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DTG Martin

Ask Dovetail Games about DTG Flight School & Flight Simulator

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As an ' on-looker' on this forum, I cannot understand why there are still questions about DTG being competitive with P3D.The DTG's offerings are for entertainment, with P3D being a ' not for entertainment'  product.

 

It should not be hard to understand that these are thus not competing products, pricing, therefore, is irrelevant, & P3D was released long before FSX:SE, & thus cannot be compared as a ' not for entertainment' product  with a product that came after.

 

Yes, I await, with bated breath, for DTG's releases. Great excitement for all.

 

I'm asking if DTG view P3D as competition, specifically the Academic license since that's the one most people are buying. If LM is allowing people to abuse this license unchecked, that could pose a real problem for the actual entertainment license which is what DTG have.

 

I asked that question because I want to know if DTG has any plans at all to stay competitive with the Academic license of P3D. For example if P3D decided to go 64Bit also.

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Hi Martin,

I have a huge amount of money invested in photo-scenery that I have collected over the years. will I be able to use this in the flight sim when it's released? as far as I am aware this does not need converting to 64bit or is my understanding wrong. regards, terry

Things like scenery shouldn't, as you say, need updating gingerterry. However, there are other considerations beyond just the conversion to 64-bit. For example we are updating much of the existing graphics engine in Flight Simulator and are looking to do the same with much of the data which the sim runs off of. This all means that it is not as clear cut as things first seem.

 

This all said, if you have photoscenery for FSX: SE then you can continue to use it in FSX: SE. FSX: SE is going nowhere and we remain deeply committed to it in it's own right.

 

- Martin

I'm asking if DTG view P3D as competition, specifically the Academic license since that's the one most people are buying. If LM is allowing people to abuse this license unchecked, that could pose a real problem for the actual entertainment license which is what DTG have.

 

I asked that question because I want to know if DTG has any plans at all to stay competitive with the Academic license of P3D. For example if P3D decided to go 64Bit also.

It ultimately comes down to individual choice hadoken. P3D offers simmers one experience and DTG Flight School and Flight Simulator will offer another. It is up to each simmer to decide what is right for them.

 

I would love to tell you that there is some deep rivalry between all the major developers in the flight sim world and that we are constant trying to one up each other. That is simply not the case. Naturally, we are aware of what other flight simulators are out there and what there various features are but since day one I have never heard anyone say "hey P3D/XP does that, we need to do that to in order to compete with them". Since we decided, almost four years ago, that we wanted to develop a flight simulator our focus has been on making one which meets the needs and desires of simmers. Not one that that competes with any other sim.

 

In fact, in my experience, I have always found flight sim developers to be a very friendly and open bunch of people on the whole. So sorry but we simply don't look upon what everyone else is doing in that way. It is sadly not as dramatic or cutthroat as you might think.

 

- Martin

Hello Martin!

 

I appreciate all of the information that DTG has shared about the upcoming Flight School and Simulator products. Based on the marked performance improvements that DTG was able to implement in FSX-SE, using the original FSX code base, I have great confidence that the new full product will be excellent.

 

I know that you have touched on the possibility of bringing at least some updated airport data to the new Simulator. I was curious if you will be looking at improving the existing system for implementing ground-based Navaids - i.e. VORs, NDBs, etc.?

 

As you know, in FSX, navaids are hard-coded into hundreds of individual BGL files. This system has existed in MS flight sim products from the very earliest days of FS-5 (and before). It makes updating navaids to keep them in sync with changes in real-world facilities very difficult - although developers like Hérve Sors have created automated tools in recent years which have made updates much easier for end-users.

 

However, the underlying system of having navaid and facility data "baked in" multiple BGL files in multiple folders seems a less than optimal approach.

 

Other sims - notably XP, maintain worldwide navaid and airport facility data (VOR, DME, NDB, Marker Beacons, ILS etc) in a single database, which is easily updatable by vendors like Navigraph. Are there any plans to adopt a similar system in the upcoming full simulator? It would seem to be a golden opportunity to implement a new and more logical way to handle facility data - while the new sim is still in the initial planning/development stages.

 

Jim Barrett

 

Sorry in the delay in getting back to you Jim but I had to run off and ask the development team about this one. I put your question to Lewis, our Lead Programmer on Flight Simulator. Here is what he had to say:

 

"Currently we have not made a change to the data layout, it is still in BGL files which are grouped into grid ‘squares’ (not really square, or rectangular because the world is not flat!).  I’m not really sure whether or not this is ‘optimal’ or not, it hasn’t been a problem for us to manage so far.  In the future we may look into this again but I wouldn’t say it is a high priority right now."

 

Something I can add to this is that we are looking to update all that data to begin with. This means there shouldn't be a need for simmers to update it themselves once DFS is launched. 

 

- Martin 

 

 

 

 

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I don't know if you can reply to this beyond what we already know, Martin, but i'll try anyway.

You said already that your goal is more or less to find some common ground between what us "simmers" would like and what the more casual sector of the market wants.

Now, we know pretty much what we want because we have been hearing it from long, however i can't say i know more or less what the casual player would like from this. More simplicity i assume, but is there something more specific that came out from the things new players would like to see in either Flight School or DFS?


Chock 1.1: "The only thing that whines louder than a jet engine is a flight simmer."

 

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Hi Martin, 


           I know this sounds far-fetched, but what pricing range will Dovetail Flight School and Simulator be in? Any faint idea?

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Something I can add to this is that we are looking to update all that data to begin with. This means there shouldn't be a need for simmers to update it themselves once DFS is launched. 

 

I like the sound of that. I would like it even more if you, since you are in it for the long term, would keep the sim up to date all the time (change runways when they have changed in real life etc. as well as in the sim world as in for instance GPS databases). Set up some sort of subscription for it, if needed.  :wink:

 

But sorry, this isn't a request topic...  :wink: I have to add I like what I read in this topic! Sounds like at LEAST a sim to get beside my current sim! (Talking about the full blown sim, not school.)

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I have no questions, but please allow me to express my appreciation for your manner and attendance on these boards Martin.

 

It makes me very much more optimistic for your future release.


Ian R Tyldesley

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Hi Martin,

 

Allow me to add my thanks to you for creating this thread. It is a great read.

 

I would be interested in your thoughts about the perceived failure of Microsoft Flight.

 

What, if anything, has DTG taken away from this approach to flight simulation ?

 

Thanks,

Dave

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David Webster

AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D | G.Skill 32GB DDR4 3600Mhz | EVGA RTX 3080 Ti @ 3440X1440 | Crucial 2TB M.2 | Win11
 

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I don't know if you can reply to this beyond what we already know, Martin, but i'll try anyway.

 

You said already that your goal is more or less to find some common ground between what us "simmers" would like and what the more casual sector of the market wants.

 

Now, we know pretty much what we want because we have been hearing it from long, however i can't say i know more or less what the casual player would like from this. More simplicity i assume, but is there something more specific that came out from the things new players would like to see in either Flight School or DFS?

 

By far the biggest thing we found was accessibility france89. 

 

This doesn't mean that would be simmers wanted a more simplified experience. In fact we found the opposite was true - they wanted the same level of realism and detail that most simmers demand. Instead they wanted the way they engaged with the sim to be simplified. Many people here have probably been flying various sims for years now. It is often hard to think back to the days of when you first started. A lot of people we spoke to told us that they were simply confused by what most flight simulators offer. They would load one up and spend 30 minutes just trying to figure out what the menu did, yet alone actual flying anything. When you have a family, a job and only an hour a day to sim such confusion and time wasting can be a real sticking point. 

 

They really wanted that process presented in a more accessible fashion and one which reflects modern gaming. We heard time and time again that people felt like they had to sit down and spend six weeks studying before they could even attempt to fly. It felt like a chore to many of them and put a lot of them off. They expected that over time things would become more complicated and that they would have to learn more complex features, they simply wanted a reasonable learning curve for them to do that. 

 

This was the motivation behind DTG Flight School. To offer simmers the chance to dip their toes in the flight sim waters with a sim that was focused totally on teaching them the basics. We have carried that idea over to Flight Simulator. For example we have a brand new and fresh UI which looks great. All the functions are still there but the presentation has been brought up to a modern 2016 standard rather than something which looked great a decade ago. 

 

- Martin 

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No, we are not using the Unreal Engine for this one. We did use it for Euro Fishing and the upcoming Train Simulator 2. Instead both are based on updated FSX: SE technology. In 2014, we acquired the rights to develop and publish new flight products based on Microsoft’s genre-defining flight technology. Both Flight School and Flight Simulator are the result of that work. 
 
- Martin 

 

Hi Martin, Thanks for all your effort here in trying to keep up with our barrage of questions.  I'm excited that Dovetail is working on a new flightsim, and also quite interested in your Flight School, since I fly mostly small GA aircraft, and helicopters.  In my opinion, one of the biggest obstacles in getting new people interested in a full featured flightsim is the amount of learning that is required, and I like that you have separated the two releases, so that your Flight School can be an entry level way for beginners (and for anyone who may need to learn more about a skill like navigation). This sounds a bit like the lessons which was my favorite part of Looking Glass' Flight Unlimited sims. 

 

I was a beta tester for MS Flight, and was wondering if you are perhaps building off Flight's ESP, which is an improvement over FSX's ESP. Flight also seems like the logical base for creating Flight School.

 

I was also a beta tester for FLY!, which had an excellent helicopter flight model (a Bell 407). Flight never included any helicopters and FSX/P3D never got the helicopter flight model right.  Will a helicopter be included in your Flight School?


~ Arwen ~

 

Home Airfield: KHIE

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I like the sound of that. I would like it even more if you, since you are in it for the long term, would keep the sim up to date all the time (change runways when they have changed in real life etc. as well as in the sim world as in for instance GPS databases). Set up some sort of subscription for it, if needed.  :wink:

 

But sorry, this isn't a request topic...  :wink: I have to add I like what I read in this topic! Sounds like at LEAST a sim to get beside my current sim! (Talking about the full blown sim, not school.)

 

That is certainly something we want to do J van E. Updating all the data is no good unless you keep it updated. Exactly how that would work and the infrastructure around it is still very much on the planning table at this stage. 

 

Eventually (and I mean a few years down the line) we want to have a living and breathing world of aviation for simmers to explore. A world which reflects the modern aviation world around us. Basically think a huge aviation based sandbox experience in which you could run a virtual airline or manage an airport with friends from around the world. Now to be clear (look I have even underlined this!) this is not what DTG Flight Simulator will be at launch but that is certainly the dream we have in the long term. A few people have told us we are crazy and perhaps we are. Maybe it is destined remain a dream but we believe in aiming high and at least trying. Be it one small step at a time. 

 

- Martin 

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Martin

 

One of the 3rd party features which has been missing since everyone transitioned to P3D was the FSRecorder function. FSX and P3D have abysmal flight data recording functions for smooth and realistic playback. I'm assuming you already know what I'm getting at so I won't go into any more detail.

 

Will the new flightsim include a smooth, solid recording and playback feature with selectable parameters for the recording function?

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Martin,

 

Will the new sim feature an efficient way to handle textures to eliminate the need for a temporary texture to be put in it's place while the full texture is being loaded in?

 

Here's an example:

 

0jtT115l.jpg

 

So once the textures have loaded into video memory, this temporary texture goes away, and you can see the runway, sky, etc.

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This is why bringing new people into flight simming and in turn the wider world of aviation is such a big part of what we plan to do moving forward. It is such a rich, diverse, rewarding and positive hobby which has been sadly somewhat overlooked by the mainstream of late. If we can put flight simming back at the forefront of people's mind once more, like it was over a decade ago, then we will be happy with what we have achieved.

 

And this is another golden line (or couple of lines :wink:) I think, really really nice to read this kind of stuff !!

 

Edited to add imagine if you were able to turn 1% of today's kids mainly interested in flight and maybe even pursuing a career as a pilot rather than running about shooting people in various FPS (and no...that is not frames per second :wink:) games. Then you would not only have made a brilliant new flight simulator but even made the world a better place to some extent :smile:

Edited by WebMaximus

Richard Åsberg

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Hi Martin, just a quick one:

 

Are we going to see upgraded textures, vector and Landclass data of whole worldin the Flight Simulator?


Cheers :)

N.-

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Hi Martin,

 

Allow me to add my thanks to you for creating this thread. It is a great read.

 

I would be interested in your thoughts about the perceived failure of Microsoft Flight.

 

What, if anything, has DTG taken away from this approach to flight simulation ?

 

Thanks,

Dave

 

Hi Dave, I am glad you are finding this interesting. 

 

I am really not any sort of expert to talk about MS Flight and I certainly can't speak for the wider studio. My personal opinion is that Flight was a great engine and had huge potential. Many of the features that were in that sim we are now seeing come to forefront in other titles today. In many ways it was ahead of it's time. Sadly the infrastructure and content wasn't there when it needed to be and this left the experience feeling flat for many simmers. There simply wasn't enough there to make people jump over from FSX and the rate of new content was too slow and limited in scope. 

 

As I say this my view and my view only. What is yours? Did you give Flight a try?

 

- Martin 

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