PlaneHeli

It appears a few Sim developers or people associated with them read this forum.

Thought it may be useful for us to make some useful suggestions they could consider incorporating in future updates.

My first suggestion would be a Scale Menu.

How many of you have taken a smaller sized model on the Sim and tried to change it to a larger sized model (or Visa Versa) by increasing the weight, wingspan, thrust etc. Usually doesnt work very welll without tweaking EVERYTHING.

How about a Scale Menu that increased all these variables together at approximately the correct ratio. So you could take a .40 sized 3.5Kg Extra300 and turn it into a 17Kg model with all dimensions, CofG, control surfaces, aspect ratios, lift / drag, thrust values approximately correct for a model that size.

The same could be done with Helis.

I realise it would be a general increase and a bit of futher tweaking would be required. But thats much better than now having to manually increase everything (AT THE CORRECT RATIO) which often results in a model not worth flying.

Any Sims have that function. Could it be done.

Any other suggestions.

bilboa

I believe FSOne does have exactly that feature, where with a single setting you can rescale a model, and it attempts to change all the settings to make it behave appropriately for its new size. I don't have FSOne myself, but I remember reading about it when FSOne first came out. I agree it would be nice feature in other sims as well.

MSelig

Yes, FS One does this for airplanes. It's straightforward to do this in the sim. Here's how:
http://www.inertiasoft.com/fsonefaq/#Q1039-FS1

When FS One installs it includes the baseline airplanes plus many that are scaled as examples. Here's the list:
http://www.inertiasoft.com/fsonefaq/#Q1021-FS1

ps I will add that working out the automatic physics behind this is *not* easy.

Michael

PlaneHeli

So FSone already has that feature. Ive never used that Sim.

Just read the link you provided. Thats exactly what I was after. Ive just got Phoenix RC sim and it doesnt have that feature. Havnt seen it on any of the other sims Ive tried either.

I would think other developers would incorporate that feature in updates as FSone is leading in that respect.
I would imagine it would be far more complicated than simply increasing all parameters by the same %.


What other features would end users like to see in Sims.

da Rock

I would think that every developer would have included the capability in their original release. Matter of fact, when I got my first RC sim, I EXPECTED the sucker to have it and was amazed that their "enlarger option" was so lame. But then, I'm sort of a hardass when it comes to software development and always assume the people who write code should have some idea about what they're writing before they sit down at their keyboard. But then, I also feel that ARFs should have no design or manufacturing errors. Silly boy.....

PlaneHeli

Well now FSOne has that feature you would expect other Sims to work on a similar feature and issue in an update as soon as they have it available and tested.

Quote - But then, I also feel that ARFs should have no design or manufacturing errors. Silly boy.....

Very true, but then many of the ARF are produced in Countries with little or no quality control. The Sims are produced by Countries and Developers where we expect higher standards.
Ive bought one of those ARF and yes I expected it to be better.

Hopefully Phoenix will come out with an update with a 'Scale Resizer' function in the near future.

bilboa

Well, it could have something to do with this:


I.e. it's a non-trivial and non-essential feature, so I'm not sure why you think every sim would include it in its first release. I do agree it would be nice to have though.

PlaneHeli

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da Rock

Actually, "non-trivial" is in the eye of the beholder. Or more exactly, tasks that seem hard to one very often are quite simple to another. And there are lots of "non-essential features" in every one of the sims. And nice to have features are often the ones advertised as offering "something more" in the sim.

Back in the 60s, when the major airlines were computerizing their operations, one big ticket item was flight planning. A number of the airlines developed their own systems. All the systems wound up to be heavy loads on their existing installations. One carrier even bought a couple more mainframes to run their flightplanning. The group I was in was given the task of re-writing our recently "perfected" system as it was being migrated from one type computer to another. One of our guys looked at the logic and said, "why in blazes are we doing it this way? we ought to do it with......." and we did. And the new way of computing a lot of the values that were melting down those super CPs (central processors) made the new rewrite use so very many fewer cpu cycles that it scared the crap out of upper management. They were convinced that we had to be leaving out something, that our logic was skipping important computations. It wasn't. Matter of fact, our new way was also more logical AND accurate for the problems being solved.

Some seemingly difficult things aren't.

piroflip2

Sims are so good these days that it's difficult to imagine much of an improvement in the near future.
The feature that I would like to see is an easy way to tell which way I am (not the model) facing on the flightline.
Now I know that some have had a stab at this but I think that something similar to an artificial horizon (but showing where the CENTRE of the flightline is) is needed. I mean some sort of reference point between my current viewpoint and the central viewpoint.

PlaneHeli

piroflip2

Excellent suggestion.

In real life even with your head looking up your peripheral vision lets you know which way you are facing, relative to the flightline. This is lost on a Sim.

da Rock

And in real life we also feel how much we've turned our bodies. And we can tell where the sun is to judge from that. And a steady wind helps in the same way (see, another reason you oughta pay attention to wind direction when you're flying RC!). And I've always been able to tell where the pits are from the constant LAUGHTER, so always know my orientation to the pits. Or when the laughter dies out and I hear scrambling noises, I know I'm flying over the pits. Heck, there are lots of things in real life we use that aren't available in sims.

bilboa

True as a generic statement, as your nice little story illustrates. But the question is, does it, as you seem to be implying, apply to the "thing" we're talking about here -- automatically scaling an aircraft up or down in size and ending up with a still realistically behaving aircraft. I doubt there's any nice simple algorithm for calculating how all the aircraft parameters should change in relation to a change in aircraft size. It's probably just a matter of lots of trial and error testing in order to come up with tables of how each aircraft parameter should scale along with the aircraft size.

Anyway, I agree this is a desirable feature, and kudos to FSOne for being the first to implement it. I just think there are dozens of desirable features one could make a "I can't believe they released the sim without feature X" statement about, so it doesn't seem very productive to me. I've seen other people post that they'd never buy a sim without online multiplayer, or an aircraft development tool, or a "point of view follows aircraft" feature, etc. The company has to release a first version at some point, that's not going to have all the features everyone wants. Personally I think having very good physics simulation, and the ability to extensively configure the behavior of existing models, is the bare minimum for me to consider a sim. Other features are optional, but that's just my priorities.

PlaneHeli

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PlaneHeli

That is one of the purposes for this post. What would you like to see.

There are at least 5 competing Sims out there. All 5 around the same price ($200USD). To decide which one to choose comes down to what features (or non essential features as you call them) they have.

If you simply want a Sim as a training tool, do you really require features such as photofields, realistic looking models, smoke, etc etc.
These are all non essential features.

Case in point
Im surprised PhoenixRC Sim has 3-4 planes the same. They are large 3D planes that all fly similarly, high power to weight (can hover and climb vertically) large control throws, but very slow flying. (3D planes rather than realistic scale type aerobatic planes). Yet no faster true aerobatic type planes (as in flight characteristics closer to the full sized Extra300, Edge540).
That may be a case of providing many different looking planes rather than different flying planes. I can change one of the existing models but it will take a while as everything will need to be tweaked and how realistic will it end up?.
That may be a non essential feature. But in this case they havnt provided a fast aerobatic type plane.

So it is these 'non essential features' that will likely sway the buyer to their product.
I want the Sim to look as realistic as possible as well as fly as realistically as possible and the more nonessntial features the better. I may not use some of them, but could use the other features.
Im looking for more than just a training tool.