Fly! Editors

[U-96]

I love and hate Fly!

It's the buggiest piece of sh** ever released and yet I feel the raw power of a god-like flightsim screaming to get out.

Seems like a developer/publisher war that the latter won.

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone was toying with the scenery editors and got stuff to work. I've been hanging out at www.avsim.com, but they scare me.

U-96

[Bazango]

Is Fly! the sim where you can't assume "unusual atitudes"? Sheesh! What's the point of having a sim where you can't violate all the FARs you want? If I want to try to loop a biz jet in a sim, who's to care?

Another thing. What does anyone care what the inside of a light plane looks like? They ALL look ugly. That's the nice thing about light planes, you can look out of them easily - and lots of nice scenery. These are the same folks who care about what the outside of your military aircraft looks like when you are "flying" it. I think a good part of the sim industry is being run by the marketing divisions of the respective aviation manufacturers.

[U-96]

Hehe I have to agree. Certainly Fly! has endorsements from Cessna, Beech, etc, so they don't model failures/crashes etc because manufacturers don't think it advertises their product well if it plows into Terminal 4 at Heathrow.

It's the same arguement Sony used for not having a damage model in Gran Turismo, because that would ruin all the pretty cars.

Shame, as in both instances it would have enhanced the game.

As for the rulebook in Fly!, ATC is modelled so you can log flightplans etc, choose an approach etc, but you can ignore it all if you want. There's no score as such. You just kinda, well, fly.

But now you can make your own scenery from USGS data elevation models and satellite imagery, and the developers support this sim in their own time on www.flightsim.com and www.avsim.com, which is quite commendable.
I finally got the stuff to work, and got some pretty good results in an afternoon.

BTW mostly I like blowing stuff out the sky too... weapon of choice is Total Air War at the moment [img]/forum/smile.gif[/img]

U-96

[Bazango]

I don't care too much about modeling crashes on the ground. Once it's over, it's over. Although it is nice to know how bad the crash was. It's not like in combat where you have to carry on if you can. Is Fly! restricted in the kind of flying you can do?

[U-96]

Not that I've noticed. It is only limited by 2 factors as far as I can determine.

1) The flight model. You can't loop a Cessna from straight and level. I think its physics are commented as being very sound and authentic by real pilots (which I am not [img]/forum/smile.gif[/img] ). Unfortunately without damage/failure modelling, there is no penalty on your plane if you decide to pull 9Gs.

2) The flight log notes if you exceed recommended speed, G forces, dive rate etc. This is used primarily to verify with other players that you did something properly, such as the air races that are held occasionally for which you submit your log book.

If you were contemplating buying Fly! I'm not sure I can recommend it. The scenery is horrendous, the sim itself is very buggy (in one plane they missed off a vital switch, the autopilot doesn't work in another, and in another some dials are reversed!), and the manual is next to useless, even for a keen flightsim fan like me.
It IS not pick-up-and-play. It really is a simulation. Electrical systems need to activated in the right order, cabin pressure needs to be set, etc. etc. One review said it should be called "Knob!" instead of "Fly!" because of the level of detail involved in the aircraft panels.

However, some people like this kind of stuff. I want to understand it - its like learning a new language - so I persist with it even though I was initially disappointed.
If you like navigation and pressing buttons and doing things by the Civil Aviation Authority rulebook, then this is fun.

GOOD POINTS
Nice clouds!
Can import METAR weather data
Authentic panels
Authentic flight model
Lots of support from TRI and fans
Editors allow import of own elevation/scenery/3d models
Authentic NAV/ATC procedure
Freeware aircraft and scenery add-ons
Fly round the whole planet!

BAD POINTS
Scenery is dull and uninspiring (but you can make your own)
Doesn't like 3dfx cards (purple runways)
Buggy (unimplemented panel features, forgets my joystick is there, stuff like that)
Potentially very dull (take off JFK, set autopilot, go out for 3 hours, land at LAX)
No damage or failure (although you could probably simulate a lot of failures by turning off stuff mid-flight)

Browse a few reviews (I wish I had read the 4/10 one before I bought based on the 9/10 one) and take a trip to the www.avsim.com and www.flightsim.com forums for other peoples' views. I'm sticking with it because there is some real good stuff in there, but I have to wonder how much of that is because I want the get my money's worth out of it!
My advice, borrow from a friend to try, wait for a price drop, or get Flight Unlimited 2 on budget (which I believe does weather and ATC just as well, but is just SF bay area)

U-96 review-meister [img]/forum/smile.gif[/img]

One day I shall write a short post.

[Bazango]

This might be a good place to start a discussion on "realism" in sims. What I want to see in a simulation is equation based physical models. What that means is that maybe this Cessna can't do a loop from straight and level. But, the reason the sim can't do a loop from straight and level is because the equations based physical model reflects this natural inability. Not because somebody programmed the software to isolate the controls or something to prevent the sim operator from doing this. The latter is sometimes refered to as "rule based" sims. This is not entirely accurate, because a program may select equations based on rules also. Just because both a real Cessna and the simulation of the Cessna have the same limitations or abilities does not necessarily mean that the simulation is a faithful physical representation of the Cessna.

Maybe there are some natural limitations that prevent a simulation from being a completely accurate physcial representation. A desktop cannot compete with the calculating abilities of the computer (a "mainframe"?) that runs a full scale simulator. I can live with this, but I do not want to be able to tell that the sim has departed from physical flight and is now functioning like an amusement park ride. Further, when I read reviews, this is the kind of thing I want to know. Too many reviewers focus on nuances in the sim that very well may be debatable as a matter of real flight operations. What I want to hear is how well they have crammed the whole airplane into that tiny little CD.

I sympathize with your frustration over the lack of guidance that you get in "flying" your sim. I good way to get around this is to take the atitude that you have snuck into the cockpit of a real airplane and are trying to get it to work. This is how I managed my Mac Falcon for a while and I had lots of fun. I never expected too much and for a while never completed a mission simply because I was never able to land the thing. I'm getting better.



[This message has been edited by Bazango (edited 09-29-99).]

[U-96]

I think that's a good idea. I'll start a new thread when I get time (unless you get there first!) "Fly! Editors" doesn't attract people [img]/forum/wink.gif[/img]

One on simulation and one on role-playing (not necessarily in RPGs) would be quite good fun.
This gaming forum isn't used enough!
Maybe we should start posting reviews too [img]/forum/smile.gif[/img]

U-96

[Bazango]

The sites I've seen yet are www.janes.ea.com/f15 and www.combatsim.com . At least that is where I am spending most of my time. Another place for some good info is www.gamespot.com .