Most Important Flight Simulator Features

[dave2013 1,130]

Thanks for responding to this poll.

[Chock 17,769]

The choice is sort of obvious really: Above all, a flight simulator is supposed to simulate flight, i.e. the interaction of a machine with the air in order to create lift, so obviously, the atmosphere, i.e. the weather simulation, is the most important feature of something intended to simulate that activity, it can't be anything else really, although I'll put money on people voting for eye candy, because pictures sell things.

ATC is important for some flight simulation, but I've made tons of flights in aeroplanes in real life where I literally never contacted ATC because of the area I was flying in and the type of aeroplane I was flying. Likewise terrain is important for some types of flights, however, I've made many flights where you could not even see the terrain, i.e. night flights and flights above a cloud layer. But as noted, the thing which is a factor of all flights, is the medium which makes it possible, i.e. the atmosphere. 

Edited August 18, 2018 by Chock

[Murmur 3,941]

3 hours ago, Chock said:

The choice is sort of obvious really: Above all, a flight simulator is supposed to simulate flight, i.e. the interaction of a machine with the air in order to create lift, so obviously, the atmosphere, i.e. the weather simulation, is the most important feature of something intended to simulate that activity, it can't be anything else really, although I'll put money on people voting for eye candy, because pictures sell things.

Doesn't seem obvious at all in my opinion. There are many different kinds of simmers, and each of them puts a different priority over different features. For someone who uses a flight simulator mainly to enjoy a virtual sightseeing over photorealistic scenery in clear skies, weather will have almost zero importance. On the other hand, for someone who uses Aerowinx to simulate systems operation in the 747, scenery will have almost zero importance. For someone using PilotEdge to practice ATC comms, both scenery and weather may have a lot less importance than ATC. If one is practicing aerobatics, the most important thing will be flight model accuracy. And of course for many simmers all of them, scenery, weather, ATC, are very important features with no particular priority over the other. I think many of us simmers make the mistake that a flight simulator most important feature _must_ be that particular feature, just because we use the sim that way.

 

 

[Chock 17,769]

48 minutes ago, Murmur said:

Doesn't seem obvious at all in my opinion. There are many different kinds of simmers, and each of them puts a different priority over different features.

But what do all aeroplanes have in common? There wasn't any ATC WW1, so a flight sim such as Rise of Flight or First Eagles doesn't need it either, there's no complex avionics systems required in gliding, so sims such as Condor or Silent Wings don't need those, nor much ATC for that matter either, airliners are usually kept at 1G or so and don't climb or dive or bank steeply, so a super complex flight model isn't especially critical in an airliner simulation, a sightseeing flight in VFR still has to fly through weather, it will probably be good weather, but the fact that there are not many clouds around does not mean you're not flying through an atmospheric air mass, in fact it will probably be quite choppy and turbulent because of thermal activity kicked up by those lovely fields and such.

So it isn't the ATC, or the scenery, or the avionics, it's how they replicate the act they are actually supposed to be simulating - i.e. flight - which is the thing which makes them a convincing flight simulator. No flying machine in existence, or which ever will exist in the future, from the Wright Flyer to the latest Boeing 787 and beyond it, has ever been able to do what it did, does, or will do, without coming into contact with the weather. It's the one thing any aeroplane has in common with another aeroplane, regardless of what its role is.

Edited August 18, 2018 by Chock

[Murmur 3,941]

1 hour ago, Chock said:

But what do all aeroplanes have in common?

The Earth below. 🙂 If you ask a young boy what is for him the "essence" of flight, it's unlikely he will answer "the wings producing lift while interacting with the air turbulence and thermals and the supercooled droplets forming ice on its leading edge", more likely he will respond "soaring above my town, watching buildings and streets and the cars moving by". He will probably enjoy way more (and find a more "realistic" simulation of flight, from his point of view) AFS2 than P3D+ASN.

And my point is neither you or him are right or wrong... Simulating flight means different things for different people. At the end of the day, I actually even agree that the 3 most "essential" components of a flight simulator are the audiovisual experience (what is often dismissively called "eye candy" by some simmers), the weather, and the flight model, exactly because those 3 are the actual unescapable "physical" features that every flight has in common. ATC, systems and all the rest is after all a side-dish, if you will.

Plot twist: I had actually voted for "weather simulation" in this poll. 🙂

 

Edited August 19, 2018 by Murmur

[torium 207]

I remember being very impressed by the weather generator in Flight Unlimited II (or III). The weather raised the experience significantly. 

Edited August 19, 2018 by torium