[Rotterdam X]

They seem to be building a new terminal on EHRD.. will that be included in this scenery?

[Topic: Lights... I see the light!]

Last year i was in LA, and as i was standing outside, i saw 2 alternating lights coming in my direction. It turned out to be a twin prop plane which had a landing light on each wing, which were alternating each half second or so. I've never seen that over here in Holland, but a little research shows that it's used here and there to increase visibility, and some say it also scares birds away.

Here's an example of a raytheon jet using flashing landing lights.. On this jet they flash simultaneously, but apparently there are several modes, and the one i saw had them flashing alternately (like a wig-wag).

This is an explanation of such a system:

Apparently most jets and whatnot have such a system.. so i guess it'd be appropiate to simulate this as well?

[Topic: Lights... I see the light!]

It'd be fun if lights could actually be light sources, instead of some graphical gimmick that makes no sense at all (like the way it's implemented in FSX). Also, make sure they don't end up like those crazy lights in X-plane, where the lights on the plane seem to be some really advanced kind of plasma orbs, but resemble nothing i've ever seen in real life. Also, make sure they actually comply to FAA regulations as far as blinking/rotation frequencies are concerned.. even better, make the frequencies adjustable to devs (i don't think that was the case in FS9, where all aircraft had their lights blinking way too fast.. not sure about FSX).

Also.. have a good look at how Orbx has implemented for example streetlights in the scenery.. each lamppost actually casts some light on the ground, and it's really a nice thing to see. Speaking of Orbx.. wouldn't it be amazing to have those guys onboard to take care of all the scenery textures and related stuff?

Oh.. and those light-beams which the white-green rotating lights on the airports cast could use a lot of improvement too..

I guess the point is just to make things look natural.. it's those little details that make a sim fun to play.. for me anyways. Have little lights on the road traffic, green/red ones on the ships, some neon lights on buildings, etc

[Topic: What do you NOT use in FSX?]

I never use the 'home' page. It's actually there, and provides a link to the aces website, among others. I just found out about it.. it's utterly useless to the general simmer.

Also, i've never used the 'contacts' button, since i never fly online (maybe i should give it a try though, but i'm not so crazy about that whole gamespy hassle).

btw.. Matthijs, different subject, but if you need music in your new sim, i'd be glad to be of service. Check out www.moonbase69.nl for some samples, and especially this piece of music, which people tell me makes them feel like they're flying

[Should we make this a closed forum]

Mathijs, i don't know what you're worried about. Making a simulator like AFS2012 is a project that costs millions and takes a long time to develop by a devoted team. Right now, nobody else is developing a civilian flight sim like that (well except Austin Meyer ofcourse, but he's got a fully fledged sim already, and i can't see him going to this forum to nick a few ideas ), so who's going to be a threat to you? The people that frequent this forum are going to buy it anyways, and keeping us informed on the progress without having all the hassle and needless secrecy is only going to help hype the product

Anyway.. what are you afraid of? Just share what you can, and if you can't share it, then don't.

[Current Status]

You know what i like so much about X-plane? I've had it on my external HD for a long time now, and recently i've had a total system crash.. so instead of trying to repair things and reinstalling windows and whatnot on my old PC, i decided to go all the way and buy a new PC. After my installation of Vista was finally complete, i could just hook up my old external HD and start flying X-Plane again! No need to reinstall it, or a gazillion add-ons, planes or scenery.. it just works!

Wouldn't it be wonderful if AFS2012 would be like that too? No messing in the registry and all that nonsense, just something that's friendly and accessible.

To prevent piracy there's the CD-check system. X-plane is being upgraded all the time, so if you want to keep up to date (which any serious simmer wants) you're gonna need the DVD.

So i hope AFS is going to be somewhat like that as well.

[A new simulator (July / August issue)]

I think it'd be interesting to have a lot of procedural stuff going on. Have a look at Far Cry 2 and especially the trees.. or even Spore. The trees are rendered in a procedural way, which allows for a great variety of trees without having to have different textures for each variation.. and it looks LOTS better than those billboard trees (which maybe you can still have on slower systems).

Another interesting development is physical modelling of engine sounds. This could provide you with at least a generic sound for each airplane which is actually based on the specs of the engine,(size, materials, housing, who knows what else) without the need of a lot of memory for all the samples. With a little luck it doesn't use too much processor time, so you can have it run in realtime.

http://sciencelinks.jp/j-east/article/200223/000020022302A0827965.php

[A New Simulator (June edition)]

Hi all,

So good to see that us flightsim lovers still have a chance of continuing our hobby on a new platform soon.. (well, soon-ish, i hope).

Someone brought up the subject of IMMERSIVENESS somewhere in this thread, but it seemed hard to explain what exactly that would consist of. Wellm it is hard to put in words indeed, but let's have a look at the example of Condor Soaring Simulator.. which happens to be the most immersive flightsim i know. I suggest the developers have a real good look at it to see what exactly it is that makes it as immersive as it is.

It's not super-glitzy graphics, nor 39156190 polygons onscreen, nor do you need a supercomputer to run it... anyway, have a look for yourself:

http://video.google.nl/videoplay?docid=647...01065&hl=nl

As fun as it looks, flying it yourself is an amazing experience, and gives you a real feel of what it's like to fly a glider. If Aerosoft-FS manages to accomplish this level of immersion in their flightsim, we're looking at a bright future for flightsimmers indeed