UI Aircraft

[Guest aal739]

This is the most intruiging to me. I would like to see a 737-900, an A340-300, an A320-200, the 717-200, an ERJ-145, an ATR 72-500, a F-16 Falcon, the Fa/18 Hornet, a Stationair, a Citation Mustang, a CRJ-700, a 402 and I am too greedy to list all these.Cheers

[Guest tdragger]

You're getting pretty specific on model numbers but I'd wager money you'll get one of those. Which one, I cannot say. :(

[Guest]

you will get the a320 from that listbut i am not a fan of default aircraft. nothing against microsoft, but they never have paid much attention to detail in terms of reality when making the default airplanes. ill wait for PMDG, dreamfleet, or level d,etc to come out with their high quality

[Guest tdragger]

>you will get the a320 from that list nope. but that's the last hint. ;)>but i am not a fan of default aircraft. nothing against>microsoft, but they never have paid much attention to detail>in terms of reality when making the default airplanes.er, right. care to elaborate?>ill wait for PMDG, dreamfleet, or level d,etc to come out with>their high qualityas i'm sure they will. ;)

[Guest]

How about a no-plane flight? hehe ie. sky diving in flight sim one day ?

[Guest Bottle]

>How about a no-plane flight? hehe ie. sky diving in flight>sim one day ?Don't forget baloon trips! That would be very cute and a great novelty selling point.

[Guest]

>>er, right. care to elaborate?>I just don't like the default flight dynamics, every airplane feels like a cessna, you cant press all the switches in the VC and system functionality is really lacking. There is no FMC. The models are really lacking quality wise. The texture mapping is bad forcing repainters to live with the fact that they only paint one side and the other side is a mirror image (backwards) of that.There are a few more examples, but I really can't compare any default aircraft to a high quality add-on. The companies I buy high quality addons for have real pilots test out their creations, tweak the FDE to match its real life counterpart, etcYou said nope but I thought an airbus was claimed to be part of the lineup? Or was that part of the PC Gamer incorrect info?

[B777ER 2,484]

That would be cool now wouldn't it...sky diving and/or hot air ballon.

[Guest tdragger]

>> I just don't like...Ah, okay. You were talking about your personal preferences, then, and not objective quality measures. I'm cool with that, Alex. The people who play Flight Sim represent an incredibly wide range of perspectives that amaze me, even after all these years of working on the product. You probably fall into the small group that finds greater satisfaction out of using add-on aircraft than the defaults. One thing that makes the game great is all the third-party content that's available and I applaude the work by PMDG, Flight1 and others.For the vast majority of users, though, the default aircraft offer more than adequate enjoyment and we design them knowing this. Mirrored liveries, for instance, enable us to reduce overall texture space and get better performance on lower-end machines typical of most users. We purposely leave it to third party developers to create content aimed at high-end PCs.As for the flight characteristics and system/cockpit accuruary these, too, are developed intentionally with the average user in mind. We still use real engineering data and reference materials and our staff of pilots still fly the aircraft but trying to replicate every system and switch would be poor design, given our overall customer base and the number and range of aircraft we include.On occasion we can take advantage of in-depth personal experience. For instance, Bruce Williams, our former business development manager, owns and instructs in an Extra 300L and provided invaluable input into the flight model. He even used to demonstrate aerobatic techniques using Flight Sim because the characterstics were so similar. (BTW, you can check out his website at http://www.bruceair.com/.)So, don't confuse "quality" with "i don't like it". There are lots of tastes and needs when it comes to Flight Sim--vivent la diff

[DescendDescend 25]

An A330 is not listed so there is no need to deny it. An A340 is listed and not denied. Lets hope its an A330.Edit: With autotrim and FBW for good measure.

[Guest pixelpoke_from_MSFT]

"...The models are really lacking quality wise. The texturemapping is bad forcing repainters to live with the fact thatthey only paint one side and the other side is a mirror image(backwards) of that..."Howdy Alex,Not to play "pile on" to Mike's answer, but I'd like to comment on the quote I excerpted above.Being the art guy, I've blogged about this before, and I'm happy to say it again. Of course all I'm qualified to comment on is visuals, not any other aspect.We build default aircraft to a tight specification that has severe constraints on both polygon and texture count. We also build LODs.We build the way we do not because we're not capable of adding "more," but because we have to walk the line between visuals and performance.That being said, every time we've brought a new version to market, the new default aircraft either meet or beat the industry standard for looks.I can hear the reaction already..."Huh? Bullsh......!":)But really. Work with me for a second.The aircraft that shipped in FS 2000 were way ahead of FS 98 aircraft. FS2002 stuff was top notch for the time. FS2004 had a bunch of new aircraft: DC3, Piper Cub, Jenny, R-22, etc. And they looked great-- best defaults yet.We also redid a few default aircraft that we hadn't touched in the prior version, the Lear being a prime example.But we didn't have infinite resources, so we weren't able to redo some important planes: 737, 747, 172, etc. We did a sweep at updating liveries, and that helped, but basically they were visually the same as what shipped in 2001. (functionality was changed)Which means that when you're comparing many of the default aircraft to new aircraft you're comparing something over five years old to something brand spanking new. That's the same delta between Half Life and Half Life 2. So yeah, I get it. I know new stuff has more polygons, greater texture space. That will add more detail which will look better. Heck, even some of the 3rd party stuff produced years ago holds up well today. But that goes back to loosening the constraints that bind artists arms. It's hard to compete with one hand tied behind your back. :)A new version will see new aircraft, and some old favorites updated. The defaults will jump again in visual quality.Will there still be old 3rd party favorites that hold up as well new defaults? Sure. But I'll be willing to bet that MSFT defaults use fewer polys and less texture space.Will a 3rd party add-on do more later? Sure. As far as people repainting defaults goes...If you've read this far, then you'll be happy to know that as we produce new stuff we're trying to take 3rd party repaints into account-- so little to no mirroring. :)We do sacrifice some visual detail to do that though.And finally..."You said nope but I thought an airbus was claimed to be part of the lineup? Or was that part of the PC Gamer incorrect info?"No aircraft line up has been officially announced yet. :) You've seen some of the new aircraft in screens, so their secret is out of course, but you haven't seen all of it yet... :)Which neither confirms nor denies anything.Cheers,Jason

[Guest Dan G Martin]

Hi there Tdragger I tell people who are new to Flight Sim to try out the basics with the default AC and yes some are "better" than others but to someone who has never set foot in a fightdeck/cockpit just being able to take off and say fly around their local area in FS brings a smile to their faces. In the past I've brought Flight Sim into nursing homes and when one sees their faces light up with a sense of joy at what they have done one gets a smile on ones face (it's so cool to see people who often have little to be happy about in the first place simply come alive using what you and the team have created) that you can feel good about makeing their day. Just thought I would add some perspective to the above post. Dan Martin Team Flight Ontario.

[Guest]

While I will not argue with the fact that most people are perfectly happy to get in and fly a default airplane, they are probably like most other customers and just get tired of the game after a month or so and move on to something else. Only after people find out great websites like avsim, and great payware and freeware developers do they spend more time with the game. But this is just my personal opinion again. It could be wrong.Jason,I understand the point behind making models good enough but not hard on frames, I do ask that you hire the great guys at ai-aardvark and Henry T, who mass produce amazing aircraft with little hits on framerates but texture mapping that is genius.Personally I would rather see zero default airplanes and somehow tie in maybe discounts with addon developers or something similar, so more people can realize what a great dedicated community comes along with the game which most people have no idea about. I enjoyed the default mooney, and the default 737 and especially my fav the 747... until I found avsim and other websites. There is even an FDE update from (I forgot who, sorry!) for the default 747 here in the library to make it more realistic.Again just my opinion, but thanks for listening. Glad Microsoft isn't so hush hush, with my former company, we would be fired in a second if we were caught talking online, unless it was the marketing team creating fake hype as annonymous users on various sites

[1mikel151 71]

From reading your responses Alex I wonder if you can even see a bigger picture other than what "you" want. I have been flying FS for years, lately every day and I still use certain default aircraft as well as payware and I know others that do also. I don't do heavies and I could care less about an FMC or even realistic start up procedures most of the time, yet I still enjoy the "sim".I love Henry's AI work and have most of it on my HD including his payware package, BUT I also have lots of default GA aircraft in my AI as well as I like modeled cockpits and really don't notice that much of a hit on FPS. Now heavies, yes you have to go with AIA even just for the repainting aspect.I used to think like you and wonder why on earth MS did this and that and didn't do this and that and over the years got lots of tidbits of hearsay as to why and Mikes response in this thread made it all come together and sense. I have no doubt the new version will be a hit, at least for most of us.Regards, MichaelKDFWhttp://www.calvirair.com/mcpics/mcdcvabanner.jpgCalVirAir International

[Guest]

I do see the big picture, but what I see are massive sales numbers which turn into no interest after a while, just like most other games. all these addons give life to the sim. Not everyone is like me, I understand, I strive for realism because I am using it to practice for the day when I can afford my PPL and beyond