Leaderboard

Yes, the MU-2 takes a long time to get everything set up the way you want it. Takes a lot of pouring over the manual and studying how to operate it properly. But in my experience, the planes that take time and effort to learn are the most rewarding to fly. Once I put in the time and effort and went through some frustration, the MU-2 became the most satisfying plane in my X-Plane fleet. It continues to be my favorite aircraft to fly.

Truth be told Bulva, I don't have a VR setup (used to, but not for a while)....BUT....will be getting a new one shortly, so yes, I do expect this aspect to be improved. I develop on a Mac and swapping back/forth to my Windows box is a bit of a pain atm, but I'm getting a KVM switch to make things more painless and this should make things much more palatable for developing for VR. -tk

Well without a doubt the condition levers play into the fuel flow so a hardware setup could come into play depending on its configuration...the condition lever ratio nees to be about 0.4 or higher for engines start. Not so much the propeller on the locks or unfeather, that really doesn't play into the 'ignition' process. One thing you could try is simply to unplug all hardware and use the keyboard and mouse to move all the levers and see if it starts normally that way....at the least it may be an additional data point. -tk

thx for the report. It seems I myself have come across this is the past, though have trouble repeating it...and in addition, have not seen this for quite some time....so I'm going to start by saying I don't think its "Just you".....but follow that on with "I'm not sure what causes it" either. Historically, its been really rare for me...only once or twice in hundreds and hundreds of starts during development. You mentioned start up then shutdown....and IIRC (cause its been a while since it happened)....it seems it was associated with engine shutdown and restart. This could be a Laminar bug. The key is to find a repeatable procedure that results in the same outcome every single time and I haven't been able to do that yet....but I will look at this again and try and repeat it. When it would happen.....and the reason I say it may be a Laminar bug....is all the datarefs I was monitoring indicated the engine SHOULD have been running...was receiving fuel, was ignited, etc, but it just wouldn't accelerate. If you can find an operational sequence where it happens every single time, I'd love to know and try and repeat it and take a look at it. -tkyler

wingflex done. Kudos again to Laminar...someone there snuck in a good implementation of it while I wasn't paying attention, saving me coding time. Moving on to wrapping up the cabin lighting and texturing and then final punchlist and QA checks. -tkyler

Thx....but.......Jan didn't like it. "...that's not how I remember it" he said. (Thx Jan) sent me this... so here we are now....and still tweaking Jan's a tough one.

Thx. Somewhere in that endeavor is revealed the next projects we'll be working on...curious if anybody will figure it out Anyhow....the WIP of the cockpit lighting.

definitely. we're not touching that. On another note, we are back full steam on the IXEG after that short MU2 detour for Sporty's Pilot Shop. Working the lighting pass now, probably one of the bigger jobs. We have over 700 inidividual surfaces / lights that we have to audit 1 by 1 for the proper brightness values in XP12. After that, I'll hit the wing-flex and then the final punchlist items list. Jan is performing more test flights for any obvious bugs also. After the V12 compatibility / port release and bug chasing dies down, we'll start the "improvement" phase. -tkyler

I have a confession. I was approached about 10 days ago to participate in a short-notice endeavor (X-Plane related) that was tough to refuse and had me put the IXEG work on hold for this time frame....so this short delay in our original time estimate is squarely on my shoulders.....but I feel was the wiser decision for my continued work in X-Plane. I'm back on to the IXEG tomorrow. This side endeavor will become known sometime today I suspect. The good news (hint) is that completion of this endeavor will allow me to continue on the IXEG development right after the V12 port version comes out, and not have to detour back onto any other work....and there is a bit of an 'Easter Egg' in this endeavor that reveals the two projects we plan on working on in 2024. So we'll roll out the V12 port and I'll jump right back onto the FMS and other improvements planned for the remainder of the year. So this endeavor delays the V12 port, but moves forward the follow-on work. Those improvments (FMS, new nav data, beginnings of new 3D exterior) will take the better part of 2023 I'm sure, but we'll start that immedately after the V12 port release. As far as time frame for the V12 port now.... I can't say exactly. we always feel "close" because all the big stuff is out of the way. My todo list largely consists of finishing the interior texturing (rear galley), putting in the wing flex and squashing Jan's list of 'mostly small' issues, that's the list. I am dealing with 3 graduations of my kids this weekend (and family get-togethers).... and they will get my time to celebrate their achievements. I'd like to be done within 3 weeks, that's all I'll say. Will we be done in 3 weeks? I don't know. If not, I'll certainly be closer than I am today and still moving! -tkyler

This thread (and this forum at large) are the correct place - although there will be an email newsletter when the plane is ready for XP12. We are in the final stages of updating, I am not going to dare and put a date on it, but the plane is flying fine and the remaining work is some 3D, some minor bug squashing and a final user-experience polish. Cheers, Jan

Not for some time. The cockpit looks great in XP12, even after 13 years since its first incarnation. PBR effects are applied in several areas of the cockpit already. There is a limit to the resolution of the textures where more does not necessarily equal better and a specific balance was chosen at the onset. One thing that has not changed much over the years is monitor "dot pitch'...with a few exceptions (Apple's retina display). Having chosen a minimum distance from camera to surfaces that we consider reasonable for a good simulation experience....and also in consideration of anti-aliasing algorithms, we have found that going higher and higher resolution results in poorer detail at the nominal viewing distances and there is a 'sweet-spot' balance between resolution and anti-aliasing algorithms. Anti-aliasing gets less effective at 'too high' resolutions and you get more 'jaggies', not less. Sure, when you get the camera right up on the surfaces, they look good then, but if a real pilot had to get as equally close to a surface to see its detail, you would most certainly question his last eye exam. As such, we selected a nominal range of camera distances from surfaces for typical simming activites and developed our resolutions based on those use cases. Going any higher doesn't yield any worthwhile benefit in our experience as of yet. I'm not saying there's not room for improvements in a few areas...but relative to other ares of the 3D, its certainly one of the better textured areas and not at the top of the list for improvement.....and we're quite proud of how good it still looks in XP12 after 13 years. Nils Danielson did an unbelievable job of texturing the cockpit, best I've ever seen to this day IMO, and those who have experienced his work and the immersion it imbues (myself included) know what I'm talking about. We'll keep on eye on it, vs the state of the art technologically, and if there's something we feel we can do that will improve the immersion experience, we'll ceratainly put it on our wish / todo list and try and knock that out. -tkyler

Largely yes there haven't been major issues with it. The update to get the intricacies tuned is almost complete at this point as well, so that should be going out shortly.