Technical Alpha Sign-Up Live

DennyA

DennyA

SOH-CM-2023
MS is hosting a technical alpha to test MSFS2024's new services.

It's a limited-content alpha, sounds like it's mostly focused on testing back-end technologies, rather than testing the full scope of the simulation.

Note that because it's a limited test, it's MS Store versions only, so Steam users aren't in this one.

Signup:
www.flightsimulator.com

Join us for the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 Technical Alpha in October - Microsoft Flight Simulator

In October we’re hosting a technical alpha to gather feedback on some of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024’s new services. Please note the focus of this technical alpha is validating new services in…
www.flightsimulator.com www.flightsimulator.com
 
I have flown it. It's definitely a technical alpha. :) Aspects of it are really super-impressive, but there's a lot that's missing so don't expect the actual 2024 experience.

Control mapping looks like it's going to be super-flexible/powerful with the ability to map per plane, but if there's a way to bring in the mappings I did for XCub to the C172 and F/A-18, I sure haven't figured it out. And I really don't want to have to fully map two more planes individually.
 
I did one short flight yesterday from KHAF to KMRY in the C172, scenery is impressive. Its an area of the coast I know well and I could pick out many of the buildings and parks along the way I knew.

But right now there are few controls setup, for my thrust master joystick they have reasonable defaults, but for my X56 throttle nothing was set. So after my flight I went and programmed it, but when I loaded up the F18 For something quicker all the settings I just made were gone, do we have to program for every aircraft? That is going to get very tedious.

On top of that the keyboard commands are different, they keys I had been using, (like Z to toggle the autopilot and F5-F8 ) all seem to be different. It took a couple of years for me to get used to FS2020, hopefully 2024 won't be as bad but I am not sure.

And it has feature where it reads off to you the text of the options in the menu as your mouse hovers over it, and I have not yet found a way to turn it off. From the readme, at this point they are only looking for fatal bugs and not feedback on the UI

Edit: Under Accessibility -> Narration and Audio Cues -> Enable Screen Narrator you can turn off the menu voice.
 
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The controller mapping for this Alpha is a mess. Had issues with my x52 and tried an xbox controller and had a little better luck but the throttle kept reverting back to half power. Super frustrating.
 
A tip for the joysticks and configurations: each aircraft has its parameters, it is not like MSFS 2020 or a set of parameters was used by all aircraft. Having 3 planes you will need to set the joystick 3 times!
 
lagaffe said:
A tip for the joysticks and configurations: each aircraft has its parameters, it is not like MSFS 2020 or a set of parameters was used by all aircraft. Having 3 planes you will need to set the joystick 3 times!
Click to expand...
When you consider that the Aviators edition comes with 125 aircraft and even the Standard has 70, programming the controllers for every aircraft is not going to be manageable.
 
blanston12 said:
When you consider that the Aviators edition comes with 125 aircraft and even the Standard has 70, programming the controllers for every aircraft is not going to be manageable.
Click to expand...

Let's hope it's optional! I've ordered the Premium Deluxe edition...
 
I think its worth bearing in mind the Alpha is in no way a full release candidate so I would really doubt they will require users to map controls for each individual aircraft. If I am wrong I am sure there is a 3rd party who would be happy to solve this.
 
Someone on the official forum mentioned they had figured out how to copy control settings from one plane to another. I think it can be done, it's just not intuitive. (I don't think Jorg reads Sim-Outhouse, but I have a ton of content design experience and I'd love to help tweak powerful but sometimes quirky MSFS UI, sir!)

I only had about 40 minutes to futz with the alpha yesterday, and given the short amount of time it's live I'm not going to spend a ton of time diving into menu minutia, but I'm assuming in the final it'll be easy to create a baseline universal control profile for all planes, and then use it as a basis to tweak individual planes. I'm guessing you can even do that now, but it's not intuitive due to the stripped-down nature of the UI in the alpha.

I really wish that MSFS had a way for the community to share controller profiles, even as downloads, so that unsupported stuff like my Winwing HOTAS could be programmed by someone who has the time and then shared with everyone.
 
There is no NDA with this Alpha, so I have been enjoying all the videos that have been posted thus-far by streamers on Youtube. Numerous moments in this 9+ hour stream, especially...
...have me really looking forward to MSFS 2024. As mentioned, the alpha is very bare-bones, and one of the results, for instance, is that all of the AI boats/ships show up as cruise ships right now since the alpha doesn't include all of the AI models.

If you go to the 00:29:15 in the video, he covers how the controls are assigned in the new sim, and how you can copy/apply profiles. You have the option to simply setup one profile and use it across everything, or if you want to you can customize the controller bindings for every aircraft individually, however deep you care to go.
 
I don't remember how but I did manage to copy the settings I did for the C172 into the XCub, so it is possible but I don't know if I am using the same profile (so updates are shared) or if I made a copy.
 
Confirmed: I got my XCub settings over to the Cessna so I could try Career mode. I copied the settings under a custom name, then once I was in the Cessna I went to the controls settings and chose that custom name. Everything was in-place. Had to do it for each of my controllers.

Also, my gamertag is Editer. This was fun, though some 12-year-old kid (guessing from his gamertag) has now displaced me and I'm now #2 in the world.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 Beta 10_12_2024 3_01_58 PM_upload.jpg
 
Exact DennyA, you have find the solution you were quicker to share it than me :cool:
Editer he's you .... OK ;)
 
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