Posts by jcomm

  • As AFS 2 is a Steam ......

    Yep,

    that's pretty much the philosophy of Steam. If you opt for the game being updated automatically , in the game's properties, or even in some games if you opt for "betas", than the updates will reach you automatically and usually fast since their servers network is very well distributed around the World - actually one big advantage of using Steam as a game platform...

  • The biggest Potential of AEFS2...

    it's, IMO, indeed the open and very nicely structured model used in their configuration files, used by the simulation engine to do perform various tasks...

    The other big point is the good sense in the IPACS Team - they're trying not to be forced by the nowadays typical temptation to rush everything and get profit fast... They take their time to cautiously evolve, one good step at a time... It's up for the users to understand / accept that pace, knowing that things will come, with time, but without a precise schedule, that would be dangerous / impossible to set for such a small Team.

    Things that come to my mind regarding the future of AEFS2 as opposed, for instance, to the future of X-Plane or MSFS-derived platforms, are the possibility of building from scratch various modelling approaches to systems simulation, that could be used alternatively, depending on the use one want's to make of the sim.

    Some of those systems could be core ones, like the Weather engine. That one in particular, given my area of work IRL, and the fact that I am a long time glider fan, is a system that would certainly profit from a detailed, revolutionary approach, and I'm not talking about the graphics, which so far are evidently not a problem for IPACS :-), but the way the atmosphere could be modelled, introducing for the very first time in the short history of flight simulation games such important effects like that of Moist, Geopotential Height modelling / non-ISA pressure and temperature "lapse rates", etc...

    My feel when I start AEFS2 is mixed. There's the WOW feel, but since I was "created" as a simmer running ATP, FS2, 3 and then 4... and still using ELITE for IFR, or Aerowinx for the most advanced b744 simulation available for a PC, graphics aren't actually my main concern.... There are still few things to occupy my attention as a virtual pilot, very few systems being simulated, no AI or Traffic, etc... But! there surely is the Potential Energy to get it running - it's probably just a question of learning to be patient and Wait....

    Looking fwd for June 15th

  • Trying to understand Aerofly FS2 planes PART 2

    Quote from Jet-Pack

    To my knowledge the A320 model did still require quite a bit of work on our side. It wasn't just plug and play afaik.

    Flight model wise, I don't really know the FSX flight model setup that well, I just see the results. Sure, Mach effects are something we need to work on in the future but I generally find the Aerofly physics model very detailed.

    There are things in the Aerofly FS 2 tmd definition files that I don't think you would find in FSX. For example the wing geometry or the geometry of the aerodynamical fuselage. Or the rigidbody simulation of the entire aircraft, including the landing gear. How would you extract that from the MSFS files?

    I'd say it's quicker to start from scratch than to write a program to do it for you, even though I like the idea of it and I have also written tools in the past to do similar things, e.g. convert an Aerofly RC aircraft to the Aerofly FS 1 or convert an X-Plane aircraft for the Aerofly FS 1. At the end I started working on a tool that interprets the 3D model and generates the flight model setup from scratch. But all that was taking a lot of time and I would have needed a lot longer if I had finished it. I could have converted 5 or 10 aircraft to the full extend in that time and then I also started working for IPACS full time and could directly affect the quality of the aircraft which I prefere over quantity.
    So my opinion: not worth it. Too few cases where you'd need it, you can't save that much hours compared to the hours it takes to program such a powerful tool. Just start from scratch, to it properly. It may take a bit of time but in the end you'll have a proper physics model of your aircraft and can be sure that all things are working as intended. I can not begin to imagine how many parameters are chosen unrealistically for an MSFS aircraft just to feel right in that exact sim. You'd also copy over all those issues as well.

    Regards,
    Jan

    Yes Jan, I agree with all your points, starting with AEFS2's FDM being a lot different and potentially more powerful than MSFS's...

    Indeed, given the more or less similar approaches, it should be easier to port aircraft between XP and AEFS2. Airfoil Maker in XP allows for some additional customization for the Cl, Cd, Cm ... curves, which are automatically adjusted based on the coefficients in AEFS2, assuming a linear relation along a good part of it's range of AoAs... If this further detail translates or not into closer to real outcome, I really don't know, and I still prefer the "feel of flight" in AEFS2 to what X-Plane provides, specially when leaving the normal flight envelope.

    Also, having fresh code, and an insightful team behind it, AEFS2 certainly has the potential to grow even better than X-Plane in the FDM area in the short run...

    I am really willing to taste the upcoming Q-400, and the turboprop model it uses :)

  • Trying to understand Aerofly FS2 planes PART 2

    But actually your original question makes a LOT of sense.

    For one, most of the aircraft add-ons that were released for AEFS1, I believe produced by Just Flight, were inherited from MSFS models. Even the Airbus is ported ( the cockpit 3d model at least ) from the Aerosoft Airbus ( AFAIK ), so, there must be a relatively easy way to port 3d models from MSFS into AEFS2.

    Flight dynamics wise, and after looking with more attention at the aircraft definition files, I believe it wouldn't actually be that difficult to create a "translator" of MSFS FDM into AEFS2 FDM, although in some aspects MSFS's FDM has more detail than AEFS2's ( at it's present state of affairs ) like for instance in the modelling of Mach effects, but not only, while there are aspects of the flight dynamics modelling, derived from the rigid body approach and decomposition of an aircraft into a collection of lift / drag / thrust generating units, that extend the possibilities available for modelling of flight dynamics in AEFS2, bringing it closer to what was used for instance in Flight Unlimited, and is nowadays used by X-plane, DCS World and IL-2 Battle of Stalingrad, i.e.

    So, again, your question was indeed a rather pertinent one, if we forget about the legal restrictions of actually converting an aircraft model between two commercial, patented brands...

  • Propwash Rotation and Percentage parameters in TMD config files

    I am trying to fine tune propwash / slipstream effects on prop aircraft, and I decided to edit these parameters in the tail surfaces and fuselage, but I would like to better understand what the rotation really means - plane and direction.

    For instance, by increasing Propwash-Rotation in the vertical fin from 0.05 default to 0.25 I get a noticeable yaw when power is applied, so this rotation was "around" the "z" ( yaw ) axis, which was what I was expecting for a CW rotating prop in the C172.

    Then I also applied that to the left horizontal fin / stabilizer, and it appeared to "twist" clockwise around the "x" ( roll ) axis, but it wasn't very evident in my tests inflight...

    I see that I can separately tune this parameters between the port and starboard sides, but I would really like to know more about the effects of these parameters, and their sign conventions too - I left them positive in all my tests.

    The available parameters, in "aerowing" sections are:

    - PropwashPercentage
    - PropwashRotation
    - PropwashOmega

    I see the Omega is there to harden / soften the propwash effect over an aerowing, while the other two scale the "twisting" effects it can have.

    Thx for any hints

  • Bombardier Dash 8Q-400

    Wow!

    Decision made - buying a 1TB disk just for AEFS2, and upgrading into an i7 7000 series.... Graphics board upgrade maybe by Christmas...

    And of course, I will become an ORBX client... Until now my only product from them was FTX Global...

  • Updates Coming Your Way

    Thx for the Report Jeff!

    Looking fwd into it!

    Well, suposedly we already should have a turboprop in AEFS2 - the C90 with it's PT-6....

    I hope the turboprop enhancements will also be ported to this model. For instance I would liek to see FF not varying with prop RPM adjustments at constant throttle / condition / altitude...

  • Understanding Updates to scenery and Utah...

    Can someone explain to me if in order to have an install of AEFS2 to it's most up-2-date version, but without having to install the huge "Utah" scenery which came with the updates, I can simply install AEFS2 and tick only "Switzerland" ?

    Or in order to receive those core updates made to scenery, I really need to push Utah too ?

  • Aerofly FS 2 is on the right road

    Some facts...

    .) In XP you can also get excellent scenery using ortho4xp and w2xp or even simple osm.

    .) Both XP and AEFS lack seasonal effects.

    .) Both XP and AEFS lack the possibility to set a precise date of flight, and get the exact daylight and Moon ephemeris for that date / time.

    .) In XP weather modelling is ahead of AEFS, including - but not only - the possibility of using real world weather injection.

    .) In XP aircraft and systems modelling is also way ahead of AEFS.

    .) In XP there are AI aircraft ( very unsuccessfully implemented by default IMO because the main developer wanted them to share the same flight dynamics model as user aircraft... very heavy on the computing requirements... ) and also cars on roads, etc...

    Flight Dynamics - the aspect that interests me the most - look powerful on both sims, although following different approaches, even if both based in the decomposition of an aircraft into various lift / drag / thrust generating elements.

    IMO, X-Plane 11 is still a more interesting option, but AEFS has the chance to become even more interesting...

  • Aerofly FS1 “Discus bM” to Aerofly FS2 | How to add it?

    Quote from antigoon

    I can imagine that's true, since the Glider community still gravitates towards Condor. Especially with Condor V2 starting to be a real possibility.

    BUT, I still think Ipacs can win the Condor Community if they try with 5 good gliders and well modelled thermals. Simplly because VR wins.

    The complexity of both Condorsoaring and SilentWings soaring simulators in terms of modelling of the atmospheric effects / characteristics important to simulate soaring are incomparably higher than what the model used in a generic flight simulator like AEFS2 offers...

    AEFS has a small team behind, concentrating already in a certainly long list of todo items, so, this task, followed in different approaches by SilentWings and Condorsoaring ( btw. SW also has progress towards a v2 ! ), is certainly not going to happen in the next years, if ever, so, I as a glider pilot will keep choosing either SW or Condor. I use SW with medium resolution satellite scenery and it's very good to feed the algorithm in which thermal ( and other kinds of lift , etc... ) is modelled and Condor when I want to fly online with other virtual glider pilots - usually colleagues of mine all around the World during their low seasons...

  • Aerofly FS1 “Discus bM” to Aerofly FS2 | How to add it?

    Quote from HiFlyer

    I don't know how long it's been since you had Aerofly 1 installed, but I suspect that when you did, you probably had moved the simulation realism setting to high. Aerofly FS 2 so far has no such setting.

    Aerofly FS 1 also had (I believe) superior clouds (they had a wider coverage area, better color variation etc) and "real" water rather than relying on water photo textures.

    You also had some nice cloud and or wind weather presets. Not to mention being able to show the windfield in the simulation, which worked nicely for gliders.

    What this tells me though, is that Ipacs has already shown the technical ability to create such features, and we just have to be patient while FS 2 versions (or alternatives) make it to the sim.

    I see your point, but I also fear that the formidable performance we now have in AEFS2, and isn't anyway comparable to what I had in AEFS1 can be justified not only by better / optimized use of the processing power of modern GPUs, but also due to a cut in the complexity of the weather, systems and even flight dynamics modeling simulation. Damage modeling also suffered, IMO, a significant simplification.

    I would like to be told I'm wrong by the developers, but I do miss the feel of the aircraft in some aspects as they felt in AEFS1 ( only the default, because I never bought the add-ons ) as well as some weather effects, mainly turbulence, but also ridge lift.