Ask Dovetail Games about DTG Flight School & Flight Simulator

[ErichB 3,651]

Well this is good news actually.

 

So the default vector, mesh and texture data will be Orbx Global by default?   So right from the start, the world will look much more realistic.

[Heimi 91]

So the Whole World of DTGFS is Made by orbx Or just dlc?

[DTG Martin 213]

So the Whole World of DTGFS is Made by orbx Or just dlc?

 

The whole world. All scenery in in DTG Flight School and Flight Sim is a mixture of Orbx technology and custom built models. 

 

- Martin 

Well this is good news actually.

 

So the default vector, mesh and texture data will be Orbx Global by default?   So right from the start, the world will look much more realistic.

 

Our partnership means that we will be using an evolved version of Orbx Simulation Systems’ FTX Global technology for scenery in DTG Flight School and DTG Flight Simulator. 

 

- Martin 

[DTG Martin 213]

As regular readers of this thread will know, we have been sat on this news for a while now. Hence the lack of screenshots of DTG Flight School recently and answers about scenery. We had to wait for all the business paperwork to be completed. 

 

It is great to share this information with you all at last. Sorry about the delay, I hope it was worth the wait. 

 

- Martin 

[HiFlyer 9,374]

One of the drawbacks of the FSX tech (for me) was an apparently hardwired north/south east/west orientation to the roads which defied real life, and also flat ribbon roads that ran right over such things as fields, football stadiums, etc.

 

Even using Orbx technology, have these legacy issues been addressed in any way?

[barrel_owl 304]

The whole world. All scenery in in DTG Flight School and Flight Sim is a mixture of Orbx technology and custom built models. 

[...]

Our partnership means that we will be using an evolved version of Orbx Simulation Systems’ FTX Global technology for scenery in DTG Flight School and DTG Flight Simulator. 

 

- Martin 

 

Thank you very much, Martin.

 

So will Orbx scenery be part of the default DTG Flight School/Simulator scenery? Is this what I am supposed to understand with "a mixture of Orbx technology and custom built models"?

Or will Orbx scenery simply be available as addon and DLC?

 

Thanks for clarifying this.

[neumanix 114]

What kind of performance (fps) are you seeing in the situations the screenshots were taken?

 

Will you improve on the dark, contrasty and over saturated look / make it adjustable to the user?

[DTG Martin 213]

Thank you very much, Martin.

 

So will Orbx scenery be part of the default DTG Flight School/Simulator scenery? Is this what I am supposed to understand with "a mixture of Orbx technology and custom built models"?

Or will Orbx scenery simply be available as addon and DLC?

 

Thanks for clarifying this.

 

Orbx scenery will be part of DTG Flight School and Flight Simulator as standard. What is shown in the screenshots comes from what is included in the sim. This is not DLC or add-ons.

 

- Martin 

[payt 2]

Thanks for finally spilling the beans Martin! Indeed a partnership with Orbx is great news!

 

Are Orbx actually developing new scenery for the DTG sims, or are they implementing stuff they've already developed for existing sims into the DTG sims?

 

It'll be great either way to have a sim that comes with Orbx level scenery as a default.

 

The screenshots also look a lot better than the previous ones. 

 

 

Do you guys by any chance need someone to produce music for DTG? I'm a musician looking to find a way into professional music composing for games, and people recommend me to do some networking to get that ball rolling.. so here I am

 

 

Once again, looking forward to actually experiencing the new sims. Is there any chance of some video footage of the sim in action any time soon? (I know, we always want more, don't we?).

[bonchie 2,305]

The whole world. All scenery in in DTG Flight School and Flight Sim is a mixture of Orbx technology and custom built models. 

 

- Martin 

 

Our partnership means that we will be using an evolved version of Orbx Simulation Systems’ FTX Global technology for scenery in DTG Flight School and DTG Flight Simulator. 

 

- Martin 

 

Ok, but are we just talking ground textures here? Or are you partnering on land class and vector data down the road as well for DTG Flight Simulator? You said you guys wanted to update those aspects.

[MikeT707 1,181]

Martin,

Is there any new ground scenery content here or is this pretty much the same content that we see in FSX/P3D?

[scotchegg 4,240]

This is a very positive development - Orbx textures were a sea change in FSX and having some version of them as default in the new sim will be a step up. I have no problem throwing more money at them for further improvements.

 

On an unrelated note I have to ask about the clouds in the screenshots - they aren't casting any shadows. This was one of the problems with FSX. Martin, can you confirm whether there will be shadows in the final version?

[DTG Martin 213]

 

 

Which takes me to my next question: How far and how deep will Flightschool take us along in the process of learning to fly? I mean it's quite a comprehensive subject. The basics are pretty easy, and I'm sure that most people can physically 'fly' (as in take off, cruise and land) a plane in 1 or 2 days if they're complete novices. But then comes the real challenge: navigating a plane, abiding to all the air laws, communication, situation awareness, handling different weather conditions etc. How far will Flightschool dive into these matters?

 

The first point I need to make clear is that DTG Flight School has been developed for entertainment only. It is not an educational tool or designed to teach people how to fly a real aircraft. Instead it is focused on teaching players the basics of flight simulation in a compelling and accessible way. If you have never played a flight sim before or not used one for a few years then DTG Flight School will be ideal for you. 

 

Although the lessons in Flight School are based on real world flying lessons it is important to remember our focus is on "compelling and accessible". While doing a written exam might be part of the process of learning to fly, in reality making a player spend hours committing pages of text to memory and then completing a written test doesn't make for very compelling gameplay.  To give another example we get asked this a lot with our Train Simulator title - how realistic is it? Again, building  the fire in a steam engine and then letting the pressure build for several hours before you can drive it would be realistic but it wouldn't be a very fun experience to do every time you wanted to go for a journey. 

 

​Flight School will feature lessons about weather, navigation and such like but we will not be looking at the drier topics like abiding to all the air laws. The whole purpose of Flight School is show people that flight simming can be fun. That it is not this dry and boring genre of gaming which you have spend hours reading a 500+ page manual in order to enjoy. To that end we have focused on the parts of learning to fly which are accessible and fun to do. 

 

- Martin 

 

 

So my question to DTG is why do "newcomers" (who DTG thinks need/want simplicity) come first with simplicity, when FS history proves that more and more advanced features (more advanced in quality and quantity airplane panels/models, GPS, more realistic behavior, and greater detail), always resulted in more newcomers?

 

In order to keep flight simming, as genre, going we need to bring in a new generation of players. The current generation of simmers, and I mean no disrespect to anyone, tends to be older than your average video game player. None of us are going to be around forever, if we want to keep flight simming going in the future we need to inspire and encourage the younger players to give the genre a try. This is true for everything, not just people playing the sim. We need new blood to keep virtual airlines running, new members for simming groups, new freeware makers and add-on developers. Not only does this ensure the future of the hobby we all love but new people bring new ideas and innovation.

 

"More advanced features (more advanced in quality and quantity airplane panels/models, GPS, more realistic behavior, and greater detail), always resulted in more newcomers." Not according to the research we did. Actually all the information we gathered suggested the opposite. The more complex something was to use the more it put people off trying it. They gave up and dismissed it as being too hard without even giving it a go. That is a real shame and something we are looking to address. 

 

Like the saying goes, if you keep doing the same thing you are going to get the same results. We don't want the same results, we want to bring flight simming back into the mainstream and put it on top as gaming genre like it was almost a decade ago. In order to do that we need to break the cycle and try something new. Sure it could backfire on us but we are aware of the risks and believe this is the right approach to take. 

 

Only time will tell. 

 

- Martin 

[Wobbie 938]

Martin, thank you for clarifying the roll of Flight School. I feel vindicated.

 

Anyhow, thanks for explaining.

Will the simulator itself have tutorials & lessons as well?

[TLight 20]

LOVE the new screen shots Martin. B)

 

Will Flight School have any form of head motion?

Some love it (me), some hate it.

 

FSX had a reputation for 'driving on rails' and I think the head (viewer camera) had a lot to do with it.  FSX did have head movement although it was dialed down in the configs.

 

My current FSX setup includes ASN and A2A's AccuSim which gives a decent feeling of flying through a substance with air density and turbulence, without those two addons, it feels very sterile.

 

With Flight School being unable to use plugins, are you going to add a little magic to the head movement so we can 'feel' the aircraft from the pilots point of view?

 

Thank you.

Brent.