A month has passed and I am still amazed

[Guest]

Aaaaaah, ok, LOL, I thought you were actually beta testing something.  But well, yes, Aerofly does have potential. 

[ohsirus 241]

I have to say I can hardly fly now in 2D.

[Guest]

11 hours ago, ohsirus said:

I have to say I can hardly fly now in 2D.

Hardly...? I just can't. Even though the low res (of the Rift's screen but also of the scenery) is bugging me a bit (more and more, actually) there is no going back to a flat screen. The feeling of being there is just too good.

I have to add though that the feeling of being there is a bit odd feeling: when I fly I have a sense of being there but I am always very aware I am not actually there. For instance I never ever had the fear I would crash during a landing like I for certainly would have if I was trying to land a real plane. So the immersion is absolutely awesome but it it limited nonetheless. I think this is due to the low res of everything and the (very) obvious computerized scenery. 

[jcomm 5,925]

Well,

just bought NY, and am going through the sloooowwww process of installing all DLCs and AEFS2, at last...., at an average 3,5 Mbps....

Very few space will be left on disk, and I guess it's time to get a 500GB SSD... because LOWI will certainly be big...

Edited May 20, 2017 by jcomm

[Murmur 3,941]

Or you could just uninstall FSW. Just kidding... Or not...

[HiFlyer 9,358]

1 hour ago, jcomm said:

Well,

just bought NY, and am going through the sloooowwww process of installing all DLCs and AEFS2, at last...., at an average 3,5 Mbps....

Very few space will be left on disk, and I guess it's time to get a 500GB SSD... because LOWI will certainly be big...

I admit to being surprised about New York. Didn't you say you were pretty much only interested in Europe? 

[jcomm 5,925]

Yes, but am planning to start making flights between Coasts and maybe between Switzerland or Austria and the USA in the 744 :)

Also to support the cause, and my wife and both daughters love NY... :-)   Will show it to the three girls of my life :-))))

 

 

Edited May 21, 2017 by jcomm

[jcomm 5,925]

6 hours ago, Murmur said:

Or you could just uninstall FSW. Just kidding... Or not...

Well, indeed I'm not left with much space for other sims.... :-)

[jcomm 5,925]

I bought AEFS2 on day 1, actually day 2, since on 1 I was too busy :-), installed it once before today's install ( it's too big an install to keep installing and uninstalling anyway... )

I figured out it was, among the civil flight simulation games I use the most powerful in pretty much all aspects, but in need of dedicated development in many directions.

There is no detailed weather generation, although we have more credible thermals than for instance in X-Plane - at least they cant with the wind...  Mountain flying is also interesting and AEFS2 has tuned down some overdone effects of ridge lift. Not perfect but again still better than what we get in other civil platforms, even though AS and CumulusX! can make their magic in FSX and derivates... 

Still in the weather area, having at least the chance to chose between a set of possible weather scenarios is yet another "basic" feature civil simmers have long been accustomed to... I miss it, but at the same time I really like the way AEFS 1 and 2 ( I believe I even preferred it in AEFS 1 ... but don't recall exactly... although it appears to have been tuned down somewhat... ) model turbulence and wind variability effects.

Then, regrettably AEFS2 fails my mandatory check - no precise Moon ephemeris, although there is a credible Moon cycle represented, although without phases. It's also not possible to set a precise date.

Flight dynamics wise AEFS2 is probably ahead of X-Plane in potential, although both have good potential, and we have various aircraft types, starting with rotary wing, in X-Plane that haven't yet debuted in AEFS 2, although we know they're being considered... Also there appear to be some important aspects of flight dynamics modelling missing, like for instance Mach effects, although at the same time there are ways of modelling aeroelasticity effects, which is really tempting!

I look fwd into : https://www.aerofly-sim.de/download/download-software/tmedit

Systems modelling is limited in some areas that civil simmers have long acquired as basic, although that doesn't mean they're accurately modelled in their sims - such as for example the "basic" modelling of CoG variations due to fuel distribution / consumption, mixture in reciprocating engines, etc...

As a glider pilot, and not counting Silentwings and Condorsoaring, AEFS2 offers me the closest to real experience of flying a glider I have found in a civil flight simulator. In some aspects it is on pair, or even superior to Condor and SW. While I don't know much about the "secret" / "closed" Condor flight model, SW is more or less open, just as AEFS2, and both share some modelling approaches / concepts. Compared to even the best glider models I ever tried for either MSFS or X-Plane, the gliders in AEFS2 do a better, in some aspects I even can say - much better - job.

So, yesterday, I followed the usual ritual of clearing space on my poor SSD, and started downloading the whole AEFS2 content. This includes the latest free highly detailed area of USA, and NY, which I bought with the funds of a recent refund...

I don't know what will happen next, but I would like to be able to try ORBX LOWI, and that Q-400, as well as the upcoming aircraft models.

I would also like to dedicate some time to tweaking some of the aircraft - I spent days doing that in times of fs9, with the help of that GREAT MAN named Ron Freimuth, with whom I shared the passion for flight dynamics modelling and with whom I tried to learn something more about it - although I lack a LOT of basic knowledge in it, I must admit, an had some difficulties understanding what Ron sometimes was talking about.

Since the aircraft configuration files in AEFS are so easy to edit, and the Wiki is evolving, and probably will get even more detailed with the future SDK updates, I believe I will at least be able to do something for those lousy Corsair prop effects.... :-/   But I really like the feel of the Extra, the gliders, even the C172 and the C90, and specially the Airbus, which my experience in the full flight simulator still makes the closest to reality I have ever experienced in a PC-based flight simulation game.

Edited May 21, 2017 by jcomm

[Murmur 3,941]

They did a good work on AeroflyFS 2. Hopefully the development will speed up.

Regarding the turbulence, you're right about your sensations. I recently inquired about it on the IPACS forums, and they said that the turbulence/atmospheric model was indeed more complex on AeroflyFS 1 than it is in AeroflyFS 2. So it's one of the features that they need working on too.

[jcomm 5,925]

Ah good you mention / confirm it Murmur, I don't recall having seen that post.

 

[anden145 2,285]

Haven't tried this simulator yet. Maybe I should?... 

[Guest]

13 hours ago, jcomm said:

just bought NY, and am going through the sloooowwww process of installing all DLCs and AEFS2, at last...., at an average 3,5 Mbps....

Ah, funny, I also bought NY yesterday. In fact, I bought it a minute after I asked for a refund for a sim I won't mention here. The thing is: my very last flight in that other sim I won't mention here was a flight around Manhattan. That really was what made me close the sim I won't mention here and ask for a refund. Not only did it look very bad, performance was absolutely crap. I have a i7 4790 @ 4.5 and a GTX 1080 and fps was around 16 and it stuttered like hell. Awful. So I decided to immediately buy the NY DLC for Aerofly FS 2 so I could compare it with my experience in that sim I won't mention here. Well, with all settings at Ultra it was smooth as butter. And then I don't mean FSX-smooth (you know, 30 fps and the saying it is smooth... yeah, right) but really SMOOTH. Smooth as in real life smooth. And it look a LOT better (but that's obvious because it is DLC and no default scenery). (Mind you, everything outside the inner city of NY looks a bit crappy imho.) But anyway, the performance...! Incredible! And that was using the Rift, of course! I really had some vertigo around those tall buildings!

23 minutes ago, Anders Gron said:

Haven't tried this simulator yet. Maybe I should?... 

Maybe you should indeed but you have to know it is far from complete. It lacks a lot of options (weather, the systems are very basic, no ATC, AI, etc. and most of the scenery is flat photoreal without autogen (apart a few cities and around airports). But as soon as you are high up in the air... the look and feel but specially the performance is awesome. When you have experienced how smooth Aerofly FS 2 is no other sim, not FSX, not P3D, not XP 11 and not that sim I won't mention here can get close. And I tested this! I lowered ALL settings in XP11 and parked on (I think it was) KSFO, In XP11 things look awfull and fps was around (I think) 50 or 60. In AFS2 with all options high things look stunning and fps was somewhere in the, well, I forgot but somewhere above 200 or so.

Anyway, the cockpits look amazing, imho on par or better than 'the other sim', and photoreal is, after all imho, better than generic landclass. You won't see any ground textures or mountains pop up anywhere. But as I said, you have to accept the limited options. But it sure is worth a shot imho.

[jcomm 5,925]

4 minutes ago, J van E said:

Ah, funny, I also bought NY yesterday. In fact, I bought it a minute after I asked for a refund for a sim I won't mention here. 

That actually makes two of us - refund acknowledged in Email and immediately NY added to my AEFS2 DLC list...

Didn't Ilike that other sim ?  No, that's really not that - I liked it, and actually see a lot of potential for and MSFS-based platform, but.... there's something about AEFS, and I have been trying to resist the huge install, but decided to go ahead and do it, specially now that we're probably not that far from teh ORBX LOWI release as well as teh Q-400...

Edited May 21, 2017 by jcomm

[jcomm 5,925]

Well, never a flight Simulator, or even combination of installed flight simulators occupied so much space on my disks ...

This is HUGE ! The previous install included "only"  Switzerland and the dafult Western USA low res ... 

It's 22 min from finish, but it's Sunday, and family time.... Afternoon walk will force a download interruption - maybe when I return latter I can finish it. I am really looking forward to fly around in NY :)

When I find some time available I will import the Robin, and then I'll try to tweak the prop effects on the Corsair...

Edited May 21, 2017 by jcomm