todayshorse wrote on May 30
th, 2012 at 4:12pm:
Daube wrote on May 30
th, 2012 at 2:04pm:
Tell me, what part of "Accusim" do you not understand ?
Erm, id never really heard of them till recently, well i had heard of them but not known much about them. I dont have any A2A or Accusim things at all
Ah ok, I get it. Sorry I didn't know
In that case, let me make a brief summary of what "Accusim" exactely means. There are several main points, and I will certainly forget to describe some details (because there are SO MANY of them) but I'll try to give you the best-detailled idea about it. Please note that the descriptions below will concern only the following models:
- B-17
- Spitfire
- P-40
- Mustang.
Only these planes have the most recent features. The earlier Accusim planes, the P-47, the Cub and the B-377, do not exactely correspond to my description below. I will explain this later, so please just keep in mind that I'm only referring to the latest models, from the B-17 to the Mustang listed above.
1- The wear.When you use a "normal" FSX or FS9 plane, and you start a flight with it, you know that your airplane is brand new, as if it were just out of the factory, right ? With Accusim, this is different. Your plane gets older. It gets damage and wear, but not randomly. The wear and damages depend on how you use it. Push the engine to the max, or exceed the limits, and it will get worn out quite fast. Respect it, use it gently like a vintage plane at an airshow, and the engine will last for hundreds of hours. What is important here, is that this wear and these damages are KEPT from a flight to another, even if you quit the sim, reboot the computer etc... The plane that you get is the one that you left on the previous flight. What is cool about this is that you start to "feel" your aircraft as it it were alive, and you also start to FEAR its reliability. This adds a totally new layer of immersion when you fly. You suddenly want to be extremely carefull about your airplane, you want to take care, because you know you're going to pay for your mistakes ! This is valid for all the aircraft components, not just the engine. Gears, tires etc... all is taken into consideration by the Accusim module.
2- The engine.In an Accusim plane, the engine is no longer just one big unique block that can either work or not. The engine is composed by all the main mecanical elements, all are simulated by the Accusim module: pistons, main bearings, fuel pump, oil pump, filters, spark plugs, starter, generator, raidators, etc... all of these can get wear and eventually fail, or simply loose efficiency. For example, on my Spitfire currently the radiators are a bit worn out. In the maintenance hangar, I get some notes telling me to keep a close eye to the temperature of my coolant, because it is expected to be higher than usual. This is valid for every single organ of the plane. And you can replace them one by one. If my radiators fail, I can replace them and keep the rest of my plane/engine as it is.
Another important thing to know is that Accusim models completely the fuel lines, so it computes precisely how the fuel reaches (or not) the engine, depending on what you do with the throttles, the RPM, the mixture, the fuel pumps, the primer, and the fuel selectors. That leads to a very realistic engine behavior during the "problems". The engine is not just "running smoothly" or "not running at all" like a normal plane. The engine can now run smooth or be hesitant, cough, fail or regain power, produce explosions or smoke, etc... depending on what you do... or did !
For example, currently my SpitFire produces some blue smoke when I start the engine, and continues to produce a bit of blue smoke during warm up. Once it's warm, it doesn't smoke anymore, until I set the throttle above a certain limit of power. This happens because my pistons were a little bit worn out. As a consequence, my compressions were lower than usual, and some oil could then reach the pistons and burn with the fuel ! So I was getting:
- blue smoke
- less engine power than usual
- and my oil level was slowly going down
Honnestly, the amount of details that are taken into consideration is amazing. When you get used to run such an engine, and then switch back to a normal FS plane, you really miss something, the engine is not really working, you just feel that.
3- The cockpit and soundsThe A2A planes are known to be extremely detailled both outside and inside, because they get access to the real planes used in airshows and take pictures and movies to build some references to build their 3D models. But with Accusim, this gets insane: they actually record the sound of each single switch or electric/mecanic system in order to reproduce it in the sim ! So if you have two switches one next to the other in the cockpit, and they didn't make exactely the same noise in the real plane, then they won't make the same noise in the FS model.
Additionnaly, they put some video cameras in the cockpit during test flights to observe the behavior of the gauges and the various systems, in order to reproduce them in the sim. You get gauges with needles that are shaking depending on the conditions, you get accurate behavior of the temperatures and pressures (fuel and oil), etc.... frankly, there are far too much things to list there. The summary is that you can be sure that an Accusim plane will work like the real plane, or will be as close to it as possible. That being said, there ARE some bugs from time to time in the first releases of a plane. But A2A is excellent on the customer and product support, and they always come quite fast with patches, based on user experiences.
5- Flight modelsOne of the strongest points. The fact is that A2A build their flight models with the help of real pilots which are actually using the real planes that are being modelled. On their forums you can find sometimes some videos showing that. The cameras in the cockpit are an example. Once again, this is not always 100% accurate, but nevertheless you can be sure that even the first release of a plane already gets an impressive flight model quality.
- About the earlier Accusim planesThe Republic P-47, the Boeing B-377 and the Piper Cub also have an Accusim extension, but the amount of features is not as high as in the most recent Accusim planes. The main missing thing is the maintenance hangar, a feature that has been introduced with the B-17. The maintenance hangar allows you to inspect the systems and engines of your plane. It shows each organ and its status, and it allows you to repair it independently from the other organs.
The earlier Accusim bird do not have this hangar. They have a windows that shows the status of the plane, and if you break something, you will see what happens and you will get the precise consequences exactely like the recent birds. However you won't be able to repair ONLY the faulty element. You'll have to repair the airplane totally, leading to a new plane. All the rest of the Accusim features are there, including the engine behavior, the sounds, flight models, accumulated wear, damages etc... but you can only repair it all at once.
That's all, I think this should give you quite a good idea about what Accusim represents in the FSX world. Let me know if you need additionnal explanations about a specific point.
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