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You understand that you're comment was not a good comment?

sarcasmmeter.jpg

You understand you have to use this nifty little gadget for certain parts of my post? ;)

I have a question. Will you, or will you not buy a sim with crash effects?

If there was an option to dissable that paricular effect, would you dissable that effect?

OK, I assumed you were talking about visible damages, i.e. a bent 3D model, which I for one couldn't care less for. If you're talking about merely detecting the fact that the aircraft crashed, it gets more interesting. It still wouldn't influence my decision wether to buy a sim, though. That being said, I usually turn off crash detection in FSX, and turn on the aircraft over-stress option. While detecting collisions with the ground, and even graduating them from 'blown tire' through 'bent wing' to 'aluminum fireball', is useful (and required to some extent, or else you couldn't land), hit-testing with random scenery objects as implemented in FSX is not. Especially since you sometimes hit things that have no visual representation. On the other hand, if you bump into anything in real life, the flight is over if it results in even the slightest scratch, no matter what. So I'd probably turn crash detection on if the hit-testing would work more reliably.

For flight training use, I'd like to see the option to freeze the sim when you hit something, so you can assess the situation, as well as the ability to reposition the airplane a few feet away from the obstacle and reset the damage, so you can continue with the training session after a short 'oops' moment. The same goes for in-flight aircraft over-stress: after a message to the extent of "you're dead" appears, I'd like to be able to reset the aircraft to working conditions and resume flight, just like it should be possible to reset any failure condition, instructor-induced or otherwise.

A nice to have feature would be removing the effect of certain parts of the airplane from the flight dynamic model if you damage them. E.g. exceed maximum gear extension speed, remove the gear; move the elevator to the stop above maneuvering speed, kiss it goodbye; exceed Vne, set CL for part or all of the wing(s) to zero; etc. Some margin for error along with random fudge factors, such that the wing won't fail in exactly the same way at exactly the same speed twice, would be the icing on that cake.

Judith

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Nolanh,Try to read one more time what is being said.

...

Reeeeead what it says! then come back and talk to me.

<ducks head in case something was thrown>

I was responding to the text that I quoted (and not to anything else). It seemed to make no sense to me.

I thought that you were suggesting that the topic title "ease of use" was suggesting that the proposed AFS2012 product would not allow as much realism as FS.

In case you don't realize it and actually care about it, your tone is pretty condescending and offensive (at least to me), and is the sort of thing that usually keeps me (or stops me) from posting to these things.

Good luck to you, Kenneth.

Cheers,

Nolan

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On the other hand, if you bump into anything in real life, the flight is over if it results in even the slightest scratch, no matter what. So I'd probably turn crash detection on if the hit-testing would work more reliably.

I know this, but you do not know if you are goeing to live the life to tell the teil. You onely get the message *****Crash*****. Of course you understan that it's no big deal when you hitt a smal object in slow speed, an that you will survive it when the *****Crash***** pops up on the screen. Thats obvious, I'm talking of a lot of other situations that you do not know hov bad it vill gett, therfore I want a crash damage model, and yes... I want to se what happends afther the crash.

Think of hitting somthing, or landing very hard, afther that the pilote still can influence the airplane to try to avoid total destruction. The front wheel might still work, and some rudders might still work. As a Pilot, the crash is not over till it's over. I If you are lucky, you might be abel to stear the plane away form the trees, or that one building standing between you and death. I think this is important to simulate. And when eweryting goes wrong, i want to see a fireball, twisted aluminium, disaster....

It's somthing that has folloved the flight from the beginning of the history. This is what makes flyeing so spesial, thrilling, dangerous. This is why people have dreams about being pilots. You have to do things right to get down safe.

That being said, I usually turn off crash detection in FSX, and turn on the aircraft over-stress option. While detecting collisions with the ground, and even graduating them from That being said, I usually turn off crash detection in FSX, and turn on the aircraft over-stress option. While detecting collisions with the ground, and even graduating them from 'blown tire' through 'bent wing' to 'aluminum fireball', is useful (and required to some extent, or else you couldn't land), hit-testing with random scenery objects as implemented in FSX is not., is useful (and required to some extent, or else you couldn't land), hit-testing with random scenery objects as implemented in FSX is not.

If you can not land without haveing dissabled crash detection, you have a mayor problem. Then i suggest yuou turn on Crash detection and learn how to fly. I now understand why you do not like crash damage effects, it's becayse you would end up in a mayor fireball all the time.

Well if we can see that in an other view. You realy have some problems with you're landing skills. You porbably get the ****Creash***** popping upp all the time. If we had my Crash damage modelling idea, you might survive more landings.... And as you say you're selves. You figure out you're selves if it's a 'blown tire' through 'bent wing' to 'aluminum fireball, why not implement it in the sim then, though you obiously wan't to figure it out anywhy?

Are you afraid to se how bad you're landing skills are? Is this the reason why you do not want a realistic simulator whit crash damage modelling?

I have no problems with landings, i get no *****Crash****** messagees, eveen though I sometimes make a hard landing in my opinion. I think you should learn landing planes, and to do so, turn on Crash detections. It's not the FSX that is wrang when you get the ****Crash***** at landings, it's you who land way to rough. I know that this probably vill insult you.

But when you do not get penalities for you're bad landings, then you will not try to gett better either. I gues you do not know how to make a good landing bcause you allways fly with crash detections off. The landing is the most essensial thing in flight. Anyone can take off in some way, fly around, but most people have problems with landings. This is also true in real life, even in radiocontrolled airplanes. The onely way to make a good landing is practise practise. :rolleyes:

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<ducks head in case something was thrown>

I was responding to the text that I quoted

Yes, and what was that text you quoted about? You quoted my text, did you not? And what was I talking about? well, the text you Quoted. ^_^

<ducks head in case something was thrown>

sorry if i seems to bee not so polite, or if I seem angry. I do not use the smileys to much :rolleyes:

Was this better? :D

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sorry if i seems to bee not so polite, or if I seem angry. I do not use the smileys to much rolleyes.gif

Was this better? biggrin.gif

contempt becomes you.

Yes, and what was that text you quoted about? You quoted my text, did you not? And what was I talking about? well, the text you Quoted. happy.gif

That one should get you into the select User Group.

I've blocked your childish responses now. Go bother someone else.

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Mostly the most difficult part in developing a game would be the engine, so why not use/modify an existing engine instead of developing a compleatly new one?

I don't know if it's possible but, It would be nice if Aerosoft would work together with Laminar Research (company witch develops X-Plane) and buy the source code for their engine, because that engine is really good in my opinion because it calculates the aerodynamics quite well because it calcutes the wind hitting the aircraft on every part it hit's it (unlike the FSX engine) and it is hard to match that good engine.

I'm aware of the fact that x-plane is written for Open GL and ASFS2012 will be in DX11 but, knowing the specs of an engine/source code will make it "easy" to rewrite it in another programming language, or am I mistaking?

By the way I took a look at the unreal 3 engine source code (I'm programming in C myself), it's a versatile engine used in none gaming sector as well for examlpe in computer tomographics, but it isn't the most suitable engine for a sim (in my opinion).

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I see we are back to Ye' olde Sim/Game debate.

My take on it is that Aerosoft may be comprised of flying enthusiasts, but they can do what they do only because they are also money enthusiasts. IE they are in this to run a business, and that business needs to make money to survive.

Flightsim software history has always seemed to me to be littered with the corpses of developers that wanted to model every little niggle and detail: which made a select few people very, very happy but left the majority pretty much adrift at sea.

I remember being very interested in flying, but looking with deep chagrin at the Illuminated, Gideon-bible sized instruction manuals that began to be standard in the enthusiast flightsims as the hobby flew up its own navel. Couldn't it be just a bit more accessible to the more casual crowd? NO! Said the super enthusiasts, everything must be just as authentic (if only instrument-wise) as if you were flying a real plane!!

And...... flight Sims went away.

Look around. There are many flight games, but how many quality flight sims???? Only Microsoft stayed in the game making a good profit, and guess what? They did it by keeping it accessible to ordinary people as well as those with greater ambition. X-plane has it adherents to super-realism, but it also has reams of people who were very interested and gave it a try, only to stumble away, bruised and disoriented by the impenetrable interface and general unfriendliness to any but the most committed would-be fliers.

I would not expect a company as obviously committed to flying simulations as Aerosoft to come out with some super-dumbed-down Ace Combat clone. (There are already plenty of those and there are a steady supply of more) but I really, really hope they wont go too far the other way either, and make something only a the stiffest of stiff upper lip real pilots-in-training could love.

Unless they are aiming deliberately to be a niche product......... :unsure:

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I see we are back to Ye' olde Sim/Game debate.

My take on it is that Aerosoft may be comprised of flying enthusiasts, but they can do what they do only because they are also money enthusiasts. IE they are in this to run a business, and that business needs to make money to survive.

Flightsim software history has always seemed to me to be littered to me with the corpses of developers that wanted to model every little niggle and detail: which made a select few people very, very happy but left the majority pretty much adrift at sea.

I remember being very interested in flying, but looking with deep chagrin at the Illuminated, Gideon-bible sized instruction manuals that began to be standard in the enthusiast flightsims as the hobby flew up its own navel. Couldn't it be just a bit more accessible to the more casual crowd? NO! Said the super enthusiasts, everything must be just as authentic (if only instrument-wise) as if you were flying a real plane!!

And...... flight Sims went away.

Look around. There are many flight games, but how many quality flight sims???? Only Microsoft stayed in the game making a good profit, and guess what? They did it by keeping it accessible to ordinary people as well as those with greater ambition. X-plane has it adherents to super-realism, but it also has reams of people who were very interested and gave it a try, only to stumble away, bruised and disoriented by the impenetrable interface and general unfriendliness to any but the most committed would-be fliers.

I would not expect a company as obviously committed to flying simulations as Aerosoft to come out with some super-dumbed-down Ace Combat clone. (There are already plenty of those and there are a steady supply of more) but I really, really hope they wont go too far the other way either, and make something only a the stiffest of stiff upper lip real pilots-in-training could love.

Unless they are aiming deliberately to be a niche product......... :unsure:

Interesting thoughts; I'm not quite sure how to reply to them. I would say that I disagree with you, but you make some decent points. I would like to see something as close to flying a real plane as possible (You can see my reason for that in my post on the first page of this topic.). But I say this because I'm not a part of the casual crowd. I've been using flight sim for years; I hope to get my PPL someday, when I have the time and money. Another reason that I would like to see maximum realism is that I fly single-engine props; I'm not concerned with being overwhelmed by complex systems in a Cessna or a Cub.;)

It may be that Aerosoft could make the most money off of a game-like product, but by doing this they would disappoint their most dedicated customers. Whom would Aerosoft rather please? A casual simmer who may not ever even buy another flight sim again? Or a dedicated flight sim enthusiast? I wonder how many people don't use flight simulator because it isn't realistic enough. IMO, if you really enjoy something, you'll learn how to do it. People who give up on flight sim because they think that it's to hard don't really love flying. It's not easy to learn how to fly in a realistic flight sim. But if you really love flying, you'll learn because you want to learn. And these are the dedicated customers that will buy every version of AFS for years to come. Does Aerosoft want to please these people, or someone who doesn't really care about flying anyway? I think that in the long run, Aerosoft will make the most money by satisfying their most dedicated customers.

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Greetings Mathijs.

Ive been flying fs since black and white version 1. Been following the talk here about the new sim your discussing. Thought that i would finally log on and give some of my input.

I apologize if some of these have been said.

1:

My first suggestion is two maybe use two types of models for aircraft instead of just one. Both have the paints and such, but one is for flight and the other is just for multiplayer use.

This way people can still see the planes other folks fly, but still have to buy them to fly them.

2:

The other thing that i really cant stand about fsx is the use of gamespy. A third party program perhaps might be much better.

3:

Also i think a better dedicated server/service should come with it for people wanting to run servers. This way a client doesnt have to be running and leaves more resources for the people flying.

FSX didnt even have a ban function, so more options would also be nice on the server side; client information, etc. And in combination with my second suggestion a way to tie these all into one internet site.

4:

I saw some servers that added 'points' and such for landing places on time, hauling cargo, flight time, etc. While some folks might think its a little 'game' like, i think these features were kind of fun and added an extra fullfillment to completeing goals and continued flight.

5:

I really liked the idea of scenery changing with weather as well.

6:

Having it out for Mac and Linux and not just M$, just like X plane does.

I know a few folks who only run MS OS just to fly fsx and would love having other options.

Thank you for giving me the chance to talk about this. =)

Jason

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About difficulty. I'd like to see a complex sim, with the option to make it simple for the arkade people. Like in FSX you can tune the realism.

If you also get crash damage in the sim, you will satisfy both the arkade and most dedicated sim fans. This is a winn winn situation.

Realism realism.... with the option for ease of use.

Then you will have a bigger market. Maybe that is what Mathijs intended in the first place, and that i did not understand that in the tread for Ease of use.

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I belive the system should be modular.

The dynamics engine should perhaps be an open source development, also to get interest and contributions from academic resources and professinal simulation shops.

The visual engine should be future proof and scalable, perhaps sold seperatly by aerosoft for military and professional sivilian use.

I belive your developers could find a lot of inspiration in this articale, on a possible approach to such a development, read the end:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MegaTexture

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Just remembered something that really bugs me with FSX: Detail1.bmp -- it covers landclass and photo-scenery! When I make photo-scenery, I would like it to look like the photo -- without a detail texture covering all the buildings/trees/taxiways/runways etc.!

Please make AFS2012 work differently, Mathijs! :D

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One thing that would be nice to have in AFS2012 is random failures. X-Plane has this feature, which I didn't fully appreciate until last night. I was flying in X-Plane when out of nowhere I heard an exceedingly loud, "BOOM!!!" I almost jumped out of my skin! It was a bird strike, and it caught me completely off guard. It killed one of my engines, and I had to think fast. I was flying an F-22, which, as you may know, is totally unusual for me; I usually fly single-engine props. So I had to land a plane that I'm not used to flying with one engine killed. I was able to make a very ugly landing. I didn't get it down until about halfway down the runway, and I ran off the end. But now I think that this would be a great feature to have in AFS2012. In FSX, you can set failures to occur between "X" and "X" amount of time, but then you're expecting it. It would be much more realistic to have random failures.

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Here's something else that I hate in FSX: those huge "welcome mats" around the airports. I think that I mentioned this a long time ago, but I wanted to get the point across. Those things drive me insane! They look ridiculous, and they take away the challenge at many airports that have trees close to the runway in real life. They especially ruin the grass airstrips. Most small airports don't have huge clearings around them. I like to fly at small airports, but I won't fly at most of them in FSX because they're ruined by this. Please make the clearings around the airports in AFS2012 match up with the ones in real life. Also, it would be nice to have more accurate representation of the small airports. Those are my favorites. The short, narrow challenging country airstrips. But they look terrible in FSX. I would probably fly in FSX twice as much if it weren't for this; all of my favorite airports look nothing like they do in real life. Please pay attention to the small airports in AFS2012. Maybe you could get someone from each region to make all the small airports in that region.

Here's another idea. In Google Earth, users can make 3D models of buildings and place them in it. In some places, every house is modeled. Why not have a feature like this for AFS2012?

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Hi!

I just turned on my brain again and thought about some other things which the simulator should have.

Ok lets move on:

  • Skidding, like in reality. Just finished my course on tuesday in driving in dangerous situations like full braking on wet streets. Was very exciting and you can't believe, if you werent in such a situation how it spins you with just 35-40km/h / 22mph. So I thought it would be great if the antiskid knob would get a real effect too. If you are trying to full break or turn with high speeds on a wet taxiway/runway it should drift you off, understeer or in worst case you make a 180 ^^.
  • Would be great if addons like ActiveCamera or Walk&Follow can find their way into the simulator too.
  • The A340/B777 or A380 have a tail camera which can be seen on the displays in the cockpit. Would be a great gauge.
  • The L-39 Albatros has the feature of progressive icing, what about progressive snow layers at snow fall?
  • If its cold and you turn on the heater, your windows will steam up. Dont know how its in a plane but that would be nice too.
  • What about 3D trees near the airport which replaces the flat textures autogen has? I mean if you are rolling onto the runway the front line of autogen trees could be replaced by 3D Trees (full volumetric) and the 2nd or 3rd row are texture trees again, would be nice looking I think.

What do you think about these things?

Emmanuel

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(Sorry for my english, i'm not english native)

- Think about acquiring a DirectX11 engine, for example for 3D graphics because tesselation is a very good functionnality to have detailed models without having to make them with too much polygons => good frame rates.

- Having several 2 models at least for each aircraft. one for the player and a simplified one for AI. in fact, several model with different level of complexity, like mipmap for bitmap.

- aircraft carrier must have a good physic, move on the wave etc.. to have more difficult approch and landing on it.

- Generate thermals and rift winds for glider.

- don't include too much functionnality, we just need a good base, but make it as open as possible. addons developpers must be able to change everything (or near) in the simulator (except the proprietary parts of course like 3D and physics engine).

Nirgal

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  • Aerosoft

I was reading the "Topic: ease of use", and I must say that the reading was petrifying. Do you realy intend to make a sim less complicated than the FSX?

I think you were reading things I did not intend to write.

We believe FSX is horribly complex in many ways. For example would it not be much more logical to have a structure that can save

  • The aircraft and the state of it's systems
  • The current location, heading etc
  • The current weather and time

all in separate files? And then have a small link file that links three of those to make what FSX now calls a Flight File (though it lacks the aircraft system settings!) Would it not be more logical to use a MS Office like menu structure that anybody knows already?

For sure AFS2012 will be far less complicated then FSX, we think it is a mess of ideas that do not work well together. We think a more professional, less game like interface will work far better for something this complex.

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  • Aerosoft

Look around. There are many flight games, but how many quality flight sims???? Only Microsoft stayed in the game making a good profit, and guess what? They did it by keeping it accessible to ordinary people as well as those with greater ambition. X-plane has it adherents to super-realism, but it also has reams of people who were very interested and gave it a try, only to stumble away, bruised and disoriented by the impenetrable interface and general unfriendliness to any but the most committed would-be fliers.

I would not expect a company as obviously committed to flying simulations as Aerosoft to come out with some super-dumbed-down Ace Combat clone. (There are already plenty of those and there are a steady supply of more) but I really, really hope they wont go too far the other way either, and make something only a the stiffest of stiff upper lip real pilots-in-training could love.

Unless they are aiming deliberately to be a niche product......... :unsure:

Now you do understand things. You worked for ACES or one of the many people who tried to make money with serious sims and failed?

It's also a bit of a non issue. We know we will have to sell 5 copies to people who see it as a game to 1 to an enthusiast. BUT we can start to sell addons to the enthusiast so in the end both kind of customers are about equally important. Anybody who reads this belongs to the second category. We got 500 customers of a addon like the F-16 that do not read these forums to any one that does. Basing your ideas on what happens online gives a very warped impression.

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  • Aerosoft

Hi!

I just turned on my brain again and thought about some other things which the simulator should have.

Ok lets move on:

  • Skidding, like in reality. Just finished my course on tuesday in driving in dangerous situations like full braking on wet streets. Was very exciting and you can't believe, if you werent in such a situation how it spins you with just 35-40km/h / 22mph. So I thought it would be great if the antiskid knob would get a real effect too. If you are trying to full break or turn with high speeds on a wet taxiway/runway it should drift you off, understeer or in worst case you make a 180 ^^.
  • Would be great if addons like ActiveCamera or Walk&Follow can find their way into the simulator too.
  • The A340/B777 or A380 have a tail camera which can be seen on the displays in the cockpit. Would be a great gauge.
  • The L-39 Albatros has the feature of progressive icing, what about progressive snow layers at snow fall?
  • If its cold and you turn on the heater, your windows will steam up. Dont know how its in a plane but that would be nice too.
  • What about 3D trees near the airport which replaces the flat textures autogen has? I mean if you are rolling onto the runway the front line of autogen trees could be replaced by 3D Trees (full volumetric) and the 2nd or 3rd row are texture trees again, would be nice looking I think.

What do you think about these things?

Emmanuel

Nice ideas. I added the anti skid as one of my A priorities as I agree it's important.

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Well,

  • The night, should be dark, in Flight Simulator you have a bright night. In reality the bright sky is because of the lights on the ground, and the moon. It would be awesome to see the clouds reflex the lights on the ground.
  • Some camera effects, when you look at the Sun you get "blind", can't see anything, many others...
  • "REAL" lights, without that .bmp, a light that actually properly illuminates the ground, aircrafts, runways, like the L-39 Albatros by Lotus, OR BETTER! XD(pic:
  • And... make it "As real as it gets!!!"

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Now you do understand things. You worked for ACES or one of the many people who tried to make money with serious sims and failed?

It's also a bit of a non issue. We know we will have to sell 5 copies to people who see it as a game to 1 to an enthusiast. BUT we can start to sell addons to the enthusiast so in the end both kind of customers are about equally important. Anybody who reads this belongs to the second category. We got 500 customers of a addon like the F-16 that do not read these forums to any one that does. Basing your ideas on what happens online gives a very warped impression.

I have a question for you, Mathijs. How do you intend to make this sim appeal to the casual crowd? I'm fine with simplification of the UI and anything else that doesn't have to do with the actual flying. I'm fine with some things that some people would say are too "game-like." But I'm not fine with simplification of flight models or aircraft systems. How will Aerosoft approach this? Will AFS2012 have a highly realistic flight model but still have "game-like" features such as missions? Or will the flight models and aircraft systems be "dumbed-down" and simplified? From what I've read of your posts, Mathijs, it seems as if you will take the first approach that I mentioned, with a realistic flight model but features such as missions. Is that correct? I hope so.

BTW, don't misunderstand what I'm saying about simplification of aircraft systems. I understand what you were saying about one person doing the job of two when flying an airliner, but I hope that the systems won't be simplified in the small aircraft also.

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If I have to attract a crowd who doesnt have to do much with flying before I would try to get them back to their simplest motivations, like discovering, experience.

What we always hear when we tell a friend that we like to fly virtualy, is something like "cmon thats mad". So me too not long ago. Then I showed him a great video about a L-39, by EFSFilms (

, 0m 45s), he was impressed. Why? Because the video shows the great things of flying, cutting is great and the music goes great with it. Simple: You can nearly feel the speed and freedom.

Then I showed him a other video, CATII approach:

(2m 54s) and I dont know nobody who isnt impressed by this. Also it looks simply great when the runway lights come out of nothing and the glow that feels kind of warm and relaxing.

If AFS2012 can convey feelings and motivate people to discover then they will give it a try.

Who didnt want to see their home from above? Mountains? Other cultures? Destinations like hawaii, which is a bit expensive for the most of people? A sightseeing flight around Paris? etc.?

For those who doesnt know to fly, example flights which shows them the power of the simulator in atmosphere (clouds, lighting (sunset, sunrise, ...)), landscapes, cities and so on would be great. The flight physics are simplified and maybe a virtual pilot acts as a copilot and demonstrates whats possible and teaches how a plane flies, how thrust is applied, why ailerons, elevators are important and so on. The basics.

But I think the basic intention should be to amaze and to let the user discover the little things which makes a sim great. Thats also why eyecandys are important even if its just a bird which flies over the runway before takeoff.

My 2 cents

Emmanuel

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