[simpits-tech] Fed up with MS etc... Maybe New Sim

[John Miguez]

I must agree with Gene.  Not being a programmer, I stay out of arguments
such as this one.  However, people forget that we are talking about a
$50 program.

I am not saying that MSFS, X-Plane or the other Sims programs are
perfect, especially for simmers whop push flight sim programmer the way
over-clockers do to hardware.  However, I do know one thing any of these
programs is light years ahead of the real Sims I flew while in the Air
Force.

It ain't broke, my friends.  It just needs to be tweaked here and there.

John

-----Original Message-----
From: Gene Buckle [mailto:geneb at deltasoft.com] 
Sent: Monday, January 24, 2005 8:05 PM
To: Simulator Cockpit tech list
Subject: Re: [simpits-tech] Fed up with MS etc... Maybe New Sim

Phoenix2000 at phoenixcomm.net wrote:
> Hi gang....
> Are feed up with MS Flight sim and others? Need info cant get it..
want 
> to do something different..
> Want to get rid of EPIC cards and more crap...
> What freedom to do what you want to do?
> 
> Ok then please look at my NOTAM notice for Software under development.
> www.phoenixcomm.net/~phnx2000/sim/notams.shtml
> www.phoenixcomm.net/~phnx2000/sim/software.shtml
> 
> I need to know what's cool and what's not.
> 
Doing research: cool.
Re-inventing wheel by not doing the above, uncool.

"You cant talk to it. i.e. Use keyboard decoders, etc."

Um..  Wow, the only thing I can think of at this point is hogwash! 
(Well ok, it _wasn't_ "hogwash", but you get the idea...)

MSFS has at least two really good free mechanisms for sending data to 
the sim.  Even FSUIPC is free if you're using it for a personal project.

X-Plane has a free API that lets you do anything you'd care to, 
including being able to modify the scene-graph on the fly.

FlightGear.  What can I say?  The source code comes with it and it 
includes a great network interface for manipulating the simulator. 
Hell, if you wanted to you could fly the sim within a telnet session!

Falcon 4.0 is the only one you really can't "talk" to and even then you 
can extract data from it.


"Not Modular, very Monolithic"

Duh.  They're flight simulators, not Legos fer chrissakes. :)

BTW, FlightGear IS modular - it's got at least 3 different flight model 
engines, a separate scene generator and a separate terrain engine.

Both MSFS and X-Plane have been used to feed external scene-graph 
generators and vice-versa.  It should be noted that the X-Plane 
scene-graph was used to provide the video for the simulator that Scaled 
built for Space Ship One.

"No Communications"

Eh?  TeamSpeak, RogerWilco, etc.


Don't re-invent the wheel, improve the ones that are already there!

FlightGear needs enthusiastic contributors like you!

g.

-- 

"I'm not crazy, I'm plausibly off-nominal!"
Proud owner of 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only of its kind.