IXEG For X-Plane 12 status.

[andrewjw19990]

Incredibly minor request amongst the big picture BUT...are opening doors coming with the update? IMO it adds to immersion when using stairs instead of a jetway, either way just having this bird in 12 alone is going to be great! I miss my "go-to"!

[Cameron]

6 hours ago, andrewjw19990 said:

Incredibly minor request amongst the big picture BUT...are opening doors coming with the update? IMO it adds to immersion when using stairs instead of a jetway, either way just having this bird in 12 alone is going to be great! I miss my "go-to"!

We haven't solidified new features at this time. For now, the focus is getting the product converted to 12.

[tkyler]

10 hours ago, Cameron said:

For now, the focus is getting the product converted to 12.

...AND....as before.  still going full bore.  More than a week, but (hopefully) less than a month.  Hope I don't eat those words, but if so, it won't be by much.  My point is we're still moving along towards our goals according to the plan.  A significant portion of 2023 will be spent on the IXEG, so we're just making sure we get off to a solid footing to continue on with further improvements.

-tkyler

Edited February 8, 2023 by tkyler

[smokey43]

tkyler, 

This is awesome news! I am especially grateful for the periodic updates, something I was quite critical of in the past. I am quite quick to commend as well! Thanks, this is refreshing to see.

[Fesi]

Good to see this aircraft is coming to XP12. This plane got me into xplane and is one of my favourites.

[tkyler]

I want to thank everybody for their patience here.  We won't make March 8th as mentioned previously, but not for lack of attention to the update process.   We do plan to give a more informational update next week though and I still feel we're not terribly far away from a release as work continues regularly.

The roadmap for myself (being both IXEG and TOGA) is to get this port update out, then I'll binge the MU2 for 4-ish weeks, getting it refined for V12 and then take a deep breath/short break and dive into the FMS / VNAV functionality of the 733 while also seeking out other areas to improve throughout the remainder of the year.  Thx again.

-TomK

Edited March 3, 2023 by tkyler

[VirtualAviator]

3 hours ago, tkyler said:

I want to thank everybody for their patience here

Here is why I think you should take all the time you need... Empirically, there seems to have been an exodus of developers and, I think you know why. Those who have chosen to stay on the X-Plane platform are excellent developers, IMO. Most of you (devs) have decided not to rush your products to market, but to take the time to redevelop your products so that me and others can get products that's realistic and take advantage of the XP12's characteristics. With that said, you (tkyler) and a short-list of other devs are expanding the envelope of what aircraft should be capable of in the sim. This is where I believe the X-Plane community will differentiate itself from the other sims.

Developers who actually model those little things, and allow those little things to have a cascading effect, while maintaining the realism of the aircraft, will certainly make XP's aircraft THE best available. Simply put, XP12's aircraft needs (I don't like the word 'need') to be better. The aircraft should be the best. Your aircraft, I believe, will be among the best, if not THE best. So take all the time you need.

I didn't mean to rant, but I am passionate about the horse I picked.

[tkyler]

30 minutes ago, VirtualGAaviator said:

Simply put, XP12's aircraft needs (I don't like the word 'need') to be better

Thank you....you're not the only one to make this argument for obvious reasons!, and I'm in complete agreement.  Hopefully "all the time I need" won't translate into "an extraordinary amount of time".   I'm just happy to be working this stuff full time for a change.  Thx again! 

-TomK

[Pils]

5 minutes ago, tkyler said:

Thank you....you're not the only one to make this argument for obvious reasons!, and I'm in complete agreement.  Hopefully "all the time I need" won't translate into "an extraordinary amount of time".   I'm just happy to be working this stuff full time for a change.  Thx again! 

-TomK

I, for one, am very interested to hear the roadmap/plans for the "remainder of the year" development.

[tkyler]

11 minutes ago, Pils said:

I, for one, am very interested to hear the roadmap/plans for the "remainder of the year" development.

All I have are things I look at and go..."yea...I'd like to improve that". ...but first and foremost is the FMS / VNAV work of course.  Right along side that is a conversion to FMOD based sounds, which will allow us to expand the sound set to cabin/ambient sounds or whatever we can think up, etc.  Also, I'd like to improve the 3D in several spots...it is, after all,  over 10 years old.  I can foresee a high-resolution exterior and textures at some point, which would necessitate new livery repaints, but oh well   If I have to redo work with the evolution of X-Plane and computers, so will livery artists   I'm going to look at the feasibility of implementing a cargo variant also..unsure the workload just yet.   And we are moving to imGUI based interface, rather than the custom widgets we built previously.  The thought here is that will allow us to integrate more 'management interfaces' for handling failures, flight setups or providihng additional graphics, etc.  

Of course working cabin doors, a completely new cabin interior and some wing flex would be nice.....but that work is taking a tiny bit longer than I........um....I mean....yea...those features would be nice to incorporate!

Beyond the 733 work, I have another project I'll be working on in the back half of the year alongside the 733..and then one more in 2024 I'd like to tackle and that'll probably be it.

[Graeme_77]

Can't wait to have the 733 refreshed and back in action - it was my introduction to X-Plane and made a great first impression. I did my multi crew and jet orientation on a 737 Classic sim, and the IXEG brought back all those memories - even with XP10 visuals it was way better than the actual sim ;-)  When you launched back in 2016 I was amazed at how well the sim captured that 737 experience.

I can understand doing the XP12 compatibility first then moving to the FMS work later, and hope it comes together easily for you.  Perhaps if the FMS is being reworked it would be good to move to the now standard Laminar navdata rather than using a custom set? I know this dataset didn't exist when the IXEG project started, but perhaps some of the edge cases in the nav code would be better handled with this format? 

[tkyler]

35 minutes ago, Graeme_77 said:

Perhaps if the FMS is being reworked it would be good to move to the now standard Laminar navdata rather than using a custom set?

That is actually very much "in progress" Graeme and I anticipate switching to that dataset asap.  I wrote extensive nav data routines for parsing XP11 navadata quite a ways back in prep for this eventual port....so the heavy lifting is mostly done.   It will look for the custom data if it exists (from Navigraph or Aerosoft...XP11 format), and if not present, defaults to Laminars dataset.   I posted on it in the forum somewhere way back when where the left FMS was running with the XML dataset and the right FMS was running with the XP11 navadata format; however, at that juncture, it was only displaying procedural names from the parsed data, not loading anything into the flight plan.  We have a 'de-coupled internal' format we use for the FMS data, whereby we read in the XML data and cast it into our own data structure...so in theory, I now only need to write the 'caster' between the XP format and our internal format and it should be mostly done.  TBH, I'm hoping it will just work with minimal troubleshooting...so yea, we're right on the same page.

-TomK

Edited March 4, 2023 by tkyler

[Pils]

As long as you can fully represent ARINC 424.

[Torbinator]

Thank you Tom for the update. Not sure if it's been mentioned, but will the update that includes VNAV/FMS increased capability be XP11 compatible as well? I assume at one point you'll be fully dedicated to XP12, but I'm still saving up for a 4080 card! 

[Cameron]

7 hours ago, Torbinator said:

Thank you Tom for the update. Not sure if it's been mentioned, but will the update that includes VNAV/FMS increased capability be XP11 compatible as well? I assume at one point you'll be fully dedicated to XP12, but I'm still saving up for a 4080 card! 

At the moment it's too early to say how that will play out. It really depends how much time that will involve to maintain both branches, and to be frank, there has been a mass exodus to 12 based on metrics we have already.

[Delos]

On 3/3/2023 at 10:51 AM, tkyler said:

I want to thank everybody for their patience here.  We won't make March 8th as mentioned previously, but not for lack of attention to the update process.   We do plan to give a more informational update next week though and I still feel we're not terribly far away from a release as work continues regularly.

The roadmap for myself (being both IXEG and TOGA) is to get this port update out, then I'll binge the MU2 for 4-ish weeks, getting it refined for V12 and then take a deep breath/short break and dive into the FMS / VNAV functionality of the 733 while also seeking out other areas to improve throughout the remainder of the year.  Thx again.

-TomK

And I presume after the inital release there will be a period of ironing out user bugs, and flight model bugs. I'm not so much invested in major new features as I am having the plane working strong in XP12, amazing work and big thanks to the effort you're putting in here!

[Litjan]

1 hour ago, Delos said:

there will be a period of ironing out user bugs, and flight model bugs.

I am fairly hopeful that the flightmodel bugs will be very few, this is something that we can test in-house fairly well.

As for user bugs, yes - there is inevitably a large array of different systems and even more so different ways that users operate the airplane that reveal things not working as intended...so every major new release will be followed by collecting user feedback and rolling the resultant fixes into a short-term update.

[berilojr]

Is there anyone else that visit this page everyday hoping for a good news??? no pressure guys, just very anxious for this one, by far one of the most amazing mod for the Flight Sim community... Thank you for putting so much love on it!!!!

[tkyler]

On 3/12/2023 at 7:04 PM, berilojr said:

Is there anyone else that visit this page everyday hoping for a good news?

I do    Seriously.  still going every single day...we'll be making an announcement/report about whats going on here within the next few days.  I'm trying to get to a specific point before we give a more formal update and I don't want to rush it....I'm as picky as most of you folks, so I'm steadily laboring away towards that point.

-tkyler

Edited March 15, 2023 by tkyler

[Torbinator]

On 3/15/2023 at 8:28 AM, tkyler said:

...I'm as picky as most of you folks...

Picky is what made it excellent. Looking forward to the updates.

[lord_helmet]

Eagerly awaiting some info! Love this bird.

[spreilly]

Love flying this aircraft, excited to see it in XP12! Do you forsee a -400/-500 or freighter version developed?

[manguras]

6 hours ago, spreilly said:

Love flying this aircraft, excited to see it in XP12! Do you forsee a -400/-500 or freighter version developed?

 

[tkyler]

11 hours ago, spreilly said:

Do you forsee a -400/-500 or freighter version developed?

A freighter version for the -400 has potential because the workload to produce that is "relatively" light.  The -500, being a shorter variant would require a much more laborious effort to change both the 3D and the flight model, being geometrically disparate...and the return on investment in that, I believe, probably would not justify the efforts.   While I think a freighter variant would appeal to a statistically smaller set of customer use cases, I recognize that there is still a place for it...and so I do want to do a -400 freighter at some point.

..and yes, I'm still working on the 733 every day...my carpel tunnel and "tennis elbow" remind me constantly.  I think I can safely say at this point that we'll definitely put out a more informative report this week on whats going on with the development.

-tkyler

Edited March 26, 2023 by tkyler

[judeb]

I also think it's only fair that Tom does more than his fair share of work on other X-Plane projects behind the scenes too. 

Hats off to you.