Posts by John Hargreaves

I haven't figured this one out yet, how do you make the pilot visible in VR?

Yeah, I'm always just diving in to FSX on defaults an ending up at an airfield in the dark because I forgot to set the time correctly, then waiting ages to reload the flight. Having such fine control over time is a great touch. Now does that make it less sim and more of a game? I'm not sure but I prefer having the feature there, and it can easily be ignored for anyone who doesn't like it.

I keep discovering cool little features - flying around NYC at dawn in VR, the distant buildings were blocking the sunlight flooding into the cockpit as I passed through the shadow, lovely little touch.

Also, the ability to change time on the fly is really cool. I have time +/- assigned to a button on my throttle, so I can get perfect lighting and sun position at the flick of a button. It works really well too when you are on the runway and you have mistakenly set the wrong time you can flick night into day in a few clicks.

It makes a lot of sense to work with OrbX, they have the expertise and back catalogue there already and it would be pointless to just duplicate all their work. IPACS can concentrate manpower on the game engine and features, and building up the reputation of the core game.
There are so many brilliant aircraft developers out there too, it would be nice to see some more deals done with the likes of A2A etc to open up the whole system.

Just noticed that FS2 has fully working 3D cockpit mirrors in VR. Nice.

Hey spiffy they look great, makes a heck of a difference :cool:

Quote from Almdudler

John, Google Earth has had its own integrated flight simulator for years. You can fly planes around. Check it out.

And: you can connect FSX with Google Earth. There is a tool for that.

So this not a new idea. You can also connect Google Earth with Excel.
Many poeple use these hidden functions.

Just for info

Thanks for the info, I shall look into those two :cool:

Edit: Mmmm, interesting projects those, still seem to be quite a long way from what I'd consider a proper flight sim at this stage, but promising in terms of possibilities.

I wonder if there is a flight sim based on Google Earth lurking in the future? Currently on Google Maps the 3D view from even a few hundred feet is pretty good and is different to, but as good as, lots of stuff in many flight sims. It has the accuracy though, better than anything out there in sims, and the 3D view generates a pretty convincing bump map effect on most structures. Obviously you don't get time of day, night flying etc, and it may involve an 'always online' setup, but it's an idea for the future.

Thanks for the reply guys, I realise that the forum is pretty quiet at the moment and my suggestions are not yet appropriate, but FS2 is certainly creating a bit of a buzz around some of the forums I read, so I was thinking ahead really. Ideally, FS2 as a game/sim will grow and grow as new features are added, and I think the big thing you chaps have going for you is a modern game engine suited to current hardware rather than one that has evolved and been bolted onto over many years like FSX/P3D etc Great though those sims are, they are somewhat hampered by their roots so performance is an issue even on modern hardware.

So going forward the forum will hopefully grow with the user base, and the structure could grow with it. If IPACS can continue to develop features and broaden out the base game, then you have a great product on your hands, and potentially many supporters out in the community. There is certainly room for a sim that is accessible to casual players as well as catering for the smaller community of hardcore enthusiasts.

I'll certainly be keeping an eye on FS2 and have recommended it as a great VR flying experience to people on other forums I read.

New user to FS2 this week, and like many others I am impressed with the potential of this game. It's great to see devs making use of modern hardware - multi core cpus, x64, DX10 etc out of the box, rather than the bolted on solutions we have been using in FSX etc. I think the time is right to bring out a new flight sim as the games market for simulation generally is on the up and people are starting to cotton on to the enjoyment to be gained from an accurate simulation whether it's trucks, planes, race cars or whatever.

Gamers are growing older, and with it comes the appreciation of depth and the patience required to enjoy it. Quick fix arcade games perhaps don't appeal quite so much to the kind of people that will be arriving here in the coming months.

Anyway, my suggestion is that the forum be split into logically organised separate sub forums to cover things like physics/UI/graphics feedback, technical support, suggestions, off topic discussion etc and maybe also a dev read only area to provide updates and weekly news like the DCS World forum does. Before long the forum might become large and unwieldy in its current form.

I've been involved in the WMD Project Cars community for the last five years, and the power of feedback and contributions has enabled a relatively small dev team to punch way above its weight, as you can have an army of volunteers that will happily bug test and contribute for free. However, you do need to educate people how the process works to get the best out of it.

Aerofly FS2 clearly has great potential, and I have no doubt that the forums will grow enormously over the coming months and years. One of the things we learned from WMD1 was that many people don't quite understand the nature of a WIP sim and expect the same as they would from a finished title. Some of the comments on the Steam forums bear this out, so the more you can communicate with the early access users, the more positive the whole experience will be both for the devs and the players. A great deal of forum noise can be avoided with updates/news/buglists being available to read and a great many bugs can be found and squashed along the way.

I think you will find a lot of good will out in the sim community (as well as the compulsory trolls :confused:), and there is a lot of enthusiasm around for FS2, especially after the OrbX deal was announced and the way it plays in VR, so best of luck to the team and I hope you can make the best of the opportunity.