A new FSCaptain video for you.

[Dutch Owen]

This is an assignment to help put out a fire near Olympia WA (one of our free airports).

youtu.be/wFrlqstKCig

Enjoy! We are working on this new system and it will appear in 1.8, which will follow 1.7.3 as quickly as possible.

We'll be looking for beta testers in a month or so for it.

Thanks all who are currently working to get 1.7.3 gold. It will be soon, we hope.

Dutch

[Lane]

Thank's Dutch nice video.
Guess it would not work with my present DC3's and FS9.
Wish I could upgrade to FSX. suspect I would need to upgrade my present P.C or purchase a new one.
Again Thank's
for the Video.
Regards
Lane

[Dutch Owen]

Yeah, Lane, sorry but it all depends on SimConnect which FS9 doesn't have.

So it's FSX and P3D only.

FS9 was a truly great thing but it's getting long in the tooth.

[awralls]

Dutch, please don't take this as a criticism, but I have a minor concern that development of this area of FSC will inevitably slow development on what one might term the more conventional direction of the application. Since it bears no resemblance to airline or route flying, which is why everyone will have bought FSC thus far, I wonder if the market for it will sustain the effort expended.

I very much look forward to the further expansion of the airline components of FSC, including the economic model, but I'm concerned that this will be slowed by the mission development. I've been away from simming since last summer and the first thing I did when I got back was to check FSC development. It's what make simming for me these days and gives it a purpose. I hope you'll be encouraged to continue to develop it for its original purpose, as well as for the new direction you've embarked on.

Best wishes,

Andy

[skycamel]

I have to agree with Andy, I somehow have the same concern.

It looks you're all already quite exhausted from the current effort (1.7.3), it seems that replies on our questions don't come as swiftly anymore as a few weeks ago   (no criticism intended).
Rest assured, you more than earned a break! 
Cheers,
Luc

[peter]

Hi Luc and Andy,

Dutch concentrates on the contract/mission features, and it is up to me to implement the economic model. Hence, the missions will not lead to any additional delays with the economic model. That's not to say that there aren't delays, but they have to do with my real life job, rather than the mission project. I got promoted and have a lot more responsibilities now, which eats away from my time to deal with FSCaptain.

Sorry about that,
Peter

[Dutch Owen]

Hi all,

I appreciate the concern. I know everyone has their own priorities. However, as Peter pointed out we do have a pretty clear division of responsibilities among the team members where we can do more than one thing at a time. We try and have each person concentrate on what they are most interested in. In my experience managing things over the years that's really the best way to go about getting the most productivity.

Peter is working on the Economic model because that's an area he's very into and has quite a bit of knowledge about. Myself, I'm not all that keen on it, although I do find it interesting I'm much more interested in flying than making (or losing) money.

And of course Trav is the guy that's listened to your feedback and brought you so many minor and major enhancements to the ATP core of FSCaptain. We're not going to throttle back on that at all. Travis has quite the list of things to put in still. I should point out that I'm the developer of the new system - neither Trav nor Peter have written a line of code for it so it hasn't cost them any time at all.

I am passionate about bringing the Assignments system to you. That's what I enjoy - major challenges to my flying abilities beyond what I've already done. I enjoy flying for Acme and Piedmont, but it gets routine after a while. Flying for Air America isn't even close to routine yet. But we all have different things we want from this sim. We won't be putting the ATP simulation on the back burner at all.

Nor will the Assignments system affect you at all if you're not interested in it. You won't see anything except the minor change to the FCDU Preflight menu, which you can just ignore.

Yes, the effort to get 1.7.3 out the door has been extensive, but it's about done. Only a few more days until it's out the door, I'm pretty sure.

Dutch

[awralls]

Thanks for the explanation, Dutch. It's very reassuring.

Cheers
Andy

[Travis]

Yes, our responses are slower merely because there are so many hours in the day.

What Dutch said. Neither Peter or I have seen the Assignments other than the videos Dutch posted. We've looked at some of the config files and things that are needed for the Assignment scripts (and of course I want to add my own 2000 cents in ).

My major goal recently is to have the Remote Deicing Facility ready for a public beta unveiling. That should be coming up soon, although I won't put a date range on it just yet. My last stretch item is to finish the documentation that explains how things work and how you can set up RDFs at your airports.

1.8.0 will see the debut of RDFs, Contracts (multi-phase ATP flights), and Assignments. Contracts and Assignments will be in a Late Public Beta state, and we would look to finalize things in time for FSCaptain 2.0 which will be out later this year. (Knock on wood.)

REgards,