The New Faster, Leaner Next Generation Flight Simulator SIM-Posium is Now Available for Your Input

[OneWhoKnocks53 51]

I love the idea, and I love the hurdles it would take to make it work. I'd like to bring whatever I can to the table here. I'm a noob programmer, but I'm an instrument rated private pilot and aircraft mechanic. I believe this topic will eventually filter out the "why bother" and "you're crazy" replies, and those of us who would like to at least help you try to realize this goal will still be here to help.

[HiFlyer 9,359]

If you want a community driven flight simulator... choose FlightGear. It is already that and simply requires someone to put the effort into it's current technology to take it to the next level.

 

That was actually already mentioned, and I pointed out that while Flightgear is many good things, next generation is probably not one of them. It remains very much an example of the exact same design generation that spawned FSX, X-plane, and just about everything flight related from that era.

 

The world has moved on technologically, but civilian simulation is frozen in time. I'm waiting, like most of us, to see what DTG is going to bring to the table, but  I suspect I'll be pretty disappointed if it turns out to amount to P3D for the general public. FSX with thicker lipstick. Or maybe flightgear with thicker lipstick?  :unsure:

 

I just don't believe your approach is even remotely doable.

 

It might not be. *shrugs*

 

But history is filled with people who were told it was impossible, and who went on and did it anyway, precisely because they didn't know enough to realize that "fact"

 

Sometimes, against the common wisdom, they succeed......... and sometimes they go down in flames.

 

The only way to find which it's to be, is to try, because not trying is the one certain way to fail.

 

In the end, it still comes down to: What does it hurt to try?

[srborick 0]

Elite: Dangerous was crowd sourced... but it was an already popular product that simply needed funding to bring it into modern technology. The person doing it had written the original product.

 

Star Citizen was crowd sourced... but it was proposed by one of the better known game designers of the 1980's.

 

You can't use them as examples as your attempt has neither of those conditions to offer. It's not an already popular product that needs to be brought into modern tech by the person who created it... nor is it proposed by a major name in game design.

 

I personally would love to see a newer, better, more amazing simulation. I just don't believe your approach is even remotely doable.

 

As one person stated above "no one person should decide"... but, in fact one person must decide otherwise nothing is ever settled. Software by committee doesn't work. Someone has to decide what the sim will and won't be. You will never get consensus on the internet.

 

If you want a community driven flight simulator... choose FlightGear. It is already that and simply requires someone to put the effort into it's current technology to take it to the next level.

Ed,

lets just agree to disagree...

 

Stephen B.

 

“Everything is theoretically impossible, until it is done.” – Robert A. Heinlein

I love the idea, and I love the hurdles it would take to make it work. I'd like to bring whatever I can to the table here. I'm a noob programmer, but I'm an instrument rated private pilot and aircraft mechanic. I believe this topic will eventually filter out the "why bother" and "you're crazy" replies, and those of us who would like to at least help you try to realize this goal will still be here to help.

 

Your enthusiasm is not only refreshing, but will be most welcomed... See ya over at the SIM-Posium

 

Stephen B.

[Wobbie 938]

The usual bunch of nay sayers,,,

Stephen, all the best of luck. We do need someone with enthusiasm & a heck of patience to deal with guys that want to put out your flames.

The more debate (positive) & discussion, the more ideas.

Who knows where this debate will go, but lets keep it positive & realistic.

[liketofly1 11]

Hi,

 

Many here seem to think its not possible and realistic.... however - that is exactly what the SIM-posium is all about - to discuss if infact we are able to find a way to get this working (possibility's) and at the end to determine if infact it is realistic.....

 

However - I personaly think it's much to early in the process to determine either of these two answers... 

 

Anyhow - If I'd show up at a meeting with my boss, and expressed concerns about something - without also presenting some sort of suggested solution, 

he'd most likely would either ignore me - and if happend to often most propably kick me out..... and trust me - just scrapping the whole project "because It can't be done" was never a good answer  :Whistle:

[TooWings 17]

The usual bunch of nay sayers,,, ..We do need someone with enthusiasm & a heck of patience to deal with guys that want to put out your flames.

 

Making derogatory remarks about fellow AVSIM members who post their personnel views isn't the way forward I dont think.  Nobody wants to 'put out the flames' as you put it.   Everyone does actually want to see a suitable flight-sim for the 21st century, and many of us have debated this issue on AVSIM for years.

 

The 'nay-sayers' as you label them are simply questioning various aspects of the Sim-Posium/NexGen project and/or have valid doubts about a new sim coming to fruition by this route.  Stephen himself has even commented on why the project may not come to fruition, and Devon has suggested a 6 months time-limit to fold the project if need be.  So even the 'positive' folk make 'negative' comments once in a while.

 

..So 'negative' comments aren't 'nay-saying' for the sake of it but are an essential part of the nex-gen-flightsim debate which helps counteract and balance the sort of over-optimistic zeal that tends to be present at the start of any new project.. 

 

....As I mentioned before,  if my local community had listened to the 'negative' views of myself and a few others we would have saved the best part of a million pounds (UK) and saved 7 years worth of wasted research for a housing project that never came to fruition..and which I felt from the start was going nowhere.

 

Yes a next-gen flight-sim would be great if it comes about and I wish Stephen and helpers well in your endeavours.  On the other hand, speaking as a "glass half full" man, many of us are aware that we have spent far too many years and decades staring at our computer screens, and that the clock of life is ticking fast.  So if this flight-sim project does come to nothing then at least we'll all have a chance to get out more and spend that quality time productively- walking, cycling, exercising, with family etc.  :mellow:

 

Best wishes - enjoy the best you can.

 

PH

[Wobbie 938]

Sorry for being so harsh & I do apologise to my fellow Avsimmers.

 

We do have so many choices now, Someone said that our hobby has become fragmented. There are still guys that have FS2002,. We have FS9, FSX, FSX:SE, P3D, X-Plane, as well as freeware sims. & with Dovetails forthcoming release, as well as a possible 64bit P3D... there is/should be something for everyone. But, we are always on the lookout for that holy grail, something better.

 

It is great planting seeds now. Just think where we going to be in a few years time?

Yet, it took about 9 odd years for a 'new' FSX & P3D, with the added updates & advances in PC's.  lol... Which advancement is going to come first? PC's or sims? (we know what happened how FSX ran on the current machines of the time).

 

Also, what about the add-on developers out there? They also have so many choices of what to develop for which sim. Will that pot get diluted?

 

Interesting times ahead, for all of us.

[HiFlyer 9,359]

Devon has suggested a 6 months time-limit to fold the project if need be.  So even the 'positive' folk make 'negative' comments once in a while.

 

Actually, I just suggested he stick to his own schedule (that big timer counting down at the nexgen site) because honestly, if we can't show some encouraging progress in coming together at that point, then we are probably wasting Stephen B's time.

 

We do have so many choices now, Someone said that our hobby has become fragmented. There are still guys that have FS2002,. We have FS9, FSX, FSX:SE, P3D, X-Plane, as well as freeware sims. & with Dovetails forthcoming release, as well as a possible 64bit P3D... there is/should be something for everyone. But, we are always on the lookout for that holy grail, something better.

 

I think thats because a lot of us know, in the back of our minds that we are "settling" for the best available, instead of the best that could be. Let the core of a truly next gen simulator arrive and begin gathering momentum, and I suspect many people will, however reluctantly at first, abandon the past with the same secret relief that people ditched computer tape drives and 8 track tape...... And look back later with the same sense of mild bemusement that they actually put up with all that they did.

 

As far as the fragmentation of the market, it might be like the fragmented Android phone market, or the fragmented windows market, with chaos reigning until some force acts to pull all the wild horses together. I suspect DTG wonders if it can be that force, but I'll hope not, if all they offer is an updated FSX with more lipstick. Personally, I would see that as a holding action, rather than actual progress, and if many people climbed onto that bandwagon, we might be stuck there for who knows how long; because who would want to switch yet again after only a relatively short time, to an even newer simulator prospect, no matter how great, if one were to abruptly arrive?

 

Especially the third parties, who I suspect would be presented with having to divide their resources to do so. Heck, its probably a conundrum what to support now.

[TooWings 17]

.

Actually, I just suggested he stick to his own schedule

 

We're probably talking about your same post - this one >>>

 

All the best, Stephen, but you are going to need some serious thick skin and a boatload of determination to stick to your guns through this. I think your six month timeline is just about right to gauge the interest of this community, and I wouldn't take it even a minute past that if the interest does not materialize.

 

I suspect DTG wonders if it can be that horse, but I'll hope not, if all they offer is an updated FSX with more lipstick.

 

Love it! 

[codechris 9]

I suspect DTG wonders if it can be that horse, but I'll hope not, if all they offer is an updated FSX with more lipstick. Personally, I would see that as a holding action, rather than actual progress, and if many people climbed onto that bandwagon, we might be stuck there for who knows how long; because who would want to switch yet again after only a relatively short time, to an even newer simulator prospect, no matter how great, if one were to abruptly arrive?

 

Especially the third parties, who I suspect would be presented with having to divide their resources to do so. Heck, its probably a conundrum what to support now.

 

Dovetail have mentioned "based upon Microsoft Flight technology" a few times, which suggest it's based on Flight, and not FSX. How the two differ from a code perspective however, I don't know (they could be very similar, or very different).

 

DT are doing work with third parties so they appear to know how valuable that is. They have been releasing old and new Jane's mission packs as well as Orbx which was the big one recently. How far they will go with this however is yet to be scene. And one thing I thought of was if a 3rd party didn't work with them for whatever reason, what does that mean? Are they shut out completely? This will all be revealed in the next 12 months. Maybe we will hear more at Flightsim con, but DT are keeping very tight-lipped about their new FS for the mean time. And that goes for what features DTFS has, doesn't have etc. We literally know nothing, other then "based on Microsoft Flight Technology" and aiming for 2016 release.

 

You're right on the third parties though. With some dabberling in XP, or considering it, they would have FSX, DTFS, P3D and XP to choose between. FSX and P3D are very similar for now, and we've yet to see how difficult it will be for a port from FSX to DTFS (if it's easy then that's ok, if it's a big change that could be an issue). I'm always surprised by the market for flight sim add-ons, it's huge. I can't think of any other game where you would pay, often sizeable amounts of money, for add-ons. ARMA3, GTA, ETS2, all have a big modding community that all make some big changes, yet all free.

 

Overall, we just have no idea what DTFS will be like till they release more information

[HiFlyer 9,359]

Overall, we just have no idea what DTFS will be like till they release more information

 

Change can come hard. Imagine a Nextgen flightsim that looked fabulous right out of the box, and also allowed users to make real time scenery corrections to more closely model particular areas of interest. Where does/would that leave several scenery companies? More, a very robust modding community would add challenges all its own to the for-pay community.

 

Theres a lot to think about.

 

What would be the impact of, an extremely feature-complete Nextgen sim, as some are arguing for? That might in the end be much more of a challenge to existing third parties than something that came more as a framework that left room for them to add to.

[LAdamson 240]

As far as terrain, airport layout, and navigation is concerned, FSX out of the box, is much like the real thing. To claim other wise, is misleading. Tapped out slowly on phone. Of course, third parties greatly enhance the default databases.

[Glynn 405]

What would be the impact of, an extremely feature-complete Nextgen sim, as some are arguing for? That might in the end be much more of a challenge to existing third parties

 

Who is going to create the content to make this "extremely feature-complete Nextgen sim", just look at the list of companies in the MS Flight! credits and that product was a disaster in the marketplace and all those companies cost MS real money to employ.

 

A robust and realistic ATC alone is a massive project, have you noticed how many have been written in the 25 year history of the FSX franchise ?

Complex aircraft take many man hours to create,

24000+ airports to populate with realistic parking positions and taxiways before you can even think about adding an Ai system.

A global weather system, the list goes on.

 

Microsoft walked away because there was not enough money to be made and they pretty much owned the General Aviation sim genre.

Xplane10 still lacks basic features after being in development for years despite being backed by a multi millionaire who is a very talented coder in his own right.

Lockheed Martin could have created something from scratch but chose ESP, LM could easily afford buy out the Outerra guys or licence UNIGINE Sim

The Flightgear guys have spent a decade to reach FS2000 levels of graphics.

 

I love the enthusiasm on display in this thread but it is going to take serious money and talent to even make something that comes near to what we have today let along improve on it.

I have $50 that I can afford to lose so if you guys make a start and get UNIGINE Sim licensed along with Jeppesen then I am in.

 

Good luck

[HiFlyer 9,359]

Who is going to create the content to make this "extremely feature-complete Nextgen sim", just look at the list of companies in the MS Flight! credits and that product was a disaster in the marketplace and all those companies cost MS real money to employ.

 

In actuality, I was thinking of a post listing the things a next gen sim presumably had to have. Based on those criteria, (if taken to heart) it seems there would be little left for anyone else to do. As far as "complex" aircraft, how complex is complex enough? And even after that, most of the aircraft we use are made by people who started as hobbyists and then eventually went professional. For a very long time, most aircraft created were by hobbyists, and even now, some freeware might as well be "professional" for all intents and purposes.

 

In fact, some "professional" stuff occasionally crosses the line back into freeware. More, the very existence of Flightgear indicates that there are talented people out there still quite willing to make relatively "complex" aircraft simply for the love of doing it. The fact that the FSX market has generally gotten out of that habit is no real indicator of..... anything. There are always, possibilities.

 

Right now, there exist several freeware/open source libraries (and engines like Unigine) that simply were not available in the past. Libraries and engines that are there specifically to remove the need to recreate some of these self same wheels that you've mentioned. They aren't the holy grail by any means, but they do open the possibility that many things that had to be created painstakingly from scratch in the past might be done more quickly and easily now. Its definitely not 2006.

 

For instance, the very same JSBSIM library that powers Flighgear powers Outerra. That means that powerful features that would have taken years to create from scratch are already at least theoretically available, and much more quickly. Imagine even a small portion of the flightgear braintrust devoting some time and effort to Outerra. Likely? Who the heck knows? But this whole discussion is, of course, about possibilities.

 

Unconsciously I think, through long familiarity, we keep getting locked into an FSX/X-plane mindset as to the template for future endeavours, and that doesn't necessarily have to be completely the case. Doing so blocks more innovative thinking, and sometimes necessity is the mother of invention. Like X-planes building blocks to populate those numerous airports essentially through crowdsourcing.

 

EDIT: By the way, I agree that flightgear could look better. On the other hand, I don't think her actual technical innards are nearly as far behind. They actually probably compare rather well, just not as much shoe polish. 

 

I guess the upshot of all of this is that what Stephen B is proposing is probably possible. The real problem is likely going to be in the human equation.

[srborick 0]

Here's my two pence worth regarding the past, the present and the future.

 

Microsoft spoiled all of us... over a 30 year period in numerous releases that essentially were updates, to include new airports, scenery, etc. etc. and new code on top of old code... not necessarily "fresh" code. X-Plane has essentially done the same thing as well as FlightGear and P3D. There have been improvements over the years based upon old technologies, but no one has established a next generation flight simulator based upon new technologies and it doesn't appear that anyone will... primarily for the reasons stated...there's not enough money in it.

 

But what do we care, as a community about making money... we're more interested in seeing flight simulation flourish and progress into the future. So... the next generation flight simulation isn't about profit... it's about building and sustaining.

 

Yes... creating a next generation flight simulator wouldn't be easy and probably wouldn't have all of the features everyone would want... at least not right away... but it would indeed, establish a new foundation from which to build upon allowing continued ability to add features and to obtain a flight simulation that is progressive in nature.

 

But... then again... it could conceivably have every thing that one could wish that a next generation flight simulator would have...it's all dependent upon how large a movement we can make.

 

One of the first things that would be helpful in establishing a criteria for a next generation flight simulator is for all those who are interested to first get out of the box created by old technologies. The old box states that it takes hundreds of man hours to create even a small village, that's because the technologies being used are not conducive to creating towns and cities, it's based upon an overlay that you placed houses, buildings and trees on by hand. If we step outside the old box and take a look at new technologies, we have an abundance of evidence that there are better ways to create towns, cities, road systems, airports, etc. etc.

 

The data available to us is far more abundant and accurate than even 3 years ago let alone 9 years ago and the availability of that data is simply a matter of locating and gathering all the available data that we can get our hands on. If some of that data comes with a price tag, that's something we would want to figure into the budget.

 

To create the entire planet earth using a new engine such as UNIGINE Sim is not the daunting task that it would be using old technologies. This is just a brief description of what the UNIGINE Sim engine is capable of doing... so imagine if we actually took the time to discover, in depth, the engines possibilities.

 

Real-World Geospatial Data

The engine supports conversion from WGS84, ECF, and NED coordinate systems into the Cartesian system, thus enabling usage of real-world GIS data (both vector and raster ones). In addition to double precision floating point coordinates, it allows the simulation of very large correlated scenarios... LINK

 

 

Thinking outside the old technologies box and adopting the fresh new technologies of today and tomorrow allow for the impossible and the difficulty of yesterday to become possible and infinitely easier.

 

When it comes to ATC... I would imagine that a next generation flight simulator would at least have to have the equivalent of what is offered today as a starting point. However... if the considerations of an ATC module is placed as a forethought rather than an afterthought, the ATC module could continually be improved upon.

 

Consider this for a moment... 

 

Let's say that we all put our differences aside and came together and discussed the possibilities of a next generation flight simulator... we hit some road bumps, wondering how we would be able to accomplish this or that, but rather than setting it aside because there isn't a ready made answer, we pursued the question until we found the answers.

 

Eventually we would have a very well conceived plan that would draw the attention of those who have the talents to implement such a plan.

 

And when the plan is in place, the talent is in place, more and more people will start scratching their heads and say to themselves, "... maybe there's something to this project, this movement"... and because they get excited, they tell others about the project and pretty soon you have a large crowd who are not only excited about the possibilities but you have a crowd capable of funding such a project.

 

Is all of this really that far fetched?

 

Imagine if two boys back in the 70's had said... creating a simulation is impossible... Sublogic would never had been born. 

 

It always begins with an idea... thinking outside the box... and finding others who want to believe and achieve.

 

Perhaps one of the reasons many will not step outside the box is because they figure... it's a great idea, but I'm an older flight simmer and I'll never see this new simulator so why should I get involved. 

 

Because... in three or four years you'll have a simulator that surpasses anything that is out there now and anything that will come down the pike using older technologies. Will the simulator be complete... hopefully not. The next generation flight simulator should be conceived as an ongoing project, one that will establish a lasting foothold into the future.  

 

And then... we might want to think a bit about future generations of flight simmers. I've enjoyed the hobby immensely over the years and have gotten my sons involved who are now getting their sons involved.

 

It isn't about financial rewards, profit... it's about finding a way to establish consumer flight simulation on a lasting basis to be enjoyed by millions over the coming years.

 

I would ask that you take a moment and consider where flight simulation has come over the 30 some odd years of it's existence. Think about the height of consumer flight simulation when Microsoft was King. 

 

Now think about the future of flight simulation... everything that is currently in existence is based upon old technologies, the proposed flight simulator that may or may not be released by DTG will be built upon old technologies. 

 

Now ask yourself... with nothing, absolutely nothing... on the horizon that indicates a bright future for consumer oriented flight simulation, where do you think flight simulation will be after all of us old simmers are gone?

 

So... those of you who question the feasibility of creating a next generation flight simulator... you're right... you probably won't get involved in a community driven discussion regarding the future of flight simulation and then work together to achieve what seemingly appears to be impossible. And then again... you just might change your minds.

 

I'm putting my money on the belief that over the next 6 months thousands will catch the vision of the possibilities that can be achieved through a combined effort. 

 

Stephen B.