11 hours ago, Andreas Stangenes said:

By the way, if anyone know what is meant by "flight model" in this context, please do share it with me/us 🙂 One would perhaps think it is obvious, but as I consider the details, it is not so obvious. 

A flight model is a generalized, abstract way a flight sim conceptualizes the interaction between objects, forces and movement in air. A flight model therefore sets the boundaries for flight in the sim and exposes certain parameters for individual adjustment per plane. For instance, if a flight model does not take into account the drag of the landing gear, there is no way to "tweak" this. Landing gears will thus be irrelevant for the aerodynamics. If a flight model takes into account landing gear drag, it can be tweaked per plane to make it as real as possible. 

The flight model therefore sets the playing field and defines what can and can't be done. (That's why a lot of ESP devs chose to override the limited flight model of FSX/P3D.) How well the play is executed depends on the individual teams (planes) and how well they adapt to the rules and outlines of the playing field.

Flight model itself, however, is not observable to us as users. We always only see individual flight dynamics of a given airplane. Therefore we will only know how good the flight model truely is once the experts of 3PDs have gotten their hands on it and can develop flight dynamics of individual airplanes which hopefully are more true to real life than it would have been possible with other sims.

Edited August 12, 20205 yr by MagentaChild

Wonderfully explained, @MagentaChild. Thank you 🙂 

10 hours ago, Emerson67 said:

I feel your pain. I've operated on undulated grass airfields. Taildraggers too. Current sims lack realism on that.

It’s been a long time since I flew IL2 Sturmovik but I remember that it did a good job of simulating taking off from a bumpy grass field compared to tarmac. So it’s definitely do-able.

What I took from Aerosoft’s post is this (very simplified). Both MFS and XP11 model the atmosphere over the aircraft so planes don’t fly on rails. But XP11 has atmosphere on rails and MFS doesn’t. MFS needs to keep tweaking it’s flight model and when done will become superior to XP11. But that means XP11 can update its atmosphere and play catch-up. So we should see the benefits of robust competition finally get XP11 moving again.

Of course there’s a couple of elephants still in the room and I won’t go there.

5 minutes ago, Bottle said:

What I took from Aerosoft’s post is this (very simplified). Both MFS and XP11 model the atmosphere over the aircraft so planes don’t fly on rails. But XP11 has atmosphere on rails and MFS doesn’t. MFS needs to keep tweaking it’s flight model and when done will become superior to XP11. But that means XP11 can update its atmosphere and play catch-up. So we should see the benefits of robust competition finally get XP11 moving again.

Of course there’s a couple of elephants still in the room and I won’t go there.

If XP is able to play catchup in regards to flightmodels, they will still be a decade behind when it comes to graphics and lighting. The only thing it has to beat msfs are the study sim aircrafts, but MSFS will have that too in not so long. So the odds are stacked against xp (and p3d). 

All this talk of models reminds me of this image that I use in my classes. It makes visual the balance between model complexity and over-paramatization. Basically, if your model is too simply it has poor goodness of fit. The model is biased by what few parameters you’ve chosen. But if you make your model too complex (i.e., trying to be too clever) you can also get poor goodness of fit. This latter is because every parameter comes with its own error and they compound each other (hence variance increases). It’s likely that MFS’s flight model is the most complex that there’s ever been (at least in an entertainment title). But complex is not always best. In model making, finding that sweet spot is very difficult. But I’m confident in Asobo’s abilities to get this right.

7 minutes ago, Andreas Stangenes said:

a decade behind when it comes to graphics and lighting

That’s one of the pachyderms I was referring to.

I gotta try that wind-soaring thing what squirrel did in his video.
Its a similar way we paragliders fly hang-soaring, the wind lifts you, you can fly on the spot or even backwards.

28 minutes ago, Bottle said:

That’s one of the pachyderms I was referring to.

Is that a fancy way of calling out the elephant in the room? 😂

10 hours ago, Jeff Nielsen said:

So guys, basically what's being said while still being under NDA...is this:  taking the Cessna for example:  All or most of the videos we've seen can't really convey the feeling you will have, especially while landing-how the aircraft moves.  Most notably when you start 'dirtying' the plane up.  The rails are GONE, just like they said.  They have captured really well how the aircraft behaves (little bobs and weaves, etc.).  And the sounds are even more incredible in this phase.

This is something you're going to have to experience for yourself to fully understand.

Fully agree. They really nailed the landing effect. It is really something special. You actually notice each individual tyre making contact with the ground which triggers the reaction of aircraft's airframe as it makes small adjustments. Its insane.

1 hour ago, Bottle said:

What I took from Aerosoft’s post is this (very simplified). Both MFS and XP11 model the atmosphere over the aircraft so planes don’t fly on rails. But XP11 has atmosphere on rails and MFS doesn’t. MFS needs to keep tweaking it’s flight model and when done will become superior to XP11. But that means XP11 can update its atmosphere and play catch-up. So we should see the benefits of robust competition finally get XP11 moving again.

Of course there’s a couple of elephants still in the room and I won’t go there.

Yeah basically.

The overall technology has great potential. But there are still bugs, things missing and the SDK is also only very early in development.

Those are all things that might make people angry when their expectations are not met. But it all depends on ASOBOs commitment to improve it. The only real complaint I have is, that it probably got released a year too early.

 

  

7 minutes ago, Baber20 said:

Fully agree. They really nailed the landing effect.

Good to hear. Landing is my favorite part of flight! 😄

Edited August 12, 20205 yr by tweekz

2 hours ago, tweekz said:

The only real complaint I have is, that it probably got released a year too early.

There’s an easy fix for that. Wait a year before you purchase. 😂

 

Just kidding, but on a more serious note, I’d say the sim is ready to be used, but not all features are fine tuned yet. But again, it’s usable already. I don’t see the point in making people wait for longer. 
 

Since the beginning we’ve seen people asking them to release it as a Beta version. So they kinda did it.

13 hours ago, Mace said:

Wow.  Those links.  Makes me worry...will I be able to fly this sim?   I might have to start over from scratch.

I still laugh my word not allowed off everytime I see that King Air landing in Brazil. I'm not sure at my worst I was ever that bad. 

John Snyder Jr

13 hours ago, Mace said:

Wow.  Those links.  Makes me worry...will I be able to fly this sim?   I might have to start over from scratch.

I still laugh my word not allowed off everytime I see that King Air landing in Brazil. I'm not sure at my worst I was ever that bad. 

John Snyder Jr

3 hours ago, Bottle said:

All this talk of models reminds me of this image that I use in my classes. It makes visual the balance between model complexity and over-paramatization. Basically, if your model is too simply it has poor goodness of fit. The model is biased by what few parameters you’ve chosen. But if you make your model too complex (i.e., trying to be too clever) you can also get poor goodness of fit. This latter is because every parameter comes with its own error and they compound each other (hence variance increases). It’s likely that MFS’s flight model is the most complex that there’s ever been (at least in an entertainment title). But complex is not always best. In model making, finding that sweet spot is very difficult. But I’m confident in Asobo’s abilities to get this right.

Which ironically looks very similar to this: