I am dead set against any requirement of having to get all third pary material through live.
 

The option for BOTH, Solo, and Multiplayer....

....on-line Multiplayer Flights from the drop-down menu, following the same, simple pattern as used successfully in FS 2004..(FS Host, or Players own IP Address)....

...and off-line (Solo) Flights, the same as before.

The overall operation of FS 2004 was/is remarkably simple and successful.

Paul...G-BPLF...FS 2004...FS Nav... ...!

I think it would be interesting if (and this is a big "if") MS could figure out a way for the AI to act as close to real pilots as possible, including things like collision avoidance and irate calls to ATC.  The reason I say this is that if we, as players, were not able to distinguish between other online fliers and AI, we would be less likely to turn off AI during online flight.  As well as treating every aircraft as a potentially smart human being with real instinct and logical piloting skills.  There have been too many times (and once is one too many!) that I have been on approach in my little Cessna or other single, only to have a regional jet or 737 go UNDER me and land on my runway.  Now what kind of real human pilot would risk that insanity, I should ask?  None, I sincerely hope!  So it would behoove MS to really button down the activity of the AI to match that of the online pilots they will inevitably be flying next to.

I would hope online flight will be a one click affair. No setting up ports and limiting frame rates. Selective, as to who's allowed to fly along with you. And realistic ATC if you choose it. Full screen, with a chatbox..

Realistic airlines and traffic.  Default Gulfstream 550.  Default 737-700.  Uneven runways.  User can control pushback and jet bridge movement.  Default active camera.  Wing condensation.  People so we don't need to commit to an aircraft and can just explore.  Realistic colouring so no whites more cremes like in real life.  Heat blur.

I think it would be nice if M$ simply modeled a detailed world environment, and you could fly any pre-existing FS9 and FSX aircraft in it, along with any default M$Flight aircraft.  The presentation that others see would be no more restrictive than the current on-line multiplayer restrictions.

But, even at that, I'm sure the "brain boys" could figure out a way to present whatever you are flying to other fliers without them needing to have your aircraft on their computer, or needing it loaded on the M$Flight server.

So yes, I want to buzz the Whitehouse in the "Spindrift" and leave the (previously mentioned) AI F-16's eating smoke when I go full throttle on all three engines and climb out to 200,000 in about a minute. 

Quote:


How would allowing backwards compatibility limit designers?  It's not I'm talking about making MSFlight aircraft usable in FS9 or FSX, so I don't see the problem.

Boikat, I'm referring to how outdated some of the concepts for designing in FS right now are.  They rely on ideas that should have been left behind in FS9, but instead were ported over to FSX without too much thought as to how it affects the users.  For instance, if we had been given the opportunity to use Python scripting in FS9, the systems would have run smoother and you wouldn't have to deal with some aircraft having choppy gauges in the VC.  And the entire creation of panels and interiors, as well as switching them around, could have been solved years ago with some rewriting of the way things work in FS.  VTOL could have been truly simulated (as is the case with X-Plane) instead of emmulated if the designers hadn't stuck with the same old methods of doing things.

A complete rewrite of all the coding is necessary to move forward.  Any legacy software should be junked.  Just my opinion.

Yes, I understand that.  What I'm referring to is that the modeling system of FS8-FS9-FSX is outmoded and needs to be replaced with something a little more efficient, since other software and game platforms have come along in the past ten years to fix some of the issues inherent with the MDL system setup.  Errors that, once fixed, free up a load of system resources for things like scenery and other computations.

Backwards-compatible to me has always meant that the most current sim is able to incorporate older models and methods.

Travis wrote on Oct 2^nd, 2010 at 1:33am:

I have to agree with your comments Travis. I've only been involved with MSFS from FS98 (FS6.1) but I've had every version since then. Flight Simulator was supposed to be an ongoing series under continuous development to keep up with new hardware & modelling techniques. Unfortunately there didn't seem to be any continuity on the development teams & it was a case of two steps forward & one back every time. Improvements that had been introduced in the current version were often completely left out in the next. FS2000 is a good example of this. It was supposed to be a big improvement over FS98 but turned out to be a complete disaster, even after about 3 official updates. Does that sound familiar? FS2002 was what FS2000 should have been only two years late.

I think FS9 was about as far as they could go using the original MSFS format. They tried to break the mould with FSX but were hampered by trying to make it backward compatible with FS9 addons. It might have been better if they'd gone the whole hog & started again with a completely new engine.

I'm afraid FSX was a step too far for me. I won't even contemplate using this new Flight so this is the end of the road. A very enjoyable journey it's been too.

Hi

Don't know what GameSpy is but if it is something to do with online/offline - we need to be able to play the game off line simply from the point of internet connection reliability.  My place here in the country often suffers power failures where even if I get the power back, I may not get the internet back.  I should be able to load the game with or without the internet active.
As for the format of the aircraft files, that issue is up to the compiler.  MDL or something else does not matter too much as far as I can see.  I just want to be able to continue using GMax with the current part names and animation.  A plug-in could then compile the aircraft into any file type needed for the game.
We also need a few more power source options.  As far as I was able to tell, there is no option to make a rocket powered aircraft, electric power (as in solar power), or human peddle power, or even rubber band powered aircraft.  I wanted to design dual generators on a single engine aircraft, or add a pop-out air driven generator, but there is no option for that either.
In multi player mode, I would like to see the LOD method of aircraft loading as talked about earlier in this thread, but with one difference being the aircraft should be steaming somehow, protecting copy write.  Either way, aircraft presented on screen that you are not flying and that are not resident on your own confuser would not be flyable anyway since neither versions of the cockpit would be downloaded.  One big this though is again with multi player, we should be able to see steamed versions of each others paint jobs, again starting with lowest LOD.
I would love to see a flat earth mode where nothing is loaded into the game other than air, ground, and the aircraft.  It becomes kind of tedious waiting for the game to re-start after each time I crash  my aircraft (during the time I am adjusting the flight dynamics).  This would also be nice for seeing how each change in the repaint actually looks.
We should also be able to design dynamics for road vehicles, trains, and ships, as well as having tags or part names for the appropriate control systems.  And - how about Walking people...
Another thing I have thought about are some of the online multi player games/chat environments like Second Life, There, Kaneva.  In those, your avatar can walk around, but it is in a made up world.  How cool would it be to be able to load a Human avatar into an actual globe such as is available in Google Earth, or in Flight Sim.  If that globe where Flight Sim, a human avatar would see us fly over head, or we should be able to see them on the ground.  The Trains game could use the same environment so we would also see each other.  I could imagine my Human Avatar walking up to an aircraft, train, car, or boat, getting in and going and exploring the world, then getting out and walking around.  Maybe take a walk up Mount Everest!!!

Harold

Well, I guess we're merging threads, here!   At any rate, Harold:

If (and that's a big hopeful!) the MDL system gets trashed, you probably won't be able to use the same part names, and possibly even the same design program, as the FS series.  What will probably happen is that you will end up with a new set of equally complex and boggling names that defy logic, but in 6 months you'll have a complete working knowledge of each part and what they're meant for.

As for the personal avatars: why would you want to wander around the scenery in a sim?  Have you ever taken a "walk" in FS?  Get in a small aircraft (Cessna or the like) and enter slew mode.  Press the up arrow on your keyboard once and sit back.  Pretty damn uneventful, even with full sliders.  If we want that, we can always create a player craft with a small person and get in that.  After all, with enough scripting, we could get that person to "walk" around.

Harold wrote..

Quote:


That may be too elaborate for current technology, but shouldn't be too far off.  But, avatar wise, it would be great to have a personal avatar, ans some generics for the GA aircraft, at least.  Recently, I've been knocking about in Brent Henderson's C177RG, nice aircraft, but no pilot in the pilot seat.  Not that that is a "bad thing", since there are a ot of add-ons like that.  Now, imagine a drop-down menu that you can choose to add pilot's and passengers to a small GA aircraft (or the flight deck of a comercial airliner). 

Now, since they would be "textured" in some manner, like they are currently, it would not be too hard to pick one and "Put Your Face Here". and I'm sure it can be done without having to pull and stretch the image. 

Then there's the two "babadings" in the Wilga that ...    Never mine...

But, back to the point, The walk-around avatar, I do not see happening, but I like the idea.  Besides, they'd be great for the "adventure" style missions. 

Imagine landing your Kingair 200 on an abandoned airstrip on a tropical island off Cost Rica, looking for a small band of lost biologists.  You see what's left of their aircraft.  It's not crashed, it's shredded. You hear a noise echoing through the lush jungles surounding the airstrip.   Noises rhat have not heard in over 65 million years....  Sounds like a plot to a movie.

I would like to make sure that it automatically injects the online multiplayer aircraft data into the TSCAS table so that external gauges can see the locations of the multiplayer aircraft on stuff like radar displays, just like you can with the AI in the non multiplayer modes.

best,

..........john

More than likely, if they require you to have an internet connection to play (gods forbid!) they'll make it as easy as possible.  And if they have a client system (like Half Life with Steam) the connecting and routing will all be done for you by the program.  So I wouldn't worry about it too much.

I want NO GAMESPY.
I want people to put their servers in the right places.
I.E Pro flights in a Pro flight section,
airliner hops in the AIRLINER,
free flight being FREE flight,
etc
Hate seeing pro pilots only in free flight.
Sometimes I just want to do what ever I want with others...

also an option that you could be a towplane for gliders would be awesome