OnT; Does the Snow Speeder come with RNAV/WAAS and updatable FMS? 

 

Nooooooo...... but it does come with loud Star Wars music playing in your head as you speed over the snow, wondering where all the Imperial walkers have gotten to......  :lol:

 

The Millennium falcon is available in the vehicles section of the Outerra Forum....... 

 

Hasty exit from Hoth, anyone?

 

XPlane has amazing graphics with the right add-ons and great things can be done with FDE modeling but it's not on the level of P3D/FSX or FS9 because it lacks the ability to simulate the living world that gives an interested aviation enthusiest the complete picture of what's going on in the skies outside of the plane takes off, flies around, lands...

 

You would have a tough argument on that with the guys flying XP on Pilot Edge. 

 

Don't misunderstand - XP is not my primary sim and I'm as critical of some of its shortcomings as anyone, but the idea that in-sim ATC/AI is the dividing line between sim/not sim, or "serious"/not "serious" is tough to support.  Sure XP is deficient in these areas, but frankly so is every other sim I'm aware of if you don't do on-line.  From a real-world pilot's perspective, FSX/P3D ATC, while certainly better than XP's, is still so broken as to be unusable (even though it's often amusing), especially if you want to be "serious", and use anything like current charts and procedures.  This is an area no one's nailed yet.

 

But back on-topic - fun shots and they serve as good reminders to the community to keep an eye on this engine.  The developers seem very interested in flight simulation as a solid potential market for a proof-of-concept product for their platform, so I think it benefits all of us to keep an open mind towards this and not get carried away with "but can it do X, Y and Z" comments.  The answer right now for those questions is mostly "no", but at this stage it's not critical. 

 

Think future, and above all, think potential.

 

Scott

I really would like to mention one thing which I am afraid to do so as it may start flame wars and this thread may not be right for it. 

AI/ATC and MS Flight:  I remember a post where someone said they had a bunch of buddies flying multiplayer, and one was acting as ATC for the rest.  A few outsiders joined the game, and some of them asked what was going on.  When it was explained to them, they got right into it same as everyone else.

 

Hook

Sorry to hijack the thread once more...

 

We all love the various options out there and to each his own but when calling something a serious simulator the bar has been raised both in the combat world and the GA world.

 

So who decides the definition of "serious simulator"? Your definition is yours and noone's else, and hence does not apply to anyone else. As I already said, I agree with you that today a general purpose flight simulator should have ATC/AI, and this makes FSX/P3D superior to X-Plane or other software, as a general purpose flight simulator.

 

What you should avoid instead, is using words like "serious simulator" or that "you can't call something a flight simulator unless it has AI/ATC" (you basically wrote this in your first reply).

 

According to your reasoning, I guess you won't call a full motion Level-D sim with no ATC, a "serious simulator" then?

Sorry to hijack the thread once more...

 

 

 

So who decides the definition of "serious simulator"? Your definition is yours and noone's else, and hence does not apply to anyone else. As I already said, I agree with you that today a general purpose flight simulator should have ATC/AI, and this makes FSX/P3D superior to X-Plane or other software, as a general purpose flight simulator.

 

What you should avoid instead, is using words like "serious simulator" or that "you can't call something a flight simulator unless it has AI/ATC" (you basically wrote this in your first reply).

 

According to your reasoning, I guess you won't call a full motion Level-D sim with no ATC, a "serious simulator" then?

 

It's like pulling teeth to get people to acknowlege somthing obvious with their sim of choice. With FS9 I did the same thing even though FSX was better in so many ways to FS9. The problem is for the longest the price of admission was too high and even today there's so much tweaking and twiddling that you spend more time initially in that area (this period is different for everyone) versus flying. FSX looked outstanding but for a price of time in other areas outside of simming. So the general definition I'm using ("Serious Desktop Simulator") should be universal common since to everyone not just me. You can stick your head in the sand because your partial to XPlane but the fact still remains it doesn't offer all that P3D and the Microsof series offers. Instead of accepting it we should incourage the developers of XPlane to address this so add-on developers can fill in the gaps.

 

Concerning real world Level-D sims, these things are designed to train pilots wih different aspects of how the real aircraft performs. If we are going to go here Level-D sims train on emergency procedures of real world aircraft which XPlane is incapable of doing. No option we have fully 100% models what a Level-D trainer is capable of teaching and XPlane's environment is further lacking because of it's dead environment. Level-D sims are big on modeling real world weather conditions when investigating things like crashes, emergencies, and adverse weather training landing techniques. The ATC component in the concept of operating in skies and on the ground with other aircraft is manditory that doesn't have to be address in the sim as pilots should know this before hand. With our sims everything has to be there because that's it, most us aren't pilots with other experiances to draw from. Most of us can't go to the local FBO and fly giving us the bigger picture. A desktop simmer hasn't been flying in the step by step transition a real world pilot goes through (single engine, multi-engine, turbo prop, jet). I disagree with some saying FSX/FS9/P3D default ATC is lacking to a point it's not worth using. That basic approch is not perfect but it's a perfect introduction into aviation operations that has helped many real world pilots get started. I'm one of them. I fly a Cessna 172 with my flying club and FS over the years was an essential training platform I used in conjuction with my real world classes. Real world ATC operations weren't so hard to wrap my head around with the frame of reference I had from Flight Simulator. XPlane made some serious inroads to real world training which Microsoft shyed away from. Now with the same application LM will go in with a more serious effort to corner the market and if XPlane doesn't step up to the plate it will become irrelevant to real world training circles. With an option like P3D sitting out there as the more serious alternative why go with a solution that's not capable?

 

If the guys at Outerra is reading this my main point of mentioning this in this thread was to put a bug in their ear not to go the path of XPlane but rather the Microsoft series and make their effort as complete as they can.

Gravity anyone!  Lik'n those space shots!

In a way I agree with Dillon, but why even compare two multi-billion companies too a small one , i just see no point in that. The resources MS and LM have are just too huge.  

 

 Yes AI / ATC , but it would not mean that without it I am not simulating flight, It's "FLIGHT" sim , from my point of view LR has only concentrated on the Dynamics and till how far are they correct that I cannot judge , but it sure feels great in XPX.

So Dillon, we agree to disagree.

 

Again, the fact that you're suggesting that: "You can't call something a flight simulator unless it has AI/ATC" (the meaning of your first reply, as I interpret it) is for me ridiculous, and puts you in a 0,01% minority (I think 99,99% of people here, would define AeroflyFS, or CondorSoaring, or Elite, as flight simulators, although different in scope and complexity from FSX).

 

But if that is your thinking, so let it be.

So Dillon, we agree to disagree.

 

Again, the fact that you're suggesting that: "You can't call something a flight simulator unless it has AI/ATC" (the meaning of your first reply, as I interpret it) is for me ridiculous, and puts you in a 0,01% minority (I think 99,99% of people here, would define AeroflyFS, or CondorSoaring, or Elite, as flight simulators, although different in scope and complexity from FSX).

 

But if that is your thinking, so let it be.

 

That is not what I'm saying at all. All the examples you mentioned are flight simulators in their own right but there's different levels of complexity to each option. Some want to put XPlane on the same level as FSX/FS9/P3D which is not the case for the reasons I outlined. My hope is Outerra should they get in the game go the way of P3D (since it's the newest of the series) and not XPlane in it's current form.

Nooooooo...... but it does come with loud Star Wars music playing in your head as you speed over the snow, wondering where all the Imperial walkers have gotten to......  :lol:

 

The Millennium falcon is available in the vehicles section of the Outerra Forum....... 

 

Hasty exit from Hoth, anyone?

 

 

Another super shot!

Only on the internet will you see a picture of the millennium falcon flying over Hoth,... which of course is the perfect segue into ATC pros and cons for desk top/ lap top simulation.

 

:lol:

 

 

Only on the internet will you see a picture of the millennium falcon flying over Hoth,... which of course is the perfect segue into ATC pros and cons for desk top/ lap top simulation.

 

And just how accurate is that Millennium Falcon flight model anyway?  I mean, if it can't really do the Kessel run in under 12 parsecs, I'm not spending my hard-earned $$$..   :lol:  

 

Scott

And just how accurate is that Millennium Falcon flight model anyway? I mean, if it can't really do the Kessel run in under 12 parsecs, I'm not spending my hard-earned $$$.. :lol:

 

Scott

Max Outerra speed is approx 200kps. Time to Mars would be approx 80 hours. Definately not a contender for the kessel run.......... ;-)

 

 

Time to Mars would be approx 80 hours.

 

A little under 4 (continuous) days to Mars... Assuming closest approach orbits between Earth and Mars every two years... that would be really freaking cool.  Faster then it takes the Super Liner QM2 to do the old Titanic run!

 

One day.... it'll be realz.