ATC won't be here anytime soon (and mod annoyances)

[Guest]

IPACS posted this on Steam today: "ATC is still going to be quite some time before its released." Coming from them that means we won't be seeing it this year. I even doubt if we will see it next year. Which probably means weather won't be started on before 2020... and so on.

Needless to say I reinstalled P3D: I just needed a flight with weather, ATC, traffic... What a terrible shame things are taking sooooooooooooooo long... I've been optimistic for quite some time but this little line of news really killed most of my expectations. I surely will enjoy TrueEarth Netherlands for quite some time in AFS2 but it's clear AFS2 won't be a full sim (to replace P3D or XP) within a few years. I doubt if it will even come close to those sims (when it comes to simming options) before 2025. If ever.

Pardon my pessimism. 😉

EDIT
Another thing that kills my enthusiasm is that my posts on the official forum AND on Steam get deleted or locked on a daily basis. I just posted my honest thoughts about the above on both forums and, as I expected, the posts were deleted within a few minutes. I've gotten used to it but it's not helping...

Edited August 15, 2018 by Guest

[HiFlyer 9,358]

2 hours ago, J van E said:

Another thing that kills my enthusiasm is that my posts on the official forum AND on Steam get deleted or locked on a daily basis. I just posted my honest thoughts about the above on both forums and, as I expected, the posts were deleted within a few minutes. I've gotten used to it but it's not helping...

Don't worry, Ipacs is not the only place out there that posts mysteriously disappear from. Maybe it's just a simulation thing, who knows?

[Murmur 3,941]

6 hours ago, J van E said:

IPACS posted this on Steam today: "ATC is still going to be quite some time before its released." Coming from them that means we won't be seeing it this year. I even doubt if we will see it next year. Which probably means weather won't be started on before 2020... and so on.
😉

 

If (as far as I reckon) ATC, traffic and weather will not see the light anytime soon, I wonder what improvements/features are instead in line to be implemented in the short/mid time frame. Aircraft systems related? Scenery related? Visual/environmental effects?

[pracines 823]

I think flight simmers were willing to give IPACS a chance, but the writing is on the wall and IPACS is proving to be another likely failure.📜

Essentially another limited flight sim, all set to DLC us to death to get the basics like "south Florida" (BIG DEAL 🤮). Flight simmers have already judged MS Flight & DTG FSW (both set to DLC us to death for basics), and IPACS appears to be next.👨‍⚖️⚖️

If it were not for VR in AF2, AF2 would have never survived, but neither Orbx or VR will help IPACS, because FSX and P3D are way too ahead in the basics category. 🌎⛅✈️🎧 

IPACS can delete all the posts they want, it will not change the inevitable outcome.🕛

A huge miracle is the only hope, but that is not likely at all.📉

[HiFlyer 9,358]

22 minutes ago, pracines said:

I think flight simmers were willing to give IPACS a chance, but the writing is on the wall and IPACS is proving to be another likely failure.📜

Essentially another limited flight sim, all set to DLC us to death to get the basics like "south Florida" (BIG DEAL 🤮). Flight simmers have already judged MS Flight & DTG FSW (both set to DLC us to death for basics), and IPACS appears to be next.👨‍⚖️⚖️

If it were not for VR in AF2, AF2 would have never survived, but neither Orbx or VR will help IPACS, because FSX and P3D are way too ahead in the basics category. 🌎⛅✈️🎧 

IPACS can delete all the posts they want, it will not change the inevitable outcome.🕛

A huge miracle is the only hope, but that is not likely at all.📉

Wow...... prophet of doom.... I could nearly see the sulphuric stormclouds gathering in a blackening sky, and smell the brimstone! 😉

Maybe you will turn out to be right, but I like half full glasses much more than half empty ones, myself.

I feel optimism creates lots more hopeful outcomes in the end than the alternative.

It's also more fun, and probably gets you more!

 

 

[Victoroos 205]

3 hours ago, pracines said:

I think flight simmers were willing to give IPACS a chance, but the writing is on the wall and IPACS is proving to be another likely failure.📜

Essentially another limited flight sim, all set to DLC us to death to get the basics like "south Florida" (BIG DEAL 🤮). Flight simmers have already judged MS Flight & DTG FSW (both set to DLC us to death for basics), and IPACS appears to be next.👨‍⚖️⚖️

If it were not for VR in AF2, AF2 would have never survived, but neither Orbx or VR will help IPACS, because FSX and P3D are way too ahead in the basics category. 🌎⛅✈️🎧 

IPACS can delete all the posts they want, it will not change the inevitable outcome.🕛

A huge miracle is the only hope, but that is not likely at all.📉

i like all emoticons you added!😊 🤞

I hope that they indeed will fix, or more importantly add the basics, and acknowledge they will take long. Do we really believe their business plan is to get all the dlc without making a good sim? Don't they see that that is odd?

 

It is a shame the censor though. Really odd..but I guess typical on the flightsim community nowadays.✈📣

[Guest]

7 hours ago, Murmur said:

If (as far as I reckon) ATC, traffic and weather will not see the light anytime soon, I wonder what improvements/features are instead in line to be implemented in the short/mid time frame. Aircraft systems related? Scenery related? Visual/environmental effects?

One thing that I presume will still be coming this year is the R22 helicopter. Other than that I don't think we'll see any more improvement/features. I don't even expect any new scenery from IPACS (and that wouldn't really be an improvement or new feature anyway). Visual/environmental effects are totally out of the question, at least when they are weather related: I asked about that a year ago already and they said they wouldn't do anything on those things until they start to work on weather. And since weather still is on the wish list only (and not the to do list) I wouldn't expect anything in that regard in the coming years. Florida contained some new water tech but I don't expect to see that all around the globe anytime soon.

The upcoming TrueEarth Netherlands from Orbx is great and cool and awesome and I will certainly buy it but it won't make a lot of P3D/XP users switch over to AFS2. I do expect some more simmers to buy AFS2 just to experience that scenery with superb performance but AFS2 will stay a nice sim to have on the side for quite a few years. I had some fun myself creating the Q400 cold and dark mod and flying with it but in the end it only made me reinstall P3D because it made it clear to me how much I missed the actual simulation parts that AFS2 is missing.

This all doesn't mean AFS2 will fail completely, of course: it may fail as a full blown sim alternative for P3D and XP users but it may still succeed as a basic sim for people who don't care about specific flightsim features. I think I personally just have to except that AFS2 won't be a real alternative for P3D within a few years (or ever) and that it simply is and remains a nice sim to have on the side for whenever I simply want to take off and fly with good performance. To really simulate a flight with everything that comes with it I will have to keep on using P3D.

As it is now I have setup P3D so I can do a fully simulated flight with all simming bells and whistles (weather, ATC, study level plane, AI, etc.) and still have an fps of around 60: I simply disabled all scenery eye candy! No autogen, no water effects, no ground shadows, etc. Things look like <word not allowed> down there (apart from the airports) but I am too busy flying anyway, checking the systems, so I don't care. If I want to enjoy scenery I will fly in AFS2 which now is my sightseeing (or quick flight) sim.

Edited August 16, 2018 by Guest

[GHarrall 494]

The atc I can live without. At least an in built one anyway. It sucks in fsx / p3d.

We do however need the ability to get a weather engine into the mix and very quickly, a full fidelity aircraft.

I would much rather ipacs focus on the core of the sim than DLC ing us to death. 

I will probably get true earth for afs2 but I won’t be partaking in anymore ipacs dlc. I found New York and Switzerland a bit underwhelming to be honest, at least outside major areas. 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, GHarrall said:

The atc I can live without. At least an in built one anyway. It sucks in fsx / p3d.

The fact that default ATC sucks in FSX/P3D doesn't have to mean 'default' ATC in AFS2 will suck too... 😉 I (seriously) expect IPACS's ATC to be at least as good as ProATC and maybe even better. (If that won't be the case it will have been a waste of time and AFS2 will be totally dead in no time. I think IPACS knows this too which is why it's taking them so much time...)

1 hour ago, GHarrall said:

 We do however need the ability to get a weather engine into the mix and very quickly, a full fidelity aircraft.

The reason I am waiting for ATC is the fact that IPACS won't even THINK about weather before ATC is finished... I myself prefer weather over ATC too but we first have to get ATC out of the way. 

1 hour ago, GHarrall said:

 I would much rather ipacs focus on the core of the sim than DLC ing us to death. 

Me too but don't forget IPACS has various teams at work. The most important team is working on the core of the sim as we speak. Unfortunately only the other (scenery) team is releasing stuff. Of course it has to be seen how good and 'full fidelity' the helicopter will be.

1 hour ago, GHarrall said:

 I will probably get true earth for afs2 but I won’t be partaking in anymore ipacs dlc. I found New York and Switzerland a bit underwhelming to be honest, at least outside major areas. 

True. South Florida is their best DLC up to now but the area is rather small and large parts have no 'autogen' at all. The parts that do have it look great though. I did enjoy flying over it for a few weeks. TrueEarth Netherlands will be the best 'DLC' up to now though! In case you didn't know: it has just been released and I will give it a try this evening! I think it will blow every other IPACS scenery package out of the (photoreal) water. 😉 

Edited August 16, 2018 by Guest

[dave2013 1,129]

I don't own Aerofly FS2 and don't plan to due to the high price, expensive DLC, extremely small scenery areas, and lack of weather, ATC, AI traffic, aircraft, etc.  The $35 price tag for South Florida is absurd when Switzerland and Northeast US cost $15 and $20; why the huge price increase?

I've said before that it's great that there are more developers in the flight simulation genre as it enriches the hobby and spurs innovation and progress.  However, I continue to believe that nobody will be able to outdo FSX/P3D for many years to come without a massive amount of money and effort on the order of an ACES Studio. This isn't doom and gloom but merely, in my opinion, a realistic view which helps to temper my expectations when it comes to the other flight simulators out there. I think a lot can still be done, and is being done, to improve FSX and add new features to it. By the way, this isn't meant to bash Xplane or Aerofly FS2 which both have their benefits and advantages. Their performance, for example, beats FSX/P3D. Unfortunately they're just not comprehensive enough.

Dave

 

[Guest]

Well, isn't that a coincidence. 😉 Within a day after my remarks here (and two deleted posts on the IPACS forum and Steam) Jeff from IPACS posted a topic on the official forum about how their forum is maintained. Seems like an indirect reply to my posts about this.

https://www.aerofly.com/community/forum/index.php?thread/13338-how-our-forum-is-maintained/

Although I do get his point (that the official forum is mainly there for objective support and promotion and not for subjective opinions) my problem is that you ARE allowed to post subjective opinions but only if they are positive... 😉 Negative opinions are constantly being deleted. I do understand this because the forum is also meant as a promotional device but it makes it a bit confusing. In his post Jeff talks about personal opinions as if they are negative by default, which obviously isn't the case. But well, anyway, I do get the point. Which is why I am posting my 'reply' here and not there. 😉 I think I will refrain myself from posting over there anyway (unless I can give some objective support to anyone): I don't really feel like only posting positive things and having to think twice about every word I type.

[Guest]

My subjective opinion is that nobody is ever going to catch up with LR or LM. In the long run I believe LM will continue to leave LR behind. The main reason LM will leave everybody else behind is that their development   is not driven by competition with other desktop flight simulator. i.e. they are not driven by being better than X-plane or being better then AFS2 (is there any point in adding an etc.?) Their development is driven by meeting the expectations of the military industrial complex. This ultimately means that they have to be more than just a bit better overall than other enthusiast flight simulator that are also used by flying schools so that they can get more market share. The standard that they are aiming for is a far higher standard than that and eventually they will achieve it. LM over the next few years will be putting a lot of distance between themselves and the competition. Having said that I have grown to really like X-Plane 11 and I am sure it will always have a niche. AFS2 is just a novelty on my desktop

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, Avidean said:

My subjective opinion is that nobody is ever going to catch up with LR or LM.

Could be true but it would be a shame. Unless either of them manages to bring performance of their sim up to AFS2 standards. P3D even has some more catching up to do in the graphics department.

[shivers9 1,174]

30 minutes ago, J van E said:

Could be true but it would be a shame. Unless either of them manages to bring performance of their sim up to AFS2 standards. P3D even has some more catching up to do in the graphics department.

I am sure that there will be an emergency meeting at LM any day now that you have let the cat out of the bag so to speak. You are correct that P3D is far far behind the AFS2. I mean they are a reinvented I phone app for kids that has been adapted for use on a computer. The fact that it is a gutted version of an airplane game with poor systems, no weather or other features with over priced DL material and not much of that. If we are lucky then maybe P3D with "catch up" to this wonder product with Version 5. Come on my friend....really?

[Guest]

The only reason AFS2 has such high frame rates is that its photo scenery on a mesh and that's it. Vanilla Prepar3D can easily spit out 100+ frames per second perhaps even 200 and frankly I prefer the look of default P3D land class and autogen over AFS2 photoscenery. Having said that X-Plane 11 is by far the best out of the box i.e. vanilla FS out there and on a good system it will spit out 60fps on very high setting and it looks far better than AFS2 (monumentally better!). Also, FPS over 60 is completely redundant.

But Prepar3d fully loaded with the top shelf addons is in a league of its own. I has nearly everything! The big problem now is that if you fly it as it should be flown with unlimited FPS, Vsync at 30hz you get blurry textures and if you fly at commercial speeds you outrun autogen. Big problems for sure but I anticipate V5 will address all of this and introduce PBR and hopefully far more FPS. I'll hazard a guess that this is less than a year away.

Edited August 16, 2018 by Guest