News 2024 Year in Review and Seasons Greetings

I just had word that Santa has fired up the sleigh and is headed to the international date line, somewhere around Christmas Island, Kiribati, ready for a world wide tour. For those who need it here is the official Norad Santa tracker: http://www.noradsanta.org/


Seriously though I know we have many members from around the world, who have a diverse range of views and beliefs. Irrespective of what those may be I would like to pass on end of year seasons greetings to yourselves, and those who you hold near and dear.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has contributed to Xsimulator.net. All members have advanced our very diverse community, plus DIY motion related simulation and peripherals, in a vast array of ways, and the originality and ingenuity you all bring to your many and varied projects continues to amaze.

In 2024 our major community build trends have been the resurgences of 2-3DOF budget rigs, along with ongoing support for peg leg designs, Stewart platforms, the odd G-Seat, plus some interesting and innovative rigs. There has also been more activity around commercial rigs, including rebuilding and re-imagining of old arcade style rigs.

The use of 3D printed parts is now common, including for motion rigs, joysticks, control mounts/boxes, and other peripherals.

Hardware wise AMC-AASD15A servos now have a number of servo controllers, for DIY and commercial actuators, along with direct drive wheels, making them pretty much plug and play for powerful rotary or actuator rigs. But on the flip-side wiper powered budget rigs made a bit of a comeback, though I must say, with an uptick in IBT2 controller related reliability issues, some are now moving on to more robust options. It reminds me of the demise of cheap clone Monster Motor boards for the same sort of quality related reasons.

DIY peripherals have been constant in 2024, though it is clear there is an uptick in force feedback interest, both in the DIY and Commercial worlds.

Motion software wise 2024 has been a very big year! The new player in motion software that are now seeking to support the DIY community is SimHub, who have historically focused on the likes of gauges, haptic and wind simulation.

FlyPT motion software has seen a new revamped update, which is still in active development following @pmvcda's most welcome recovery from some health issues.

SimTools v3 is nearing the end of its open Beta testing, having made a raft of speed and UI improvements, along with adding new features such as the integrated plugin repository system. The v3 plugin ranks are filling out, with many plugins seeing refinements as they are updated to or created for SimTools v3, giving more consistency.

Both SimTools and FlyPT motion software have added support for recent releases, such as MSFS2024, and it is great to see some time can be taken out finalising core software upgrades to quickly support new titles.

There is ongoing interest for UDP based plugins, to enable motion with consoles, with thanks going to @vthinsel as the stalwart plugin dev for console owners, though others are now also contributing.

Kudos to all the devs, we all rely on them to bring our rigs to life and it can be easy to forget how crucial they are to our enjoyment. So a big Aussie koala stamp award to all those who have worked on the plugins, motion software, controller code and cracking hardware support, who we all depend on to bring our motion rigs to life in our favorite games.

We have also seen the introduction of some new generations of hardware in 2024, with more rumored for 2025. In the commercial sector there are now a range of both race and flight sim peripheral options, with force feedback being prominent 2024 theme. There is increasing use of LEDs as a way to add practical information and aesthetic touches to rigs. A new series of graphics cards are being brewed, with frequent leaks about potential capabilities. VR has somewhat settled into the Rift for dominant consumer use, but with others such as Pimax and BigScreen, plus many others, still beavering away at cutting edge PCVR, though I would suggest with less hype. I would think VR related game releases have had one of their biggest years in 2024.

There has also been some high stress moments around Xsimulator.net during 2024. Though likely not noticeable to members our community was under sustained attack for a long period of time via externally comprised member accounts, resulting in a mandatory reset of all member accounts. There has also been an upswing in AI spam attacks, including one where a duo of AI fake member accounts were used to interact with each other to try and build believable profiles.

On the upside, a somewhat new generation of active members has stepped forward, helping to guide and support others, as well as acting as DIY motion and peripheral evangelists. In addition, our community has a strong, active and very experienced core membership, who freely share their experience and expertise, to the benefit of the huge numbers of new members annually. Thanks go to all of you, as you are very much the soul of this wonderful and innovative community.

No doubt 2024 has been a year of deeply concerning world events. Thankfully we have had the benefit of welcome distractions, as the ever increasing activity within our community never gets dull, there is always a new idea and new project from members hailing from every corner of the globe. The ingenuity of members is just astounding!

As we put 2024 in the rear view mirror we can hopefully look forward to some real efforts to settle rather than escalate world disputes, with a focus on peace rather than war.

Wherever you are and whatever you may be doing, many thanks for being a part of our vibrant community. I wish you all the best for the festive season and new year, no matter how you choose to celebrate or spend them, and I look forward to 2025 being a year of endless project possibilities for our unique community.