Xplane 10 out on IOS

    I always hated flying circuits with other aircraft in the circuit, landing and taking off, all with different speeds and shifting positions and then people calling "joining overhead", loved calling "leaving the circuit to the ....". How is Aerofly suposed to simulate a light aircraft 2 miles away? Is there really much point? I couldnt see them in real life half the time. Your link to a post about an audio link sounded interesting. Could be funny with different rural international accents and different time zones, would need to agree a lot in advance.

    Quote from Overloaded

    I always hated flying circuits with other aircraft in the circuit, landing and taking off, all with different speeds and shifting positions and then people calling "joining overhead", loved calling "leaving the circuit to the ....". How is Aerofly suposed to simulate a light aircraft 2 miles away? Is there really much point? I couldnt see them in real life half the time. Your link to a post about an audio link sounded interesting. Could be funny with different rural international accents and different time zones, would need to agree a lot in advance.

    I've flown mainly at small uncontrolled airports, and experienced no real difficulty with entering the pattern. Every once in awhile (usually when several pilots were practicing touch-and-go landings) I would have to do a 360 to wait for a space to show up on downwind. But that's no big deal. As for the audio, I am not suggesting that AFS incorporate that, since you can do it easily with Google+ by setting up an audio hangout for the pilots to join while flying in the AFS multiplayer mode. Also, not all pilots flying in multiplayer will be in communication -- either because they don't have an audio link, their aircraft is not radio-equipped, or they don't speak the language in use. In any event, radio communication is not required at uncontrolled airports, and I flew my DHC-1 for 12 years with no radio.

    Accents are a challenge, yes, but then that is the case when landing at any international airport. My fellow Storm Raiders pilots routinely fly in multiplayer with an audio link. I've gotten used to my friend's accent from the Netherlands and we do fine. I can only say that once you have used the audio link in multiplayer, you never want to fly without it. It beats entering text into a chat window while you are trying to fly precision aerobatic maneuvers with your friends!

    Storm Raiders has no problem representing an aircraft at 2 miles -- it is nothing but a dot at that point. Having it expand as it approaches is no different graphically than when you approach any surface or object. The main overhead with multiplayer is processing the control inputs of the various pilots and portraying the results on other pilots' devices, all in real-time. That is not trivial, I grant you! But I think IPACS is up to the challenge.

    Adak47

    Quote from donka

    I would love to have a few random AI aircraft flying around or landing / taking off just to give an impression of a living environment.

    LOL! I am laughing because I just submitted a post about the virtues of multiplayer and you raise the great point about creating a "living" environment. AI is a quick fix for this, because it is much easier to implement than multiplayer. But really, if you want "living" then put some "live" pilots in the room with you!

    Adak47

    Quote from Trisnpod

    Adak47 I hadn't ever really thought of it like that, with a good realistic multiplayer system where you could fly with your mates, and not just with random strangers but I think multiplayer would be good like that. I think there is a thread on here about multiplayer, but last time I asked IPACS they said it wouldn't be possible due to memory limitations of IOS devices.
    Tristan

    Trisnpod, yes, I recall reading that post as well. I have a desktop system (iMac) and I don't think multiplayer would be a problem, given my system resources. But the growing market is for IOS devices. At this point, though, quite a few AFS pilots seem to be running on desktop systems, and would certainly use multiplayer if it were available…

    Best,

    Adak47

    Quote from adak47

    LOL! I am laughing because I just submitted a post about the virtues of multiplayer and you raise the great point about creating a "living" environment. AI is a quick fix for this, because it is much easier to implement than multiplayer. But really, if you want "living" then put some "live" pilots in the room with you!

    Adak47

    As a father of two young children, I don't find a lot of time to engage in games on the iPad but enjoy it for short bursts. This is why I'm not so fussed about full on multiplayer as I may only be in the app for 15 mins at a time. The AI would be a perfect substitute in this scenario. This is a simulation after all and some air traffic could be simulated just to add to the immersion as an alternative to proper 'Live' play.