Just to add a different slant on this "Politics and image".We had a long and slightly heated thread regarding aircraft crashes into buildings.After 9/11 certain media outlets where making accusations that MSFS was being used to train terrorists to fly.Just imagine that crash and building damage had been incorporated in MSFS and the media had got hold of the fact that you could get delight from others suffering by re inacting world events.Yes there are combat sims which are stand alone but MSFS is a civilian sim. I have slightly mixed feelings on this one but would guess that MS would be sensitive to any future situation where a media finger could be pointed at the product and concentrate more on the living world aspect of MSFS as well as the more positive aspects of aviation.Peter

>I don't know why people would be opposed to this honestly>:-hmmm. Other than possibly distracting the dev team from>concentrating on civilian features, it wouldn't interfere with>anyone's game play since you could easily opt to not fly any>fighter planes.Agree. If the dev team would deem it a reasonable feat for FSX, I would love to see the SDK expanded to enable the 3rd party crew to supply us with that kind of products in the future. Basing air combat sims on this beutiful engine would be awesome but I doubt if it would be possible to see any playable, hard core, air combat sim arrive in the 'FSX generation' of such an 'war API'. Just imagine the performance needed to drive:1. Modelling of numerous missiles flying around2. Modellig of very complex new 'avionics' (radar, tactical, weapons management etc).3. Modelling of a dynamic compaign (not a requirement but scripted wars are extremenly boring)4. Wingmen, package and tactical dispatching AI5. Ground and naval combat vehicles modelling (AI)That, AND the beutiful graphics of FSX. Dream on...:9

I am torn on this one being a realism nut :-)On the one hand fighter aircraft are beautiful pieces of flying sculpture pushing the limits of technological development.They are fighting machines and in a way to strip them of their fighting capability is not developing the sim models to the max possible.On the other hand MSFS is a Civilian and GA sim and probably not the correct platform for war aircraft.I too agree with you that the aircraft cannot be depicted without the mass of subsidiary parts which make a war scenario.In that respect apart from the Political Image aspect of bringing war fighting aircraft into a GA sim it probably better to leave such a specialised simulation to its own specific fighter simulation and not confusing MSFS even more by doing a half hearted job.Peter

I think that enacting a ban on small arms in the USA wouldn't hurt much, considering this is a greater threat than a flight sim.

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.

It's not going to happen...The adding of guns and bombs is one thing, but the re-modeling of every scenery object to show damage is another. It would be hard to justify all that additional work to serve the wants of a minority of flight simmers. Also, there's the realism factor - If we add guns and bombs, then people start asking for different types of bombs, and then the jet guys start saying they need missles. Well, accurately modeling modern missle systems, including the fire control radar and intercept logic is enormously complex. Again, it would require quite a bit of work to get it right, for the benefit of a minority of flight simmers.It's interesting to note that the early versions of FS (maybe version 2 or so) came with a combat mode, that allowed you to fly around and fire guns and drop bombs, but you could only do this in a a special "war zone", and in the general FS world. If you didn't know this, it is probably because it wasn't very popular. When you take into account the excellent combat-related flight sims on the market nowadays, you have to wonder why people would want this from FS. FS has it's niche, let the other sims keep thiers.- Martin

I remember doing air to air combat with FS1 ( against a pixel :+ ) but that was a long time ago.--MPS: There are good combat sims around anyway, no need for guns in FSX.

regarding online co-existence of military and civil planes: first of all, you can always be banned for stupid things like blowing airliners etc. and second, if you have to earn the privilege to fly an ARMORED fighter, you won't like to lose it at once. But this implies a solid account-based ranking system I guess.

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.These effects would only be available in MOA's which is where actions like this should happen and no where else. If on VATSIM MOAs could be hot and the controller provide NOTAMs for that. If two users want to dog fight they can only do it in a MOA and they couldn't destroy each other since its only an effect.Lastly out of the box would require a change to the config file to enable this effect and MS doesnt need to make the effect only possible for other too.Jack

>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.Come on this is very linear thinking.I am not a kid, I even have my own kid. My grandpa was fighter pilot and unfortunately he was shot during ww II. My father was airline pilot, and even he liked to shoot stuff on my old spectrum. I couldn't fly military, so I decided to pursue other carrier :)Expansion can be done in a way that it its usage can be prevented on post-nuclear airliners world simulation called VATSIM ;). So no worries, the last few of human race who are still flying won't be doomed :). Anyway last saturday when I was flying somewhere on VATSIM that was like 7 F16 looking for their SHELL16 and all ATC in this area were too busy helping them - I am not joiking this time.I don't think it's good idea to integrate combat in base product, as it would be overkill for both devs and users. Also, only few people would probably ever fly civilian planes anwyway :)Expansion, imo would be good idea.I'd say just give a possibility to show damage, use weapon systems and register damage done in some way. Build some missions on it. Easier said that done, but doable. I'd say make it fictional modern settings. Put a piece into code which requires exact descripion of the plane to be sent to the mp server. Let the server admin decide which planes can log in ont this server. That would allow for any setting.As for sceneries etc.. Recently I was looking at lunar lander addon for FS9. I also have X-Wing which I fly on VATSIM. There is a lot of ocean and deserts in the world, not to mention military zones. People can build their own sceneries, fictional or not.As for all this "civlian not civilian" and politics stuff. Let's not be hypocrits. With games like BF2, Call of Duty, America's Army etc.. having good combat flight game is rather harmless.

>I remember doing air to air combat with FS1 ( against a pixel>:+ ) but that was a long time ago.>--M>>PS: There are good combat sims around anyway, no need for guns>in FSX.Hmm, I don't really know about good ones..IL/Pacific Fighters is great, but that's basically all.I do not count LOMAC - it drops FPS and crashes even on high end machines avaliable today.

I don't know about shooting and bombs..But I would like to have a Super Flanker (Sukhoi 37) in FSX be able to do the Cobra maneuver using thrust vectoring engines spewing pink smoke an all.:)MannyFantastic: http://www.flightlevel350.com/viewer.php?id=5040Su-30MK display on first day of the show. 2005 routines include new features. Now, the flat spin is performed with complete circle with rudders for 360. Also for the first time the Double Colbit maneuver is shown. All subsequent videos of August, 2005, were filmed at MAKS airshow.http://aeroweb.lucia.it/rap/Movies/su37.roll.turn.MPGhttp://aeroweb.lucia.it/rap/Movies/su37.hook.MPGhttp://aeroweb.lucia.it/rap/RAFAQ/cobra.htmlhttp://wmilitary.neurok.ru/su37/su37display.html

<We have. It was called Combat Flight Simulator. Seriously, to do it well you really do need to devote an entire product to it.

>Seriously,>to do it well you really do need to devote an entire product>to it. That's all I'm trying to say.

>We have. It was called Combat Flight Simulator. Seriously,>to do it well you really do need to devote an entire product>to it. Thanks for your answer :)Hmmmm, that is unfortunate that the scope is too grandeous to create a merger. Perhaps in the future if there is enough demand for it.