Gotta say... my first rant about FT.

basslord1124

Master member
Just to bring up good ol social media again....

So yesterday they had a live Instagram video rolling...Bixler was flying Bullet Bill again and Stefan was filming. They of course had chat going and could see everyone's comments and were replying to some folks. Even heard Stefan replying to one of my comments on there. It's pretty cool to hear Stefan mention your username live on the video and see their reactions and hear what they have to say. Kinda makes you feel like they are just right there with ya having fun and chatting. I kinda missed some stuff at the end of the stream but they did say something along the lines that they were gonna have a day here soon to open up their shop and have a lot of their old stuff from videos/past projects up for grabs for anyone who wanted to stop by and have a little piece of FT history. Thought that was pretty cool.

And this reminds me, I should create a basslord1124/Perkyplanes Instagram username just to use for those purposes...right now my Instagram username is basically my name.
 

Tsenkbeil

Member
Love what the FT family does for the RC Community, they are the reason I am in this the hobby in the first place! My only complaint is that since the merger with Amain for their store the shipping prices are outrageous. I just went to place an order for roughly $95 and it was going to be $30 to ship it, I just cannot see paying almost a third in extra shipping. I love supporting Ft through the store and to be honest sometimes I don't feel like scratch building a design.
 

Wildthing

Legendary member
Love what the FT family does for the RC Community, they are the reason I am in this the hobby in the first place! My only complaint is that since the merger with Amain for their store the shipping prices are outrageous. I just went to place an order for roughly $95 and it was going to be $30 to ship it, I just cannot see paying almost a third in extra shipping. I love supporting Ft through the store and to be honest sometimes I don't feel like scratch building a design.

I wanted to try the water proof FB a couple times and I don't remember what the cost to Canada was for shipping but it was way overboard , needless to say I never did order it. I have ordered other small parts from Amain and shipping seemed decent .
 

davidkdk

Member
I placed an order in April 2019 through the FliteTest Store for a few items... wheels, props, a receiver, Simple Cub Float Kit... odds and ends for a total of $120 US. Shipping was $7 US. I thought this was pretty good. It was shipped APC Priority DDU Delcon to Ontario, Canada. The order was placed April 25 and was delivered May 2... also pretty good.

My only complaint was that the box - about 3 feet x 8 in. x 8 in. was badly crushed on both ends. Almost everything was ok... mainly because nothing I ordered could be hurt by a bit of box crushing. However, the Simple Cub Float kit is very creased. Since it's a float kit I'm sure it will be ok, but I would never order a plane kit as I don't think it could survive crossing the border.
 

davidkdk

Member
I wanted to try the water proof FB a couple times and I don't remember what the cost to Canada was for shipping but it was way overboard , needless to say I never did order it. I have ordered other small parts from Amain and shipping seemed decent .
Great Hobbies carries the FT FoamBoard... if you're near one. I doubt it would have survived shipping from the US. The US dollar premium is all over the map at Great Hobbies... some stuff is ok... around 25-30%... some stuff is close to 50%.

Foam Board costs are:
GH - 1 piece - 2.89 CA
GH - 25 pack - $70 CA
FT - 25 pack - $50 US

That's 40% for the 25 pack. At 2.89 that's $72.25 for 25. US stuff gets expensive here in Canada.
 

Wildthing

Legendary member
Great Hobbies carries the FT FoamBoard... if you're near one. I doubt it would have survived shipping from the US. The US dollar premium is all over the map at Great Hobbies... some stuff is ok... around 25-30%... some stuff is close to 50%.

Foam Board costs are:
GH - 1 piece - 2.89 CA
GH - 25 pack - $70 CA
FT - 25 pack - $50 US

That's 40% for the 25 pack. At 2.89 that's $72.25 for 25. US stuff gets expensive here in Canada.

I didn't mind the price of the foam and I always order by the case but the shipping they quoted me was almost the same price as the foam.
 

davidkdk

Member
I didn't mind the price of the foam and I always order by the case but the shipping they quoted me was almost the same price as the foam.
I can see that... it's a big box... but it wouldn't survive customs. Shipping from GreatHobbies is free over $99.
 

buzzbomb

I know nothing!
Let me quote myself on the newest episode:Operation Melon Drop | Bombs away! 🍉💥
I just watched that episode. I thought it was fun. It's still those kind of crazy stunts that bring new people into the hobby, just like it did me. I never would have thought a watermelon would make a crater!

Plus they did the Cessna reveal which was not inconspicuously in the background on the last episode, and they've got some BIG planes in the background at the big windows. I'm looking forward to the Cessna plans, and I can't wait to see those big birds fly! Nope. I am FAR from done with FliteTest. On the contrary, I still look forward to every episode.

I just received another F Pack Radial for an upcoming streamer combat session with my son. I should have ordered a second Tshirt with it, though. Yep, I know. Fanboy. That's me. It's OK. :)
 

Vimana89

Legendary member
I'm hoping the streak of goofy stuff and the occasional release of another high wing trainer or war bird is like a long run of filler while they are gearing up to stun us with some new stuff, like the 50mm EDF pack and a couple jet builds around that. Also, commercialism is like fire-you gotta use a little here and there to advance your own aims but not let it consume your foundations.
 

slembcke

Member
Oof. Reading through the first couple pages of this thread is rough. My opinions on the OP will just add background noise, so short story time instead!

I've spent a considerable portion of my professional career (10+) supporting open source software projects. Basically, I was writing game and physics engines that I would give away the source code for so that anybody could use it, or modify it if they wanted to tweak it. Kinda similar to what FT does right?

My business partner and I made money off of this work in a couple of ways. We had a "pro" version of the physics engine with some specific optimizations for ARM CPUs used in phones, we took contracts to help out on projects using our code, and we had a "donate" button that people could send us money as a thank you. Over the years, we made tens of thousands on the pro version, and hundreds of thousands on contracting (mostly from a couple big companies). That donate button? Like... a couple hundred bucks at most, and that's over the period of an entire decade. To put things in perspective, I'm 100% sure there are at least 10,000 games on iOS/Android that use some of my code, and I spent almost half of my time on those projects providing free support to people that would never pay us. I have no regrets providing the free support, because without it we never would have sold the pro versions, or gotten any of the biggest contracts.

The biggest motivator for me to make my code even better was when someone came along on my forums and told me how much they enjoyed working with my code, and how much they learned from it. Sometimes people would tell me they bought the pro version just to support me. This gave the the motivation I needed to push through adding difficult new features.

The biggest de-motivator was when someone came along on my forums and told me how upset they were that they wasted their time integrating my free code into their game to find out that it had a bug or didn't provide a feature they thought it should. Rarely was this phrased in a way that didn't place the blame on me personally. Sometimes it was phrased as an outright personal attack because somebody didn't love every part of the free thing I had given them. Additionally, people got really nasty about how I had "sold out" when working for a bigger company that was able to pay me well, or how I how I withheld my best code and held it hostage with money.

Anyway... My point is: Other people are real people, and they have emotions that can be influenced by what you say. If they come to the forums and see complaints, I guarantee you it will lessen their motivation to interact with the forums. Furthermore, one negative interaction can easily outweigh several positive ones, and a thousand neutral ones. Help the FT crew love their jobs by telling them how their work brings you joy. If they truly love doing what they do, you will surely love watching them do it too. For free ;)
 
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Wildthing

Legendary member
Oof. Reading through the first couple pages of this thread is rough. My opinions on the OP will just add background noise, so short story time instead!

I've spent a considerable portion of my professional career (10+) supporting open source software projects. Basically, I was writing game and physics engines that I would give away the source code for so that anybody could use it, or modify it if they wanted to tweak it. Kinda similar to what FT does right?

My business partner and I made money off of this work in a couple of ways. We had a "pro" version of the physics engine with some specific optimizations for ARM CPUs used in phones, we took contracts to help out on projects using our code, and we had a "donate" button that people could send us money as a thank you. Over the years, we made tens of thousands on the pro version, and hundreds of thousands on contracting (mostly from a couple big companies). That donate button? Like... a couple hundred bucks at most, and that's over the period of an entire decade. To put things in perspective, I'm 100% sure there are at least 10,000 games on iOS/Android that use some of my code, and I spent almost half of my time on those projects providing free support to people that would never pay us. I have no regrets providing the free support, because without it we never would have sold the pro versions, or gotten any of the biggest contracts.

The biggest motivator for me to make my code even better was when someone came along on my forums and told me how much they enjoyed working with my code, and how much they learned from it. Sometimes people would tell me they bought the pro version just to support me. This gave the the motivation I needed to push through adding difficult new features.

The biggest de-motivator was when someone came along on my forums and told me how upset they were that they wasted their time integrating my free code into their game to find out that it had a bug or didn't provide a feature they thought it should. Rarely was this phrased in a way that didn't place the blame on me personally. Sometimes it was phrased as an outright personal attack because somebody didn't love every part of the free thing I had given them. Additionally, people got really nasty about how I had "sold out" when working for a bigger company that was able to pay me well, or how I how I withheld my best code and held it hostage with money.

Anyway... My point is: Other people are real people, and they have emotions that can be influenced by what you say. If they come to the forums and see complaints, I guarantee you it will lessen their motivation to interact with the forums. Furthermore, one negative interaction can easily outweigh several positive ones, and a thousand neutral ones. Help the FT crew love their jobs by telling them how their work brings you joy. If they truly love doing what they do, you will surely love watching them do it too. For free ;)


Well said
 

basslord1124

Master member
Well said

Agreed.

Enjoyed reading your geek story there too @slembcke . I'm an IT/tech guy myself although not much of a programmer/coder. I do more hardware and networking. Used some open source software, run a Debian Linux server at home and have dabbled with Linux for desktop/laptop use too.
 

buzzbomb

I know nothing!
Oof. Reading through the first couple pages of this thread is rough. My opinions on the OP will just add background noise, so short story time instead!

I've spent a considerable portion of my professional career (10+) supporting open source software projects. Basically, I was writing game and physics engines that I would give away the source code for so that anybody could use it, or modify it if they wanted to tweak it. Kinda similar to what FT does right?

My business partner and I made money off of this work in a couple of ways. We had a "pro" version of the physics engine with some specific optimizations for ARM CPUs used in phones, we took contracts to help out on projects using our code, and we had a "donate" button that people could send us money as a thank you. Over the years, we made tens of thousands on the pro version, and hundreds of thousands on contracting (mostly from a couple big companies). That donate button? Like... a couple hundred bucks at most, and that's over the period of an entire decade. To put things in perspective, I'm 100% sure there are at least 10,000 games on iOS/Android that use some of my code, and I spent almost half of my time on those projects providing free support to people that would never pay us. I have no regrets providing the free support, because without it we never would have sold the pro versions, or gotten any of the biggest contracts.

The biggest motivator for me to make my code even better was when someone came along on my forums and told me how much they enjoyed working with my code, and how much they learned from it. Sometimes people would tell me they bought the pro version just to support me. This gave the the motivation I needed to push through adding difficult new features.

The biggest de-motivator was when someone came along on my forums and told me how upset they were that they wasted their time integrating my free code into their game to find out that it had a bug or didn't provide a feature they thought it should. Rarely was this phrased in a way that didn't place the blame on me personally. Sometimes it was phrased as an outright personal attack because somebody didn't love every part of the free thing I had given them. Additionally, people got really nasty about how I had "sold out" when working for a bigger company that was able to pay me well, or how I how I withheld my best code and held it hostage with money.

Anyway... My point is: Other people are real people, and they have emotions that can be influenced by what you say. If they come to the forums and see complaints, I guarantee you it will lessen their motivation to interact with the forums. Furthermore, one negative interaction can easily outweigh several positive ones, and a thousand neutral ones. Help the FT crew love their jobs by telling them how their work brings you joy. If they truly love doing what they do, you will surely love watching them do it too. For free ;)
Thank you for that perspective.
 

IcedStorm777

Well-known member
I completely agree with you @slemcke although i do think that some constructive (being the key word) criticism can help.

However just saying things like "flitetest is dumb" and "i thought it would be interesting to watch" are just very pointless things to say. Its all about the happy medium. BTW anybody know if AlexZvada still plays liftoff?
 

slembcke

Member
I dunno what the exact dictionary definition of constructive criticism is, but the tone needs to be more positive than negative. Not picking on the OP specifically, but it's basically all negative and it offers no solutions. It can be grossly oversimplified as "I don't like ads" and "I don't like it when I'm not getting the best deal". The only solution given can be summed up as "go back to how it was before", and punctuated with "I'm going to stop supporting them either way". It's certainly not a personal attack, but it's not a friendly, constructive tone either. The thread overall is pretty civil really, but most of the criticism here is simply that, criticism.

If I'm trying to give real constructive criticism of this thread in particular, I'd say make sure to keep it positive, and offer a realistic solution to the problem. For example. "I love FT, but I'm not a fan of the new ads and would be willing to support it through Patreon or another regular donation."
 
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IcedStorm777

Well-known member
I dunno what the exact dictionary definition of constructive criticism is, but you need to positive in with the negative. Not picking on the OP specifically, but it's basically all negative and it offers no solutions. It can be grossly oversimplified as "I don't like ads" and "I don't like it when I'm not getting the best deal". The only solution given can be summed up as "go back to how it was before", and punctuated with "I'm going to stop supporting them either way". It's certainly not a personal attack, but it's not a friendly, constructive tone either. The thread overall is pretty civil really, but most of the criticism here is simply that, criticism.

If I'm trying to give real constructive criticism of this thread in particular, I'd say make sure to keep it positive, and offer a realistic solution to the problem. For example. "I love FT, but I'm not a fan of the new ads and would be willing to support it through Patreon or another regular donation."

Exactly what i meant! You shouldn't always just say what they want to hear but you shouldn't tear them down.