Ground drag/friction & The NGX

[scandinavian13 5,192]

I also said that it changes the ground friction, but I didn't specify if it was better or worse. I don't need hard data to say the values in the file actually change.

 

So the point in me going through the effort of checking it out on my own would be to...?

 

The OP claimed realism. I debated it.

Now we have people just claiming generics of "well I changed a value, which had an effect," and have apparently abandoned the realism argument. Not sure why...maybe just to disagree...

 

In any case, it's kinda ridiculous.

 

Hey, I added an extra part oxygen to your H2O. It should be more realistic to drink...

[if you paid attention in chem, you'll get it]

Oh, nah, wait...I don't need to know whether it's more realistic or not, but I added an O, so I changed it!

 

[Disclaimer: Do NOT drink hydrogen peroxide, please]

[mikea76 184]

So the point in me going through the effort of checking it out on my own would be to...?

 

The OP claimed realism. I debated it.

Now we have people just claiming generics of "well I changed a value, which had an effect," and have apparently abandoned the realism argument. Not sure why...maybe just to disagree...

 

In any case, it's kinda ridiculous.

 

Hey, I added an extra part oxygen to your H2O. It should be more realistic to drink...

[if you paid attention in chem, you'll get it]

Oh, nah, wait...I don't need to know whether it's more realistic or not, but I added an O, so I changed it!

 

[Disclaimer: Do NOT drink hydrogen peroxide, please]

 

Ok I added the extra oxygen but it did not taste very good at all. Have you ever drank real water before!

[scandinavian13 5,192]

Ok I added the extra oxygen but it did not taste very good at all. Have you ever drank real water before!

 

Haha. Real water isn't supposed to smell terrible and give you cotton mouth, abdominal pain and cramping?

[Tabs 2,790]

Guys,

 

Someone asked me/PMDG to comment on this thread:

 

1. We do not modify or hack sim1.dll as some have suggested here. The methods we use to deal with the ground friction issues in FSX are all within our code, airfile and cfg etc. We feel the NGX was a pretty good compromise - a bunch of real life NG pilots were heavily involved in that aspect of the testing (as they were with everything on the product really) and we felt it was as close as it could be given the limitations of the sim and significantly better than a lot of other products. The claims I've seen that you can taxi an 800 with zero breakaway thrust aren't correct according to our test team guys. I can back this up with personal experience both as a passenger and in having been in a real simulator too - I'm always comparing my real world experiences to what we did with the NGX and I've always noticed the engines come up as we start moving. I definitely had to advance them in the sim as well. The NGX simulates what I've experienced reasonably well.

 

2. We're not going to be changing our products to work with modified/hacked ground friction numbers. The vast majority of our customers never post on forums like this one and would have no way at all of knowing about such a modification. We have to program for vanilla FSX because we actually do have a lot of customers who install the base sim and our aircraft with nothing else. That's just the reality of the market for us - we're not going to get into making products that require modifications to the core sim to work correctly. Accounting for both standard and tweaked versions would add considerable development time as we'd need separate code paths, airfiles, cfgs etc for whatever values for the friction people settled on using. It's important to note too that since these values are global it'd change the behavior of all aircraft, not just ours - you can probably imagine how other devs would react to us putting such a requirement on our products.

[LHookins 3,102]

Someone asked me/PMDG to comment on this thread:

 

Thanks, Ryan.

 

Hook

[Donstim 109]

Ryan,

As I understand it, Pete Dowson is providing you, the developer, the chance to customize these formerly not customizable friction values without changing the base sim. An unregistered version of FSUIPC would, however, be needed to accommodate this. Are you saying that PMDG has considered this and decided not to take advantage of this opportunity due to...?

Thanks,

Don Stimson

[scandinavian13 5,192]

As I understand it, Pete Dowson is providing you, the developer, the chance to customize these formerly not customizable friction values without changing the base sim. An unregistered version of FSUIPC would, however, be needed to accommodate this. Are you saying that PMDG has considered this and decided not to take advantage of this opportunity due to...?

 

I don't think you are both seeing the same picture here.

Ryan made it very clear that they would not modify the sim1.dll. Context. Always understand the context:

We do not modify or hack sim1.dll as some have suggested here.

 

And even if they work with Pete's work-around, they'd have to re-engineer all of their products, and it's not as simple as one might suggest.

If you would like to have a go at programming:

www.eclipse.org

 

Good luck in your endeavor.

[Donstim 109]

Using Pete's "workaround" in FSUIPC means they would have access to those friction variables without hacking or modifying the sim1.dll file. And they don't have to re-engineer or reprogram any of their products. They could choose to use this new capability only with new products (or they could choose to update past products as they sometimes do when they find better ways of doing things.)

 

I may be missing something, but it seems to me that by incorporating this capability into FSUIPC, it basically allows customization of these friction variables in pretty much the same manner as use of aircraft.cfg variables (at least in that it does not require any changes to native FSX files. The changes to the variables in the sim1.dll file are only retained in working memory.

 

It would require inclusion of the unregistered version of FSUIPC in the airplane installation package, however, which may be a non-starter with PMDG.

 

Don Stimson

[Sam 68]

So the point in me going through the effort of checking it out on my own would be to...?

 

The OP claimed realism. I debated it.

 

 

I NEVER claimed that..

Well I partly said that, but my point was that I wanted someone to comment and discuss on the data..

 

Im just asking anyone to comment on the data.

Ryan did..

A lot of people just seemed to debate that their friend of x (second hand information) knew this and that..

 

FSX get's better and better with the community adding to its immersion, and I thought it would be clear that it should be debated here since a lot of the discussion was on the ng.

Atleast I collected some solid data using the alteration, instead of rambling on about this and that..

 

Tbh I have always enjoyed your comments and points but I gotta say you dissapointed me.

You don't care I know

 

have a nice day

[Alec 370]

Accounting for both standard and tweaked versions would add considerable development time as we'd need separate code paths, airfiles, cfgs etc for whatever values for the friction people settled on using

 

This pretty much ends all hopes of PMDG doing this.

[LHookins 3,102]

This pretty much ends all hopes of PMDG doing this.

 

Considering some people have a problem with friction and some don't, they're taking the correct path. Besides, no one needs PMDG to add it to all their aircraft. Anyone who wants the modified friction values has access to them. Just like liveries; there's no reason for PMDG to include every possible one.

 

Hook

[scandinavian13 5,192]

I NEVER claimed that..

 

Im just asking anyone to comment on the data.

Ryan did..

A lot of people just seemed to debate that their friend of x (second hand information) knew this and that..

 

John,

I'm not trying to be a jerk. I promise that I'm not. As you may have noticed with most of my comments, a good bit of the time I'm simply providing a counterpoint. The reason I said that you claimed realism, and I point this out with the most honest and sincere respect, your first post says:

"Takeoff seemed realistic.. I really think so.. Wasent any unreal accelleration I think."

 

That's why I said you were claiming realism. I'm not really faulting you for it. In any case, I was addressing AJ at the time when I said you were claiming realism and that I was simply providing a counterpoint.

 

FSX get's better and better with the community adding to its immersion, and I thought it would be clear that it should be debated here since a lot of the discussion was on the ng.

Atleast I collected some solid data using the alteration, instead of rambling on about this and that..

 

...and good on you for doing so. I'm sorry for not stating it more clearly from the start, but here's my stance:

I was raised to question everything.

If you have a sound argument and sound data, then I'll question it in my head, evaluate what you said, and if I like it, I carry on (or sometimes I say I like it). If I don't like it, I normally say something, especially when the comments have the potential to affect people adversely, or mislead them (note, I'm not saying you intended to because I really don't think that was your intention - I believe they were well-intended).

 

What I was saying even as far back as my first post is that your variables are great (change this frict value to the realistic number). Using a real world friction value makes a ton of sense. The real issue, however, is how the sim crunches all that and provides a more realistic experience (which I know is your goal - a realistic experience to help people). The real data numbers/stats/science people would be interested in, however, would be how the aircraft now behaves like the real one:

In [x] YouTube video, you can see they break away at [x] N1. My tweak behaves similarly with [x] N1.

TOPCAT calculates that I should use [x] feet of runway on the takeoff roll. My tweak is similar with [x] feet of runway.

 

As a parallel, when I was an applications and tech trainer, I didn't get selected because I gave them the inputs: "I'll teach you 60 minutes of Pivot Tables, and 120 min of Functions in Excel." I got selected because I gave them the end results: "I'll give you 60 min of Pivots, 120 min of Functions - and others who took my classes in the past have rated me on a 9.7 average, and these four Fortune 500 companies said I've saved them 12 hours a week per employee, per week."

 

I know that's a weird analogy, and I can pick at people to death. All I'm trying to do is play a little Devil's Advocate.

 

Tbh I have always enjoyed your comments and points but I gotta say you dissapointed me.

You don't care I know

 

I do, actually. Despite my brash forum manner, I don't like upsetting people. If you saw any of this as a personal attack, I apologize.

[michal 44]

Using a real world friction value makes a ton of sense. The real issue, however, is how the sim crunches all that

The sim crunches all that the way it was designed to crunch by its creators. I for a second don't think that MS' choice of friction was based on some clever compromise that this number will ultimately improve realism, the contrary is most likely true - it was someone's screw-up from the start and later everybody (OK, only those who cared) had to scramble to adjust and devise techniques to compensate for that (like PMDG apparently did). Technically you should be able to have such number "per aircraft" because it could depend on your individual aircraft how tires are inflated, etc., the fact that they forced everybody in a straightjacket to use one global number for friction only shows it was some junior programmer's 5-minute implementation that was never revisited because everybody was afraid of ripple effects it could cause.

[scandinavian13 5,192]

I would agree with that statement.

[FSMP 95]

"If it ain't stuck, don't free it" :rolleyes: