Hi Martin.

Three questions relating directly to Flight School.

 

Will it contain the new terrain or will it be the older FSX terrain?

Will it have the updated flight physics engine or is that reserved for the full flight sim?

 

Final question and I'll get my flack jacket at the ready...

Will it add force feedback or force vibration for basic controllers, such as the Xbox 360 game pad?

 

Explanation, to prevent an impending mugging:

-----------------------------------------------------------

For those who haven't tried one...

The 360 controller has 12 programmable buttons, 2 x XY analogue controls, 2 x linear analogue controls and a very decent vibration feedback.

That's a lot more control than any single stick on the market.

 

I have four flight controllers, including force feedback, dual throttle controls etc.

However, I fly mainly from my couch using my laptop these days and having to reach over to the keyboard while holding a joystick is a pain.

I thought I'd give the 360 controller a go, just to see if I could get away with it as much as anything else. A chap called S.James from this forum wrote a small feedback vibration dll which works great to update the original FSX's non existent feedback (which only rattles if you crash).

 

 

As Flight School is an intro to flight sims with an eye on introducing gamers, many will already have the pads to hand.

I suspect they might be disappointed though, if those same controllers didn't give the feedback they usually get from gaming.

 

All the best.

Brent.

Hi Martin.

Three questions relating directly to Flight School.

 

Will it contain the new terrain or will it be the older FSX terrain?

Will it have the updated flight physics engine or is that reserved for the full flight sim?

 

Final question and I'll get my flack jacket at the ready...

Will it add force feedback or force vibration for basic controllers, such as the Xbox 360 game pad?

 

Explanation, to prevent an impending mugging:

-----------------------------------------------------------

For those who haven't tried one...

The 360 controller has 12 programmable buttons, 2 x XY analogue controls, 2 x linear analogue controls and a very decent vibration feedback.

That's a lot more control than any single stick on the market.

 

I have four flight controllers, including force feedback, dual throttle controls etc.

However, I fly mainly from my couch using my laptop these days and having to reach over to the keyboard while holding a joystick is a pain.

I thought I'd give the 360 controller a go, just to see if I could get away with it as much as anything else. A chap called S.James from this forum wrote a small feedback vibration dll which works great to update the original FSX's non existent feedback (which only rattles if you crash).

 

 

As Flight School is an intro to flight sims with an eye on introducing gamers, many will already have the pads to hand.

I suspect they might be disappointed though, if those same controllers didn't give the feedback they usually get from gaming.

 

All the best.

Brent.

 

Hi Brent, thanks for the questions. 

 

There will indeed be new terrain in DTG Flight School. If all goes to plan we will be able to talk about this in more detail later this week. 

 

The flight physics in DTG FS will work just like they do in FSX: SE. We not making any changes to them at this time. 

 

We will be officially support the Xbox 360 and the Steam controller in DTG Flight School. I am not 100% sure about force feedback options but I will chase up Steve, our Creative Director, about it for you. 

 

- Martin 

I know the physics won't be changed but is the friction fix something your planning in the near future. Because in FSX, the aircraft stops too quickly, even when you're not braking.

Also, will the jetway system get a change. As in, will there be two (or maybe three) jetways at some gate (mainly the heavy ones), also, can the jetways lower without the wheels sinking?

Will you move to Vulkan to support more OS? About any on our small planet with:

http://moltengl.com/

It would also help to leave the "FSX update" image.

Will you move to Vulkan to support more OS? About any on our small planet with:

http://moltengl.com/

It would also help to leave the "FSX update" image.

 

There are currently no plans to to support any OS other than Windows based PCs. 

 

- Martin 

I know the physics won't be changed but is the friction fix something your planning in the near future. Because in FSX, the aircraft stops too quickly, even when you're not braking.

Also, will the jetway system get a change. As in, will there be two (or maybe three) jetways at some gate (mainly the heavy ones), also, can the jetways lower without the wheels sinking?

 

All great suggestions and they are on our list of things to look at during the development process. I can't say at this stage if the exact points you mentioned will be there for the day one release of DTG Flight Simulator. However, they are certainly being considered. 

 

- Martin 

Hi Martin

 

Thanks for taking the time to answer all of our questions. Much appreciated  :smile:

 

My questions is: Will there be any changes to the night brightness?

Don't know if it's just me, but I think the entire ESP platform suffers from to bright nights. X-Plane has managed to get this pretty much spot on.

No Vulkan is really to bad, but I guess you go DX12 to get enough FPS for VR? Will SteamVR (HTC Vive etc.) be supported?

Hi Martin

 

Thanks for taking the time to answer all of our questions. Much appreciated  :smile:

 

My questions is: Will there be any changes to the night brightness?

Don't know if it's just me, but I think the entire ESP platform suffers from to bright nights. X-Plane has managed to get this pretty much spot on.

 

We haven't really made any changes to the night lights as such but both DTG Flight School and Flight Simulator feature a nrad new lighting engine so you should see some difference between them and FSX: SE. 

 

- Martin 

No Vulkan is really to bad, but I guess you go DX12 to get enough FPS for VR? Will SteamVR (HTC Vive etc.) be supported?

 

Both DTG Flight School and Flight Simulator support DirectX11. DX11 supports a much broader range of Windows versions. We wanted to support Win7 and above, not just Win10. DX12 is only compatible with Win10.

 

We are not actively working on VR support at the moment. 

 

- Martin 

Firstly thanks for your continued contact with the community Martin; it's something I cynically thought would be a short-lived thing but you're still here 15 pages later!

 

I have two basic questions;

 

1) Not actively working on VR support is a bit disappointing and I can't help feeling you're missing a trick if attracting newcomers is part of your plan. There are going to be a lot of headset owners looking for software to try out with their new toys and an entry level flight-sim like Flight School should tempt a lot of them. Can you confirm that VR support is on your roadmap?

 

2) Apologies if this has been covered before but will the AI also be a port of the FSX model of AI or are you looking at something different? Will it be easily interfaced with by 3rd party (pay or free like WOAI)?

Hi Martin, thank you very much for answering our questions!

I am really looking forward to the new flight sim!

 

As you already mentioned some new effects on the new flight sim, such as such as dynamic range rendering (HDR), atmospheric light scattering and physically based rendering (PBR), I would like to get some more information about the improvements on the "visuals" (if possible at this point) :smile:

 

Especially the visualisation of the atmosphere could be improved compared to FSX in my opinon. Will there be some kind of particle system wich makes it possible to have very high view diestances/clear air at high altitudes and lower view distances in lower altitudes?

In my optinion engines like DCS or Outerra a pretty close to real life in doing that- can we expect something similar in the new sim?

Hi Martin and everyone else in here

 

It's been a million years since I wrote anything on this forum, but since I've picked up my old flightsim habits and given the excitement of having a bunch of new flightsims to look forward to, I'll chip in with some questions.

 

It's been amazing to see what has been done with FSX and allit;s current incarnations already. However, in some regards, it's really showing it's age. Even P3D V3 seems kindof dull and dated compared to what other sims (such as X-plane 10 and War Thunder) bring to the table these days.

 

So I'm kindof wondering what FS and DFS are going to do to entice new players/simmers to give the new sims a try. I think in this day and age, you really have to bring your A-game to still make an impression.

 

Having said that, the new screenshots kindof leave me both optimistic and a bit worried as well. I know, it;s all still a work in progress, and things are bound to change, but here are some of the points that are occupying my mind:

 

-The screenshots look way too blue. It's almost like they were made under water. Maybe they were all made during what's supposed to be early morning, but I don't know.. it looks weird. Maybe you can explain what's going on here?

 

-I've seen you emphasize a living, breathing world. I really hope that that's what things are going to be like. It'd be great if we could have changing weather (not just global weather) where we could see some patches of light and shadows moving along the hills, for example. And as long as we're dreaming, wouldn't it be great if those hills had 3d grass and waving wheat fields on them, blowing in the wind.. or 3d trees that move in the wind as well? I mean that's not pie in the sky these days, though I realize that it'd be difficult for the FSX engine to accomplish such a feat. Then again, in P3D V3 they now allow for speedtrees to be planted, but sadly they can't replace the generic static billboard trees yet. But here's hoping that at some time in the future DFS will look like my dream. Any chance that this may happen?

 

I'm really looking forward to what you are going to reveal about the new scenery technology. I really hope you're getting rid of those old silly oversized houses that occupy cities in FSX and P3D, and replace them with something that looks a bit more like reality.

 

Anyway, with all that said, I'm just really happy that flightsimming is getting a new lease of life, so I can continue with my favorite pasttime on my computer. Thanks for all you're doing

Ah, yes.....that new scenery technology. Any chance of some details? It was going to be revealed the week before last, and then last week, and........still no sign?

Hi there,

 

Many thanks for taking the time to answer our questions. I have a few of my own if you don't mind.

 

Firstly, are there any plans to improve what you might call the "airfield environment" in DTG Flight Simulator? In FSX, it's pretty dry and certainly kills the illusion when all you have on the ground are a few plain service vehicles randomly zooming around the airport and a broken jetway docking system. Quite often I just start a flight at the threshold of the runway and finish right after landing. There are plenty of addons that seek to improve this in FSX (such as GSX), but it's all very disjointed/arbitrary and there isn't much incentive to use it. It would be great to have something more uniform and integrated, so that these features are represented across all airports and are more easily part of your "workflow" when carrying out a flight from start to finish. For example, timed boarding/servicing and a realistic pushback system that is linked to the sim's ATC system (so that you'd, for example, need a "push and start" clearance before commencing the pushback). It would also be great to see AI traffic do the same, kind of like how current default traffic can call jetways in vanilla FSX. It might mean the end of AI aircraft magically reversing out of a gate and suddenly spinning on the spot after getting a taxi clearance.     

 

Secondly, will the ATC system itself be updated? It's incredibly dry as it is with nothing in the way of regional variation or emergencies etc. Worse, it's often impossible to fit into the default ATC system if you want to fly a realistic IFR flight plan with SIDs, STARs etc. 

 

Finally, you mention you already have something you wish to announce on the scenery front so I'm not sure you will be able to answer this one, but I'll try anyway! As I understand it, In FSX, the scenery system places 2D textures that are selected according to a landclass file, and 3D autogen objects are placed accordingly on top. Unfortunately, the two often clash and the result looks awful. For example, 3D trees and 2D trees from the underlying texture in the same place, or 3D buildings right in the middle of wide roads in the texture. Vector roads are similarly poor, they'll often run right through things like buildings and car parks in the underlying texture. I appreciate the need to use some texturing to reduce the number of actual 3D objects being loaded, but it would be useful to have more consideration for how the two interact. I find that the "plausible world" scenery in X-plane works great. It might look a bit more dry, but it is certainly less jarring to look at than what is present in FSX and is much easier to accept with everything blending in correctly. Is there anything similar planned for DTG Flight Simulator?

 

Thanks again! 

I have another question. Will the issue with the poles (and the equator) be sorted out. FSX was the first version to allow the Earth to be a sphere but the terrain was still part of the flat earth tile system. This also includes landclasses. This means that a field in the United States, Europe and Japan displays almost like a square but in the poles and the Equator, they appear a bit stretched. Clouds are also affected by this issue as well. Not only that, but due to how the LOD system works in the poles, FSX would think that you're further from the landclass tiles in front of you than you actually were, meaning that the textures load later than anywhere else.

You said earlier: "We put out content on Facebook in English, French and German. The three languages that DTG Flight School will support." 

 

And the Spanish?

 

Spanish is one of the most used languages in the world, after Chinese is the most spoken language, with over 500 million Spanish speakers.

Despite this, not you going to include this language in DTG Flight School and Flight Simulator? It would be quite disappointing.

 

A greeting.