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Thanks for all the sentiments and kind words. I myself am happy to be working on X-Plane full time and will strive to continue to do so. I can 'partially' sympathize with those who are...lets say...."on the fence" to put it nicely, regarding upgrade costs for software development, as I myself am one of those old-timers who came from what I like to call the "golden age of software" where it would obviously be great to buy it once and get upgrades forever, but as it stands, I now have at least 4 software subscriptions to software, billed every month, that is constantly evolving and some don't have the 'obvious features' I want and I understand it now as a developer. It used to be we could model a few polygons, slap a photo texture and we're done, because that's all the technology could handle. Now I have to model a few million polygons, slice them up and lay them all out neatly and texture them all and it takes a lot longer than it used to. I never had to worry about detail lighting before because X-Plane didn't have it, now its a whole "lighting pass" by itself. Same for sound engineering, etc. The technology has expanded a lot faster than the market. For those of us who remember playing Sublogic / Microsoft Flight Sim in 1981....we've come a long way technologically and I for one love it! The growth comes with some pains. I'll note that X-Plane dev requires more specialized knowledge now and finding folks with that knowledge and time is quite hard to find so its a challenge to execute what we now have the ability to produce. After nearly 20+ years of messing about with X-Plane, the important thing, I believe, is to keep moving and there've been some 'not insignificant' sacrifices in the background so that we can keep moving on this X-Plane work...as niche as it is. Its defininitely a labor of love and we all have to live with who we are. I figure if I can do what I love, I'll never work a day .....but I do need a paycheck to keep at it. I appreciate everyone out there who understands that. Thanks again. Back at it. -tkyler

I will point out...that once this XP12 port is stabilized....the FMS / autoflight is the highest priority, and not just for the 733. Other projects already in progress require FMS work as well, so it behooves us to really develop a flexible and reliable FMS infrastructure and by focusing on this, I am essentially working on multiple projects at once without sacrificing any one timeframe, so thats a max efficiency use of time and a big motivator to focus on it. -tkyler

and that's the way it should be. Never more complicated than that. Best any of us can do is 'hope' when we're not at the wheel. -tkyler

Maybe work on your eyesight before taking up flying

I'll install drt on this end and see if it gives me any clues.

That's not quite right, at least not for the next XP12 update (in the singular sense). Subsequent updates (in the plural sense)... later down the road will see redone external visuals of higher resolution. That is quite a heavy duty job and will probably take a couple of months...so I'll address that after the FMC work most likely and everything else is working well, but certainly that will be the time to look at the workload for the 400/500 variants. Thank you also for the well wishes. -tkyler

Ah. For the time being this is not planned. We have many things we want to get to before additions like this. Maybe one day, but not anytime soon compared to something like VNAV work.

on some level.....yes, but I'm not sure how good the effect will be just yet. One reason I've held off on wing "motion" is I've always wanted to do it right, rather than just code up some randomized motions or simple Flex = f(airload) behaviors. By 'do it right' (for the engineers out there), I mean implement both flex and vibration, which are different, and furthermore, flex/wing weight (fuel) changes the dynamic modes of the vibration (long and slow vs. quick and short moves) . While coding up free vibration is easy, the bigger challenge (unknown) is integrating some impulse (force input) into the mix, more specifically WHEN to do so. In severe weather, those impulse inputs take the form of drafts and micro-changes in densities as the wing moves through the air, and on the ground, undulations in the terrain/taxi speed. I have no idea yet how X-Plane quantifies 'bumps in the pavement', turbulence or severe weather (in XP12), simply because I haven't looked into it fully yet. How might X-Plane simulate random "drafts and density pockets" that would serve as an impulse forces on the wing?....Are they periodic based on some function? Randomized perturbences etc? Is there some dataref that says "im in a cloud"? (I doubt it). Certainly I'll be asking Austin directly first So while simple wing flex based on airload is very easy and is a better effect for long flexible wing products...on the -300, wing flex isn't as much fun to look at as 'vibration'....particularly in turbulence and those slow oscillations as you taxi with fuel in the wings...but 'forced vibration' is the more difficult situation to simulate. So.....wing flex will be simulated for sure, but that particular effect will be quite small on this relatively short wing...BUT vibration....yea...thats the one we want, especially me. The MU2, with those big wing tanks are just crying out for it also. I just need to determine how to best implement the perturbances, the magnitude and timings of them. Best case, X-Plane will provide some sort of dataref that represents the perturbances directly and those will be adequate... worst case, all I'll get is some "turbulence level" number and I'll have to determine my own wing motion timings somehow....and thats where potential "evolution of the effect" may come into play, where we release with a more basic effect and then refine it based on experimentation. I can tell you I want this one to be 'just right' pretty bad! and will work on it until it is. -tkyler

Simple explanation. If I were to say, "we won't update the 737 until I have the FMS working like I want to", then I would not be here, I'd have taken another job and the 737 would be retired at Version 11 of XPlane and the IXEG would be done and I would be done with XP development. The workload to address those items you mention exceeds the workload for the items we have chosen to update for XP12. That is why those are getting addressed at a later time. The reasons those items weren't addressed have been explained previously and at this juncture, it doesn't matter whether folks (myself included) like it or not. I have to move forward from today. It is important for me to convey that "later" in todays context, with me working full time on XP, isn't as vague or as far on the horizon as "later" was a few years back when even we didn't know how much "later" we would find time to work on things with our other work schedules. I made a decision to not pursue other jobs and try to make X-Plane development work for me full time... put a plan together with the consult of some other folks whose opinions I respect, and am now executing that plan. The MU2 was a springboard to the IXEG update and the IXEG update will springboard to the 733 upgrade work we all would like to see....and dare I say.... future products. This is the path required to keep my X-Plane development work going and not let these products die out. It was simply a cost/benefit strategic decision that dictated the order of work. -tkyler

For the price of half a pizza this is a fair and reasonable upgrade. I will buy it just because of how much flight simming joy IXEG brought to me for years.

Yes, just as it is now. It's honestly irrelevant since had the IXEG even been feature complete in our eyes, it would not have worked in 12 at all. Literally not flyable. As it stands, because we felt things weren't feature complete where we wanted them, this mostly worked in your favor here. Had we considered things fully feature complete, this upgrade price would be much higher. We took that into account when thinking about the pricing. It really was a gesture, because what you're really paying for here is the port to 12 cost. Think $34.95 or more had it been the other way around. So, you can be sour if you want, but my personal opinion (and it's only mine), is that's rather petty given the situation and development cost involved.

I think now is a good time for a reminder that regardless of any state IXEG was in, X-Plane 12 broke existing functionality to the point the product literally doesn't work. You can't even use flaps in X-Plane 12. Because of code changes necessary to get it working again, a fee was bound to happen after 6 years of being on the market with no upgrade fees prior to this. As a whole, X-Aviation has always been overly fair with upgrade pricing, most of the time not charging any. We simply do not believe in this type of gouging when it's not warranted and the work to update something was very little on our end. At $14.95, it's a bargain to the work being invested on the porting front alone, and realities are people need to be able to live to produce. You're looking at this the wrong way. These new additions are intentional and designed to show commitment going forward. You're paying for the port to 12. We just happen to believe that we should also show good faith in improving the product along the way rather than just ship the port with a charge. Giving free upgrades to new customers who purchase products during transition phases (like X-Plane 11 becoming X-Plane 12) is very common in software. It is a way to retain customers who are uneasy about purchasing a software product when the next major version is so near. In our case, Laminar had already announced X-Plane 12 and new customers needed a reason to purchase a v11 plane rather than wait it out for v12, and thanks to Laminar announcing 12 so early, the time from announcement to release of 12 was over a year. That means a year of market uncertainty for consumers looking to buy things, which keeps us in business. The data we had showed sales were slumping in the market across the board for this reason alone, and by letting new customers know they could get the upgrade free, the confidence was instilled to make a purchase and also help keep food on our table. Heck, even Apple does this with some of their hardware, surprisingly. Most of the products in your install there have already had announced roadmaps for 12. Islander, TBM, and your two SR20's will be free of charge. If you have v2 of the MU-2, it too will be free of charge.

Not having a hideable yoke is actually somewhat of a design decision: We want to replicate the experience of operating an airliner as much as possible. And finding a head position is always a compromise in the real plane, despite all ergonomic considerations by the designers. Yes, it´s easier to move your head in a real cockpit, but I think it is very managable to fly with the 3D yoke. I don´t fly with my VR headset or the TrackIR. Cheers, Jan

Really, Cameron ?... This screenshot should refresh your memory... @jfwharton is right. It is written : "X-Plane 12 update will be free" What about the other "Free" updates ?... How many will they cost ?! Now, we know what your word is worth. And we can judge a person by his word. You have $$ in the eyes ; that's the real and only viable path (your path) ! Customers ? It's secondary, you don't care.