X-Plane 11: Where Have I Been All Your Life?

[Janov 2,383]

1 hour ago, tonywob said:

What is complicated in my opinion is the mess of libraries needed just to install a single freeware addon.

This is indeed a problem - but it is a fate brought upon themselves by the users. I do not have a single library installed and still feel my airports in X-Plane are great. Using airports that need libraries is an entirely voluntary decision made by ever user and should not be held against X-Plane itself.

There are three types of airports in X-Plane:

1.) Default X-Plane airports, also called Lego-brick or Scenery Gateway airports. They need no libraries and are included with X-Plane and updated every few months (by Laminar Research through a crowd-sourcing effort).

2.) Payware or comparable level airports that contain all needed assets (objects, textures, etc) in the package. No libraries required either, but often large in volume and tedious to make for the artist.

3.) Freeware custom airports. These are often built partly with default LR assets (contained in the simulator), but also often reference objects contained in various libraries. While this - in theory - simplifies things (the user can download the library once, then all of his freeware sceneries will reference it, the artist can pick and choose from many objects, speeding up his work), in practice there is often poor documentation as to what libraries are needed, where to download them, etc. Plus sometimes libraries get pulled for various reasons.

MSFS currently only offers option 1 and 2 - storage space has become very cheap and it is unlikely that having even hundreds of airports will make you run out of diskspace.

Cheers, Jan

 

 

Edited October 16, 2020 by Janov

[mSparks 2,091]

1 hour ago, Murmur said:

What flaws do you find? I mean in the flight model, not the weather/thermals/etc.

flight model for gliders is pretty much spot on imho.

but the "weather" is missing a lot of subtleties needed to get a good glider flight out of it (clouds forming over thermals, color of the ground determining where they form, whole host of terrain lifting features that while implimented are too weak, more Im sure)

fsx did a good (great?) job of these.

1 hour ago, tonywob said:

I appreciate that libraries exist and help users put out airports faster, but the entire process is such a mess at the moment.

Thats where it starts, and tbh a lot of that is an attraction rather than a problem.

I really enjoyed finding, trying .... deleting lots of scenery and plugins. Playing with WED is great fun, highly addictive, and even for those like me without an arty bone in their body gives great results.

Mess however is an understatement, there is nothing really like a "sitemap" to the wealth of tools and kit - or more importantly versions of different bits of kit that litter the internet, and everything additional you need to know for a great experience is basically on a word of mouth/want to tell you basis. Often baked in the Walter White style drama for no good reason.

[BigDee 119]

Back to the old point, regarding judging FS by videos:

So, I found the alpha leaked video of FS I was talking about:

https://youtu.be/1IKzeuG9pSo?t=75

The video shows very nice how the Airbus just smashes to the ground while landing. There is clearly no damping, wing flex is absolutely missing. It is the fact the gicantic forces in reality are missing in the game. Just take a look again at the X-Plane video:

https://streamable.com/5vxyqs

There is some great wing flex, great damping and what is more important the planes bounces off the ground back to the air. Why because the law of gravity is implemented in X-Plane.

So without even having tried FS, yet everybody can clearly see that the most basic simulation aspects are missing. Why in the world do I have to try the game to see the same things I have already seen in the videos? By the way, the video was absolutely in simulation mode, there is a screen of it in the FS forum, because the linked video is cutted.
There were some other parts in the original leaked FS video which are unfortunately not shown, but the plane steered very unrealistically in the air, it instantly turned its directions. Many, even in the FS forum said this is just not right, because every plane has inertia in reality, which is missing in FS. Clearly the higher the weight of a plane, the more inertia it has. A 747 just simply cannot turn that as fast as a 737.

23 hours ago, mickatmian said:

Sorry decisions on how good or bad a simulator is cannot be made from videos, they are just one persons impression. To say "It`s a real bad product. Full of mistakes" when you have never tried it is ridiculous...

4 hours ago, tonywob said:

If you've never tried it or intend to try it, then how do you know how this simulator/game even feels? Videos are useful but don't tell you the whole story...

Clearly X-Plane Desktop and MFS have different goals and target markets. As Austin said, it's an engineering tool and less geared towards gamers, whilst MFS has much more mass appeal for the general population. 3rd parties are and will go where the users are, and who could blame them for that? ...

 

There was a recent french interview with one head of the team. He clearly said the visual aspects had the most important priority in the game, because in their opinion after all you are flying with your eyes and while flying you orientiate yourself with bridges and landscape elements. They also tweaked the simulation elements of FSX, because in their opionion, the visual feedback is the most important. 

Just wonder myself if they consider this visually right?

https://youtu.be/dXgGXILioRo?t=320

So pretty many reasons why you can conclude things without even having tried the game.

23 hours ago, mickatmian said:

 

Edited October 16, 2020 by BigDee

[Greazer 1,338]

1 hour ago, Murmur said:

What flaws do you find? I mean in the flight model, not the weather/thermals/etc.

X Plane doesn't model world weather and wind effects, upper or lower wind effects or flows over mountains or between structures etc.  X Plane flight modeling is only within a little cocoon around the aircraft.  This is an incredibly simplistic and basic way to model aircraft flight and it has been this way ever since the start decades ago.  For 2020 is not acceptable.  As are many other features, cough cough, 2d billboard clouds, cough, cardboard sprite trees.

[Murmur 3,944]

19 minutes ago, Greazer said:

 

You can't read, do you? My question to Jcomm was specifically related to flight model, not weather model.

[Greazer 1,338]

38 minutes ago, Murmur said:

You can't read, do you? My question to Jcomm was specifically related to flight model, not weather model.

Flight model and weather model are very much interrelated, don't kid yourself.

[thepitts 32]

Hi Murmur,

I'll defer to (and be interested to hear) from Jcomm about why he feels the flight model is not quite there. Obviously weather  / engine representation is important in this type of simulator. But as one way of comparing flight models the glider test seems to me the relatively easy to replicate but very demanding on the programmers..

Yes ... THE Official JCOMM UNINSTALLER AWARD..... Yes that has a good ring about it.

Tim  

[mSparks 2,091]

3 hours ago, Greazer said:

Flight model and weather model are very much interrelated, don't kid yourself.

weather is grossly categorised to the point of nonsense.

The majority of the problems for gliders are the required visual cues - what you can "see" is not "weather".

Others -> like lifting due to terrain and the thermals themselves are modelled, but terrain lifting is too weak and thermals are no good if you can't "guess" where they will be.

That said, setting thermal coverage to a high percentage and climb rate to a decent value is enough to get a good flight out of them - the flight model is there, what isn't is an automated link to terrain.

XTLua could probably handle feeding decent parameters into the weather model with relative ease if someone knew what "decent parameters" looks like (cos I dont)

Edited October 16, 2020 by mSparks

[jcomm 5,961]

Well, having many hours on the k21, i necessarily tried to find details like sideslip and it's peculiarities, that the most detailed models I tried for x-plane fail to replicate, roll moment due to roll rate, aka overbanking, that is certainly not a factor in xp gliders, and in the k21 on a tight turn you can end up using a good deal of cross-control to stay coordinated and stable in the turn, ground effect that is broken in x-plane in most aircraft - looks a lot like the new torque bug... (*)

Then, as much as the authors of the most sophisticated model tried, the glider polar, which is really it's "signature", although real airfoils are used, wasn't close to that of the k21s I flew...

Another aspect that usually doesn't result very realistic is the pitching moment due to spoiler deployment, probably due to the fact that you can't specify with enough detail the exact type and placement of glider spoilers in the wing...

Ofc it's superior to any fsx glider alternative, I should point out ! but still not to the level of, say, Condorsoaring, and with all of it's sophistication I would like to see a better match.

I have a long time plan of modelling the Phoebus B and LS1c in x-plane, since these are the single seaters I mainly fly these days... I just have to find the time and the capacity to properly learn how to create their models for XP...

(*) I have been trying to even detact the lightest feel os pitching moment due to the "low tail" in the PW6-U I sometimes fly. Airplanes in X-plane since a few versions agos feel like being sucked into the ground, gliders models being no exception... I fear it may be due to that feature Austin decided to model after the Boeing 707 pitching moment due to tail getting into ground effect out of sync with the main wings... Well, at least ot in the gliders I fly or flew in my 40 years of soaring ...

 

 

 

Edited October 16, 2020 by jcomm

[thepitts 32]

Thank you Jcomm....and no surprise.... interesting to hear.

I'd call sideslip behaviour (which I suspect is very difficult to model), roll moment and glider polar as FUNDAMENTALS.

This isn't  a test of atmospheric / weather  modelling or even ground effect. I'd argue this isn't even a test of controller interface although for sure most x-plane simmers are aware of the inherent problems in trying to replicate the controls of a real airplane while using a desktop joystick..

Is the problem the modelling or the limitations (as all have) of the software ?

Tim.

(PS--- just a reminder X-plane is my go to civil flight sim.... I am a fan.)

[mSparks 2,091]

@jcomm was this before or after efm?

Agree with you on the ground effect tho, thats still out on the helos too.

Exactly what is out is a different story, before efm I could get good hints at what was wrong by what was needed to be set wrong in planemaker to get better behaviour, now Ive not found anything helpful there.

[jcomm 5,961]

3 hours ago, mSparks said:

@jcomm was this before or after efm?

@mSparks  After... I don't recall if it came exactly when the first "experimental fm" version was released or a bit down the road, but I do remember Austin mentioning he decided to model that after he read something about the effect on the Boeing 707... Sometimes geniuses have this moments of "extravaganza" 🙂  

Well, I just don't want to think it's another example of when he announced, somewhere along the XP9 series, that engine and prop torque were now modelled into XP  ... The problem with the semantics of that "and" took years to solve, and we already know who did it - Murmur 🙂

Hey, Murmur, do your Magic for ground effect, pulleeeeeze !  

P.S.: regarding my other post above, about glider modelling in XP11, I would like to point out that the problem might be caused by the lack of detail in terms of down / up wing effects depending on the positioning of the wings. 

https://www.av8n.com/how/htm/roll.html#sec-other-slip-roll

In that same chapter of "See How if Flies", section 9.4, an excellent explanation of the "overbanking" tendency is also presented, and is unfortunately for me a good example of why writing stuff while sleepy is never a good option, but I can no longer edit that post where I wrote that "roll moment due to roll rate" sillyness...

https://www.av8n.com/how/htm/roll.html#sec-overbanking

Edited October 17, 2020 by jcomm

[mSparks 2,091]

makes sense, I just wondered how much effect the changes to the forces on the tail of efm had on a lot of that, especially the pitch and roll effects.

planemaker is looooong overdue a new version, - have you got a feature request in for that spoiler placement?

[jcomm 5,961]

10 minutes ago, mSparks said:

planemaker is looooong overdue a new version, - have you got a feature request in for that spoiler placement?

Nope, but from the emails I received recently I guess I might have had a "...looking into it..." kind of answer :-)

[JBDB-MD80 1,480]

On 10/6/2020 at 5:41 PM, mikeklimek said:

So I'm EXTREMELY late to the party, but boy am I glad I showed up anyway.  

I started flight-simming in 2012, jumping into FSX.  I've been doing it since then, going several months on, several months off.  Lately it's been nearly a year since I last virtually flew.  I've known about X-Plane, but always stuck with FSX as it was very familiar, like a old, warm blanket. 

Then, of course, MSFS comes out and I jumped back in.  That's a heck of a title with absolutely stunning eye-candy.  But with it in it's infancy, it left me wanting more.  So I thought, "ok, why not try out X-Plane 11 and see what's up over there?"

So I did some research and a few weeks later downloaded and installed some sceneries here, some plug-ins there, etc.  Man, am I addicted:

• Functioning (or at least more fleshed out) GPS units
• Modeled airports (lot of talented modders out there)
• Accurate airport taxiway signs
• Impressive AI traffic (World Traffic 3) 
• Great ATC with Pilot2atc
• Great weather with Active Sky XP

Sure, the eye-candy may not be as impressive as the new kid on the block, but it's so much more complete--which makes sense given it's been around for so long  and has had 3rd party devs create some things for it.  And don't get me wrong, I'm fully aware that as the MSFS devs continue to work on it and the title matures, it's going to be even more incredible.

But right now, I'm really enjoying X-Plane, and it's really what I want to fly.

I smell some BS in this post, not going to elaborate but its more a feel me good about myself post.