December 3rd, 2020 Development Update - Microsoft Flight Simulator

Screenshot by BobbyFuzzy

Wow, is it December already? As we all prepare to close out the final chapter of 2020, surely a year for the history books, we look back at the last year and how far we have come and look forward to what the future holds. A future filled with VR, Xbox, the ability to replay your favorite moments among many other additions. In the meantime, the team is nose down, preparing for the final update of the year.

Also, if you haven’t seen this yet, check out the documentary NoClip made about Microsoft Flight Simulator!

–MSFS TEAM-

DEVELOPMENT ROADMAP

Click here for the web-friendly version.

FEEDBACK SNAPSHOT

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SDK UPDATE

DevMode:

We’re still focusing our efforts on improving the new Visual Effects system performance. The corresponding editor has now reached its first basic functional version.
On the Scenery Editor side, the heightmaps edition is now ready and will be available in a future update. Object grouping feature is still WIP.
New assets creation system from within the Project Editor is still a work in progress.
As a background task, the DevMode team is always working on improving the overall stability of the DevMode, with particular focus on the Project Editor, the Scenery Editor, and the Aircraft Editor. The community’s feedback continues to be helpful to identifying and fixing bugs and thus making the tools better.

WebAssembly:

We are making an effort to lower the iteration time when developing for the platform.
New security mechanisms have been implemented and others are being studied to protect WASM modules developed by third parties.

THIRD PARTY UDPDATE

The third party creator community continues to overwhelm us by both volume and the quality. Just some numbers:

Airports:
- 229 airports (+15 from last week) have been released for the platform so far.
- 74 airports (+10 from last week) are already in our in-sim store.
- 46 airports (-2 from last week) beyond the released airports have been announced.
- 118 airports (+0 from last week) are not announced but in dev based on information from 3^rd parties.
- In total 393 airports are either already released or are in active production. Incredible!
Aircraft:
- 12 aircraft (+3 from last week) have been released for the platform so far.
- 5 aircraft (+0 from last week) are already in our in-sim store.
- 55 aircraft (-1 from last week) beyond the released airplanes have been announced.
  - 20 aircraft (+0 from last week) are not announced but in dev based on information from 3^rd parties.
- So overall, 87 aircraft are either released or are in production.
- The CRJ from Aerosoft is getting really close and it’s awesome – we are very excited to see what the team has accomplished!
Scenery:
- 34 scenery add-ons (+5 from last week) have been released for the platform so far.
- 8 scenery add-ons (+2 from last week) are already in our in-sim store.
- 3 scenery add-ons (+0 from last week) have been announced.

Our conversations with freeware groups like Working Title and Fly By Wire continued and we are working on ways to improve and/or increase collaboration with these excellent teams!

MARKETPLACE UPDATE

13 new products are slated to be released today:

13 NEW PRODUCTS

5 products to be updated today:

5 UPDATED PRODUCTS

TWITCH SCHEDULE

Dec. 4 [Friday]: Community Fly-in: Guided Tour of Vietnam with Community Member SeedyL! All are welcome to join. Read here for more information.
Dec. 9 [Wednesday]: Flying Lessons for Noobs: Taught by ForderLearnToFly, we will begin lessons on the C152.
Dec. 11 [Friday]: Community Fly-in: Guided Tour of New Zealand with Community Member Zkdos! All are welcome to join. Read here for more information.
Dec. 15 [Tuesday]: Join TheFlyingFabio as he makes his first appearance on the MSFS stream! More details next week.
Dec. 18 [Friday]: We are planning a Grand Canyon Razor Run for the community! More details next week.

If you are interested in giving a guided tour or joining us on stream, please send a DM to jummivana in the forums! Thank you!