What about guns and bombs?

[moggel 0]

>Certainly NOT.>>There are enough kids already who go around deliberately>crashing into others online (and deliberately crashing into>buildings and stuff).>If they had guns and bombs to blow things up with that would>increase tenfold at least as now they would no longer have to>pretend firing some weapon but could actually do it.>>Every night on vatsim would be a slugfest of kiddos trying to>blow airliners out of the sky on approach to airports all over>the world.I'm certainly not campaigning for the introduction of this feature but I have, respectfully, to disagre to your 'kiddo/slugfest' scenario. I consider myself rather hard core (I wouldn't be here otherwise) and I've flown most serious sims; alot of those have been air combat sims. I have also been involved in forums relating to those products and I have never seen any evidence that the 'hard core air combat community' is anymore prone to conflict or childlish behavior than this community. Assuming air combat add ons for FS where 'hard core' (not much point basing them on this engine otherwise) the character of the following would be as mature as what we see here.

[moggel 0]

>After reading these post and all the others over time I still>feel there could be a way to make both parties happy. >>First off it would be guns and bombs only -no high tech stuff.> Shouldnt be too hard to model that "effect". By effect I>mean you cant do damage but see the tracers and bombs leaving>the plane. { clipped }If FS where to include the ability for 3rd party companies to build air conflict add ons, the support would HAVE to include damage. Just the effect would have very little appeal to the people interested in air combat.

[Guest tdragger]

To my knowledge there has never been a successful mass market title that was both a civilian and a military sim/game.

[Guest grapesh]

>To my knowledge there has never been a successful mass market>title that was both a civilian and a military sim/game.How about a line of Microsoft simulator products that share ONE common platform. Such platform, call it Virtual Earth (although MS already has a product called Virtual Earth), is something like current FS world with global DEM, textures, autogens, and general physics. Then there is a separate product, MSFS, with all flight dynamics, aircraft, navaids, more detailed weather, aviation-based missions, airborne traffic, and it requires a purchase of a base platform. And then there is another product, CFS with military aircraft, weaponry and damage models, combat missions etc. It also requires a base platform. ... And then, there is MS Sail Simulator, with fluid dynamics physics, marine navaids, marine traffic, e.t.c. It also requires base platform.... And then, [fill it yourself, Microsoft Train Sim, Space Sim, whatever] ... that requires base platform. What's the point of all this? (1) all these simulation aspects share the same real world. You should "see" the same universe from civilian sim and combat sim, (and sail sim, etc)(2) it is appealing to buy a set of simulators if you already have the platform and you know that you can use the same addons in different simulators (such as scenery, traffic, etc). Our addons become more valuable because they have wider application. Just take lighthouses: you need them in both VFR flying and coastal cruising on a sailboat... (3) current MSFS platform is very advanced global environment and it would be a waste not to fully open up its capabilities.(4) It is always going to be as real as it gets, because so many simulation teams will contribute and yet, each team will have more time to focus on their particular aspects like flight dynamics, traffic system etc... This way, your technology can bring up a whole line of popular simulators; some will buy Train Simulator because they like trains, and some (like me) will buy Train Simulator because they like to fly but they want as much realism as they can afford. Cheers,=S.V.=

[Guest twsimfan]

"To my knowledge there has never been a successful mass market title that was both a civilian and a military sim/game."There sure was! Ever heard of FS1? :-lolFS2 even had a "War mode". OK... so it wasn't very good. We all thought it was pretty great at the time. :)

[Guest lemonadedrinker]

Hi. What a fantastic reply in this thread. Thanks for your thinking!! Might you perhaps be able to combine the train sim and flight sim in one session if you wished and follow the route through the Rockies with the Jenny following train! Or the military sim could have the planes attacking trains or trains defending themselves against planes. Ships rescuing passengers from downed planes etc etc. That would be quite immersive!Andy.

[Guest]

correct. And that would bring the inevitable problem of people flying aircraft into buildings for the heck of it and posting screenshots of their feats, causing screams for FS to be banned because it glorified violence and terrorism all over again.And this time those screams might well lead to FS indeed being banned.I moved away from military sims to civilian because I didn't want to be blown up or blow things up, when and if MSFS allows every kid or AI aircraft to take potshots at me (and vv) that would mean the end of FS for me (and I think many others).And just making it "optional" wouldn't help, the kids who enjoy that kind of thing would complain that it wasn't realistic enough because the 737 they shot up on vatsim just kept going.

[Manny 1,293]

jwenting,This ain't gonna happen.. Let them dream on.:)Manny

[Guest grapesh]

thanks, Andy, it's just thinking outside the box :)With all dual core, multithreading, 64-bit OS and other new and coming technologies, we must be able to have a bit more realism in simulation!Cheers,=S.V.=

[Guest Rayed]

>jwenting,>>This ain't gonna happen.. Let them dream on.>>:)>>MannyNever underestimate the marketing power of putting big red explosion on game box art.Joking aside, I asked this question because I consider FS the best flight environment created ever, considering all aspects of it.Having a combat flight sim in such environment would be very great thing for many flight sim enthusiasts all over the world. There is a lot of people who don't mind being shot down in virtual world and like the competition and/or just passionate about fighters and bombers. Without military planes the advancement in civil aviation would be much slower I believe.P.S. Just look what RealAir did with spifire.. one of the best planes for FS.. too bad it can only fly :)

[Guest Foxtrot 125 Tango]

Suppose we encourage the FS Team continue to improve the platform for an already "well done" Flight Simulation Product. Let's allow them to master all the realism aspects first. After this has been accomplished, perhaps many other features will be added by third party developers.;-)

[oqvist 11]

It won

[moggel 0]

>Look into BOB 2. It

[Tabs 2,790]

>correct. And that would bring the inevitable problem of>people flying aircraft into buildings for the heck of it and>posting screenshots of their feats, causing screams for FS to>be banned because it glorified violence and terrorism all over>again.>And this time those screams might well lead to FS indeed being>banned.>>I moved away from military sims to civilian because I didn't>want to be blown up or blow things up, when and if MSFS allows>every kid or AI aircraft to take potshots at me (and vv) that>would mean the end of FS for me (and I think many others).>>And just making it "optional" wouldn't help, the kids who>enjoy that kind of thing would complain that it wasn't>realistic enough because the 737 they shot up on vatsim just>kept going.You haven't played too many multiplayer games in other genres have you? The use of weapons would obviously be a server-side enable/disable flag, not something that would be on all the time - there'd be VATSIM servers that specfically allowed combat, and the regular civilian ones we're all used to would not have it.This is precisely what happens with the "friendly fire" or "FF On" gameplay type in first-person shooters like Counter-Strike or Battlefield 2 - there's always some moron that wants to "team kill" by shooting friendly players. So, what you see is most public servers have FF disabled to prevent this, but then there's a few (usually private) servers that have it on for the more responsible players who want to play more realistically. There's also usual a server admin (like a SUP on VATSIM) who can kick and ban disruptive players who do that sort of thing.And can we cut out the terrorism/"banning FS" hysteria? That is not going to happen...

[Guest]

I've played a lot of multiplayer games in the past, and always got sickened by the cheaters and PK'ers hacking the system to get around such restrictions.And that was where the servers were controlled by the game producer (like Battle.NET). With FS it would have to be a client controlled setting.and no, we're not letting go of the banning issue.Utah just banned "violent" games from being sold to children (where "violent" can mean whatever a prosecutor wants it to), that's the sign the anti-game crowd has been waiting for.The only way to prevent FS from being attacked under such laws is to prevent any hint of weapons fire, blood, gore, and destruction.