September 9th, 2021 Development Update

Screenshot by Quaarli

Thank you to everyone who has downloaded World Update VI and provided feedback in the forums, Zendesk, and social media. You, the community, help shape Microsoft Flight Simulator day by day and we are grateful to have such a great mix of perspectives, backgrounds, and voices. There are some bugs discovered this week from the recent update and we plan on releasing a hotfix in the coming week. It will include a fix for the night lighting Render Scale, Offscreen Terrain PreCaching on VR menus, minor world/water mask clean-up, and a few more items. Full patch notes will be posted with the update.

We announced the delay of both our live Dev Q&A and aircraft release (Junkers JU-52) the other day but are happy to share that the new release date for the Junkers JU-52 is September 28th. We are still working on the postponed date for our live Dev Q&A and will provide an update as soon as possible.

Below you’ll find a new Development Roadmap updated through November. With Maverick: Top Gun now slated for next May, we re-evaluated the next few months and plan on having two major updates: Sim Update VI and Sim Update VII/Reno Air Races. 

Enjoy this Development Update and have a great weekend!

– The MSFS team 

DEVELOPMENT ROADMAP

Click here for the web-friendly version.

FEEDBACK SNAPSHOT

To learn more about Accessibility in Microsoft Flight Simulator, click here. We will return to normal weekly Feedback Snapshot updates next week, in the meantime, click here for last week’s Feedback Snapshot.

VIRTUAL REALITY FEEDBACK SNAPSHOT

We are excited to share new updates to the VR Snapshot. We plan on closing threads marked as ‘duplicate’ and ‘unable to reproduce’ next week, but will evaluate feedback in them over the next few days before doing so. If you would like to help us with issues that we are unable to reproduce at this time, we invite you to help us by sending in more details in the appropriate threads so we can take a look.

COMMUNITY TRIAGE UPDATE

This section details any updates we are able to share on popular issues that have been discovered by the community and either logged for a future fix or found to have a workaround until fixed. This is not an exhaustive list; just items we would like to share today:

• Night lighting/Render Scale Broken: A setting less than 100 will cause no lights to appear, and a setting greater than 100 will cause the lights to float. 
  • Workaround: Set your render scale to 100 (PC only). This will be resolved in the upcoming hotfix.
• No “Offscreen Terrain Precaching” option available in the VR Menu.
  • This will be resolved in the upcoming hotfix.
• Some users are receiving the Safe Mode pop up when launching the sim despite not having a crash.
  • This will be resolved in the upcoming hotfix.
• Elevator Trim Sensitivity and Trim Axis: When using the mouse on the trim wheel on the C172 G1000, the trim wheel is too sensitive.
  • This is currently being fixed for a target release of Sim Update 6.
• Fixed the ENG 1 and the Crank/ Mode norm/ IGN/Start buttons on the Thrustmaster TCA Quadrant Airbus edition – With this update, be sure to remove Toggle Engine X Fuel valve from your mapping if using a custom profile in order for ENG 1 switch is not working properly.

SDK UPDATE

3RD PARTY UPDATE

As of 09/07, we have now approved 215 (+0) third parties into the in-sim marketplace and – so far 115 (+0) have released 528 products on PC (+8) and 80 on Xbox (+7).

• In total, 1,303 products (+26) have already been released in 3rd party stores and the in-sim marketplace. Beyond that, another 363 products (+0) from 3rd party developers are in production (229 announced, 134 unannounced). In total, over 1,666 3rd party products (+26) are either released or are in development.
• Airports:
  • 1052 airports (+19) are either released or are in various stages of development.
  • 835 airports (+19) have been released on the platform so far in various stores.
  • 431 airports (+5) have been released in the in-sim marketplace.
  • 106 airports (+0) beyond the released airports have been announced.
  • 111 airports (+0) are not announced, but the dev let us know that an airport is in production.
• Aircraft:
  • 198 aircraft (+3) are either released or are in various stages of development.
  • 66 aircraft (+3) have been released on the platform so far in various stores.
  • 39 aircraft (+2) have been released in the in-sim marketplace.
  • 109 aircraft (+0) beyond the released aircraft have been announced.
  • 23 aircraft (+0) are not announced, but the dev let us know that an aircraft is in production.
• Scenery:
  • 375 sceneries (+4) are either released or are in various stages of development.
  • 361 sceneries (+4) have been released on the platform so far in various stores.
  • 36 sceneries (+1) have been released in the in-sim marketplace.
  • 14 sceneries (+0) beyond the released scenery have been announced.
• Mission Packs:
  • 40 mission packs (+0) are either released or are in various stages of development.
  • 40 mission packs (+0) have been released on the platform so far in various stores.
  • 4 mission packs (+0) have been released in the in-sim marketplace.
  • 0 mission packs (+0) beyond the released missions have been announced.

MARKETPLACE UPDATES

COMMUNITY VIDEO

YouTuber Cinematic Flight showcases Vienna, the beautiful capital city of Austria, in this stunning 4K60FPS video. Microsoft Flight Simulator’s rendition of Vienna saw significant improvements with the recently released World Update VI, including the addition of photogrammetry and several new hand-crafted points of interest. Cinematic Flight uses an Edgley Optica (available from the MSFS Marketplace by 3^rd Party Developer Orbx) in this video, the perfect plane for low and slow aerial sightseeing.

FEATURED FREEWARE MOD

Did you see the viral video of Red Bull stunt pilot Dario Costa flying through a tunnel in Turkey earlier this week? Now you can attempt an even harder challenge in Microsoft Flight Simulator courtesy of modder Photosbykev. In this freeware addon, test your precision flying while traversing through a 7.5 kilometer long rail tunnel in Mexico. Good luck!

SCREENSHOT CHALLENGE

You can now submit your screenshot via Twitter with #MSFSchallenge or the Weekly Forum Post! This week’s screenshot challenge: Cockpits.

This past week our Screenshot Challenge was Final Approach! Here are our runner ups this week: