Over the past years as the FS series advanced from one version to another, we slowly began to see its use evolve from one form to another or a mixture of both. For example: How many of you expected [in the past] to see miscellaneous addons such as Hama's BMW and cruiseliner take the sim by like a storm? Most of us have seen many videos of FS9 and we have noticed an increase of misc addons being featured in the videos [ie: Vista Oz's "chase the sun", Flyhalf's "Don't Stop Me Now", etc.].

Heck, FS-Shipyard.org has already established a reputation in the FS community. Mitsuya Hamaguchi's website has also established itself and it wouldn't be long before my website catches up now that Project Hummer is underway. Some people here not have noticed it before but the misc addons are true affecting the way the FS series evolves.

I have read in other forums that some people don't like the eye candy and prefer that the ACES team focus more on the dynamics. I understand that completely and I won't force any of such people to decide otherwise. But consider this, how many of you really think that the ACES team is putting in the fancy roads, car traffic, boat traffic, birds, etc. just for good looks? Have you ever thought about the possibility that they are putting these features in so that miscellaneous addon developers like me and Hamaguchi can have the opportunity to further expand the sim from either a water or ground standpoint?

The FS series is now undergoing a transition in which it's slowly loses its MAIN purpose as a FLIGHT sim and gains a new purpose as either a WORLD sim or a FLIGHT/CAR/BOAT sim.

X-Plane and Orbiter will no doubt suffer the same fate as they are also sims. For example, I am already starting to see a few misc addons for X-Plane such as a land yaht and I think I saw someone make a chevy corvette as well [thought it didn't look very good]. The same thing can be said about Orbiter as I am seeing developers create helos and fighter jets for it. I even saw an addon that allows the users to fly over a dynamically-changing terrain.

At this point, it should be no surprise as the FS series has been going on for 25 years.

BTW, speaking of planes, ships, and automobiles...

Here's a tip.  Add the following categories to your fsx.cfg file, and make sure that you have an appropriate \panel folder in place.  This will allow you to keep the "ships" and "cars" segragated into their appropriate folder categories:

[Main]
User Objects=Airplane, Helicopter,
SimObjectPaths.0=SimObjects\Airplanes
SimObjectPaths.1=SimObjects\Rotorcraft
SimObjectPaths.2=SimObjects\GroundVehicles
SimObjectPaths.3=SimObjects\Boats
SimObjectPaths.4=SimObjects\Animals
SimObjectPaths.5=SimObjects\Misc

Obviously, you can add new folders & sub-folders if you wish to further sub-categorize things...

Further refinements may be made in the two new 'sorting categories' of the aircraft.cfg or sim.cfg* files by judicious use of these:

ui_typerole="Aircraft Carriers"
ui_createdby="FS Shipyards"

...or whatever else seems applicable and/or useful.

This would allow for displaying ONLY one category of FS Object in the thumbnail pick list...  8)

* NOTE: sim.cfg is typically used for models w/o sounds. If you wish to make the model "drivable" and with sounds, change this to an aircraft.cfg file instead...

I don't think that'll happen till the ACES team make flight physics PERFECT.

But you're right, there will one day be a global simulator.  Not only with fake airlines but fake manufacturers of cars, boats, fake military installations etc.  But if I owned any company I'd pay MS to put in my company's name (advertising ).

But not BG.  Some other guy, cuz BG is retiring in 2008 i think.

Well whatever.

Quote:


He means that there's no chance MS flight sim becomes a global simulator (any kind od moving object, loating, rolling, flying) until they get a real and complete physics engine. The actual one is too limited for allowing that kind of evolution.