest of the IPACS team, we would all like to thank you for your continued support.

    Regards,

    Jeff

  • Let's hope this is the start of a new period of runaway success for my favorite flight simulator.

    There is nothing else in the hobby that compares to flying from Geneva to Innsbruck in VR. The price of the program would be fair even if that is all that was included.

    (If there was one piece of advice I could offer, it would be to include Switzerland in the purchase price going forward. I don't know how anyone could not fall n love with FS 2 after flying the Switzerland scenery. )

  • IPACS team:

    May I extend my heartiest congratulations on this new milestone! I truly enjoy AFS2 and look forward to the coming updates and core improvements as they are released.

    Thanks for the hard work you've put into AFS2, and I wish you nothing but success in the future!

    Ken

  • At first, my congratulations.

    I am very glad about this move. It's my hope that addon developers besides ORBX will wake up and start providing quality 3rd party payware contents now. As far as I see, the SDK and tools for doing so are available, the core engine should be sufficiently stable and the simulator itself sure has that certain something making ít different from competition.

    Kind regards, Michael

    Intel i7-6700K 4.0 GHz / Asus MAXIMUS VIII RANGER / Kingston 32 GB DDR4 / Samsung SSD M.2 500 GB + Samsung SSD 1 TB + Intel SSD 500 GB (AeroflyFS2) + WD HD 6 TB / EVGA GTX 1080Ti 11 GB / LG 34UM95 3440 x 1440 / HP Reverb / Win 10/64

  • Congrats IPACS! You have really made a good flight sim. I have a weird feeling this is gonna be the next FSX (As in next biggest FS). GOOD JOB IPACS!


    Can’t wait to see this Sim get better and better!

    Just an Aviation and Space enthusiast who lives in Australia and loves Aerofly FS 2 on his iPad Pro 9.7 :|

  • Great work IPACS! There certainly will be a lot of critics saying what you have is little, but you've got a fantastic core base for a sim and you know what you're doing. Plus this means third-parties will be more confident in investing into this sim. Looking forward to this next chapter!

    - Ashley

    P3D v4 / AFS2 / XP11 | Intel i7-4790K oc'ed @ 4.6GHz | 16GB RAM | 8GB Nvidia GTX1070 | Windows 10 64-bit | Oculus Rift

  • Glad to hear that, but to be honest, I'm a little bit concerned about some important capabilities of the sim that are not yet completed and not yet mentioned in the OP, and I mainly refer to real weather simulation, dynamic simulation of the aircraft weight according to fuel consumption and winds, engine controls & instruments simulation, cold & dark cockpits and AI traffic. In my humble opinion, I tend to think the sim has to reach a minimum level of progress before moving to a diferent level of access.

    On the positive side, I agree the sim is actually very, very good, and has a strong basic platform to continue growing in complexity.

    Cheers, Ed

  • Hey Ed,

    He didn't mention every little thing but that doesn't mean those are neglected. Work on the sim will continue as before; we're moving out of Early Access because the core sim is stable and as mentioned we're going to continue working on it. And we will probably get to work on engine controls, fuel consumption, weight and balance, and probably even cold and dark in the future and they may all make it into the final version of the Aerofly FS 2, we'll see.

  • Water lighting as in old FS would be essential, sorry if it has been fixed already, I don't have my PC version working right now. Giant over fast waves would look awful but lighting and apparent texture changes with viewpoint movement is really needed, flat water photos are quite eye grabbing and do make a negative impression.

    Good luck and I hope this gives a well noticed relaunch of public attention and lots of sales.

  • Probably? May make it? Into the release candidate or the final, no more updates version?

    That is a very ominous post as written! Fuel consumption HAS to be there in a final version, along with realistic mixture control and several other more or less obvious parts of any simulation of flying.

  • Thank you everyone for your encouraging words. We will continue to grow and expand on what we already have in this wonderful flight simulator, far beyond the official release. So stay tuned while we continue development.

    We are currently testing the 'release candidate' and will get it into everyone's hands once we deem it as worthy. We will then wait for YOUR responses with the focus being on what already exists and not what it needs. We will rely on all of your comments prior to releasing it. So, now will be the time that we ask you to check out what might be the last Early Access release prior to the office release.

    IPACS Development Team Member

    I'm just a cook, I don't own the restaurant.
    On behalf of Torsten, Marc, and the rest of the IPACS team, we would all like to thank you for your continued support.

    Regards,

    Jeff

  • CONGRATULATIONS!!! You guys rock, tried to fly with the competition Pxxx v4 this weekend in VR just to be sooo dissapointed again. Would love however if with the release there would be some glider/soaring improvements :-), even if just the thermals to start. THANK YOU!

    Luis Clement