Since the closing of CAE Presagis company and discontinuation of STAGE product and support by them (even though it has changed hands), all the existing customers had to face a need of an alternative, a plan B or a drastic move to another solution.

Those who have STAGE embedded into heavy and long term projects may be worried but not impacted too much since the replacement of STAGE SIM will be too costly and error prone. User Modules and scripts cannot be simply moved to another solution. There is no cut & paste and competitors who promise these migrations are only securing long and expensive consultation bills.

But those with a new project and in need of a simulation SDK or a scenario generation tool will have to consider using another tool or maybe homemade solutions.

From my long experience with STAGE as a programmer first, then expert consultant, I realized that 90% of customers are only using the real-time controller, the mapping, the trajectories, the platforms dynamics models and the sensors (all basics) while adding some scripts and C code user-modules. Considering the price of the SDK and the runtime license, it is a huge waste of money.

Those who need nice and sexy 3D, do not care much about fidelity, scenario edition and what-if procedures are fine with VBS, even if they will end-up caught in a money trap on the long term, as BiSimulations is a profitable business.

Those who need an integrated SDK with just-enough 3D view, may be happy with VR-Forces, even if at the end, they will change four 25 cents for 1 dollar, between the cost of the product, the burden programming with a huge C++ orientated API, the complexity of the SDK and the heaviness of the simulation.

On the contrary, vsTASKER is a light, affordable and white-box solution. It does provide out of the box what 90% of simulation SDK users are expecting, but with main advantages: the visual coding interface and an affordable price. While competition is offering predefined tasks or doctrines mechanisms (which are black-boxes) vsTASKER let users define graphically their logics and place the code where it make sense. Easy to develop, easy to fix, easy to trace.

Since the size of the software vendor no more guarantee sustainability of its products, it may be time to try another mature solution, lighter and more customizable than the market heavyweights, even though they are good. BMW and Mercedes are great cars for those who can afford it. But, on the streets, you’ll find mostly ordinary, affordable vehicles that go from A to B like the expensive ones.

Buy a product, not a brand: ask now for price and demo. No commitment.