What does a modern day Flight Sim NEED?

[JTPO 0]

I've relatively recently come into flight simulation and spent a while scouring through a number of recommendations as to what platform is best for the full experience, but the replies have been varied.

Ended up going with X-Plane 11 which I've been enjoying immensely, but the responses did get me thinking;

If the flight sim community could make the perfect modern day flight simulator, what would it include? What features are essential? What is missing from the current offerings that you guys feel could take the genre forward?

 

[ErichB 3,639]

1 hour ago, JTPO said:

I've relatively recently come into flight simulation and spent a while scouring through a number of recommendations as to what platform is best for the full experience, but the replies have been varied.

Ended up going with X-Plane 11 which I've been enjoying immensely, but the responses did get me thinking;

If the flight sim community could make the perfect modern day flight simulator, what would it include? What features are essential? What is missing from the current offerings that you guys feel could take the genre forward?

 

Subjective question. 

You'll get lots of different answers as everyone sims differently - and therefore needs/ want's different things.  The two mainstream sims provide mostly everything 'needed' if we were able to miraculously combine the best aspects of both sims.  Both sims are independently lacking in wanted features - which for the most part is usually found in 'the other sim'.

For the rest, third party does a good job of filling the gaps.  Just have your wallet ready. 

The most important thing is that the base sim provides an efficient and accessible platform into which third party developers can add lots of content rich features.  The base sim just needs to allow that to happen.  That is really what we need.  The community will take care of the rest.

[Chock 17,769]

What any flight simulator's basic requirement is, or should be, is actually in the name itself, i.e. it should be able to simulate flight. Now it might seem a bit facetious to say that, but it really is the important thing if you are making a FLIGHT SIMULATOR lol. But, just think about the basic notion of an aeroplane flying along through the skies. Do either P3d/FSX or XPlane realistically simulate that like it is in real life? Nope, they certainly don't; and I'll tell you why too...

The visual depiction of the atmosphere (i.e. literally the location where you see rain, clouds,fog etc) bears absolutely no relation to how either XPlane, FSX/P3d simulate what is going on at that same location. In other words, fly through a cumulus cloud, or below it upwind a little, and you will feel some turbulence, because that cloud is formed by water vapour rising on an uplifting current which cools at a certain altitude as the temperate is dropping off with increasing altitude, and such air is unstable, so that instability is felt through the airframe as it passes through that air. Do that in FSX/P3d or XPlane and the best it can do is give you some canned version of turbulence based on overall conditions, rather than exactly what the sky is like for real for any given location.

This is a bit like how these sims handle runways, they aren't really wet in one place where the runway concrete dips a bit and water pools up, yet and not as wet on the next bit where there's a slight rise and water runs off, nope, they're either wet, or dry,  and that's if the simulator even bothers to take that either/or into account at all. You see what I mean? there's no real attempt to realistically simulate even the ground you roll along before you get airborne, let alone the sky once you are in 'flight'. At least XPlane does attempt to simulate those runway undulations, but that's about all.

Regrettably, the only simulation which was attempting to genuinely do something about that, in depicting clouds and such as real 3D presences with actual locations in the 3D space of the simulation, so that weather phenomena could be attached locally to those (which incidentally would also have meant weather radars could have been realistically simulated), was FSW, when it used trueSKY. But as we know, it got cancelled. So now we're back to being stuck with an obsession with eye candy by most software developers, because they know screenshots sell stuff, rather than a genuine desire to simulate flight properly.

Sad but true.

Edited June 12, 2018 by Chock

[ndoug 31]

A computer.

[pracines 823]

There surly are many things we still need, but this is a big one that appears to eventually be checked off the list:

 https://www.fsaerodata.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=136

Edited June 12, 2018 by pracines

[HiFlyer 9,358]

Prayer

[charliearon 3,022]

Beer tap on the panel!🍻

[Greggy_D 935]

Default airports which are updated on a frequent basis to reflect current configuration.

[pracines 823]

12 minutes ago, Greggy_D said:

Default airports which are updated on a frequent basis to reflect current configuration.

 

2 hours ago, pracines said:

https://www.fsaerodata.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=136

Its all there in the link

[Guest]

Patience.

[Christopher Low 5,352]

Decent wave animations? Decent water textures above a thousand feet? AI planes with a realistic rollout after landing? ATC controllers that don't issue endless "stop/start" messages to AI planes on the taxiway?

[Murmur 3,941]

8 hours ago, JTPO said:

If the flight sim community could make the perfect modern day flight simulator, what would it include? What features are essential? What is missing from the current offerings that you guys feel could take the genre forward?

More realistic weather simulation, both for large scale (thunderstorms, etc.) and small scale (thermals, turbulence due to terrain and clouds, etc.) phenomena. And also more realistic weather visuals (e.g. 3d clouds with advanced lighting model).

Modern rendering engine optimized for performance (in terms of fps and smoothness) and visual realism (something that takes the best from the rendering engines of X-Plane, Aerofly FS 2, DCS).

An "open" and advanced flight model, something similar to JSBSim, that gives a lot of freedom to aircraft designers and capable of being used both as a look-up table flight model or a blade-element flight model.

 

[birdguy 3,943]

No flight simulator can emulate real flight to a pilot.  So many things are missing.  Seat of the pants feeling of flight.  The nagging fear that surfaces when things don't sound right or you see a line of thunderstorms in front of you or when you get lost.  The feeling of freedom and control you get sitting alone in a small airplane 5000 feet above the ground. 

On the other hand it is a reasonable substitute for those of who can no longer fly and for those who wish to experience the essentials of flight.

While I only fly light aircraft 5000 to 7000 feet AGL I can't tell you which simulator is best for what you want to do.  For me Orbx Scenery in FSX or P3D (I've used both and am currently using P3D) allows me to create familiar flights with reasonable terrain and landmark accuracy.  I only fly in clear weather with a minimal layer of cirrus at 30,000 ft to give the blue a bit of texture.  I would never intentionally fly into marginal or stormy weather in real life so I don't do it in simulated flight either.  But if you are intent at replicating airliner or commercial flight then you want to have bad weather available.

Noel

[pracines 823]

1 hour ago, birdguy said:

No flight simulator can emulate real flight to a pilot.  So many things are missing.  Seat of the pants feeling of flight.  The nagging fear that surfaces when things don't sound right or you see a line of thunderstorms in front of you or when you get lost.  The feeling of freedom and control you get sitting alone in a small airplane 5000 feet above the ground. 

On the other hand it is a reasonable substitute for those of who can no longer fly and for those who wish to experience the essentials of flight.

While I only fly light aircraft 5000 to 7000 feet AGL I can't tell you which simulator is best for what you want to do.  For me Orbx Scenery in FSX or P3D (I've used both and am currently using P3D) allows me to create familiar flights with reasonable terrain and landmark accuracy.  I only fly in clear weather with a minimal layer of cirrus at 30,000 ft to give the blue a bit of texture.  I would never intentionally fly into marginal or stormy weather in real life so I don't do it in simulated flight either.  But if you are intent at replicating airliner or commercial flight then you want to have bad weather available.

Noel

True, but VR has the potential to come very close to reality, I truly feel I'm there in the plane. We just need more computing power, to up the settings and resolution.

From here, with 128 Bit technology as a possible/likely next step/norm, I think reality will be approached sufficiently for any kind of training.  

 

[Guest]

More users, more users willing to spend money ... especially if you want the kind of accuracy that Alan is talking about (which would require multiple computers and high end hardware).  "Complete" is an open ended term, but if you want a "more complete" experience then P3D V4.x has the upper hand right now, however, XP11 is catching up and neither platform is slowing down in terms of future development.

Your expectations and how you implement the "blind eye" will define your experience now and in the future ... unless there is a technological shift in computing power available to the mass market, we are always (no exceptions) going to need to compromise (the blind eye) regardless of platform.

The more complexity that is added to a simulator with the increased desire for realism also tends to increase in the size of development teams and the cost of development (and product) and need for better hardware.  The Add-Ons define the experience for many (not all), so to answer your question you need to define if the add-ons your interested in exist in your platform of choice (if you are a single platform flyer).  For example I'm a bad weather nut, I seek it out ... HiFi AS4 (weather with cloud motion that lights up at night), TrueGlass (rain/snow/fogging in VC), FSFX Packages (external effects like jet wash, tire marks, rain dropping from aircraft, wing air compression, etc.) and P3D V4.x is the best combination for that specific type of experience.  For photo real flying then XP11 with Artho4XP and xEnviro along with PBR is the best combination for that specific experience.

Real world flight is a great experience also ... operating manual flaps can take some arm work in a small GA that you never experience in a simulator ... pretty sure no one has a Force Feedback flap handle for one's simPit.  However, simulated flight is MUCH cheaper and one can operate aircraft they would otherwise never be able to experience at any level.  After coming back from FSExpo in Vegas that was sold out and more squeezed in past capacity, the flight simulator industry seems very healthy.  I see a very positive future for single and multi platform users.

Some of my more immediate personal desires:

Better ATC for GA aircraft
Implementation of humidity
Improved intelligence for AI aircraft with integration into the ATC system
Improved SDK support for failures (bird strikes, etc.)
Improved SDK support for damage and contact
Blending of roads and autogen with a little more uniqueness in the buildings/homes

Cheers, Rob.