2.1.6 released

[OXO]

Please see

https://www.condorsoaring.com/news/

[tiberius]

Great news!

What has changed with the Ventus flight model out of interest?

[OXO]

performance adjustment

[tiberius]

For the better?

[arneh]

For the better?

Yes. Probably best 18m glider now.

[witor]

I have mixed feelings about the 'updates' in which we have changes to the performance of gliders and about the performance of new gliders being released. From one hand I am very happy to see more and more high quality gliders being released, but from the other hand I am getting an impression that every time a new glider is released it almost always becomes the best option in competitions. It almost feels like it is condor's marketing strategy to sell newly released gliders. As a result people end up spending their money on gliders that they will never fly again when another glider gets released. For example: in club class we had Cirrus, then LS4 was released which performed way better in competitions despite higher handicap, then ASW20 which gives LS4 no chance. In 18 meter class Antares was pretty good then we got JS1 and Antares performance was reduced, then ASG 29 which is quite close to JS1 in terms of competition performance, but still most winners in 18m class fly ASG29 and now we have JS3 which will not only make previous 18 meter gliders obsolete but will also make Diana and other 15m gliders not a great choice as compared to newly released JS3.

Am i paranoid or does condor really become a 'pay to win' type? If things are going in this direction we should be able to cancel activation of our gliders for full (or at least partial) refund.

I also don't understand why polars of new gliders are not published when new gliders are released. It is a bit like buying a car without being able to sit in it and have a test drive. Would you ever buy a real glider without sitting in it, flying it, and looking at its performance?

[wickid]

How about the ASW19, Pegase, Libelle in club class. The DG808 in 15 and 18 meter? The Stemme in Open class?

You cherrypicked the ones that happen to be good in competition. The JS3 is, I think a glider that many Condor players were waiting for. It just happens to be the best performing glider money can buy at the moment. Condor gliders have realistic performance. Nothing that can be done about that...

If I make a model it is because I think it is a cool glider to make, or I have access to it to get good photos/drawings. I don't make gliders based on what I think would sell well.

[OXO]

Witor,

We all know it's impossible to please everybody, all the time.

We make gliders which will be popular, some are less competitive as Wiek points out. In the last year we have released these:

Discus 2
ASW19
ASW20
Stemme
Pegase
DG101
Ka6CR
Arcus
JS3

Some are race winners, but certainly not all. You complain that Diana 2 and Ventus 3 are now outclassed. Well maybe they are, but they were released in 2018. I'm sure you've had a lot of fun with them in that time, but progress moves on.

There is a great demand for latest planes, but the JS3 is a 2016 design.. thats 5 years ago !

I have many requests for AS33 and that one will come at some point, and if we accept the manufacturers polar for it, then it should be better than Ventus 3 and JS3. Do you think we should not bring it to Condor because its too good and might win everything? I cannot see the logic in that.

[DanD]

Post-patch update - problem with AVG antivirus free version while communicating with multiplayer server

I updated my copy as normal, updated the club server, and flew an online task to test it. I had a crash to desktop after a half hour. On the desktop was an AVG dialog box - screenshot attached. I clicked 'Always allow http://www.condorsoaring.com to open cndr2 links'. I then flew the whole task without problem.

216postcrash23jan21.jpeg

In addition, when I opened AVG, it had a question - Do you trust condorsoaring.com ? I clicked the thumbs up. You can see it on the screenshot, which is behind the CoTASA AH.

I assume that the antivirus was concerned that a .exe had been changed and was then trying to communicate with a remote server. This makes sense. In future, after patching, I will renew the exemption that I gave Condor 2, to avoid this.

I reported this to support. No further action required.

For completeness, here is the error log ending:
ENTERED SIMULATION AT 7:10:56 PM.
Landscape refresh start at 7:16:13 PM.
Landscape refresh stopped at 7:16:23 PM.
Landscape refresh start at 7:19:13 PM.
Landscape refresh stopped at 7:19:23 PM.
Landscape refresh start at 7:21:38 PM.
Landscape refresh stopped at 7:21:49 PM.
Landscape refresh start at 7:24:18 PM.
Landscape refresh stopped at 7:24:28 PM.
Landscape refresh start at 7:26:11 PM.
Landscape refresh stopped at 7:26:22 PM.
Landscape refresh start at 7:28:57 PM.
Landscape refresh stopped at 7:29:07 PM.
Landscape refresh start at 7:30:50 PM.
Landscape refresh stopped at 7:31:00 PM.
Landscape refresh start at 7:33:20 PM.
Landscape refresh stopped at 7:33:30 PM.
Landscape refresh start at 7:35:20 PM.
Landscape refresh stopped at 7:35:30 PM.
Landscape refresh start at 7:37:23 PM.
Landscape refresh stopped at 7:37:33 PM.
Landscape refresh start at 7:39:28 PM.
Landscape refresh stopped at 7:39:38 PM.
Landscape refresh start at 7:41:17 PM.
Landscape refresh stopped at 7:41:27 PM.
Landscape refresh start at 7:43:04 PM.
Landscape refresh stopped at 7:43:14 PM.
Landscape refresh start at 7:45:07 PM.
Landscape refresh stopped at 7:45:16 PM.
Draw thermals at 7:45:43 PM: Access violation at address 64B24F0D in module 'd3d11.dll'. Read of address 00000059

I commonly see the little warning symbol in the upper right hand corner of the screen during the task; I have good internet (25 mbps down, 10 mbps up, 20-40 ms ping), ethernet to the computer from the DSL modem; a relatively powerful computer (i7-7700k, 16 GB ram, rx 5600xt, big ssd), in Transandino, up high going slowly in wave, running TeamSpeak, TrackIR, CoTASA, and Firefox (one tab, the multiplayer server window). I assume something is wrong with the communciations.

busysymbol.jpg

Cheers
Dan

[witor]

Thank you for your responses guys.

Please, I don't want to be misunderstood. In my post I said that I have MIXED feelings. I am happy that condor evolves and we get new gliders, but at the same time I am not very happy about having to buy them so often in order to compete.

In general I see the point you made above and I agree with you. I can now see some of the misconceptions I had. There is no way around the fact that some of the new gliders are just better than the old ones.

But I would still like to know why polars of the new gliders are not released. I am just about to buy JS3, but only because my friends who already bought it described it's performance compared to Diana and ASG29. I would like to be able to make educated decisions about buying a new glider rather than click buy and hope for the best.

Another thing that i would like to discuss/suggest is the condor handicap indexes. What are they based on? Would it be possible to look into them, maybe adjust them to make older or other gliders competitive. Looks like Diana and JS3 have the same handicap indexes but JS definitely has better performance. This doesn't make much sense to me.

[OXO]

Well the polar comparison is in the other thread in Planes.

For handicaps we use the DAeC list. Its updated annually, and we are currently using the 2020 list. When they issue the 2021 list (usually in March) then we update Condor.

DAeC list here:

https://www.daec.de/fileadmin/user_uplo ... final_.pdf

[witor]

I am not sure if I understand what you mean by 'the other thread in planes' Do you mean the thread where other condor users are publishing polars for XC soar?

Anyway, wouldn't it be a good idea to allow users to see the settings tab and play with the mc settings for non activated gliders? People would still not be able to fly a non activated glider but would be able to see the polar and sink rates at different speeds and water ballast.

Another option would be to allow people to fly a non activated glider for lets say 10 minutes, as a form of a test drive. After 10 minutes we could have 5m/s sink kicking in. Wouldn't this be a sensible option?

[OXO]

[BOD1]

I updated my copy as normal, updated the club server, and flew an online task to test it. I had a crash to desktop after a half hour. On the desktop was an AVG dialog box - screenshot attached. I clicked 'Always allow http://www.condorsoaring.com to open cndr2 links'. I then flew the whole task without problem.

This is not an AVG message, just your browser asking if the link cndr2 is still associated with condor.exe.
And this is not a warning icon, but an icon telling you you are connected.

[Pit_R]

For handicaps we use the DAeC list. Its updated annually, and we are currently using the 2020 list.

DAeC list here:

https://www.daec.de/fileadmin/user_uplo ... final_.pdf

Page 2:

Offene Klasse
Eta; NimEta; EB 29 ...............................................................................................125

in C2: 127

15mKlasse
ASW 20..................................................................................................................110

in C2: club class