Aerofly FS Simulator

[Dimus]

Anyone seen this?:

http://www.aeroflyfs.com/index.php/de/alles-ueber-aeroflyfs/uebersicht.html

Apparently it seems to be a simulator covering Switzerland only and a selection of planes from Camel to F-18. Looks nice and seems to have some interesting features regarding weather and wind/thermals etc. I still can't see if it is available to purchase. My German is only basic. Only thing I see that I do not like is the lack of autogen or 3d buildings in cities.

Edit: Apparently you can buy from their site. Price: Euro 39,99
I also realised Roger has started another thread on this at the Newshawks:
http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/showthread.php?60377-Aerofly-fs

[roger-wilco-66]

Release Date is Dec 16th.
It does have some sort of autogen, if you look closely.
I hope the developers leave some room for custom addons or release some sort of SDK for it.

I'll buy it!


Cheers,
Mark

[foreigndevil]

If you take a look at the forum, you'll notice that there are already some addons and mods, so, I guess more are on the way. The biggest drawback I can see is that the flying seems to be simplified, but that doesn't matter much, I guess, if you fly the Camel.

[roger-wilco-66]

As far as I can see these addons are for the RC plane simulator, not for Aerofly FS.
I posted a few questions in the forum, let's see what comes up!

I don't see anything about a simplified flight model except that you can set it from easy to realistic. Whatever that exactly means!

Cheers,
Mark

[roger-wilco-66]

For those who are interested: I got some answers on a few specific questions I had:

http://www.ipacs.de/forum/showthread.php/5516-Erweiterbarkeit-und-Detailfragen


It has a few drawbacks compared to FSX or X-Plane, the most important (to me):

- no dynamic weather / realtime weather
- no engine damage (but structural damages are possible)
- only daytime is simulated, not night, and no seasons
- no icing conditions are simulated
- no ai traffic on ground, water or air
- world is a simple cartesian coordinate system. Not WGS84 compatible like FSX (makes scenery development difficult)

The pro's:

- open system, adding aircraft / scenery objects will be possible, as well as modifying existing elements
- addon of sceneries is planned but not possible in the first version
- physics are precise
- very good frame rates
- A toolkit for adding / modding AFS will be released
- Scenery objects can be animated


They emphasize that a lot of functions are planned for future releases.
Despite the drawbacks it looks quite good and I'll support the project by buying it.

Cheers,
Mark

[Dimus]

Thanks! That is very good info for the moment. I will be looking at it as I like Switzerland and I've flown there in a Robin DR400. This sim seems a good way to re-enact this.

[Bone]

I watched the vid with the F-18 over the Alps. Looks like FSX with photoscenery, and the F-18 looks terrible...visually and aerodynamicly.

Sorry for being negative, but if you're going to go to the trouble of doing whats already been done, you have to do it much, much, much better.

[foreigndevil]

There is an FSX scenery for Switzerland that is much more expensive than this product, so, price wise, you can't go wrong.

[Bone]

There is an FSX scenery for Switzerland that is much more expensive than this product, so, price wise, you can't go wrong.
There is, and it's absolutely fantastic. And you can fly all your models there. Day or Night. With weather. With all of the other stuff that's already been made to go along with FSX. You can do it today, verses whenever/if ever this new sim comes out.

I wouldn't buy a whole new sim and suffer through all the limitations, just to save little money on scenery. I would disagree with the "you can't go wrong" part. Respectfully disagree, that is.

[roger-wilco-66]

I think it depends on what you want. I wouldn't want to miss FSX and know Aerofly is in most regimes inferior to it.
But, if you like soaring planes for example, this is perfect. It seems to have a better physics engine and has some interesting meteorological features like geographically influenced thermals and slope winds. Ahh, and winch starts. No need for night flying or bad weather either, who does that with a glider.

I'm mostly interested in AFS physics and weather simulation, that's why I'll buy it. And to participate in giving the guys a chance with their idea. New flight simulators are as common as hen's lips.

Cheers,
Mark

[Bone]

:) Very true, anyone can buy whatever they want, because it's all about personal choice.

[DennyA]

FSX had nearly three decades to build on its code.

If you expect every new simulator to surpass it in every respect, you'll never see a new simulator again. Hope you love FSX.

The realities of programming a product like this mean you have to choose a key feature set, do that well, and if the product is a success, you can build on it and make it even better. And perhaps eventually have everything FSX has and more. *cough*combat*cough* :)

But if everyone takes the attitude of comparing and looking at what's missing and not looking to see if there's something there they might enjoy, there might never be a future version that's more feature complete.

Look at Rise of Flight. When it was released, it was quirky, had no dynamic campaign, and some weird glitches. Now it's solid, looks and flies even better, and has a pretty slick dynamic campaign. And more is planned, because the initial buyers saw the potential and have supported it.

Assuming AFS gets an English version and the initial reports are that what is there is good, I'll happily toss $40 at my favorite hobby to help it have a future.

[falcon409]

Although maybe I should be, I'm not all that concerned with the dynamics of the sim as much as I am with how things look and feel inside the simulation. I liked what I saw in their demo video's, especially the pilots and the potential those have once additional animations are incorporated. The physical appearance is excellent and hand/arm movements on the controls are realistic enough, plus the leg movements on the rudder pedals. Now imagine some random head movements and tweaking the hands/arms to move a few controls and then moving the right hand back to their lap or up to the glareshield and back. Very promising. The terrain and ground textures looked great to me and the buildings and basic autogen looked better than anything FSX had at first release. . . .I'll definitely give a serious workout with my next paycheck. After all, we don't really know what "Flight" has in store for us and if this sim picks up where FSX left off and improves on that with a better engine. . . . .ooooh baby, watch out.:salute:

[Bone]

FSX had nearly three decades to build on its code.

If you expect every new simulator to surpass it in every respect, you'll never see a new simulator again. Hope you love FSX.

The realities of programming a product like this mean you have to choose a key feature set, do that well, and if the product is a success, you can build on it and make it even better. And perhaps eventually have everything FSX has and more. *cough*combat*cough* :)

But if everyone takes the attitude of comparing and looking at what's missing and not looking to see if there's something there they might enjoy, there might never be a future version that's more feature complete.

Look at Rise of Flight. When it was released, it was quirky, had no dynamic campaign, and some weird glitches. Now it's solid, looks and flies even better, and has a pretty slick dynamic campaign. And more is planned, because the initial buyers saw the potential and have supported it.

Assuming AFS gets an English version and the initial reports are that what is there is good, I'll happily toss $40 at my favorite hobby to help it have a future.


I hear you, and you make a valid point about the way a simulator evolves. However, I think you missed the intent of my statement, which was more or less focused on doing what has already been done. This new sim looks to be of the same bannana as the MS flightsim's...and if it's simply a case of giving it a chance to evolve, it most likely won't catch up to the MS franchise, especially with "Flight" coming up. You mentioned Rise of Flight. That's a different animal, and so is DCS, Take on Helicopters, ect...they all are fundamentally different from MSFS. When I watched the videos of this new sim, it looked like FSX with photoscenery.

Why would the payware or freeware devs bother with learning to build in a new sim that's generations behind the MSFS franchise? Xplane has been out for a long time with successive iterations, but I haven't seen a mass migration to it, and it's leaps and bounds ahead of this new sim. I tried Xplane, and it's still quite short of FSX even after all of this time, so therefore I don't see the beauty of doing once again, what's already been done.

I have a large amount of photoscenery for FSX, because I don't care for the stock textures. Photoscenery in FSX is totally different than photoscenery in FS9, it actually looks real, but it is expensive. If this new sim can give me the world in quality photoscenery for 40 dollars, then I'll be more interested, but it's got to make some improvements.

My 2 cents.