Orbx roadmap

  • Definitely a let down; I thought we would at least get news of the PNW region that had been talked about. Looks like that isn't going to happen.

    Would be nice if IPACS would present their own roadmap for 2019; would like to at least get a hint of any new IPACS scenery they themselves are doing since ORBX seems to dropping their plans for more AFS2 scenery.

    Ken

  • I read on the OrbX forum that sales hadn't been as good as they hoped for the AFS2 products. I think it's still early days for this sim, progress is quite slow (I understand why don't worry) and it hasn't quite built the necessary momentum yet.

    XP11 is a bit further long the development path, so it is currently the new kid on the block, but once all the major features are present AFS2 will shine and they will have all that OrbX back catalogue that will port across nicely.

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  • I was surprised by the Navigraph survey that Aerofly FS2 has had so little penetration into the flight sim market,especially when you look at the percentage of people flying in VR with P3D and Xplane. Personally I can't hack flying in VR in P3D anymore. The difference between P3D and Aerofly is chalk and cheese. I love low and slow flying in VR in Aerofly and although I'm currently struggling with the R22 I love it. I would hate to see Aerofly fail or simply not grow. Not getting true earth GB will be a disappointment and I think will set Aerofly back. Do you think we could crowd fund for ORBX for the necessary conversion? Also all of those people currently flying in VR in. other flight sims how can we convince them to give Aerofly a go?

  • LOL, I was thinking of Rodeos WAN project as a kind of Ipacs PNW

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  • I was surprised by the Navigraph survey that Aerofly FS2 has had so little penetration into the flight sim market,especially when you look at the percentage of people flying in VR with P3D and Xplane. Personally I can't hack flying in VR in P3D anymore. The difference between P3D and Aerofly is chalk and cheese. I love low and slow flying in VR in Aerofly and although I'm currently struggling with the R22 I love it. I would hate to see Aerofly fail or simply not grow. Not getting true earth GB will be a disappointment and I think will set Aerofly back. Do you think we could crowd fund for ORBX for the necessary conversion? Also all of those people currently flying in VR in. other flight sims how can we convince them to give Aerofly a go?

    Perhaps FS2's future is tied to the growth of VR? I only fly VR and i too can't put up with VR in any other sim. The Pimax 5k will soon be shipping in volume and though it works fine on FS2 we hear, i'm sure it will grind to a halt on legacy sim architectures. Outside of VR i just don't think the slick experience of FS2 is enoigh to pull people across from other sims in any volume. Fortunately VR growth from 2017 -> 2018 was a substantial % so lets hope that rate continues in 2019. If only IPACS had plans to grow their development capacity to respond.

  • Here's the 'full' rundown on their AFS2 plans:

    "Our plans for AFS2 in 2019 are less defined than for P3D and XP11, although we will continue with some ports of the most popular airports which fall within an IPACS region DLC coverage, and perhaps porting the TrueEarth GB series to the sim. It remains our favourite sim for the smoothest VR experience due to its incredible frame rates, made even faster with the recent Vulkan support. We are constantly in communication with IPACS and thus have insight into some exciting new developments in store for 2019"

    That last sentence looks intriguing, I think we just need to keep on spreading the word.

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  • Perhaps FS2's future is tied to the growth of VR? I only fly VR and i too can't put up with VR in any other sim. The Pimax 5k will soon be shipping in volume and though it works fine on FS2 we hear, i'm sure it will grind to a halt on legacy sim architectures. Outside of VR i just don't think the slick experience of FS2 is enoigh to pull people across from other sims in any volume. Fortunately VR growth from 2017 -> 2018 was a substantial % so lets hope that rate continues in 2019. If only IPACS had plans to grow their development capacity to respond.

    I definitely think VR is the savior. Flight simmers are being converted to VR at a much higher rate than general gamers. We must give our opinions of FS2 to the sim community in a more active way.

  • Whenever I have praised Aerofly on Reddit /flight sim I have been accused of being a shill(?) for the company. The thing is you have to experience FS2 in VR, no YouTube video is going to convince you. Also people are heavily attached emotionally and financially to their current flight sim software.

  • Perhaps FS2's future is tied to the growth of VR? I only fly VR and i too can't put up with VR in any other sim.

    This .. so definitely this.:thumbup:

    IPACS's best hope is to leap frog competitors by taking a significant slice of VR flight sim market. They're already on 10%, which is a good sign.

    The 2D market is a losing battle. Lots of people deeply invested in their FSX / P3D / XP setup and unwilling to change. They have no reason to change to AFS quite frankly.

    VR is different, and as others have said, I can't do VR in XP, it's an awful motion sickness inducing experience (and I rarely get motion sick).

    As for Orbx dialing back their plans for Aerofly, personally I see it as kind of a good thing in the long term. My concern was that Aerofly was just going to be an IPACS + OrbX semi-closed DLC product where every significant region is dominated by OrbX, leaving little room for any smaller developers to bother.

    There already seemed to be tenancy to only support improvements to the SDK when OrbX needed them. I hope that is re-thought.

    It'll take longer but I'd rather see a more lively marketplace of smaller developers of scenery, airports and aircraft emerge.

    What we desperately need is better cultivation tools ... so I'd better get coding in 2019 ;)

    AeroScenery - Easily create photoreal scenery for Aerofly

  • Really disappointed with Orbx's attitude on this. What happened to " Build it and they will come". So much for investing in their 'own' future. This is also the second time they've had a very openly derogatory view of Aerofly. I've bought all their areas for aerofly so far and was really looking forward to GB. But they seem to be holding it in ransom until we all by everything they do. Even then there's this 'Sorry but you're too small fry for us' attitude. Very unprofessional.

    Luckily with the little team IPAC's has, they've produced areas like Florida that show Orbx how well it can be done.