That’s one of the questions we see popping up a lot on several Facebook groups, forums, and social media.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.helisimmer.com/articles/initial-thoughts-x-plane-12/
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.helisimmer.com/articles/initial-thoughts-x-plane-12/
Well said, and v12 is definitely a worthwhile improvement/upgrade.
Despite the expected Beta glitches, I haven’t even launched v11 since I tried v12.
And Ubben/Khamsin’s AB 315 v12 is out, so what else could you ask for? 
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A very considered and balanced review, and exactly what I think. I got back into flight sims about a year ago after a long time away, and being a Mac user, X-Plane was the only option. I’ve gradually been learning XP11.5, and knew all along what to expect from XP12, because of what Austin and the rest of the Laminar crew were telling us, so folks getting all bent out of shape because it’s not what they expected or wanted… well, that’s their problem. Personally, I’m perfectly happy with XP12, warts and all. Obviously it’ll improve over time, and become more mature and robust, and the add-ons will do the same - that’s perfectly normal and to be expected.
I’ve bought the full version, and the more I use it and dig about, the more it seems like excellent value for money - and it’s a vote of confidence in Laminar too. The best is yet to come!
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I think most of the people didn’t actually go through the trouble of finding out what was coming out. They probably saw some glamour screenshots but didn’t bother to watch or read interviews or articles. Then they created this image in their heads that, for some reason, Laminar Research was doing this new version to “compete” with MSFS.
And it all went down the drain from there as their unrealistic expectations were not met.
At least that’s the way I see it.
wrapping up the question after a few months, what have we learned from the x-plane version transition? (can be published):
X-plane12 is not less not more than dumping all non-core modules of its predecessor and build a new world-engine around its physics module.
To clarify this: The core program is a 3d aerodynamics module which basically defines how an oject like an airplane behaves in space. Aeronautical Equations and a bunch of parameters direct these behaviours, and values like physical attitude, shape, wind, weight, engine performance etc. would deliver the variables. Pretty simple, right? To build an airplane model you simply have a look at planemaker, that program does the modelling by whatever numbers you enter.
Oh, you thought it was more complicated?
Nope.
Now, to get you something like make the models usable as first person interactive kind of thing, you would add a world, an interactive 3d-world, so you can see your model actually being flown around from place A to place B.
you place your object (your airplane) somewhere on that world bowl and ready you are for take off.
And you need a control surface, GUI, a user interface that parameterizes settings, so you can tell where to start, what your graphics card is and how much of this and that you wanna see. for example autogen houses. And of course it adds the interaction control, your joystick.
That’s pretty much what it is.
Now, you wonder what exactly is the difference to X-Plane11?
Laminar, the guys who build x-plane, have realized they would not need to build their own world (like Asobo did), but that they could simply import a ready-to-go 3D world available on the game market. And that is what they did. The game world is called ‘unreal engine 5’ and almost every game developer out there uses it. Even competitors like PREPARE.
Unreal engine includes water, clouds, trees, pretty much everything you now see in x-plane12. Replacing xp11’s world with unreal takes about 3-20 months, the time laminar took from being completely smashed by MSFS’ introduction in August 2020 until their first responsive release of X-Plane12 in 2021.
Additionally, the planemaker program, in which developers build up their airplanes has been receiving a bit of a cosmetic, for the reason of covering up heritage mistakes and secondly to update the graphic look. Most planes would not transfer from 11 to 12 without the need for some re-engineering. Most freeware got lost that way. 10 percent of payware stuff got upgraded so far.
That wraps it up, that is pretty much the Job Laminar has performed to make a switch from x-plane 11 to 12, trying to satisfy the unhappy community with their gigantic list of requests and feedback.
From that suggestion list (which included over a thousand user inputs and votings) an approximate 20 percent has been responded to by the x-plane12 solution. 80 percent from that list were ignored and not accomplished.
Based on this transformation - as you now have learned how it was done - in comparison to what was expected when looking at both the community feedback list as well as the competitors’ solution like MSFS, you would not be suprised to see where the disappointment comes from and why user numbers have decreased so dramatically. Developers who transited from FSX have left X-Plane again and a number of legacy x-plane developers made their decision to leave as well.
It is proven argument that x-plane12 is not less not more than x-plane 11.60.
This migration process tells that the accomplished degree of true innovation is in fact zero and that MSFS is way too attractive to ignore. But yes, switching the world-model and tweaking some stuff on the core would bring a bit of a better experience to the remaining users, the flights feel a bit smoother and things look a bit better than before.
Comparing this achievement to the innovation degree over at DCS and MSFS which is somewhere at 50-80 percent, you wouldn’t be surprised to hear that x-plane user numbers have decreased by more than half in 2 years. The X-Plane10-to-11 hype has been reversed by half, counting daily. A considerable amount of users have not even upgrading from 11 to 12, but still run X-Plane 11 on their PC’s.
To summarize the conversion you could simply tell, Austin Meyer wasn’t willing to innovate. He advised his team to find a way of rebuild the environment while core components remain the same. His ignorance against innovation is basically built on his convincement that the flight model is the decisive element and that proof users would appreciate that feature no matter what. Austin is well known for abandoning critics while building his understanding of things on a rather small group of realism-oriented users who look for a good aerodynamics solution.
Based on these perceptions the balance in the flight sim market has found its way back to where it was 10 years ago. Microsoft 90, DCS 5, Laminar 3 and Prepared 2 percent market share. The only number that has changed is the total user number, climbing from 1 million to 5.