Dovetail's initiative ...

[Wobbie 938]

No problem. I just got confused when I was reading this forum with the title of 'Dovetails initiative'. Very interesting it was. I did not realise weather addons were part of this initiative. But thanks for explaining.

[JaneRachel 515]

Keep us in touch Jane!

 

Looking fwd for that link from FSX Insider!

 

here you go, here is some background info on the Dangerous Approaches DLC that I have written for FSX Insider

 

https://fsxinsider.com/dangerous-approaches-a-developers-perspective/

 

all the best

Jane

[jcomm 5,889]

Jane,

 

thank you for the link - great reading there!

 

I am almost desperately wanting to find something to drive me back to the MS FLIGHT experience I had a couple of years ago

when I returned to flight simulation. I confess that after a very sinuous track, involving a few flight simulation platforms

and versions, I landed in the Combat Flight Simulation arena, and it's there I've been spending most of my time... Why?

 

- Well, because I find flying online, playing dogfights, and ACM, profiting from the extraordinary flight dynamics provided

by those sims can be really exhilarating, and truth is I really got involved with it, but, at the same time, I sometimes

feel rather ridiculous chasing aircraft, shooting at them, watching the outcome... Not really my cup-of-tea, at least it wasn't

until I got into it...

 

Having a good experience flying missions, adventures, maybe starting to fly online with VATSIM, will certainly become a good diversion from

that "World of wars" I really don't like in it's essence, other than for the great feel of flight those sims provide me with...

 

Dangerous Approaches will be my first FSX-SE DLC, and I look forward to get from it exactly the thrill you describe so well

at FSX Insider. Well done, looking fwd to use it ;-)

[Wobbie 938]

Thanks, Jane.

Great Story & great flights.

 

Regards,

Robin

[JaneRachel 515]

Thanks, Jane.

Great Story & great flights.

 

Regards,

Robin

 

thanks for that Robin, appreciated!

[jcomm 5,889]

Congratulations Jane!

 

I will buy it soon ;-)

[Dumont 9]

Well I got the offer to buy the product, I confess I'm itching to want to buy, but I see when a problem in FSX SE, does not work without internet, this is not good.
Already read reports of Mrs. Jane and certainly the product that was created by your idea is good.

 

João Alfredo

[Peter Webber 339]

Hi. Can any addon aircraft be used to fly the approaches or are default aircraft permanently linked to a certain mission as in the boxed version? Are the missions flexible in terms of choosing the aircraft?

Regards..

[red259 31]

I'm hearing different things about FSX-steam. Some people say its the great and others are complaining about constant crashes. I fly mainly pmdg 737 & 777 with fs2crew. orbx global (and some orbx and other payware airports), I use ASN (I know they are working on making this work with steam), sometimes voxatc or vatsim, EFB, PFPX/Topcat, UT2. I tend to do long haul flights without using time acceleration, but sometimes will do shorter flights 3-4 hours. Running out of VAS is a major problem with me on the long flights if I am using heavy scenery. Would steam be an ideal move for me? How difficult is it to switch over all the addons to steam? All software was purchased online, so I do not have the programs on CDs.  

[JaneRachel 515]

Hi. Can any addon aircraft be used to fly the approaches or are default aircraft permanently linked to a certain mission as in the boxed version? Are the missions flexible in terms of choosing the aircraft?

Regards..

 

hey Peter,

There is a little tick box that you can select in the missions selection page that allows you to fly any aircraft on the approaches. It doesn't break the mission in any way, you still get all the voiceovers (it has a professional actress who is wonderful!), GPS flight plans (with embedded SID and STAR etc). All the mission completion and custom stuff in each mission still works fine. I made a point of coding each mission specifically for that flexibility. The only thing that you don't get if you swap aircraft is the trophy reward for the landing in your pilots log. Each landing awards a medal that is recorded permanently there. I had a lot of fun getting them all. The reason that the medals are not awarded if you change aircraft. That solves an exploit where cheating with something such as the ultralight (which would make the approaches easier) to record the landing doesn't award the trophy.

 

That matters, because the missions are multi-player compatible and during beta people were challenging each other in multiplayer sessions to see who could land the best and get the awards. So no cheating allowed! The team at Dovetail spent many hours trying their hand at various approaches, with office challenges happening every day! Gibraltar is a firm favourite!

 

So yes, in a nutshell, you can fly what you want, whether you are new to FSX or want to fly PMDG. It only affects the logbook trophy for reasons described above. Everything else is fully functional regardless of aircraft. I flew Castlegar in Dangerous Approaches yesterday with the A2A B-17 and loved it!

 

Dovetail tell me they are releasing a video today to websites of some of the approaches. (I think it is their way of justifying the office addiction to flying these approaches    )

 

Thanks ever so much for the question

Jane

[Wobbie 938]

+10 for the reply back from Jane Whittaker.

 

It's great to see feedback from devs.

[JaneRachel 515]

+10 for the reply back from Jane Whittaker.

 

It's great to see feedback from devs.

 

thanks Robin,

 

That is very kind of you to say that. I appreciate it. I am always around as I love being part of this community. In my 13 years at PC Pilot Magazine I have made many friends, both developers and consumer. So this hobby is special to me.

 

Jane

[vc10man 732]

Jane

 

Is this likely to be made available for other platforms, such as Prepar3D, as I have had it with FSX-SE, and ditched it and migrated to Prepar3D?

[JaneRachel 515]

Jane

 

Is this likely to be made available for other platforms, such as Prepar3D, as I have had it with FSX-SE, and ditched it and migrated to Prepar3D?

 

hey Rick, I will PM you.

[Novation 534]

What on earth went wrong with your comparative testing between FSX & FSX-SE in PC Pilot Jane Whittaker?

 

You present a case for performance in FSX-SE that is quite remarkable compared to the boxed version. Going from 200fps with a clean install, to 300fps using Bojote's tweaking tool, while you seem to insinuate the boxed version only achieved 30 to 40fps with a clean install, dropping to under 20fps with add-ons (and that is turning detail down to minimum!!!) compared to 50 to 60fps with FSX-SE :o

 

I know some people have managed better results with FSX-SE (I get pretty much identical performance, and within margin of error, add-ons or not) but your results seem ridiculously and quite frankly unbelievably skewed in FSX-SE's favour for some reason :Whistle:  I hope people, who buy and trust PC Pilot magazine don't go running to the Steam version expecting this massive improvement in performance, as I fear it simply won't be there.

 

As I was reading this article I had to check the page banner to make sure it wasn't one of these sneaky 'Advertisement Features' that are so common now.