Aerofly FS 2: the good, the bad and the ugly

1st Official Post

    I posted the following on Avsim and someone advised me to also post it here because IPACS might read it then and perhaps they can do something with it. ;) I normally don't simply copy and paste posts from one forum to another but in this case I think it is ok. Take note, before you start reading, that I do like AFS2 and I really hope this sim will succeed! Here is the complete post:

    Ok. So I finally had the time to do a proper flight in AFS2. Let me share with you the good, the bad and the ugly.

    I decided to fly the route that Mitch suggested, Phoenix to Vegas. And there the first problem arose: there is no search function on the Navigation map, not for ICAO codes but also not for cities or airport names. So I had to Google for the places and also for what specific airport I should be looking at and after a while I found the proper airports. Not too good, in fact I found this a bit bad. What I did like was the ease with which you could select your runway and if it was the departure or destination. I do find it a bit odd (and slightly confusing at first) that you have two maps, one for Location and one for Navigation. I don't understand why they aren't combined. That would make the feature quite strong. And although the planning isn't too good the actual map and how you can use it to select a location, direction, altitude, etc. is pretty good. Anyway, the map shows VORs but you can't add them to your plan (EDIT for IPACS forum: by now I know you CAN add VORs to the plan, in fact you can add any spot you want! /EDIT) and when you select the destination runway it simply adds a FAF to the plan. Very simple but well, it does work. It's better than no getting no FAF at all and only a Direct to the airport.

    So I set the time.Turns out it is UTC only... Bad. I find this very odd for a sim like this. Had to change the time again.

    I decided to fly the Airbus because that is my favorite airliner and I know it from FSX/P3D so I know how to handle it. Started the flight and was greeted by mono sound. Yes, I am not kidding. MONO. Bad. (Maybe even ugly but well...) Truly amazing to hear mono sounds in such a new 'next gen' sim. I also quickly found out clicking on knobs etc. didn't give any sound. Odd.

    Oh, almost forgot: loading times are TOTALLY AWESOME!!! GOOD! Very good! One of the best AFS2 features. I have to add the VC looked pretty nice too. I won't mind calling it good.

    Well, I won't dive to deep into the systems because we all know everything is very basic. Still, I'd like to share some oddities. (Yes, 'odd' is a word that came to my mind often!) Like: you can turn off almost all buttons on the ELEC and FUEL overhead (the rest is inop apart from the lights) but... it doesn't have any effect: you can still fly! Odd. It would be better to not enable those buttons then.

    Ok, take off. Some options could be set before take off, like Autobrakes (surprise!) and Ground spoilers (surprise!) and of course flaps. Even T.O. config worked! Surprise again! However, the throttle had no detents (didn't really surprise me). What I did find a bit odd but not surprising was that the throttle stayed in TOGA all the flight, at least after enabling A/THR. The latter only could be engaged after take off btw. All in all a bit of a mixed bag... Some good, some bad.

    After take off I enabled the AP (and A/THR) but the plane wouldn't follow the flightplan. Odd. What did work, surprise, were managed and manual modes (forgot the right wording): pulling and pushing the knobs works and that's quite nice for such a basic plane. But well, as I said, pushing the HDG knob had no effect so I used the manual HDG option. However, after a few minutes the managed mode suddenly kicked in and the plane followed the flightplan. (Which you do not have to load btw: you set it up and it is automatically loaded in any plane you use. Easy.)

    The MCDU showed a Take off page all the time: nothing you can do about that one. The choice is a bit odd though because it showed empty brackets for Vref etc. and you would never take off with a page in that state... I'd rather see a more generic page like navadate info: would also be fake but would make more sense. I won't call all this bad because we know AFS2 isn't a systems sim.

    And now comes my first ugly... The weather system. Or lack of it. Apart from it being EXTREMELY basic (and by that I mean EXTREMELYYYYYYY basic) it looks like **** because it only shows cumulus in a VERY VERY VERY small circle around your plane. Everywhere around you you see blue skies up to the horizon and only a little group of cloud is flying along with your aircraft. I seriously cannot understand that those who do love AFS2 are NOT utterly annoyed by this. The circle is SO SMALL that when I reached my FL of 320 I couldn't even see clouds in front of me!!! And I had everything set to the max!!! Ridiculous. Again, ugly. I said elsewhere that I would be happy already if Orbx would release a photoreal region with 3D stuff everywhere but I take that back: I cannot be really happy with AFS2 until it gives me clouds up to the horizon (or where visibility ends) and a weather system (not necessarily real weather) is really needed too. The current system is UGLY.

    Having said that: the view on the scenery was pretty nice... This is where photoreal shines. Well, at FL320 anyway. (More on that later.) Good! The white horizon and the odd blue of the sky were less stellar though but still, it was enjoyable! I can imagine people liking this a lot. Surely beats seeing repeated generic textures down there!

    The system behaved a but erratic during the flight: sometimes I got overspeed while still using autothrottle but all in all it went pretty well. Of course there was no TOD so I had to manually activate descent. That went quite okay, the plane even slowed down before reaching FL100. the LOC button didn't do anything (although the mouse went red over it) but APPR did work and quite fine too. I even let the plane fly on AP until the GS was intercepted. After turning the AP off I could keep on using A/THR which worked a bit but not completely so I turned that one off before touchdown. Flaps and gear I had to take care off on my own. Well, again, a mixed bag but that was to be expected.

    O, one more bad. Vegas. It took me a while before I noticed I was almost near Vegas. It looked like nothing, really. From a distance it looked like some sort of greenish field in the desert. Only when I was almost there I noticed the ground textures showed buildings. There were no autogen buildings at all. What were there were trees. In the most odd places. I can't help it but this is not just bad, it is ugly. Not only should there be buildings but the trees should be properly positioned. There were everywhere, on (flat) houses, streets... very bad. No, very ugly. The heart of the city did show 3D buildings but frankly, having buildings only there makes the difference even bigger: those buildings stick out too much from a distance.

    Anyway, when I had almost landed I could see buildings on the airport and parked planes: that was quite nice.

    Another thing that was okay, let's call it good for now, was the lighting and shadows. No cloud shadows though, as far as I could see, but I disabled the clouds after a while because that circle of cumulus was absolutely horrendous... If you see a good looking AFS2 screenshot with clouds they simply did a good job on taking the shot with the clouds in the proper position and angle...

    Final conclusion: even when I accept that this is not a sim with deep systems, which is fine with me, a few things that should be the selling point of AFS2 aren't quite there yet. I really hope that Orbx can do wonders in that regard (not so much with airports but with the photoreal regions JV talked about): that would really save AFS2. But it won't be enough: specially the weather needs serious attention, from iPacs or another developer. AI and ATC, which iPacs is thinking about, may be nice and all, but please, work on the weather first... And if you can't handle it, at least make the circle of clouds larger, preferably up to the horizon (in other words: get rid of that circle).

    I can see myself doing occasional quick flights with the Airbus: it's quick, it's easy, it's fun. I can't see myself really enjoying GA that much because of the lack of 3D buildings and oddly placed trees. Flying low just doesn't cut it. It looks too bad. The circle of clouds doesn't help here either. However, in area's where there aren't much buildings, like the Grand canyon, it might work out okay so all is not lost.

    AFS2 is nice for a quick flying fix. It is sorely missing key features which it should have out of the box but I am hopeful things will improve over time. It has some nice things going for it and well, it wasn't money spend extremely well but I also do not really regret the purchase. Mainly thanks to Orbx looking into things... It's an odd sim, that's for sure.

    P.S. or Disclaimer: this is by no means a complete review. It is based on very short flights during the past few weeks in which I didn't have much time to try things and mainly on ONE >200nm flight I did this evening. But given the simplicity of the sim and the little amount of options etc. I think it is possible to give a good and honest review after using it not for too long. If I come up with other opinions during the coming days and weeks I will post them here. (Yes, I am indeed planning on flying in AFS2 more often.)

    Addendum
    Totally forgot one good: the performance. Although... it was good but 1. without vsync, so with tearing: vsync made things choppy, and 2. I mainly flew above empty photoreal.... But for now performance seems good (i7 4790K@4.5, GTX780, 16 GB RAM, 1920x1080 res) with everything completely maxed out.

    THAT'S IT! In case someone wants to read the entire topic (in which I added some more opinions and replied to a few posts, it has become a lively discussion ;) ) here is the link:
    http://www.avsim.com/topic/501370-a…the-ugly/page-1

    It would help to give the version number and release date in your review, the early release updates are frequent and a review becomes obsolete rapidly. The sim performance is also affected by the chosen sim' settings and the power of the PC used.
    There is automatic descent with the 'Route' option of the autopilot.

    Spot on review that’s not based on any specific build… rather the overall perception of Aerofly 2. It is basically stating that Aerofly 2 is fun and entertaining and has a lot of potential… pointing out the obvious things needed that can really change the platform tremendously! I fly it in VR and absolutely love it. It will be interesting to see how far they go with this.

    I imagine they kept cloud radius to something that will perform well on most machines, and to something that looks good to low to mid height flight.. I almost never notice the outside range of the clouds since I'm always either flying just below, in, or just above them. You could try adjusting them to be higher up in the sliders, that would conceal the edge better for high altitude, unless you're perpetually in the stratosphere. Anyway, I do feel they made an effort to make sure they were accessible to most computers, and that means not allowing people to cripple their fps. Maybe they will allow you to extend the radius in the future, or maybe are working on an inexpensive way to represent clouds far away but that don' t use the same rendering system that would kill fps.

    That said, just once I'd love a sim to have large, isolated, towering clouds that are more structurally interesting than wispy, evenly distributed clouds that everyone always has. Even REX isn't great, but they come the closest.. other than maybe RoF, where they have nice size, but not the best structure. I mean these:

    [Blocked Image: http://malaysiagazette.com/sites/default/files/field/image/cumulus.jpg]

    or else, have interesting grouping and patterns in them, like here, where there could be areas uncovered by clouds, and then a pattern where the clouds get dense.

    [Blocked Image: http://www.sgsweather.com/Images/Glossary1/Cloud%20Streets.jpg]

    I'm sure they're working on weather models, just not ready yet. Unless they plan on just staying in sim-lite game mode as a product design.. valid as a company mission, too. I guess not every flight sim has to try to do it all, as much as we want them to.

    • Official Post

    Hi J van E,

    thanks a lot for your honest and long feedback, really appreciated.
    I'm quite happy that you like the autobrake, auto-spoilers and the to-config and probably also the landing-checklist because I programmed them :o. BTW. in my developer version all overhead switches are already push-able and illuminate, basic apu is also faked in. If you uncomment the controls.tmd you will also have that...
    The fuel system is work in progress, if you look at the ecam fuel page and set fuel pumps off you can already see a reaction. But the turbofan engines need reprogramming to allow actual fuel cut off. That's on our todo list, personally I don't have access to that part of the code, otherwise that would probably already work. Fuel planning and payload is also on the todo-list, shortly after engines can be shut off...

    The A320 autothrust isn't modelled well yet, we are aware of that and will change it in the future, no worries. The autopilot is also not finished yet, there are few bugs that we will also deal with in the future. The NAV-mode needs an heading intercept course with the flight plan, like in the real world airplane. When you turn the heading bug towards the flight plan and then push the button it it should arm the NAV mode and engage it when the flight plan is flown over.
    In the real A320 you also have to engage the descent manually. The real world aircraft will only show you the top of descent on the navigation display and then show a message "increase drag" when the TOD is passed. It won't descent automatically like the Boeings do in VNAV. But for all airplanes you usually have to enter a lower altitude before the descent.
    And or course flaps and gear have to be set manually, we might add a copilot in the future that does that for you. He could also go through the checklist and automatically perform some actions if desired.

    Cheers,
    Jan

    Thanks for the information, Jan! Happy you didn't mind my honest and long feedback. ;) For a default plane I am already surprised by what it can do: good to know things will be improved and even more will follow! :) Great!

    Regarding the descent: I knew you have to engage it manually, what I meant was there is (as far as I can see) no display of the TOD so you have to guess yourself when it is time to descent. Having to lower the flaps and gear is also logical: I didn't mean to say I expected that to happen automatically. ;) And btw if it was up to me I wouldn't let you spend time on co-pilots... ;) I like having something to do while flying! I have flown the Aerosoft Airbus (which did help me flying this AFS2 version) a LOT and never used the co-pilot there.

    It is fun to fly this plane already in AFS2 and it's great knowing it will only become better!

    Quote from Jet-Pack

    Hi J van E,

    If you uncomment the controls.tmd you will also have that...

    The NAV-mode needs an heading intercept course with the flight plan, like in the real world airplane. When you turn the heading bug towards the flight plan and then push the button it it should arm the NAV mode and engage it when the flight plan is flown over.

    Two more questions:

    - uncomment the controls.tmd... enlighten me. ;) Will that give me all switches or just that APU or...?

    - does that NAV mode also work like that in other planes? I have flown four planes a bit more seriously (doing a complete flight from A to B) and getting the plane to follow the plan doesn't always seem to work. But maybe this is it: intercept course. I also sometimes simply use HDG so sort of follow the plan.

    - in addition to the above: I don't think I have seen any NAV/GPS switches: does the AP always follow the plan once you intercept it, regardless of NAV or GPS mode? The Baron has no GPS: if I enable NAV mode, would I have to manually set the right VOR or something or is this also automated somehow...?

    Things are a bit complicated due to all the variation between planes. ;) I am having similar problems with hitting the right ALT/ARM/VS buttons etc. (also because sometimes pressing a button seems to have an effect but doesn't actually show up on the AP). Ah well, early acces, etc. I am having more and more fun with AFS2 anyway!

    EDIT
    BTW I personally don't have problems with things like the AP maybe not working as it does in real life: all I care about is that I know how to get things done! ;)

    P.S. That wink smiley on this forum looks too much like a full smile... but that's another story LOL

    • Official Post

    In your steam Aerofly FS 2 installation you can open the file "D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Aerofly FS 2 Flight Simulator\aircraft\a320\controls.tmd" with a text-editor like wordpad or notepad++. In this file the clickspots are defined as 3D objects, mostly cylinders or boxes. Almost all switches are already prepared for later use but don't have the actual function behind them.

    if you find a block of code like this one:

    you can remove all the // in front of the block (except "// airconditioning" in this case) and you will have the switches working, at least most of them in the A320. There are a few interesting ones like window handles, tables or even the light test (christmas tree)...

    Nav.-mode: the a320 will follow the route if you push the heading knob in (left-click), the 737 and 747 have the LNAV button, Learjet and King-Air use the NAV button currently. I don't think the basic autopilot in the cessna and baron can follow the nav right now, not sure...

    Cheers,
    Jan

    Thanks, Jan! Will give this a try! It's always nice being able to push buttons, specially if it actually does something (window handles, tables, christmas tree!!!). ;)

    Quote from Jet-Pack

    There are a few interesting ones like window handles, tables or even the light test (christmas tree)...

    Spend half an hour of my life removing // LOL and the christmas tree worked! Nice! Was also hoping for the window handles and tables to have an effect but nothing happened... Well, anyway, good to know everything CAN sort of worked and is being worked on! ;)

    • Official Post

    Well if you have advanced tools then you can just select the text portion, press the button to toggle comments.
    Or if you have a decent editor you can block-edit code. Hold Shift + Alt, then click at the top left of a block, then bottom right... Thats selects columns of text, ideal for the comments at the beginning of each line.

    Notepad++ has the second option, the first one does work but not as well (it expects "// " and not "//" - note that space at the end... so all indents are messed up when using the comment function of notepad++)

    But you could also edit the .tmd files with Visual Studio 2015, the comment/uncomment feature there works perfectly.

    Quote from Jet-Pack

    Well if you have advanced tools then you can just select the text portion, press the button to toggle comments.
    Or if you have a decent editor you can block-edit code. Hold Shift + Alt, then click at the top left of a block, then bottom right... Thats selects columns of text, ideal for the comments at the beginning of each line.

    Notepad++ has the second option, the first one does work but not as well (it expects "// " and not "//" - note that space at the end... so all indents are messed up when using the comment function of notepad++)

    But you could also edit the .tmd files with Visual Studio 2015, the comment/uncomment feature there works perfectly.

    Ah, thanks. Good to know for the next time LOL BTW I noticed the parking brake actually works: wonder why that one isn't enabled by default?

    BTW You mentioned the landing-checklist: I suppose by that you mean the automated slowing down to 250 towards FL100 (during descent) and the correct indications on the speed tape (S, F, etc.)? That works like a charm! (Although the magenta triangle should show the programmed speed the plane is going to. Small detail that will probably be fixed in the future.)

    I have to say... I am actually enjoying this Airbus! Yes, there is more to do in the one I am used to in P3D but actually, this one has enough to do to keep me entertained. I love it! It offers enough (well, almost) to get my Airbus fix. ;) And it is super SMOOTH!!! Can't wait for the future upgrades for this plane.

    Few remarks:
    - I suppose it is a known bug that the gear handle disappears into the panel when you put it up?

    - I had some problems at first at the beginning of my Airbus flights when I enabled the AP and the plane dove down: I think this has to do with the fact that you have to set the VS manually...? Not something you should have to do afaik. But now I know how to prevent the dive I am fine. ;)

    - I also noticed when I switched to some external views that the windows (not only of the Airbus) are a bit too white (not transparent enough)... The ground outside looks a bit light and washed out: when I switched to the external view I noticed the colors were a lot more vibrant and full. I'd like to see the windows become a but less white...

    Anyway... I am liking this sim more and more! :D

    • Official Post

    No I was actually referring to the upper screen center, the upper ECAM with its messages. When you get below 2000ft or so it shows the landing checklist and you can see what major items you need to set before landing. E.g. the landing flaps (you can also use flap 3 if you set the GPWS Flap 3 inhibit) or the landing gear, arm spoilers.

    The managed speed during the approach phase is not modelled correctly yet. The autothrust should not drop below the green dot speed when flaps are up, not below -S when Flap 1 is selected, not below -F when flap 2 or 3 is selected. And the speed should be below 250kts below 10,000ft... But we will probably add that as well.
    I would like to see the "descent speed range" where the real world a320 can vary the target speed in managed speed mode to maintain a geometric segment from the flight plan at idle power. (Idle power -> fly target profile -> results in variations in speed)
    And of course the protections need to be added at some point. Alpha-, overspeed- and g-protection that is. And the fly by wire need to be changed to a C* law as well, hehe :D So still a bit to go on the A320 autoflight and fly-by-wire side. But we are getting there sooner or later (I hope sooner, the A320 is my favorite aircraft in the sim)

    The gear handle only disappears if you use the mouse wheel. If you left or right click it should be fine. That is a bug, the -1.0 from the mousewheel delta is set in the binary gear-toggle, it should just clamp it at 0.0... Also happens on some of the light switches (those with two states)... This will be an easy fix, but again, I don't have the code here and have to forward that issue. (I've only been working at IPACS for about a year now, surely I don't have full access to all the code yet)

    When you enable the autopilot in flight without changing the engagement mode with flight directors on first the real A320 will go into heading-select mode with a heading-sync (if --- before) and vertical speed with a vertical-speed sync (if --- before). Our A320 currently does heading hold (no sync yet) and vertical speed (properly synced afaik).

    As mentioned we will overhaul the autopilot at some point, then we will fix hopefully all of the issues with it so far...

    parking brake: once I've added it to all airplanes that have one we can enable them all at once. Does not make sense to add a control assignment when only a few of the planes have a working parking brake. And the wheel brakes are not quite strong enough to hold the C172 even, that needs to be fixed as well :D
    Hint: The A320, B737, B747 as well as the C172 have a parking brake implemented as far as I remember, you need to edit the controls.tmd to enable them. Once the remaining airplanes have them we will add them to the official version.

    Cheers,
    Jan

    Thanks again for yet another detailed reply, Jan! Much appreciated!

    Ah, the upper ECAM screen: I did see and used that, yes! Very nice indeed! Good to hear the A320 is your favorite aircraft in the sim because it also is my favorite. We'll see how much will be added in the future but the things you are talking about go very far for a default plane already...! Wow! You almost make it sound like this is a dedicated Airbus sim! Or a DLC plane! :D

    I understand the thought behind enabling certain things or all airplanes or none. Just as I very well understand that buttons and knobs that have no effect are (almost all) disabled. It would indeed be very confusing, not just for newcomers.

    Anyway, my hopes for this sim become bigger and better and higher with every post you post LOL! ;) Can't wait to get home and enjoy yet another flight in AFS2!

    EDIT
    Working for a year already and still no access to all the code... I think a lot of simmers, if not all, hardly have an idea what's going on behind the scenes of a sim and how much code (and work) is involved...! Respect! I seriously am regretting some of the remarks I posted on Avsim about iPacs not having done too much the last few years... I couldn't have been more wrong. :( I'll do my best to undo any damage done though. ;)

    • Official Post

    Well you don't just give parts of the best game-engine code to someone who is new in the company, I totally understand that. And I really can't complain, I do have enough access to program almost anything in the airplanes, its amazing how fast I was integrated into the team, really nice people to work with. As mentioned in previous posts, just because you don't hear from us doesn't mean we are not working... There are a great number of things that we already prepared for the future that you as a user will see much later. But we have to finalize everything first and we don't want to throw out unfinished things that make airplanes unflyable for example. And that just takes time, a lot of time...

    Well it probably won't be a dedicated Airbus sim, eventually we want all of the default planes to have a decent system depth, at least the most important things should work, stuff that you would expect from default airplanes.
    The A320 is just one of the planes that happens to have quite unique attributes (e.g. the autopilot, autothrust and fly-by-wire) and we will continue replicate that. And its quite a popular aircraft and very easy to get into as a simmer, thats why I think its great that the A320 has a bit more to offer. Personally I would like to reach Aerosoft's level of depth in the A320 at some point, the FlightSimLabs A320 kind of depth would probably be a bit much to ask for :D Though I think the FSLabs A320 would run quite a bit smother on the Aerofly FS 2 engine.

    Cheers,
    Jan

    Quote from Jet-Pack

    Personally I would like to reach Aerosoft's level of depth in the A320 at some point

    Sounds like more than anyone could ask for, specially if it stays a 'free' default aircraft! The future looks good! Or at least very interesting! ;)

    Hi.

    Thanks for making a very promising game/sim!
    Fantastic performance and very good visuals, including your aircraft.

    I have taken your A320 for a few flights and like it very much!

    Jan, i tried to activate park brake by removing // in the control file, and it worked!
    But i think i found one small bug: if i push B or my joystick button wich is programmed for brakes when park brake is on, i have no brakes after i release park brake( hitting B does not activate normal braking anymore). It becomes normal again if park brakes are set and turned off again without hitting B inbetween. A minor bug but maybe someting to look into before you activate this officially?

    Regarding auto pilot: i have not found out how to not get a hefty nose down pitch when i engage a/p.
    Jan, did you mean flight directors shoud be off and no a/p buttons tutched before engaging one a/p after takeoff, exept selecting altitude?