Simviation Forum - Announcing the Public Beta for a new product

Oct 29^th, 2009 at 7:22am

ShaneG Offline
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Dutch Owen wrote on Oct 28^th, 2009 at 10:49am:

Hi!

In case you have time on your hands, or just are interested in test-driving a shiny brand new toy for MSFS, I'm announcing the public phase of the beta testing for FSCaptain.

What is FSCaptain? Here's the website: http://www.fscaptain.net

Briefly it's a new approach to a career simulator and flight environment for FS9 and/or FSX, with strong emphasis on realism and professionalism. With a strong commitment from me, the author, to develop, support, and enhance it over the long haul with input from the flight simulator community.

Thanks!
Charles "Dutch" Owen

(I also posted this in the FS9 forum since it works in that version also.)

♪♫♪‼

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Reply #1 - Oct 29^th, 2009 at 11:26pm

SeanTK Ex Member

So....is this like a spin-off of FSPassengers?

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Reply #2 - Oct 29^th, 2009 at 11:56pm

Dutch Owen Offline
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It's definitely not a "spin-off". It does things quite differently and takes a different approach.

It simulates a dispatcher for you. It has an ACARS-like gauge for communications with the dispatch office. It supports scheduled, charter, and ferry flights. It supports cargo operations as an integral part of the product, with a detail manifest generator and special requirements for some cargo flights such as priority, fragile and live. You can import schedules from FS, or generate hub schedules for your own airline. The whole way your career scored and is evaluated is totally different.

And much more. Give it a try and see the differences in approach and style as well as substance.

Happy flying,
Dutch

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Reply #3 - Oct 30^th, 2009 at 1:43am

Crash Ex Member

Downloaded it. Installed it. Saw there was a mandatory checkride to use it. Deleted it.

Crash Wink

(hates useless exams)

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Reply #4 - Oct 30^th, 2009 at 8:21am

Dutch Owen Offline
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There is no mandatory checkride to use FSCaptain. There is an option for an airline to require a checkride in an airplane not previously flown by you, which is realistic.

Only two of the six default airlines distributed "out of the box" have this option turned on and it can be removed with two mouse clicks if you don't want to bother with it.

However, I'm inclined to remove the option being turned on for any airline by default if it causes this kind of misunderstanding.

That's why we have beta tests, to smooth out wrinkles like this.

Dutch

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Reply #5 - Oct 30^th, 2009 at 10:56am

DeepSpace Offline
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So theoretically speaking, would it be possible to use both FSCaptain and FSPx at the same time?

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Reply #6 - Oct 30^th, 2009 at 12:43pm

Dutch Owen Offline
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As far as I know there's nothing in either of them that interferes with the other.

In fact I doubt that either one is aware of the existence of the other Grin

I'll have to give that a try just for grins....

Would double (at least) your chances to get a failure though...unless you turned off failures in one of them.

Dutch

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Reply #7 - Oct 30^th, 2009 at 5:38pm

Crash Ex Member

Dutch Owen wrote on Oct 30^th, 2009 at 8:21am:

There is no mandatory checkride to use FSCaptain. There is an option for an airline to require a checkride in an airplane not previously flown by you, which is realistic.

Only two of the six default airlines distributed "out of the box" have this option turned on and it can be removed with two mouse clicks if you don't want to bother with it.

However, I'm inclined to remove the option being turned on for any airline by default if it causes this kind of misunderstanding.

That's why we have beta tests, to smooth out wrinkles like this.

Dutch

I'm sorry, it must have been my mistake. Re-installing to see what it is all about.

Crash Wink

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Reply #8 - Oct 31^st, 2009 at 5:45am

Mazza Offline
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I'm loving it, but I would like a little bit of backround noise, or loading noises, so far, only noises I've heard (on 1.5 flights, doing one now Grin

) Is a msg alert and them screaming in fear Cool

(I landed abit heavy, and bounced, I thought it was fun

)

Anyways. good product Wink

Sunset Chasing...RULES

AMD 9550 2.43 X4 - 2Gb RAM 800Mhz DDRII - Asus 4670
Corsair TX-750W

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Reply #9 - Oct 31^st, 2009 at 8:28am

Dutch Owen Offline
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Crash, I'm glad you mentioned the checkride thing like you did. It hadn't occurred to me that new users could easily pick one of the "hard" airlines to try first (I would!) and then run smack into a "You gotta do this checkride" (which would annoy me too!). So, I added a warning when a newbie signs up on the welcome screen if they pick a hard airline -- you're gonna have to do a checkride, you really want to pick this company?

Mazza, I'm glad you're enjoying it! That makes me happy. Yeah, the background ambiance is a bit thin, I've concentrated on substance in the programming so far. Look for the ambiance to improve greatly as the beta goes on!

Thanks for the feedback guys!
Dutch

« Last Edit: Oct 31^st, 2009 at 3:32pm by Dutch Owen »

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