2 hours ago, Theboot100 said:

I do think though having traffic that accelerates, brakes, stops and drives with the flow of other traffic goes a long way to having a realistic feeling world, especially when flying VFR.  It removes the emptiness of the world.  

I don't know how or why acceleration and deceleration of a car would affect the emptiness of the world.  Even when flying IFR (I follow roads) IRL, I never notice (let alone care) if cars are changing their speeds.

As Casualcas wrote, noticing cars happens accidentally at best IRL.  

Agreed, it's fun IRL to 'overtake' a traffic jam 'moving' at 0kts at 320kts at low altitude IRL, but that's a bit too much to ask from a FLIGHT sim IMO.

Edited February 28, 20206 yr by FDEdev

Now I suppose among next week's batch of screenshots we will have one called "LiveData_RoadTraffic_WithCollision_RedLightStopSync_ParkingAndMore" heh 🙂

 

8 minutes ago, FDEdev said:

I don't know how or why acceleration and deceleration of a car would affect the emptiness of the world.  Even when flying IFR (I follow roads) IRL, I never notice (let alone care) if cars are changing their speeds.

As Casualcas wrote, noticing cars happens accidentally at best IRL.  

Agreed, it's fun IRL to 'overtake' a traffic jam 'moving' at 0kts at 320kts at low altitude IRL, but that's a bit too much to ask from a FLIGHT sim IMO.

Agree, and I was maybe 2 miles north of the busiest stretch of I-96 west of Novi,  and honestly dont even remember a single car. Now the train tracks north of 1D2, I do remember as we use that as our departure point out of the traffic pattern. 

Ok on a serious note now, I remember in the early videos such as the one from the Preview Event, I remember seeing during a landing sequence animated traffic on the road near the threshold...

I remember the cars behaved just like FSX cars...

So it could be that they implemented the FSX cars behavior for the early previews and now they could be working on better alternatives or improving the code.

At this point? Who knows. 

Didn’t they say they were going to base road traffic and trains on real data? 

That would seem to suggest there will be traffic jams down the road.

I seem to recall seeing copious amounts of traffic in some of the earlier videos that even had cars obeying their nation's traffic directions while flowing through a roundabout...

...in many nations driving on the right side of the road and roundabouts anti-clockwise, in the UK and some few other nations, driving on the wrong (er) left side of the road and roundabouts clockwise.

1 hour ago, GlideBy said:

If you are flying VFR and following a freeway, you notice cars more.

Just to note that in that picture, doing a VFR flight following that road by being right over head of it would be considered rather dangerous and stupid anyway since your nose would be in the way of seeing it; you are supposed to keep any geographical feature you are following to your left, i.e. you stay on the right side of it, so that anyone doing the same the opposite way passes clear of you, preferably not exceeding 140 knots at about 1,000 but not above 1,300 feet. It's like that so that you can look out of the left window and see the feature from the P1 pilot position and everyone knows pretty much where an aircraft doing that will be positioned. That's why most helicopters, which have the P1 position in the right seat, have chin windows.

5 minutes ago, Chock said:

...you are supposed to keep any geographical feature you are following to your left, i.e. you stay on the right side of it, so that anyone doing the same the opposite way passes clear of you...

What?  Ever heard of the semicircular rule?

13 minutes ago, FDEdev said:

What?  Ever heard of the semicircular rule?

Yup, sure have, but surely you must know that the semicircular rule is one which is largely applied to IFR flights. It would also not be really practical if you were following a winding river or roadway VFR, since you'd have to be going up and down like a yo-yo in order to comply with it every time you turned through more than 45 degrees. Although I have to concede that it would be funny to watch that from the ground lol

I would be inclined to play op.68, Entrance of the Gladiators if I was flying like that.

Edited February 28, 20206 yr by Chock

16 minutes ago, Chock said:

Yup, sure have, but surely you must know that the semicircular rule is one which is largely applied to IFR flights. It would also not be really practical if you were following a winding river or roadway VFR, since you'd have to be going up and down like a yo-yo in order to comply with it every time you turned through more than 45 degrees. Although I have to concede that it would be funny to watch that from the ground lol

Not sure if you really know what this rule means. It's most important during VFR flying (since your under air traffic control when flying IFR) and I have no idea what turns of more than 45deg have to do with it. It's essential that this rule is being followed by all VFR pilots.

Edited February 28, 20206 yr by FDEdev

1 hour ago, n4gix said:

I seem to recall seeing copious amounts of traffic in some of the earlier videos that even had cars obeying their nation's traffic directions while flowing through a roundabout...

...in many nations driving on the right side of the road and roundabouts anti-clockwise, in the UK and some few other nations, driving on the wrong (er) left side of the road and roundabouts clockwise.

Yeah, some of their earliest videos show lots of traffic on the roads in a couple of cities.  There hasn't been much since, but I also don't think many of their newer videos have been close enough to the ground to notice or see traffic anyway.

Its important for both ifr and vfr. And if I'm heading east anywhere between 0 and 179. I will be an odd altitude. (Clarify, 3000 ifr, 3500 vfr) I'm keeping the road on my left so I can see it. 

31 minutes ago, FDEdev said:

Not sure if you really know what this rule means. It's most important during VFR flying (since your under air traffic control when flying IFR) and I have no idea turns of more than 45deg have to do with it. It's essential that this rule is being followed by all VFR pilots.

Oh I absolutely do. However, in the UK, it is not a requirement to maintain a specific flight level when flying VFR although there are many other rules you have to follow. It is also as well to be aware that the semicircular rule is no guarantee that you won't have a merging conflict anyway, for example, if two flights with slightly differing magnetic headings, but both within the same required heading for a specific altitude as far as the semicircular rule is concerned, then they could still merge.

Far more common in the UK is the Quadrantal Rule, which is 000-089 = odd levels, 090-179 = odd levels + 500ft, 180-269 = even levels, 270-359 = even levels + 500ft. That's why I mentioned the 45 degree turn, because even though theoretically it would be a 90 degree turn which would necessitate a level change, that's only true if you are flying on  a heading well clear of the cardinal points before and after the turn, and so there's two things to consider with a 45 degree turn: It demands a good lookout in case you are on a merging flight path because, as noted, the semicircular rule (and to a greater extent the Quadrantal Rule) can easily put you in conflict and there's a pretty good chance that it would require a level change with the Quadrantal Rule in effect since giving it a 45 degree turn is a pretty big heading change.

Personally, that's why I always have at the very least, two 20mm cannons on anything I fly lol. On the subject of which, the new F/A-18 from DC Designs for FSX and P3D has been released, for those of you who like warplanes and are still buying stuff for P3D and FSX.

Edited February 28, 20206 yr by Chock

1 hour ago, bonchie said:

Didn’t they say they were going to base road traffic and trains on real data? 

That would seem to suggest there will be traffic jams down the road.

I remember hearing something like that too...