September 29, 201213 yr (Long post - sorry...) Inspired by the flight I did this morning, from LPBJ (Beja Airbase, OSM-Enhanced) to LPPT (Lisbon Airport), using RWW, and ATC (full ATC, feeling better in RC3)... While I can understand some arguments regarding features that people would like to have in X-Plane, and I myself will always ask for something else to enhance even more the great experience this simulator is giving me, there are times I really get the idea that sometimes we (human beings) tend to block what is evident (well, maybe I myself am blocking the evidence that X-Plane is a piece of crap... but I really don't think so, simply because I am using my many years simming and RL pilot experience to evaluate how well it fits my expectations...) Each time I start X-Plane10, being it simply to make a few tests with an aircraft, a short flight in a glider (well, sometimes long...and having been able to reproduce a few of my RL flights) , being it simply to experiment a new airport scenery I just downloaded from some site and dropped into the "Custom Scenery" folder (could this be made simpler ???), each time I feel amazed at how X-Plane10 recreates many weather features (1), from the clouds to the Sun glare, the winds and turbulence that now work simply great!, the various forms of precipitation, or even when I open Plane Maker to look at the inside of some "airfile" and understand how the aircraft was modelled (no tricks being hiden!!! (2)), in all of those occasions, I really feel there is no doubt for me that while X-Plane10 is more directed at simulating a close to real world recreation of flight by pausibly and very accurately/smoothly recreating the reality in a way that fits specially the needs of someone wanting to use it for trainning pourposes, I really think that most of those who, just like me in the past, complaint about what they miss, having as a base of comparison the few alternatives, are really not the user base for X-Plane after all. There are games, MS FLIGHT being a remarkable example, that can turn even the most hardcore simmer into a aerocache hunter - myself, who summed up ~ 1.4M xpoints doing this and flying missions, and having a hell of a LOT of fun doing it! There are military-oriented games (DCS, but look forward for War Thunder, simply amazing graphics-wise, but not my genre...)... There are flight & systems simulators oriented towards the professional/student user (Aerowinx PS1, ELITE and the short-lived RTS-Pro being good examples)... ...and there are platforms that really allow for a game-oriented experience but are not taillored to maximize the experience in that area, but rather to fulfill the needs of someone wanting to practise the basics of flying an aircraft, learning the basics of how to deal with aircraft operations and lmitations, weather - VMC/IMC, and being able to do it around areas that plausibly recreate the real world, without requiring an absolute match to the rw structures, other than those strictly required for conducting flight, while at the same time oppening the door to the inclusion of those details, should we want to do it ourself, recreating those scenery elements, or buy it from some 3pd who will most probably in a near future start investing a lot more of thei time in X-Plane. X-Plane, IMHO, falls in this later class of simulators. Do FSX / P3D fall there too? Yes and No, because while they have a much longer market coverage, and thousands of 3pds working to create add-ons for them, they are freezed in terms of any hope for additional, sometimes very important, features to ever be included in their core. They stagnated, while X-Plane10 is continuing to accelerate towards it's cruise speed, and doing it very fast, specially with this last (10) version. I could not end this long (sorry...) post without pointing out a very good, free, alternative, that I am progressively get more and more involved with, although I agree is even less appealing to those who are acostumed to plug&play-like simulators - Flight Gear! My only problem with that sim is that I am getting old and way too lazzy to invest in it, but the simulation platform, including Earh and Space physics, the JSBSim flight dynamics platform, and some of the recent additions, like Rembrandt and some weather modelling features, make FlightGear probably an even more accurate flight simulation platform if someone seriously invests in it, and yet, when we try the basic/default aircraft we are tempted to classify it as simple crap!!! (1) X-Plane's weather modell fits perfectly the needs for VMC/IMC trainning. Just like with the other simulators already available, it uses a limited model of the atmosphere, but given it's ability to model aircraft and ships that can visit the outer limits of Earth's atmosphere, and even get orbital, the structure of X-Plane's atmosphere is a lot more detailled than what you find in the alternatives. It still lacks some interesting and rather basic features that RW pilots are aware usualy from their very 1st flights (at least I was...) such as: - The equation for air density taking into acount water vapor present in the airmass around the aircraft. X-Plane accurately finds air density (you can display it through the data display menu options) as a function of temperature, pressure / altitude, but it doesn't (yet) take into account air saturation by water vapor, which also contributes to the "extended" equation of air density. X-plane does not even include the chance to set dew point temp, but while MSFS allows for it, it is useless in terms of the simulation engine, not being used for air density calculations either, or the determination of cloud base, etc... I have asked Austin to add Tdto the set of weather parameters, and he will probably change the weather simulation a few versions ahead in X-Plane10 :-) It would be even greater if he could find some way of modelling the variation of pressure surfaces when flying from hotter to colder regions (pressure surfaces are not flat!!!), but, as far as I know, until this moment only one project is already (in beta) modelling it - Aerowinx PSX... This would allow to model the temperature side of the well known: "from high to low, watch out bellow!!!", because the pressure side is modelled by any worth mentioning sim... (2) This one is probably rather irritating for 3pds because what you see is what you get! Of course there are still ways of injecting data through plugin programming, but the very basic features of aircraft designed for X-Plane10 are all there when you open the "acf" files. There are no hiden tricks, no exquisite routines (blah.. blah... blah...) to reproduce that "extraordinary" sideslip effects whatsoever... I admire the work of Goran and his DC-3, and have spent a few hours examining it's acf - the best proof of what it means to design a good aircraft for X-Plane... Precise data, both geometry and systems/powerplant-wise, but I am sure other top quality airplanes for X-Plane9 and 10 would show me exactlythe same level of attention to detail... Flying gliders since 1980 Flightsimming since 1992 AMD Ryzen 5600x, 32GB RAM, GPU Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti 8 GB, 1 TB and 500 GB nvme2 SSD drives, HP 27" 60Hz LED monitor @ 1920x1080, T16000, Hotas from old X52 Pro, Saitek Combat Rudder Pro (2010 model)
October 3, 201213 yr Excellent review jcomm. I still tinker with them all, maybe not the best idea because it is hard to become proficient in any one unless you devote a lot of time in it. Fishing around leads to forgetting which things work with which simulator (I am an old man). I recently even downloaded and am studying (Academic license) Prepar3d. All of them have their "good" points and things that aggravate me to some extent; some of which you have helped me with. For years, I just flew and enjoyed that aspect, content to fly low and slow - enjoying the scenery. I lost interest and it lapsed into something I would go to once in a while until Flight came out and it renewed my interest and led me to study IFR - even though Flight didn't really emphasize even cockpits in later aircraft (which I would not buy). I found myself back into FSX and then decided (after flight ended) that the future was in X-Plane, although I had tried it in the past and didn't like the convoluted system of setting things up. I still don't like a lot of that aspect, but am beginning to understand the thought process. I still like to fly low and pretty slow, but have expanded my horizons to fly the excellent Basler BT-67, which a group of enthusiasts have designed for FSX and I have installed in FSX and Prepar3d. It is a reincarnated DC-3 with turboprops and a modernized cabin. Using this has expanded my flying area and given me the training which makes autopilot fun and that, in turn has made me learn to use the much different systems in X-Plane. I am learning to fly using VORs and NDBs and the instruments are making sense. Now, after buying a yoke, pedals, and Track IR, I have invested too much to allow myself to lose interest again and I make myself fly even when I feel too tired to go down and start it up. I just hope that the hobby will not fade away before I "fade away". John John Wingold
October 4, 201213 yr I hope that after 10.20, Austin and LR focus in the Weather system (more wind layers, extra (or unlimited) cloud layers, Td) and a new UI will be the ultimatum, and put a giant spotlight in the aircraft and scenery sdk with new tools for 3d party dev... Gustavo Rodrigues - Brazil
October 4, 201213 yr Commercial Member Gustavo What kind of extra tools would you like to see? There are already several export scripts for Blender, 3DS MAX and AC3D (Although AC3D is officially supported by LR and Blender is completely free) All you would have to do is make the flight model using the included Planemaker software, build a 3D mesh in your 3D program of choice, texture it in Photoshop, Paintshop or Gimp and animate it all in Blender or AC3D. The SDK is quite comprehensive. Everything is described, in detail, for you to learn and get started. Aircraft wiki... http://wiki.x-plane....aft_Development Scenery Wiki... http://wiki.x-plane....ery_Development SDK for plug ins... http://www.xsquawkbo...awiki/FrontPage And for anything else, the main page... http://wiki.x-plane.com/ There are also scenery tutorials... http://wiki.x-plane....enery_Tutorials
October 8, 201213 yr Gustavo What kind of extra tools would you like to see? There are already several export scripts for Blender, 3DS MAX and AC3D (Although AC3D is officially supported by LR and Blender is completely free) All you would have to do is make the flight model using the included Planemaker software, build a 3D mesh in your 3D program of choice, texture it in Photoshop, Paintshop or Gimp and animate it all in Blender or AC3D. The SDK is quite comprehensive. Everything is described, in detail, for you to learn and get started. Aircraft wiki... http://wiki.x-plane....aft_Development Scenery Wiki... http://wiki.x-plane....ery_Development SDK for plug ins... http://www.xsquawkbo...awiki/FrontPage And for anything else, the main page... http://wiki.x-plane.com/ There are also scenery tutorials... http://wiki.x-plane....enery_Tutorials No information for network in XP10 constant changes in the .acf and planemaker (recently austin made a change for starter motor). etc. xp10 is not perfect, but can be as near as possible. Gustavo Rodrigues - Brazil
October 8, 201213 yr Commercial Member No information for network in XP10 constant changes in the .acf and planemaker (recently austin made a change for starter motor). etc. xp10 is not perfect, but can be as near as possible. By network, I'm guessing you mean flying across a LAN. I haven't even looked seriously into that stuff. I think it's possible (going by the dataref list) but developers have to add it in their aircraft. And that requires programming. But I want to clarify that I'm not even sure it's achievable. However, you can fly across Vatsim and IVAO. http://www.xsquawkbox.net/xsb/ The changes made are not to the acf files. The changes are made to X Planes core flight model. These changes are not designed to "break" anything in an add on, but to enhance it. And if something does break in an add on, Ben Supnik welcomes developers feedback so he can make the fixes for the next update. If a feature is added (such as the starter motor), it's a matter of the developer going into the acf, making adjustments, in the case of the starter motor, the adjustment would take less than 3 seconds, and then saving it. Personally, I welcome any refinements or fixes that add to increased accuracy and realism. That's 1 of the main reasons X Plane is my preferred sim.
October 8, 201213 yr Author If a feature is added (such as the starter motor), it's a matter of the developer going into the acf, making adjustments, in the case of the starter motor, the adjustment would take less than 3 seconds, and then saving it. And it makes a whole lot of a difference, at least to me, to have it in X-Plane10, while in the other sim all I can ask for is some "plugin" to emulate the effects of having it. Not to mention that now we can realistically simulate hot starts in turbine engines! This was one of the features I missed in turboprops (plus proper beta range, etc...) in the other sim. ELITE has it too (the Kingair model in ELITE v8 is superb too). So, although I understand it isn't very comfortable for 3pds, having such a dynamic update of the state of the art in X-Plane10 is a guarantee of EVOLUTION, and that we will always have the chance to see this or that details / bugs / features being dealt with in the future :-) Flying gliders since 1980 Flightsimming since 1992 AMD Ryzen 5600x, 32GB RAM, GPU Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti 8 GB, 1 TB and 500 GB nvme2 SSD drives, HP 27" 60Hz LED monitor @ 1920x1080, T16000, Hotas from old X52 Pro, Saitek Combat Rudder Pro (2010 model)
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