One wonders what would happen if Austin and Laminar were simply a hopeful startup entering the market today, and not at the end of more than ten iterations of the product and more than a decade of development. (With still many things, missing, like seasons!)

Would they be given the time, and opportunity and encouragement to reach where they are now?

Well, just a heads up: Aerofly FS 2 is 10% off in the latest Steam sale.

Not in six months, though, Tony. It took many years before X-Plane grew to what it is now, X-Plane 11. As an X-Plane user, you probably know much better than I how much work and harsh criticism Laminar Research had to go through before users and even developers decided to consider it a s valid alternative. Aerofly FS2 is still an embryonal project.

Embryonal...? Er... I don't think so. The first version of this sim/game was released exactly 5 years ago already. That is a lot more than 6 months. And IMHO they didn't do much in the last 5 years (yes, I tried both versions). And to be even more precise: the company released their first sim already in 1998! Ok, so it was an RC sim (remote control planes) but somehow you could say AeroflyFS2 still is some sort of evolved RC sim. Anyway, it certainly is not an embryonal project.

You might have heard it, JV from ORBX has announced his company's support for this platform and has posted a few screenies around Meg's Field. So this is good news for Aerofly FS2

Embryonal...? Er... I don't think so. The first version of this sim/game was released exactly 5 years ago already. That is a lot more than 6 months. And IMHO they didn't do much in the last 5 years (yes, I tried both versions). And to be even more precise: the company released their first sim already in 1998! Ok, so it was an RC sim (remote control planes) but somehow you could say AeroflyFS2 still is some sort of evolved RC sim. Anyway, it certainly is not an embryonal project.

 

I would say embryonic is a pretty apt description.

 

Honestly, the 1st version of Aerofly was a completely different animal. It was designed to showcase exactly one country and used a flat-earth coordinate system. It had no instrumentation capability of any sort, no Ecams, no moving switches, no navaids....... nada.

 

And a flat earth allowed only the most limited room for expansion. Then, of course there was the time it took them to develop and release and support the various tablet versions, which doesn't support the supposition that they have been doing pretty much nothing the last 5 years.

 

Changing to a worldwide coordinate system, providing worldwide navigation coverage, coming up with an entire earth of photo-scenery coverage albeit at extremely low resolution outside specific coverage areas, apparently switching out silverlining for their own cloud system, Creating up to 16 very nicely modeled aircraft, building the support structure for instrumentation (ecams etc) Constructing several detailed city models..... Switching to 64bit..... Creating a completely new lighting system..... Documentation and SDK creation...

 

Purchasing high resolution photoscenery, negotiating with Aerofly and others for some plane models.....

 

We easily allow DTG years to update an already existing and feature complete simulation to new standards (with Flight School being the result)

 

But Aerofly taking a few years to retool and start nearly completely from scratch is..... (I don't know what goes here)

 

As for the 1st sim being released in 1998, I really can't think of a more apples to kangaroos comparison than an RC simulator with a combined coverage area of a few yards, completely different physics, etc, to a worldwide sim with cities, instrumentation, navaids etc.  :smile:

 

I guess I'm just more inclined to give these guys a break. I think its true they have a way to go, but I think its also true that they've come quite a way.

Still looking for some night sky screenshots of NY :-)

Still looking for some night sky screeshots of NY :-)

 

  :smile:

Does it have street lights ?

Does it have street lights ?

 

No. They say they are working on it. So far only building lights/airport lights.