posted 12-26- 12:26 PM               

I would like to add my three grosze (that's small change in local curency here, something not unlike, say, cents to the "to spin or not to spin" debate. What I think is being slightly overlooked here is the human--machine interface. This cannot be simulated in SDOE (no, I don't belive you if you say you can do it even when somebody is using all those arm cranking Force Feedback devices. We are not sitting in the cockpits, our setups vary greatly. On mine I get strange jerks in vertical axis (as if something was kicking the tail of the plane), I changed computers (mobos, video cards, soundcards etc.) have gone through a lot of joystics, various OS updates and changes. To no avail, the jerks are still occuring, from the months' experience I can deduct that there is something on the border between the simulation software (not only SDOE, Warbirds and DoA another two, serious in my opinion, simulators suffered to greater or lesser extent from this) and th hardware which causes problems. Once I got rid of those terrible jerks by wiping out windoze and installing the system in certain order, on some other occasion reinstaling DirectX in a certain way (don't remember exactly how - don't ask) rid me of those pesky jerks. This is just to say that we (all of us? Is there anybody who hasn't experienced any similar problems?) have to live with some limitations imposed on us by the system under the simulatins are running.

We (ahem, you, dear developers, deep bow in your direction here) struggle to acheive the best flight models possible considering the data we have. This will be done, I don't have a doubt. But the perfect FM needs a way of relying the cues from the simulated environment to the "pilot". How to simulate the fact that a man cannot yank a stick to his will in real life, he is not strong enough, sitting at our desks we can do it however quick we wish, we wouldn't be able to do it with the real thing though. Everyone has limited strength and gets tired.
I belive the FM are as good as one can get, it's the limiting human factors which cannot be simulated.

I think this "human weekness" problem needs resolving somehow. Introduce a delay in relying input from the stick and pedals to the simulated control surfaces maybe?
I think this call for some kind of "tables" solution, an in-biult differentiation based on nontechnical data between the simulated aicraft.

Some planes were reported as "heavy" on contols others easy to controll, light and so on.
I'm not saying: give up making accurate FMs, no let's get it as accurate as possible and on top of it try to build some sort of computer--human interface.

It's not FM I have in mind, in my opinion the situation awareness model is lacking in SDOE. It's simple things like hat views, numpad views, fields of view (angles). The best screen resolution cannot match the human eye. Wouldn't it be worth to "cheat" and not to simulate the size of the planes on the screen accurately? One cannot tell a heading of the AC five pixels big but I'm sure a pilots eye wouldn't have a problem with an object of this kind of angular size.

Ah, yes, I forgot to tell you that I had the RANT mode in the ON position all the time.
Rant OFF

Yours truly

Poniat the "Jerk"

posted 12-26- 04:49 PM               

Yeah i get what you saying man. Its a very good point.

I think some of the planes actually do have a bit of delay on some of the sufaces. I'll have to check but I think the rudder on one moved slowly.

About the screen res and such

I TOTALLY AGREE with you I think in real life you can tell much more about your target then with a screen. Maybe when we can all run ULTRA hi res screens it will be better like say 3000x2000 or somthing.

posted 12-27- 06:05 AM               

Force feedback could be the answer - but we would need better hardware and more programming of forces on the control surface to make it real enough to help. Right now force feedback is just "cool" feeling, but does not solve the problem. To give one example of what you are talking about:

Let's say pulling the stick back so far in a certain condition causes an accelerated stall. In real life you would "feel" the pressure needed to pull of this stunt. Right now in flight sims, you can not tell what range of stick motion is warented in a given situation - this makes things tough. It is exactly like these car racing sims!

This is a great analogy: I drive a car, a Z3 2.8 - and I have been known to drive fast, and even spin out on corners (don't tell my wife) - when I drive the Z3 in "Need for Speed" I can't stay on the road without constant effort! That is NOT because the driving model is wrong at all, it is because there is such a gap between that car in the monitor and you. It's kinda like driving drunk - (no, I have NOT done that!) - I can only imagine that flying a simulated airplane has the same limitation.

This is one good aurgument for making the FM at least error on the side of sanity

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-Sv =FC=

WWI in SDOE!

posted 12-27- 06:58 AM            

I remember playing a Formula 1 sim and was driving through Monte Carlo like the hell.
I could manage not too bad round trip times, but the hardest curve was the so called Mirabeau turn, which is a 180° turn. During this turn
I crashed regulary to the inner side of the curve into the wall. I know, if I would drive a real F1 car, I will crash at the very first curve into the wall. But I am pretty
sure that I dont drive into the inner wall of a slow turn, because in reality you turn your head and dont look straight ahead in a turn.
In a real plane it takes physical effort to pull a lot of g's. So it is not that easy to overcontrol an airplane. But that's something we have to live with in simulations

Regards
Bakunin

posted 12-27- 09:45 AM               

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(Kill Or Be Killed)
-=BAB=- Gunner

posted 12-27- 08:16 PM               

It IS a simulation, and as such, a certain portion of the realism factor just cannot be present....as a victim of many a crash and burn, I find that comforting!

Gunner brings up a very good point about knowing your plane....pick one and become familiar with it. To provide a good opposition, you have to know the tendencies and characteristics of other planes so you can adequately use your knowledge of your craft against them. But just as in racing sims, a good portion of the 'seat of the pants' feel just cannot be simulated, as well as the vision....so some factor has to be considered there.

Seems like that makes it even more impressive what these folks are doing with Open Plane and with the FM's and Plane Packs, and I have to admit to having a certain amount of fun re-learning my aircraft after a FM/Plane Pack change. Sorta like getting to test drive that new Formula One car without worrying about keeping all your body parts intact! :>)