Flight Sim World cancelled. Great article on the fickle nature of flight simmers

[Mysticpuma]

Transpose the words of this writer to BoX,  CloD,  DCS etc,  etc

 

https://pcflight.net/flight-sim-world-development-cancelled/

[Feathered_IV]

Was that really an article?   It seemed like an attempted rant that failed to lock onto something.  

[Danziger]

Well that was fast.

[Trooper117]

Sounds like someone who thought he was the saviour of FSX and then got pipped to the post and was not too happy about it...

[ZachariasX]

Dovetail unfortunately tried the worst of both worlds: Controll the add-on market and taxing those plus not being responsible for the add-ons.

 

Technically, there is no reason they should have gone belly up. But if you alientate the content providers plattform, then ther can't be no viable business from that. Too bad.

[Drunkplane]

The 3rd party modules of dcsw is totally sick...

Lack quality control and poor quality audit from ED official.

Half of studios released semifinished products to 'early access', It's weird.

After I post something about do more quality check before releasing the 3rd party module, they ban my forums account.

So, I decided not to buy the module from the 3rd party studios. 

Edited April 27, 2018 by Drunkplane
grammar

[Trooper117]

This is about Flight Sim World not DCS...

[Drunkplane]

I know that, PMDG doesn't like the publisher has too much power on the platform.

But there are too many sick studios could not work well as the PMDG and does't care the consumer.

Also the platform owner/publisher doesn't care about the quality. 

However we have very few choice on PCFS nowadays, the market is such small and just so on. 

 

[DetCord12B]

Oh well, back to P3D. 

 

Are we getting a refund?

 

EDIT - Nope. Oh you motherf....

Edited April 28, 2018 by DetCord12B

[Field-Ops]

I should've learned my lesson not to follow games into early access.... 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

35 minutes ago, Field-Ops said:

I should've learned my lesson not to follow games into early access.... 

 

It's always difficult to predict these things. I avoided BoX for years after seeing the promotional material in 2013. Now that it's among my favourite games, I regret that decision. 

 

On the other hand, I have had countless games that fizzled out before leaving 'beta'. 

[Vig]

I tried the early demo and was unimpressed with the flight model.  Still, I probably would have jumped in, despite having minimal interest in civilian sims, had I not known how overpriced and underdeveloped the company's train sim offerings were.  Just too much money for too little stuff

[ZachariasX]

2 hours ago, Vig said:

I tried the early demo and was unimpressed with the flight model.  Still, I probably would have jumped in, despite having minimal interest in civilian sims, had I not known how overpriced and underdeveloped the company's train sim offerings were.  Just too much money for too little stuff

 

You cannot, I repeat, you cannot tell from the demo plane what the inner mechanics of the simulator is capable of.

 

Why is that? In order to make a „good“ FM, you have to spend a lot of ressources on that plane module. In a sim that has no release status yet, it is silly to assume that the devs already could finish a good FM in a sim that is not „finished“. (It in fact was, just differently.)

 

Second, as seen in FSX, it may not even be advisable to get a perfect („difficult“) FM for a default aircraft, as it may put off most of the inexperienced casual players. WT proves that there is way more clietele found there than in hardcore simmers. It may be a good idea to have a silly UFO as default, one that enables „everyone“ to have „a good experience“ than confronting the player with too much initially.

 

MS tried that point together with the extortion scheme evisioned for Flight Sim World as well. However, a pure flight sim is way too boring (no bombs‘n stuff) for tha casual gamer, it can only appeal to grown ups who are at least somewhat serious in what they are doing. And they hate those UFOs.

 

DCS was in a better position as it emerged from a known product with a known player base, hence it could count on these clients as well as developpers. FSX is still alive (much more so than 10 years ago) just because everyone can develop stuff for it and is provided with the dev kit required for that. It is only to MS‘ dismay that they couldn‘t tax all those devs. They didn’t think of it back then. This taxing scheme was the main difference between Flight and FSX. Of course that one spectacularly failed as well.

 

Furthermore, all modern sims compute flight using lifting line theory on monoplane aircraft (in RoF all aircraft are computed as monoplanes) and in process compute very similar results. You use blueprint values of the Fokker Dr.I in FSX, you get the exact same clowncar we had in RoF pre-patch. And there you can see where the sims may differ. Basically in how much you allow a plane to deviate from pure lifting line theory to produce more exact results as they are known from real aircraft. These efforts are typically not done in cheap default AC. In BoX, there is a lot of work done to make the AC perform to known values. 

 

All you can get from such early release sims is an impression whether it is pretty or not and how FPS friendly it may be, giving an idea of what you can do with it down the road.

 

It is clear that Flight Sim World was technically not on a level that could blow direct competition like Aerofly FS 2 out of the water. It is too mch of the same while actively hurting developpers. P3D is not really cmpetition, it has progressed too far by now. Like a newspaper outlet wouldn‘t switch from Nikon to Canon, just because the latter brought out a nice new model.

 

[ZachariasX]

I give it a try then. Lifting line theory makes a (good) prediction about the *performance* of a given airfoil (size and profile) in a flight configuration (not stalling conditions).

 

This means you get the lift and drag across the range of speeds and angles of attack. It allows you for instance to determine stall speed at given weight and altitude as it gives you the AoA of the airfoil at given airspeeds and weight.

 

This, even for monoplanes gives you a slightly optimistic outlook, as real arcraft are not made from perfect airfoils. There are some FM related discussions here elaborating on that. But the take home message is, even though you did the sensible thing computing whise, you need to fudge your result a bit to match real world data, hence the FM feuds about „what is good data“, lest how it is correctly interpreted. So much for monoplanes.

 

With biplanes (and worse triplanes), just adding wing surfaces (remember, you can only compute a monoplane, two wings devoid of aerodynamic interference come down to the same) will give you an error, as the upper wing will „blanket out“ some of the lift supposedly produced by the lower wing. The closer the wings are (in relation to their depht) the more significant the effect. In short, adding wing surface will drastically augment the lift beyond what it produces in the real world. The result are those prop torquing Christen Eagles. Hence my comment about the clown car. The Dr.I for instance cancels out most of the lift given by the center wing. An illustration of this center wing (it HAD to be a triplane as the Germans were somewhat shellshocked by the Tripehound and Antony was a great salesman) not being that helpful can be seen by the true sucessor of the Dr.I that was a biplane again, while retaining most of what made the Dr.I great. The Dr.I also had the problem of most of the lift being produced by the top wing. In a power dive, the top  wing would still generate lift while the bottom wing producing a lot of downforce, putting the aircraft at risk of being torn apart. Monoplane simulation gives you none of such subtleties.

 

In RoF, there was then the question of how to deal with that. If you give the plane the appropriate power, besides being a tad too fast in some dases, they produced obscene amouts of lift. Eventually it was found easiest if they just neutered the engines of the planes that were excessively silly (but boy they were fun!). Result is that those planes lost their most silly traits BUT flight performance (speed and climb) was affected as well. Reducing lift that way (without opening the can of worms by fudging ALL flight models) made some planes suffer more than others. In this sense, it was strong medicine with considerable collateral to give purpose (as there was back then) to all planes instead of just two.

 

It can not be underestimated how much you need to tweak pure lifting line theory if you use this to simulate an aircraft in all situations. There is no simple formula to that. Airbus and Boeing spend many month flying around with the aircraft loaded with computers to measure what it actually does, producing enormous tables of data. Any serious sim needs both the aerodynamic computation as well as table data to reliably reproduce the real thing.

 

About similarity of „feel“: Neoqb back then published (for free!) the Dr.I to be imported in FSX. Lo and behold, it did exactly the same in FSX than in RoF. If there is a similar feeling, I guess you feel the same handwriting of the coder who programs the parameter for the FM. In FSX, you can edit the *.air file of an aircraft defining its FM properties, power and efficiencies. Messing with that (there are editors for that) shows you how drastic certain changes can be. Fudging the FM is a delicate affair where one parameter can screw a lot of other parameters. Try it and you can fathom the great job the devs here are doing, given the source material at hand.

 

And default AC in sims usually don‘t get all this love needed. Compare the FSX default C172 with A2A Simulations C172 and you will find those two have very little in common, the later turning FSX in wholly different experience.

[DetCord12B]

17 hours ago, ZachariasX said:

Second, as seen in FSX, it may not even be advisable to get a perfect („difficult“) FM for a default aircraft, as it may put off most of the inexperienced casual players. WT proves that there is way more clietele found there than in hardcore simmers. It may be a good idea to have a silly UFO as default, one that enables „everyone“ to have „a good experience“ than confronting the player with too much initially.

 

Don't forget that some FSX/P3D addons have external FM's that actually work outside the sim due to the overtly complicated nature of that particular addon. Granted these are few and far between, but they do exist. 

[Vig]

19 hours ago, ZachariasX said:

 

You cannot, I repeat, you cannot tell from the demo plane what the inner mechanics of the simulator is capable of.

 

I agree, which is why I probably "still would have jumped in" and gotten more involved after release had I not already concluded that any product offered by that company was likely to be overpriced.  As I said, which was my point.

[ZachariasX]

2 hours ago, Vig said:

I agree, which is why I probably "still would have jumped in" and gotten more involved after release had I not already concluded that any product offered by that company was likely to be overpriced.  As I said, which was my point.

Steam takes 33% or so from the simulator price. Steam and Dovetail each would be taking 33% of the money made for any addon. Imagine the price a dev had to ask for to make profitable business compated to P3D where there is no such tax. And for P3D you can ask for more, as that one „is not a game“, even legally so.

 

You do have a point there.

 

2 hours ago, Sambot88 said:

Thanks ZachariasX, that answered my question a little bit. It is very hard to gauge a game's mechanics from the perspective of a player with little coding experience of any consequence, but I like to think I've taken the time to get pretty good at that kind of deconstruction over the years. Video games are some of the best artistic expressions of all time, blending the line between art and science in a way that is pretty much unique. So when I find a "strain" of development I really like, I want to know more about it.

 

In what ways do the flight models depicted in, say, BoX and DCS differ most? Or P3D for that matter?

 

I‘d say they differ in what you actually want to simulate and what is out of scope. Simulating flight itself is central to all 3 products, so I would say that in all of them the devs go as far as their abilities and documentation allows.

 

However, functionality is not just nice to have, it comes at a cost in (besides money) terms of computing ressources that compete with drawing the entire rest of the sim. Having few and dumb aircraft gives you lots of headroom for drawing your world.

 

Where real differences are, is for instance systems and weather modelling. All three sims have slightly different priorities regarding gameplay. In BoX, we do air combat. Systems play a minor role in that, making the aircraft itself, how it looks and how you control it paramout. Weather is a bit of a nuisance to the player, you can sell that onlyif it looks convincingly good, else players just fly in clear skies. It took a long time for addon makers to make weather such that you can’t imagine not having it anymore. But such weather costs as much as a whole sim. I think you can really see how much love the devs put in the pure aspect of „flight“, making the airplanes included in BoX so good in that respect.

 

DCS does that as well, but they add some systems modelling, but in principle it is still focused on the aircraft you‘re sitting in. If they have the funds, they can make the aircraft as good in flight as in BoX, but it will be more expensive (and they are minimum 3x the price) adding the rest.

 

With P3D you can see that this is a platform where functionally is lightyears ahead of DCS. „Just“ paying $2000 instead of $200 gives you all the functionality you have in DCS plus everything you have from traditional flight simulators. If you have a high end (really high end) system, you‘re not only flying across the straits of Hormuz with your jet, but you can do so from Diego Garcia in weather directly corresponding to how it is or was at a given time. That‘s not just a longer flight it requires a whole different approach in building your sim.

 

What sets FSX (and P3D) so far apart from other sims is the ability to inject any functionality you might possibly want. You can do this through Simconnect. Simconnect makes it possible that such an ancient platform still can be expanded today. Without it FSX would have been long gone.

 

It is Simconnect that allows you to draw weather in a way FSX cannot and you can do so by running it conveniently on an external program that may well be running on a different CPU core. This was not important back then, but now it makes all the difference in the world! You are naturally multithreading things that are really limiting in BoX for instance. Simconnect allows you to compute aircraft parameters that are not featured in the sim. The FM itself, as far as I can see, is always defined by most part in the *.air file of the AC in the sim. But everything sound, post-stall, shaking, systems can be offloaded.

 

Probably the most prominent developper doing such may be A2A Simulations. This for the simple reason they gave a name to the program running all those suplemenary tasks for their aircraft. They call it Accusim. But in principle, it does something similar Majestic Software does or PMDG does for their airliners. It is just a question of what and how much you offload. With A2A, you can basically use their aircraft without Accusim, but you are missing most of the sounds and systems modelling, basically most that give you a real feeling for the aircraft.

 

It was truly a stroke of genius opening FSX such that you can let it do whatever you want. It is such a great idea that a closed can like MS Flight had absolutely no purpose as it offers considerably less functionality to the user for the benefit of creating a controlled sales channel to the seller.

 

It is our great luck that Lockheed Martin didn‘t buy a license to market FSX as a game. This way they adress a different customer segment that doesn’t require the soft of milking you impose on regular customers. The customer segment that knows you spend minimum $2000 on a good rig, plus maybe even similar amounts on peripherals. Hence $200 is not much. Each plane will cost you around $70 or so... it is pricey. Then making the sim pretty is another $500 minimum. Try that with the flock playing WT. This way, they could let P3D be the open plattform FSX was. They needed it also in the first 10 years to make users switch and stay compatible to the addons a user wanted to port along. By now there is little compatibility anymore, P3D v4 being a multithreaded 64 bit DX11 application.

 

The sims do precisely what they are supposed to do and they are good at exactly that. The question is not „can a sim do XY best“ but much rather „how important is XY for the intended purpose“. P3D cannot be as efficient in doing what BoX does, too much unneded baggage it would carry along. It *can* do it, but not with with most peoples computer.

 

As for DCS, I see them only existing because P3D Professional plus (featuring weapon systems) is $2000 instead of $0. This way, there cannot be „available“ content in a way it is made for a game. Those clients have the content made for themselves. They can afford it, because it is funded with your taxes. And it is false to assume that when autogen is not running P3D would be much more demanding systems whise to draw a pretty world. Depending on the use, even on the contrary.

 

Flight models are best compared amongst similarly priced addons, as they received a similar amount of lovefrom the side of the devs, the sim itself is hardly the limitation for that. The fact that a $10 plane in BoX is more than on par with a $50 plane from the competition is truly a testament of the great work done by Jasons crew.

 

[ZachariasX]

6 minutes ago, Sambot88 said:

That was downright educational.

 

So what sets BoX apart is that it provides an unusual amount of bang for the buck? That seems right to me, based on RoF alone. You can pick up RoF (and all of its DLC) on a steam super-sale for about the price of a single AAA game. That's more content than you can feasibly hope to play if you are interested in historical combat flight sims (a combination of words I just love typing). I wish Steam didn't take such a big cut but people who do the same thing with BoX 10 years from now are going to be in for a very good time, assuming it develops the way it seems to be developing.

 

Definitely. I still find RoF epic and I wish it had an „buy everything“ button to tell folks, go, press that button, install *and press ‚e’ to start your engine!*. Best ride for your money ever!

 

These days I spend little time in RoF, as so much new content comes out for BoX, I spend my time mostly there.

 

But I am really looking forward for FC. Even though I fear the likelyhood of someone like Ms. Scharfi shooting down my Spit IX in her Fokker Monoplane... 

[JimTM]

Frooglesim News Special - RIP FSW

[ZachariasX]

3 hours ago, JimTM said:

Frooglesim News Special - RIP FSW

 

I think Froogle has a point that FSX as such is in peril atm and that there is the very real risk that Dovetail might pull it from Steam and venture for greener pastures. Not sure how much weight addon publishers have here, given Dovetail significantly outbid them.

 

Where I disagree is that Lockheed Martin would be killing off the academic license of P3D in case they supposedly bought the (overpriced) entertainment license of FSX. Remember, Lockheed Martin bought the business license from MS when Microsofts interest in flight sims started to fade. LM also stated AFAIR that they would never plan to enter the entertainment market. The academic license is not the gamers license, you have to buy the professional license anyway at some point (when you are not a student anymore). As of now, in version 4 of P3D, it has become largely incompatible with FSX, requiring addon developers to specifically produce for this plattform. Lo and behold, all relevant addon devs followed, tools like FSUIPC and so on are made new to be compatible to P3D.

 

If Dovetail pulls the plug on FSX, there is actually not so much lost de facto. You cannot use 15 year old addons anymore, that is true. But looking at what is available right now, you really shouldn‘t anyway.

 

Fact is that with newer versions of XPlane, also there addons became incompatible. Especially a move to 64 bit software put a bar on some legacy stuff. Adding functionality might break some old stuff.

 

Also, P3D is an open software in the sense that you have „free“ dev tools and you are not taxed in a way you are in Steam etc. Devs followed quickly once the step to 64 bit required new software, new installers etc. In less than half a year you had again all that mattered available for the new platform.

 

What P3D also means is to kiss goodbye the idea of having a flight sim „for free“, in the sense of subsidised by the addons. But looking at the prcice, even $200 is not that much for the professional license (that make some addons more expensive as well) when you look at what you have to spend as well to really give it purpose it is not that much. Simming is an expensive hobby. Besides, when FSX came out, it also cost about $199. Just FSX on stean I got for $5...

 

I see FSX only still receiving support right now, because it is very similar (but by no means the same!) to create addons for both FSX and P3D. And I am sure serious companies like PMDG will make eventually the same money with Prepar3D alone.

 

XPlane only really has purpose if you want a good and modern flight simulator, but $100 is your total budget. Imagine how tempted addon makers are developing expensive things for a plattform whose main advantage it is being cheap.

 

If you could afford more, getting P3D is a no-brainer, especially looking what is available there in terms of addons. DCS helps you with helicopters and is great as study sim for planes that include weapon systems, BoX gives you air combat. Thus both being wholly different products.

 

In the end, FSX will have to die. And it is ok, because today, it is not really needed anymore (well, once A2A ported all of their Accusim aircraft to P3D v4...  ) It‘s just sad that it looks like such a miserable death.

 

The only wildcard out there is Aerofly FS 2, and for some reason (no idea why) is not mentioned by Froogle. If they make it right by producing good code and cater the comunity and developpers, XPlane might be in trouble, but not P3D.

[Trooper117]

I take it you are a fan of P3D

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Curious to know why you say this

1 hour ago, ZachariasX said:

The only wildcard out there is Aerofly FS 2, and for some reason (no idea why) is not mentioned by Froogle. If they make it right by producing good code and cater the comunity and developpers, XPlane might be in trouble, but not P3D.

 

If anything, these statistics from steamcharts might suggest the opposite

 

I know it's a bit more complicated than that (other platforms, etc.). However, perhaps there is something else I've failed to consider. 

 

 

Edited April 29, 2018 by Mitthrawnuruodo

[ZachariasX]

9 hours ago, Mitthrawnuruodo said:

Curious to know why you say this

 

If anything, these statistics from steamcharts might suggest the opposite

 

I know it's a bit more complicated than that (other platforms, etc.). However, perhaps there is something else I've failed to consider. 

 

 

 

I did get a bit ahead of myself, but the point I was trying to make is that the 2500 (steam) Players will have to go somewhere should Dovetail pull the plug on FSX. Both going XPlane or Aerofly FS 2 means death to significant investment in addons. Going P3D might save a significant portion of that investment, while keeping simmers used to the same ways of operating the sim.

 

XPlane is a known entity to FSX users. It had similar strenghts and similar downsides. Aerofly has the advantage of being made new from scratch and it can make use of modern systems without breaking ancient stuff. So far I consider Aerofly not release status yet. It is still missing too much. In this sense it cannot be true competition for a seasoned product with a core of a hardened fanbase yet.

 

However, ORBX produces scenery for Aerofly and this is a sign that addon producers take them seriously. If Aerofly manages 50 FPS where XPlane draws 30 then I expect the player number change drastically. I say 50 - 30 because from the preview that I‘ve seen it is my impression that Aerofly FS 2 runs exeptionally well. But it remains to be seen what is left of that once a comparable functionality in included.

 

XPlane will certainly not die because of that. Its corebase of users and developpers carried it through much worse before. 

 

9 hours ago, Trooper117 said:

I take it you are a fan of P3D

 

Being a „fan“ of it, I guess that can be cured by an accidental deactivation of your license key on friday evening or an update accidentally breaking some of your addons followed by the recommendation „to reinstall your entire sim“.

 

As for myself, I am entirely agonstic to platforms, as long as they allow me to do what I want. I‘d even use a Mac. It‘s just that the applications that „make the Mac great“ run even better on my Win10 rig. Never mind the rest. (Typed on an iPad.)

 

I own almost all of the sims (XPlane, not newer than 9 as it was clear that I wouldn‘t invest further in it) as I am always interested on what is possible. But the decision to further invest in a platform is not determined by the current amount of eye candy it brings, but the aspect of availability of addons and expected future support of the plattform. In those aspects, I consider XPlane not direct competition to P3D. If you are inversting serious money, then you need more than a dedicated fanbase to count on. P3D as we have it is just a byproduct of a much bigger business for LM, same as DCS World is for ED. 

 

Hence, I would never recommend anyone going P3D (even though I consider it more advanced than XPlane, it has much more ressources behind it) unless they know what they are doing and have the money required at hand. And then my advise is the last thing they need. 

 

For the casual player, you get the same in XPlane (or Aerofly FS 2) and you get it for less money.

 

Let‘s see what the future brings.

[Trooper117]

I wanted just one decent civilian sim, and I thought that FSW was going to be that one... sadly not to be, however, in view of what you have been writing, I'm definitely not going down the P3D route.

[ZachariasX]

59 minutes ago, Trooper117 said:

I wanted just one decent civilian sim, and I thought that FSW was going to be that one... sadly not to be, however, in view of what you have been writing, I'm definitely not going down the P3D route.

XPlane is good and proven. But it really grew in a dedicated community and IMHO deeply reflects their priorities. If you like that way of doing things, you‘ll be happy. If not, I expect Aerosoft to be a great alternative eventually. It really comes down to what you really want to do. And I never buy a sim because of the included aircraft. P3D comes with a Constellation. But if you install A2A‘s Connie you see how different the same sim can be.

 

I think today we are in a much better situation today than 5 years ago. Even without FSX. The quality level of some addons is simply amazing. I’d choose from those and see in what sim they fit.

[Lusekofte]

I find myself more and more a learning sim fan and lesser a CFS pilot, I just get this "ooh leave me alone"  whenever I get intercepted.  Less active online too.

 

As many friends where flying this, until it somehow got unflyable???? patch or something??? After that they abandoned it. I have no personal experience with this sim, it just tell me what I already knew, we are too few, the marked is limited and will adapt

Edited April 30, 2018 by 216th_LuseKofte

[ZachariasX]

GA flight simulation is a serious business and money can be made. It just doesn‘t work in the gamers market. Yes, there are fewer flight simmers, but the ones that are there spend the money required for the expexted product.

 

But by now, XPlane is the only box that you could buy from the shelf next to a box of „Doom“. You can still buy it next to „Battlefield“. But by now, it is the exception. The sales channel moved on, it is not so much in the gamers section anymore. But this doesn‘t mean its not there.