FSW and its future

[A32xx 129]

11 hours ago, fshobby said:

Or FSX:SE which shows 800K owners on steamspy

I'm one of those 800K owners, and I have to say I'm surprised at how many existing payware FSX add-ons still aren't compatible with FSX:SE. Our branch of the hobby has been stagnating instead of evolving, and everyone knows that Evolution is better than Revolution. I'm with SmokeDiddy on this train, keeping an open mind and enjoying the trip I mean journey.

[Chock 17,769]

14 hours ago, bedgie said:

Well if FSW were counting on their rain effects on the windsheild being what makes them stand out from all the others then think again.

LM have announced that they are currently working on rain effects.

Looks like another nail has just been added to the coffin.

I hardly think a rain effect on the windscreen of aeroplanes in a flight sim is something DTG were counting on as the standout feature which would make everyone favour it over all other comers, they just have it in there as an additional thing TPDs can implement on their models. Some people go nuts over it, others couldn't care less. So yeah it's nice to have the effect in there, but rain and icing effects on the aeroplane's windscreen have been around for years in some flight sim models, hell, the FS2004 version of the Ariane 737 NG has those rain effects and even had icing appearing on the corners of the windshield too (this was over ten years ago), so they are cool, but it didn't stop people moving over to FSX, nor is it beyond the capabilities of any developer to push the effect further.

So why the bizarre desire to see another flight simulator fail? Don't you like flight simulators? Don't you want us to have more choices and have competition driving developers to push out more of these features?

Personally I love em, and the more the merrier, because, as noted, the more there are, the more it drives developers to add new or innovative features. Actually, with their interview when they said they were working on those rain effects, I was hoping LM might go one better and stick icing effects in there too like that old Ariane NG had, but if they do, I won't smilingly regard it as something which makes all other sims obselete, it'd be just kind of cool to have it whenever I crank up P3D and be a useful spur to other sim development teams, to hopefully move them all along.

[FlyBaby 659]

17 hours ago, Bert Pieke said:

Agreed!

But some are making the point that FSW could become the new mainstream flightsim platform (after FSX).

To me:

P3DV4 = FSXI

FSW = Flight 2.0,

and hopefully both very successful 

 

That my impression as well. To me, FSW looks to target more of the "casual" simmer, like myself. 

I only fly GA planes so their current fleet is perfect. I would like to see Heli's eventually; but if Helis never made it in the sim, the sim (IMO) is still worth it with just the planes. 

The flight sim world reminds of the car sim world....there is Iracing, Assetto Corsa, Project Cars, Raceroom etc.They all offer something unique, have a huge following, and survive despite the stiff competition.

 

[WotanUK 289]

I think what Alan above said is the best way to think.  I want more Flight Simulators not less, i have P3D, FSX, DCS, FSW, and X-Plane...though i only have DCS and P3D installed.  FSX is the only one of those i will never install again, huh thinking about it it's really sad actually...bye FSX.

My point has always been, i have already purchased add ons for P3D, i cannot buy them again for FSW; that alone will force me down the P3D route and i suspect this to be the case for the majority of current serious simmers, i think FSW will pick up casuals but i wonder if those people will want to spend £100's on a add on aircraft, or if they will be happy with very simplistic aircraft?  I think that will probably drive the respective markets, P3D seeing less cheap but better simulated aircraft with that lovely price premium and FSW seeing simple models that are cheap and cheerful.

 

[Chock 17,769]

What I'd like to see Dovetail do, is have a stab at making the flight model more capable of simulating the kind of stuff which pretty much every flight sim ever has never managed to do properly, if at all, and that is simulate realistic behaviour with sideslipping, stalling and spinning. If they did that, then they really would have a showstopper feature and absolutely would be able to claim theirs was a simulator which had genuinely moved flight simulation on.

It's all very well everyone being over the moon because 64 bit means we can have prettier airports with more moving parts, and higher resolution textures etc, but does any of that stuff have anything whatsoever to do with how the base platform actually simulates the act of flying? Nope, not even in the slightest, all it does is give people new reasons to whine about their frame rates being crap.

P3D or FSX users might be inclined to say that theirs is a more 'serious' sim than FSW will be, but as long as it is using the same basic LUT as every other ESP-based sim for its flight modeling, then it is no more serious a flight sim than any of the other ones using that system, because P3D, FSW, FSX, FS2004, FS2002, FS2000, FS98, FS95 all use that same system with only very minor changes between each of them. As long as that continues, there is literally no major difference between flight sims from over two decades ago as far as actually simulating flight is concerned. It's all been eye candy tied to evolution the of CPUs and GPUs.

Try sideslipping your aeroplane into a runway in any ESP-based flight sim. You might just as well be eating a chicken curry instead of making those crossed control movements, because it will achieve the same thing.

[WotanUK 289]

Yes absolutely true, i remember trying to simulate the landing in the Gimli Glider, including the cross control technique the pilot used to slow the aircraft down.  Well let's say those passengers were probably very glad they were using actual rather than simulated physics, my attempt had a much less happy ending!

[Murmur 3,944]

18 minutes ago, Chock said:

What I'd like to see Dovetail do, is have a stab at making the flight model more capable of simulating the kind of stuff which pretty much every flight sim ever has never managed to do properly, if at all, and that is simulate realistic behaviour with sideslipping, stalling and spinning.

I thought RealAir did a decent job on all of those. I never heard real pilots complaining about those features in RealAir aircrafts, instead usually praising them exactly for that.

 

[WotanUK 289]

3 minutes ago, Murmur said:

I thought RealAir did a decent job on all of those. I never heard real pilots complaining about those features in RealAir aircrafts, instead usually praising them exactly for that.

It's true that aircraft designers can have a massive impact on the flight modelling, but at the edges of the envelops pretty much all flight simulators start showing aberrant behavior, even DCS.

This isn't based on personal knowledge, but what i have read for people who are qualified to speak on this matter. 

[Holdit 551]

12 minutes ago, Chock said:

What I'd like to see Dovetail do, is have a stab at making the flight model more capable of simulating the kind of stuff which pretty much every flight sim ever has never managed to do properly, if at all, and that is simulate realistic behaviour with sideslipping, stalling and spinning. If they did that, then they really would have a showstopper feature and absolutely would be able to claim theirs was a simulator which had genuinely moved flight simulation on.

It's all very well everyone being over the moon because 64 bit means we can have prettier airports with more moving parts, and higher resolution textures etc, but does any of that stuff have anything whatsoever to do with how the base platform actually simulates the act of flying? Nope, not even in the slightest, all it does is give people new reasons to whine about their frame rates being crap.

P3D or FSX users might be inclined to say that theirs is a more 'serious' sim than FSW will be, but as long as it is using the same basic LUT as every other ESP-based sim for its flight modeling, then it is no more serious a flight sim than any of the other ones using that system, because P3D, FSW, FSX, FS2004, FS2002, FS2000, FS98, FS95 all use that same system with only very minor changes between each of them. As long as that continues, there is literally no major difference between flight sims from over two decades ago as far as actually simulating flight is concerned. It's all been eye candy tied to evolution the of CPUs and GPUs.

Try sideslipping your aeroplane into a runway in any ESP-based flight sim. You might just as well be eating a chicken curry instead of making those crossed control movements, because it will achieve the same thing.

Exactly. One of the reasons I've been slow to adopt P3D is that (apart from 64-bit), there's no killer feature, nothing that really differentiates it all that much from FSX/FX-SE. Sure the graphics might look better, but I'm happy enough with my graphics as they are...and I have a backlog of aircraft to fly, many of which I would have to dump if I made the move...and, there's the uncertainty about exactly what FSW is going to bring to the table. I reckon by the time I'm ready to move on from FSX-SE, FSW will be much more of a known quantity, more stuff will have been properly ported to P3DV4 (or it will be definitely know that it won't be), or there may even be V5 by then. But I know of nothing in P3D that would add anything to the sim experience, as opposed to the visual experience, except perhaps for bathymetry, but that's a frame-rate-mass-murderer anyway. 

Hell, I think is some ways Fly! was a more serious sim than the FS series. Anyway, I've always been of the opinion that in many way serious simming is more about the attitude of the simmer than the features of the sim. I also don't get the "Death to other/old sims!" attitude that seems to infect AVSIM to such a great degree. It makes no sense to me when I see customers eager to see less competition in their market. 

[Holdit 551]

9 minutes ago, Murmur said:

I thought RealAir did a decent job on all of those. I never heard real pilots complaining about those features in RealAir aircrafts, instead usually praising them exactly for that.

 

I think the point here is that RealAir managed that despite FSX, not because of it. It would be better if the developers didn't have to "fight" the built-in FDE.    Also, all third party FDEs would be better, not just those by developers who had to take pains to make them so.

[Chock 17,769]

6 minutes ago, Holdit said:

But I know of nothing in P3D that would add anything to the sim experience, as opposed to the visual experience.

To be fair to Lockheed Martin, they have got the thing using the GPU a lot better and that is at least one reason why you might be inclined to switch over, because that feature genuinely does mean you can get better frame rates with the thing without needing a graphics card which costs more than a car lol.

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

39 minutes ago, Holdit said:

 But I know of nothing in P3D that would add anything to the sim experience, as opposed to the visual experience, ...

Unless you are sitting in a full motion simulator, the visual experience is the sim experience.. 

[Holdit 551]

20 minutes ago, Bert Pieke said:

Unless you are sitting in a full motion simulator, the visual experience is the sim experience.. 

The visual experience is only one part of the sim experience. Visuals alone don't provide icing, poor braking performance on runways, blocked pitot tubes, thermals, ridge lift/sink, turbulence, downdrafts or microbursts, for example.

[Chock 17,769]

5 minutes ago, Bert Pieke said:

Unless you are sitting in a full motion simulator, the visual experience is the sim experience.. 

To some extent that is true, but if that was the only criteria, then Captain Sim aeroplanes would typically be regarded above all others, since their VCs are invariably a lot better looking than most offerings, but we all know that's not what most people who buy add-on airliners think.

[Holdit 551]

1 hour ago, Chock said:

To some extent that is true, but if that was the only criteria, then Captain Sim aeroplanes would typically be regarded above all others, since their VCs are invariably a lot better looking than most offerings, but we all know that's not what most people who buy add-on airliners think.

I was going to make the same point but referencing Carenado...