If you took on Fly! what would you do, change or add?

[Guest]

That's why most of us have more then 1 sim right? I have FS2002 Pro, FLY!2 and X-Plane. I use each one depending on what kind of flying I do. Mountain flyins is what I do in X-Plane as well but with the B-52 }> The autogen? You want me to stay glued to the computer screen all night? :-lol j/kThe autogen is excellent, it certainly gives you the feeling of a populated planet. I don't have any complaints about that. (Can you believe it?) Having to watch put for trees when too low on final certainly adds to the realism.As for virtual cockpits..I just tried the T-38 talon and I am extremely impressed. That's the way VC's should look IMO. Now I have to sort out that blurries problem I have...time to search through the archive :-eekWe certainly had an interesting discussion don't you think?Take careMike

[Guest Eagle]

Mikk - you want Flight Unlimited 3? E-mail me and I will send it to you. No charge.Keep FLYing

[Guest]

E-mail on the way!Mike

[Guest jrewing]

Jumping in late here, but my bias is toward having a more complete IFR simulation/training environment. Realistic terrain and airports are nice, but here's what I'd add if I could.1) More complete navaid database.2) Support for LDA approaches.3) Complete set of low altitude en route IFR charts.4) A map view that lets you reposition/teleport the aircraft using drag-n-drop (very handy when practicing approaches).5) A toggling partial panel mode that covers the heading indicator and attitude indicator.6) Random or programmable equipment failures (vacuum, radio, electrical, engine, navaid).7) A GPS unit with approach capability (I know this is a huge amount of work, but a guy can dream!)Simulators like Elite provide many of these features, but the view out the window is downright primitive when compared to FlyII. Even though FlyII is not meant to be an IFR trainer, I think it is quite useable as one (warts and all). FlyII combines simulated instrument flight with a realistic view out the window when transitioning to from the gauges to visual references for landing.John

[Guest JeffB]

When you Fly! at night, the cities are realistically placed. The lights show up at the correct city's, etc.However, in the day time, there are no roads connecting the cities. I'd start there.Another area, which would be great to have, the generic textures are ok, but, area's around my part of town (Cleveland OH), are not all forest. It would be great to use generic textures more in tune with the actual area's (similar to the way Terrascene uses USGS data), maybe based on databases...As a last thing, I'd incorporate all the Terramodels scenery there is, and ask the Fly!ing public to team up and one by one, add more scenery to each airport.Great VFR flying!Jeff

[greggerm 312]

Some have already been mentioned....* Graphics Engine Smoothness - Somehow making it render.ini tweak free. * Graphics Engine Improvements - Upping the supported resolutions as well as improving the texture resolution.* Scenery Editing Capability - Ironing out some bugs with the scenery editing systems. Aircraft systems and dynamics have always seemed great for me. But making them more in-depth is NEVER a bad thing.

[Guest]

Realistic ADF/VOR Needle movement. In theroy they stick like glue to where they should be pointing but try hopping in a real A/C and just watch that ADF needle wander around.

[dkohl 0]

Stability. I believe that one of the reasons this sim hasn't "taken off" as well as it could have is b/c it is relatively unstable. I find it to be a superior sim in many ways to others on the market, but after the 10th "winrun.cpp" crash in a row, I nearly threw it out the window. So Stability - that's the key new "feature".-DK----David KohlFly! II v230Dell 8200 P4/1.8G, 1024MB RAM, Nvidia GF4 Ti4600 v28.83, WinXP Home Edition.CH Pro Pedals and Yoke USB.

[Guest Iain Spowart]

My wish list would include everything from the paragraph beginning with "My biggest point" in Mike's post above!Amazing attention to detail in a small area (with enough variety) would be of more interest to me than varying levels of detail worldwide. As long as other parts could be developed to expand on it. I've just downloaded the short videos from Andy Dale's web-site of the Citabria over NZAA and I reckon that if a sim had scenery like that in just a small area then I'd be happy.I've never felt confined flying over the Crimea in Flanker 2 or Korea in Falcon 4 etc. There is so much detail in there that I'm quite happy with the limited area.The other thing on my wish list would definitely be a completely new graphics engine. Most other sims are nice'n'smooth on my PC but Fly!2 turns into a slideshow every now and then which is annoying. When it's smooth it's lovely but it's too inconsistent for my liking. I don't want to have to tweak .ini files just to get it to run, I want it to run smooth out of the box.Iain Spowart,Scotland.Webmaster and photographer,Scottish Claymores 2002Cheerleaders Fan Sitehttp://www.claymorescheerleaders.com/media/avsim/2002-s.jpghttp://ClaymoresCheerleaders.com

[Guest]

Just an opinion, but it seems that there are two views here.One view says improve the IFR'ability of the sim, the other says improve the VFR'ability.On the IFR side are things like NavAids, realistic instuments, etc.On the VFR side are things like Rendering Engine, Ground Textures, houses, cows, trees, etc.Then there are things that cross the two like Flight Dynamics/Models, Mountains that you can't see through or that don't have holes, realistic weather, etc.Seems to me that no one sim can do all of this. Even Evans & Sutherland sims, and other 'Big Boys', can't "do it all", even with muliple CPU's and Multi-Threaded/Multi-Tasking software, but they sure come close!! Suffice it to say that even some of their sims would look 'cartoonish' if running a single 1.5GH CPU & 512MB DRAM, even with DirectX, 128MB VDRAM, and Graphics Processors on the Video Cards!However, I do agree that a very, very good sim can be created by combining the best of the FLight Simming community. Still, limits have to be placed or it will be too much too soon, and will fall by the wayside. I tend to side with the 'small area' at its best concept. But I also Like the idea of making various 'versions' for the users intent (Low visuals, great IFR - ala ASA OnTop, or Elite 7.0 - or mediocre Gages and Great Visuals for VFR, etc). Maybe even one that caters to the true 'gamer' (aka Crimson Skies - Didn't MS do this with FS in the Early versions?).At the same time I support creating a system of tools that would allow expansion so that various other parts of the world, such as Australia or South Africa, India or Japan, could be easily added. Other things like 'Volumentric' clouds and Real Weather for either IFR/VFR are a must. And to make the Visuals 'realistic' I think that some use should be made of graphic artists, or much more use of Sattelite imagery. But in most sims, tools were added by the users and weren't part of the overall sim design.The problem with all this is that many of the other 'Great' Sims have tried to accomplish these things, and eventually fell. Why? Didn't they have something unique? Weren't they within reach of the average simmers pocket book? Weren't they stable? Didn't they offer popular Aircraft?So, why did they fail? I see this as a most paramount issue, above all the features and technology. To answer it and resolve it would be like finding the 'holy grail' or 'shangrala'. And it would give the sim created with the 'best of the best' a good chance for longevity.Tom

[Guest]

:-( Volumetric clouds is what I miss the most. FLY!2-No, FS2002-No, X-Plane-No. Why are sims staying away from them?The only simulators that have the best of everything are the ones that airlines use... :-hah I wish I had one of those in my basement!I can only wish...Take careMike

[akriesman 0]

Volumetric clouds is what I miss the most. FLY!2-No, FS2002-No, X-Plane-No. Why are sims staying away from them?Mike. I believe that frame-rates are an issue here. From what I have heard, volumetric clouds are very taxing on the CPU/video card.With Microsoft adding AI traffic and autogen, they need all the available resources just to handle these features in FS2002. I also seem to remember Rich saying that they had to remove volumetric clouds from Fly II to save frame frates. Personally, I would rather have well modeled airports and detailed ground textures, then volumetric clouds. But, that is just my preference.Cheers,Allen

[Guest]

Oh, thanks for the clarification Allen. I guess you are right, a more complex flying atmosphere has to have some sacrafices! TAke careMike

[Guest]

It looks cartoonish because it is. It's either painted textures (cartoon) or rudimentary 3D objects glued on it (cartoon). The trick is to find a way to generate an image that combines the 2 in a more complex manner. Theoretically, fractals can do that, for example.An engine that can do that, even on a small area ('cause then it's just a quantitative problem), gets the market.I can provide free therapy for the developers!

[AlaskanFlyboy 7]

Just my 2 cents worth1) I use VATSIM so the in game ATC is no issue to me, I never use it.2) High res textures for the scenery textures? Ouch, do you realized the disk space you'll need for higher res sceneries much less processing power, people are complaining about the frame rates now, try with higher res textures?3) I'd like to see the FMC capability in the Hawker fixed now that PMDG seemed to have good luck with it. Working WX Radar would be nice too, It used to work in Fly! for a while then it quit working, and it never worked in Fly!II. I don't know what happened there.4) Addition of SIDs and STARs in the flight planner possibly.5) Fix the known issues first and get the sim stable first, then start adding.All in all I think TRI made some good strides in the right direction but because of GOD Games rushing them to ship it, they never got the chance to go all the way with their ideas.John S. MorganReal World: KSFF, Cessna 152 994JP, Student 16+ hours.Virtual: Fly!II, KPHX, AWVA, PMDG Boeing 757-200.