Posts by Jet-Pack (IPACS)

  • Flying with aerofly fs 2, and ... Google earth ?

    Hi Delfin,

    btw. the "s" in IPACS is not a plural, its part of the name:
    it's "IPACS" and "IPACSes Aerofly Simulator", not "IPAC".

    I don't think Google is just going to sell their entire planet of 3D imagery to a small simulator, sadly. And streaming the data is currently not really an option, even with my 100Mbit connection I see a lot of reloading in google earth. That just doesn't look as pleasing as the nicely loaded Aerofly FS 2 scenery. The overall storage requirement on disk would also be even higher than current Aerofly FS 2 scenery.

    But last time I flew over the world in Google Earth I had the exact same idea, I'd really like to see entire areas in Aerofly to be of that kind of quality. Just imagine landing a helicopter on the street corner next to your house :D Or coming in low with an airliner, actually seeing the real city beneath you.

    So I second your idea, but in general I'd like to have even higher quality scenery. Currently there just isn't much detail at the airports for example, too few light posts, catering & pushback trucks, shuttle busses, taxiway signs, no grass. Maybe we'll get there some day. But I also know how much work goes into these airports already.

    Regards,
    Jan

  • Flight of Pitts and Extra (of FS-2), in acrobatics.

    I don't think it's impossible to do even with rudder... It's not easy with rudder either. You can't just hold the rudder until the nose points to the runway, you have to get the yaw motion going and let go of the rudder long before you reach straight again. Sometimes you even have to stop the yawing motion otherwise you will overshoot to the other side and start oscillating. Most people I've seen that failed to hold the pitts straight corrected for the first yaw motion to the left with right rudder but then failed to counteract that motion when the aircraft was aligned with the runway again, so the momentum got them yawing to the right, which they noticed too late, then they fed in full rudder to the left, overshooting the center again but much more quickly than last time, then they do a wheely and crash.
    So lesson is: tap the rudder just a bit and be prepared to stop the yawing though the desired straight direction. Just look at the speed the nose is moving and counteract that, don't just counteract the actual angle between the nose and center line.

    With pedals I barely move the rudder at all. Maybe 5% left and right for the pitts. But you have to act quick and right to prevent any pilot induced oscillations. The aircraft is very unstable on the ground due to its taildragger configuration. We'll probably rework the Pitts one day, so this issue might be reduced significantly then.

    Regards,
    Jan

  • Slow progress

    Hi Almdudler,

    the Carrier is nice and all but the user made one doesn't move and doesn't have any catch hooks or launch catapults. In another thread I've gone into more detail on how much work will need to be done to make a realistic carrier: wheel physics, catch hook and cable physics, catapult physics and sturdy gear, not to mention the tiggers would need to be defined, e.g. how do you align the aircraft with the catapult or how do you tell the aircraft elevator to move up / down without any buttons :D

    Push-back is also something that I would like to see. But right now we can't even stop the engines, I kinda want to start my engines whilst pushing back. And then we'd also need doors to open... I'm hoping we can implement something like GSX for the Aerofly FS 2, just better without the need to decide what to do. If I start at the gate I dont want to select the option "boading now please", similarily when I arrive at the gate the deboarding should go automatically (e.g. the jetway should be moved to the entry door automatically. The doors should be handled by the simulated crew as well, I don't want to open doors from within the MCDU/FMS how unrealistic is that?)

    "Finishing" the four aircraft you mention is also my intention. We need platform demonstrators and those aircraft would be the logical choice since we have enough technical documentation about them, real world pilot contacts and they all fly today which makes it easier for us to potentially get a ride along. But things like the engine start stop and mixture, etc. we will need to implement for all aircaft in the sim. If a hydraulic system is missing, ok, I might be able to live with that, but as a user I at least want to start up the aircraft realistically, taxi out, fly without failure simulation maybe (default aircraft...) then come to land, park the aircraft and shut it down.

    Our A320 is maybe 15% complete compared to the real world one, maybe half way of what you would expect from a default aircraft. Needs fuel, electrics, hydraulics, bleeds, terrain radar, wx radar, gpws, etc. yet, then I'd say it's good enough for a default ("finished"). There are just so many systems on the real world aircraft, we will never be able to fully model all of them, no one is going to pay for that. It will take more than 7 years (see the FSLabs A320) to simulate maybe 85% or 90% of the systems. We obviously can't go to such depth for all of the default aircraft (at least with the small team right now).

    Regards,
    Jan

  • Slow progress

    "not a lot going on yet" - Yeah right, as if we haven't done anything in the past year. (no offense taken)
    "I pray you guys know what priorities are" - what do you want to say with that sentense. Is there some aircraft system you would like to see prioritised over the list that I've posted?

    I'm not a wizzard and quite a bit of the work I do will remain hidden for a bit until they are available for all aircraft or until they are finished. Until they are finished the public version won't see much of the changes. For example: The entirety of the A320 and LJ45 is already clickable in my developer version but not all of the switches have a function behind them yet. Don't forget that the C172 and B58 are already quite advanced e.g. full electric system, all instruments up and running. Apart from the engine things (mixture, magnetos) its just the GPS that kinda missing yet.

    The functions behind the yet unclickable switches will be implemented when its the right time and in the mean time I won't just fake them for the sake of seeing some outcome of the switch manipulation. We could rush into completing one aircraft but then we would have to do the same amount of work again for the next aircraft. So instead we are implementing a solution for each system that works for all aircraft. That takes a little bit longer for the first couple aircraft and doesn't look as fast from your point of view, but it will make the development faster in the long run. And more accurate than existing payware add-ons for the other simulators.
    I've stated my point of view above; I think the major system depth that is lacking yet is engine management and engine start/stop, that is basic stuff that we absolutely need.

    You can look forward to testing the autopilot update soon, I can't really praise my own work here but I think it will raise the bar quite a bit. Heck in some places I am even simulating the A320 autoflight system more realitic than all payware add-ons on the market (that I've tested) which shows me even they have not tested everything, especially the things that are not used on a daily basis. Without the FMS implemented in the Aerofly FS 2 at the moment some things will be missing yet but we'll get there, too.
    That a/p update will also include an entire remake/refresh of the A320 PFD and ND displays, making them look very authentic (almost pixel perfect in comparison to real world images) and also relatively complete in terms of functionality. There are just a few things missing like failures of the ADIRUs and non-computed data but that can be added relatively quickly later if that is even relevant for the default simulator.

    To answer your post quickly: we are working on it, please be more patient.

    Regards,
    Jan

  • Slow progress

    Quote from CavendishD

    Jan, it does concern me that in your roadmap and the one you linked to that multiplayer isn't even hinted at.


    Yeah, that is just my roadmap and currently it doesn't look like multiplayer is going to fall into my hands. I'd like to program the multiplayer but I have very little experience with network communication, it's just not my field, that's why its not on my list.
    I find a multiplayer feature essential and very important, I'd like to fly in formation with you guys or even share a cockpit :D

    Regards,
    Jan

  • Slow progress

    Hey guys, just to clear a few things up:

    "Concerns about the performance with more systems?" No, I don't think so...
    From my point of view more systems won't affect the performance that much if at all. If you are using the CPU to its full potential it can do a lot of things very quickly (3.400.000.000 things second! per core...). And Aerofly has an engine that is very powerful, using multicore, 64bit... I've been adding thousands of small systems in the past year now, I've not had an issue with CPU performance even once. The frame rate stayed at 60FPS since the graphics is running on another thread and mainly on the graphics card anyway - so rendering will still be very smooth even if theoretically we would somehow managed to bring the physics engine to its limits. Then the phyics would probably just get less acurate if we had to slow it down... That shouldn't affect the frame rate at all though, it does in other simulators but it shouldn't. But I doubt we will ever get to the limits of the physics engine, even if we add study level system depth.

    "FMS simplified?" No, accessible, still highly accurate.
    When we add FMSes they will probably be editable from within the navigation dialog (directly injecting the entire route) as well from inside the virtual cockpit. That means you will be able to edit the flight plan exactly like in the real aircraft. But there probably won't be any fake menus like in all the add-ons, to save a flight plan or panel state - that will most likely be possible from the navigation dialog or aircraft selection screen or some other interfaces that might be added.

    From my point of view these are the following items are what is probably coming next in terms of system, not official list, no guarantee
    - autopilot is basically finished, should be released soon-ish
    - turbo-props will be improved and with that comes the Q400
    - then we will probably continue to update engine physics, adding the long awaited start/stop of the engine and probably mixture
    - I'm hoping after that we will improve the sound quality, especially adding realistic engine sounds, incl startup sounds
    - FMS are also very likely to be added, I don't know when, I'm hoping sooner than later...
    This list is incomplete (not the official roadmap), just the things that I will likely be involved in, the other developers will be developing other great features in parallel, as mentioned on the official roadmap http://www.ipacs.de/forum/showthre…ng-Early-Access
    (ATC is one of the things mentioned there)

    Regards,
    Jan

  • No communication or support for mobile!

    Hi donka,

    but the same goes for the PC users. We are currently in Early Access on Steam with the Aerofly FS 2. Now is not a good time to suddenly stop development on the PC version for couple of months to update the mobile version. As IPACS officially mentioned in this forum we won't drop the mobile version, we will update it eventually. But at the moment the PC version isn't quite finished yet, if we were to update the mobile version to the same version there would be two kindof unfinished versions on the market. I'd say just wait a little bit for the mobile version, I'm positive it will come eventually and add a great number of new features.
    So long story short: We didn't abandone the mobile version, most of the development we currently do for the PC version will also improve the mobile version.

    Regards,
    Jan

  • Flight of Pitts and Extra (of FS-2), in acrobatics.

    Well I have other things to do as well, I'm sorry. Most times I'm in this forum I'm on my free time, I just like to be here and try to support people - I'm not officially in the support team but I know quite a bit about the Aerofly so I try to help. With the huge number of posts lately I can't remember what everyone said for each post, most of the times I just jump the next unread post that's probably why I asked you questions that you already answered to.

    With all the info that you gave me it's certain to say that rudder assist option in the main config is not affecting the rudder "assist" as intended. So I'm going to forward this bug (again) to the programmers of the control settings dialog.

    Regards,
    Jan

  • Doubts about the concept of sensitivity:

    Hi Delfin,
    I'm sorry for the short reply but I haven't experienced with the sensitivity setting at all, in fact in all simulators I've always just left the sensitivity alone and made the response as linearly as possible, turned all realism sliders up to max.... So I have no idea how the setting works and if it works but I've seen settings in the aircraft files after an update for the mobile version was published, so I think it has to do with the mobile devices where a sensitivity option would make sense.
    Regards,
    Jan

  • Flight of Pitts and Extra (of FS-2), in acrobatics.

    Hi Delfin, I must have been in a hurry and didn't respond, then forgot.

    Does your rudder issue still persist?
    Can you confirm that you have indeed just a pair of buttons/keys assigned for the rudder? Are these buttons on the keyboard or on a jostick or other controller?

    Solution A:
    Did you try to edit the main.mcf file manually yet?
    (Set the "rudder assist" to false)

    Solution B:
    Go to the control settings, if you have a twist joystick assign the twisting handle to the rudder.
    The rudder should now only move with your input.
    Then try to remove the rudder assignment again.
    Please tell me if the the rudder issue comes back, I would consider this a bug, since you still have your buttons assigned, right?

    Regards,
    Jan

  • Request new assignable events in Settings menu

    Hi Antoine,

    yes the control settings menu is a bottleneck at the moment. I've programmed probably three to five hundred switches or functions that can't be assigned yet, e.g. the battery master in the c172 or b58, pedal disconnect in the a320, etc. etc..
    If we don't do something about it tools like FSUIPC that exist for FSX will be created for Aerofly FS 2 as well. That goes against our philosophie of creating a good simulator that doesn't need external software.

    I'm dreaming of a method where you are in the virtual cockpit, press a button to enable the controls editing function, then click the switch with the mouse (highlight that clickspot while its active), then move the control device switch that you would like to have assigned for that function. E.g. load the Cessna, hit edit command short cut, click the fuel pump switch, flip your device switch - assignment done. That would be very very nice I think.

    Regards,
    Jan

  • Turbulence modeling.

    To my knowledge it's a vector field, but I don't know for sure. I've experienced that one wing got an updraft and the other got none or a downdraft, especially near thermals. Turbulence itself I find is bit too simplified, it is equally distributed over time, it can't bank the aircraft to 45deg and just leave it there, at least right now. I find it a bit monotonous at the moment, doesn't really change all that much. But I think once we implement a better weather system the turbulence model will be brought up to a whole new level :D

    - Jan

  • What is required for autoflight (tracking the green route) in the Learjet 45?

    Hi Ray,

    Please don't expect any FMSes from the autopilot update. The autopilot will have few more things from our internal FMS (like display the top of descent on the ND) but there won't be a clickable CDU/MCDU coming with that autopilot update. To my knowledge we intend to add CDUs/MCDUs "FMCs/FMSes" later on. That will be another update with a lot of work that has to be done. We'll get there bug maybe there are other things in the mean time that are higher on the priority list.

    Regards,
    Jan

  • What is required for autoflight (tracking the green route) in the Learjet 45?

    Quote from IPACS Support

    Ray, please, don't be so pessimistic, Jan knows his business :)


    Thanks :D
    Well I was about to say: I've been working on the Autopilot for quite some time now, it actually works quite well, but I'm also sure that there will be ways to use the autopilot that I have not thought off. The typical way real airline pilots would use it should work flawlessly unless I really made mistakes at some point. There will be scenarios where we don't know what the real world autopilot would do and the real autopilots aren't bug free either, so yeah. I'm really looking forward to you testing the a/p after the big uptate. I think it will be a major improvement and I really hope there won't be that many bugs left.
    I'm going for one, max. two updates for fixes, none would be reall nice :D

    The updates that will come after the autopilot will probably just be more content for the aircraft, we're currently implementing a lot for the aircraft but I'm sure we will never be finishe :D

    Cheers,
    Jan