mhlarsen

I actually have chosen my words carefully here and if you read my posts also stated that any consequences of these 'Unofficial' forums are not intentional in regard to Avsim. It may be that i stand alone on this subject, but that does not mean that I am wrong, just alone. Well, that was my 2 cents.

Getting opinions on products can be obtained from many sources, not only the 'Unofficial' forums. Should not be a problem at all in the year 2014. Usually a developer will have a general forum that will take care of such requests and does Avsim and other Flightsim forums. If you buy a product the developer will demand that you register and identify your serial number, which is a natural request in many businesses. In a niche community like ours we should worry about pirates. Just ask a company like CeraSim. If I as a registered user can see the loophole for piracy that the 'Unofficial' forums are, then of course I should worry as I would like to enjoy and expand my hobby with new products. I also assume that the Avsim editors have discussed this and obviously have come to a conclusion, but I am not sure its the right one. There is really a significant contradiction between developers guarding their products with user registering and serial numbers, and then the 'free for all' support in the Avsim 'Unofficial' forums. Of course it is more cumbersome to go through the hassle of registering and so on, but again this is a normal procedure for most products. A procedure like that might be impossible to administrate for the 'Unofficial' forums, but maybe they need to have a different format. This has nothing to do with paranoia, but it is really a question of ethics, which I think Avsim normally hold in high regard in other aspects.

No, I am not missing the point of these forums as their function on Avsim is evident. I agree though that some producers seem more active on these forums than others, but that does not change my argument. Why have an 'Unofficial' forum when an Official forum exists to take care of all customer requests? I fail to see the logic in this. I also honestly doubt that Avsim moderators or anyone else can spot pirates easily on these forums. How are these people apparent? Generally if you choose as a 'customer' to post technical requests on the 'Unofficial' forum and not the Official forum, that seems odd to me as a paying customer. But I can point out many posts on these forums that does just that, even today, without any consequence at all. Piracy exists yes, but that should not be a free license to practice it. And may I add we have no idea how many pirates we are talking about. And yes, the members on these forums have immense knowledge about flight simulator products and generously share this with others, which is why we love to come here. I am also not sure if these 'Unofficial' forums are created on the request of the payware producers? I doubt it. Do I want the 'Unofficial' forums removed? Well, this is up to Avsim to decide. Maybe I would feel better as a paying customer if these 'Unofficial' forums had a stamp of approval from the payware producers. It would not change the piracy issue, but then I would know that the producers accepts this or have a customer/pirate calculation that makes this acceptable to them. But I also ask if Avsim on one side can condemn piracy and on the other 'promote' piracy in the 'Unofficial' forums (not intentional of course). If you as a forum owner do not apply the same customer vs. product check as on the Official forum, then you have given pirates a convenient loophole.

I think the problem is not whether forum members can ask questions about a specific product in other Avsim forums or other places on the Internet. It is rather if Avsim should be 'promoting' the 'unofficial' support of payware products otherwise strongly guarded by the producer? Catching a pirate on the producers forum is based on facts, that is a serial number. Catching a pirate on an 'unofficial' forum is based on 'suspicion', 'feeling', 'sniffing', which I think is highly problematic.

I am not sure whether this has been discussed before, but it should be. Avsim hosts several many 'Unofficial forums' in the name of Payware producers. As such forums may be valid for a number of reasons, it also seems to invite the support of software piracy. Many official forums has a system of registering a members serial number or whatever before support is given. On the 'Unofficial forums' support is often given in good faith by Avsim members without this check of validity, which the Avsim member has no way of confirming anyway. It would seem that such a task could be controlled by a moderator, but here as well the problem of confirming the legality of the request is also evident. But do we as a niche community really want to invite this support of piracy just to be able to post rants or whatever about the Payware producers?

Thanks for your hard work

Clouds are often blurry in real life, so this looks good to me But do the ground shadows cause any fps hit? With every version of P3D it gets harder and harder to resist.

Yes, but I read your post as VoxATC did not include Airac data at all. Regarding airspace, as I understand it, VoxATC use a fixed altitude and distance to determine these limits. Sometime this works fine, but it may cause problems in other airspace that cannot easily be included in this 'formula'. It would be a nice feature to have, but I am not even sure these data are available in an updated form like the Airac data?

Mike, VoxATC use Airac data for LevelD, which you should download, install and setup in VoxATC Advanced Settings.

Have you checked the numbering of the VoxATC windows in your panel.cfg ?

Yes you modify the airport version with highest priority in the scenery library.

VoxATC is just using the available runways that FSX is passing on. A solution to this would mean setting up every airport on the globe for whatever runways are in use at the given wind conditions. Not that easy to do. An alternative would be for users of VoxATC to include their own template file for any specific airport that VoxATC then could read and react to. Would be a nice feature for VoxATC.

Looks very nice Guenseli. I will try that asap.

Great news!

AirDailyX lists Twin Otter training on their billboard as the next module from Airline2Sim. Any truth in that?