All the talk about **, I discovered it on first release, but the same devs have since released War Thunder, IMHO it's even better than **, ESP for the number of online players, lighting and clouds. Another one you must check out, if you like **. 'Free' too!

A new sim doesn't necessarily need to simulate the entire world. When I installed X-Plane I only bothered installing a small part of Europe, the rest is just a waste of disk space.

 

The solution to me would be to develop a flight sim that allows third-party developers to create the scenery. Obviously the sim should include enough scenery to get people to buy it and be interested. I really liked AeroflyFS and their rendition of Switzerland, and I'm glad to hear they will be developing a new version and allowing third-party development.

 

As someone has said already above, we have all the bits needed in other engines, Outerra, Unigine, etc.. It just needs someone to come along and glue them all together :-)

All the talk about **, I discovered it on first release, but the same devs have since released War Thunder, IMHO it's even better than **, ESP for the number of online players, lighting and clouds. Another one you must check out, if you like **. 'Free' too!

 

I looked at War Thunder but I like Wings of Prey better. I don't like participating in online battles....I just don't like shooting at complete strangers who've never done me any harm :smile:

 

Wings of Prey is arguably the best sim I've ever downloaded, and I love that I can fly in free flight without being molested by anyone. The lighting and effects are so nice--only thing absent are cloud shadows, which seem absent from many sims. But I don't notice that so much. I am just amazed at how the aircraft self shadowing looks when I fly. Why couldn't FSX perform like this? However, in FSX's defense I do believe its ground textures are sharper than those in Wings of Prey. Only issue I've had with Wings of Prey is getting my joystick set up, It only seems to recognize throttle, roll, pitch and yaw and none of the other buttons on my joystick. So I have to use my mouse to pan around and mouse buttons or the keyboard to access other functions.

 

John

Oh yes, a futre sim will let me use my warthog trim hat for trimming and not be $£&%£$"^$£#! hardcoded into panning the view!

You're clearly doing something in an incorrect manner, if it can't be changed.

You're clearly doing something in an incorrect manner, if it can't be changed.

 

I'm following the same process I used to set up the other axis assignments--same process that works successfully in FSX. FS9, etc. Even War Thunder, when I tried it, accepted my joystick assignments with no issues. I click the action I want the joystick to perform, then flick the control on the joystick. It's only picking up the four major axis, as I've noted. I tried the preset for the AV8R joystick I own, and the assignments in the preset were not correct for my joystick. I know I'll eventually sort it out--it's not the end of the world, so to speak. I really would only like to assign my pan functionality so I don't need to use the mouse to change my view.

 

For those who do install this sim, I encourage you to go to custom graphics settings after the install. There's an option for the highest res graphics in the defaults, but under custom options there's an option for even higher res textures. I chose that, and my textures improved with no fps impact. This sim is so good at working the gpu. I wonder if AeroflyFS also is a good performer which exploits the gpu well?

 

John

You're clearly doing something in an incorrect manner, if it can't be changed.

 

Under FSX the hatswitch is listed as one item hatswitch instead of 4 buttons so can't assign to trim up/down, rudder left/right. If you know how can split it up then am all ears.

Under FSX the hatswitch is listed as one item hatswitch instead of 4 buttons so can't assign to trim up/down, rudder left/right. If you know how can split it up then am all ears.

 

In FSX I have the hatswitch assigned to my hatswitch. Rudder Left/Right is assigned to the twist function of my AV8R, which also works fine in Wings of Pray. On the joystick I have two additional buttons below the hatswitch. One I've assigned to trim up, the other to trim down. It works wonderfully in FSX although I don't know if you have the same Joystick. The lever on top of my joystick I've assigned to my handbrake and the fire button is assigned to view switch, just because I couldn't think of anything else I wanted to use it for.

 

Regards,

 

John

Looks like all the ingredients are about, just needs someone to combine them into a suitable recipe!

 

Like the clouds and water I posted, there are a lot of "off the shelf" solutions applicable to flight sims, and I can't help but think it would make sense to cut research and programming overhead by tapping those resources rather than reinventing the wheel; yet all "true" simulations seem intent on going it alone; bypassing helpful tools like Unigine, Physx, Havok, Speedtree, Esri CityEngine, Triton and others.

 

That being the case, its even harder to see where the funds for a sim to start from scratch would come from.

If any of you are up for a 24hr flight please check out this! spread the word and get as many people involved as you can!

I'm following the same process I used to set up the other axis assignments--same process that works successfully in FSX. FS9, etc. Even War Thunder, when I tried it, accepted my joystick assignments with no issues. I click the action I want the joystick to perform, then flick the control on the joystick. It's only picking up the four major axis, as I've noted. I tried the preset for the AV8R joystick I own, and the assignments in the preset were not correct for my joystick. I know I'll eventually sort it out--it's not the end of the world, so to speak. I really would only like to assign my pan functionality so I don't need to use the mouse to change my view.

 

For those who do install this sim, I encourage you to go to custom graphics settings after the install. There's an option for the highest res graphics in the defaults, but under custom options there's an option for even higher res textures. I chose that, and my textures improved with no fps impact. This sim is so good at working the gpu. I wonder if AeroflyFS also is a good performer which exploits the gpu well?

 

John

 

Finally figured out how to do joystick assignments for **--there's two places where joystick controls can be assigned. One is not so intuitive because it's entitled "key mappings". That's where some joystick functions are assigned. I found posts on the web from users who went through similar challenges to mine.

 

I'm still really enjoying this sim. Lots of nice places to fly and a variety of scenery. At least two dozen aircraft to choose from. And I am also still enjoying the Valley demo that launched this thread. Last, all my issues with Steam I was able to clear up. With my new sim to distract me, I only flew FSX once this week. Poor sim, it probably feels neglected.

 

John

Finally figured out how to do joystick assignments for **--there's two places where joystick controls can be assigned. One is not so intuitive because it's entitled "key mappings". That's where some joystick functions are assigned. I found posts on the web from users who went through similar challenges to mine.

 

I'm still really enjoying this sim. Lots of nice places to fly and a variety of scenery. At least two dozen aircraft to choose from. And I am also still enjoying the Valley demo that launched this thread. Last, all my issues with Steam I was able to clear up. With my new sim to distract me, I only flew FSX once this week. Poor sim, it probably feels neglected.

 

John

 

Cool that you are having fun with it! That's all that counts.

Thought I'd share this as it shows how the commercial funding could work for a next generation flight sim.

 

If you remember back in the day spending endless hours on titles such as Wing Commander well Chris Roberts is producing a new physics based space combat sim called Star Citizen. No VC wants to touch it as it is not the typical game that gets released these days but is a high end deep space sim.

 

Currently raised over $8,300,000 through crowd funding. Look at the trailer and other videos on the site and that's the level of detail it's looking to produce.

 

There is actually a thread on that already. :-)

 

It's a nice dream, but thinking deeper into it, I suspect that sort of funding scheme wouldn't work in this community. Just imagining who would be responsible for development, who would set development priorities, what milestones would be set......

 

Community expectations (just that alone would scare me cross eyed)

 

Who would touch that with a ten foot pole? I mean really, truly and honestly?

Community expectations (just that alone would scare me cross eyed)

That's a very valid question. At the very least, no one could scream bloody murder about "Star Citizen" or any of its assets being "unrealistic..." :rolleyes: