Given that these aircraft seem to be releasing in progressively "buggier" states as time goes on (the Fokker seems to have significantly more issues than the JU-52 at launch, but obviously Orbx may fix a lot of those), I'm not terribly optimistic that the upcoming AN-2 isn't going to release and somehow have afterburners enabled or all the cockpit labels will somehow be in Aramaic and Esperanto.
Asobo partnering with Orbx on Fokker F.VII Trimotor
- Thread starter ak416
- Start date
DennyA
SOH-CM-2023
Well, these are developed by outside developers, for the most part.
I imagine the Staggerwing is going to be from Carenado, since they have a nice P3D Staggerwing. It'll likely be typical Carenado: Beautiful, a little quirky, and enough to overjoy casual and mid-core simmers and with just enough missing systems-wise to really annoy the circuit-breaker-level-complexity crowd.
The Fokker TriMotor was from OrbX. They've only built one plane so far, and it was the Optica which was almost good but had a bunch of bugs and a "stuff we're working on" list on the OrbX website that never got updated. I had the really nice freeware Optica but bought OrbX's because I love the company's sceneries and wanted to support them, but it's been pretty disappointing. I'm not so hardcore that I can't overlook some compromises made because $15 airplane but the single-engine Fokker is pretty inexcusably underpowered. The real plane was underpowered, but I can't believe it was that bad. I do hope there are some tweaks (but the Optica makes me wary), or that MS at least follows through with the promise to unencrypt flight model config files on their Marketplace/Deluxe planes so that the community can fix it.
But the AN-2? The AN-2 is coming from a developer who made a study-level, amazing quality AN-2 for FSX/P3D. I'm pretty sure that whatever quality control issues MS/Asobo have with their aircraft, this one's going to come into them solid enough that we're going to feel like we're getting a helluva deal on it.
I imagine the Staggerwing is going to be from Carenado, since they have a nice P3D Staggerwing. It'll likely be typical Carenado: Beautiful, a little quirky, and enough to overjoy casual and mid-core simmers and with just enough missing systems-wise to really annoy the circuit-breaker-level-complexity crowd.
The Fokker TriMotor was from OrbX. They've only built one plane so far, and it was the Optica which was almost good but had a bunch of bugs and a "stuff we're working on" list on the OrbX website that never got updated. I had the really nice freeware Optica but bought OrbX's because I love the company's sceneries and wanted to support them, but it's been pretty disappointing. I'm not so hardcore that I can't overlook some compromises made because $15 airplane but the single-engine Fokker is pretty inexcusably underpowered. The real plane was underpowered, but I can't believe it was that bad. I do hope there are some tweaks (but the Optica makes me wary), or that MS at least follows through with the promise to unencrypt flight model config files on their Marketplace/Deluxe planes so that the community can fix it.
But the AN-2? The AN-2 is coming from a developer who made a study-level, amazing quality AN-2 for FSX/P3D. I'm pretty sure that whatever quality control issues MS/Asobo have with their aircraft, this one's going to come into them solid enough that we're going to feel like we're getting a helluva deal on it.
grunau_baby
SOH-CM-2024
As much as I like the choice of aircraft Asobo offers and plans to release this experience makes me reluctant about their further releases. The price tag is moderate and - as mentioned - these classic birds check all my boxes, but it leaves me truely disappointed. Moreover as their update policy is also questionable.
FrankPilot
SOH-CM-2022
In their very recent 2022 Roadmap I think Orbx said there are some enhancements coming soon for the Fokker. Cheers.
K5083
SOH-CM-2024
An update for this plane was released last Friday, April 22.
It appears to have fixed most of the major issues. The F.VIIa now has a reasonable amount of power and the VIIb's power has been corrected to be a bit less. Flight models and handling have been tweaked, and they currently feel decently realistic to me. The fuel system has been redone, and while the aircraft now have sensible fuel capacities, I haven't done a long flight yet to assess whether the fuel burn rate is realistic and whether they have made the fuel weigh anything.
There are a few lingering issues. The VIIa still does not have any brakes, and with the increased power, there is no way that I can find to bring it to a stop at idle. The LAPE livery version displays both the wooden and metal props superimposed at 90 degrees to each other, at least on my install.
As before, the Southern Cross has the vintage cockipt and all of the other liveries for the VIIb with wheels have a modern cockpit. The modern cockpit is nice enough, but if you would prefer to fly one of the stock VIIb's in an airline livery with the vintage cockpit, you can go into the model.cfg for a particular livery and change the line:
interior=..\..\Microsoft_Fokker_FVII_common\model.Cockpit_VIIb_Modern\FVIIb_interior.xml
to
interior=..\..\Microsoft_Fokker_FVII_common\model.Cockpit_VIIb_Old\FVIIb_interior.xml
All in all, while still not perfect, this plane is now what I thought I was originally buying, and I'm belatedly happy with it. If you have not bought the plane yet and can get over your irritation at the unfinished state it was originally released in, I'd recommend it as good value for the price point now.
August
It appears to have fixed most of the major issues. The F.VIIa now has a reasonable amount of power and the VIIb's power has been corrected to be a bit less. Flight models and handling have been tweaked, and they currently feel decently realistic to me. The fuel system has been redone, and while the aircraft now have sensible fuel capacities, I haven't done a long flight yet to assess whether the fuel burn rate is realistic and whether they have made the fuel weigh anything.
There are a few lingering issues. The VIIa still does not have any brakes, and with the increased power, there is no way that I can find to bring it to a stop at idle. The LAPE livery version displays both the wooden and metal props superimposed at 90 degrees to each other, at least on my install.
As before, the Southern Cross has the vintage cockipt and all of the other liveries for the VIIb with wheels have a modern cockpit. The modern cockpit is nice enough, but if you would prefer to fly one of the stock VIIb's in an airline livery with the vintage cockpit, you can go into the model.cfg for a particular livery and change the line:
interior=..\..\Microsoft_Fokker_FVII_common\model.Cockpit_VIIb_Modern\FVIIb_interior.xml
to
interior=..\..\Microsoft_Fokker_FVII_common\model.Cockpit_VIIb_Old\FVIIb_interior.xml
All in all, while still not perfect, this plane is now what I thought I was originally buying, and I'm belatedly happy with it. If you have not bought the plane yet and can get over your irritation at the unfinished state it was originally released in, I'd recommend it as good value for the price point now.
August
Are you experiencing annoying prop disk flicker from the cockpit? It's pretty bad. Why these develpers can't figure out the prop disks, yet do all of this other detail texture work is beyond my understanding.
K5083
SOH-CM-2024
I think I see the prop flickering you are talking about, but it doesn't really bother me.
My take on the prop disc thing is that devs are caught between two incompatible user expectations. To match what the eye sees when looking at a spinning prop, it should be an even blur with no hint of any individual blades. However, users expect that when the sim is frozen to take a screen shot, there will be blurred individual prop blades like in a photo. So the textures for the prop discs have to contain blurred individual blades, and animating them will always have unrealistic flickering. I don't see any way out of this.
August
My take on the prop disc thing is that devs are caught between two incompatible user expectations. To match what the eye sees when looking at a spinning prop, it should be an even blur with no hint of any individual blades. However, users expect that when the sim is frozen to take a screen shot, there will be blurred individual prop blades like in a photo. So the textures for the prop discs have to contain blurred individual blades, and animating them will always have unrealistic flickering. I don't see any way out of this.
August
YoYo
SOH-CM-2023
I havent F.VII but Asobo did something like wrong approach for prop animation (FPS are blocked and has a strange loop). You can notoce it in many addons (also from the others). Its an issue of the engine of this sim. Its also very visible in Ju-52 (even with an offset shaft, LOL
). It annoys me too because it is not a smooth picture but a jumping animation that does not match the actual rotation/rpm. I hope they'll fix it someday hawever I dont know the status of this bug in MSFS.Dangerous Beans
SOH-CM-2022
I seem to remember Ant saying that the default prop animation only ran at 18fps and that he was adding his own custom animation to his upcoming Tiger Moth to fix it.
YoYo
SOH-CM-2023
Yes, Anthony from Ant's Airplane was working on it in his Drifter already. Not perfect still (like in FSX/P3D) but now its better for sure.
