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[Andrey]

One more - touchable virtual cockpit.

ONLY, if you use a kinect and reach out to touch them. Which is feasible...

I mean with mouse Sorry for bad English )

[ZeosPantera]

I mean with mouse Sorry for bad English )

No, I understood perfectly. I just think the next logical step would be Kinect tracking your hand and an in-game hand could reach for the controls and alter them. Want to talk about immersion!

[mctash]

Good list Kelvinr. I approve 

[aussiecop]

From an aircraft developer perspective, I would say the need for C++ and XML integration for gauge programming, the ability to modify the aircraft parameters from a .cfg file or xml file (for things such as COG, engine parameters etc.  .dds or a similar format for external paint kits (ideally it would be the ability to use initially a PSD format as a dual acceptable format (this would allow user repainters to more adequately view their work as it progresses)  The ability to program weather effect biases such as not having enough angle into the wind to generate lift etc.  I could go on for hours, but that is a good start.

[Michael :)]

I think the lists people gave for civil flight simulations apply very good for what modern flight simulations should include. In fact, these kind of details will attract a lot of people to flight simulation again.
What a lot of people don't understand is the fact, that the flight simmers are a huge bunch of people who are desperately seeking for the ultimate simulation. And this is the state they/ we are all stuck in since years!
Take the civil flight simulation market for example. What people have is X-Plane and MS Flight Simulator. Now, Im not an expert in these simulations but I can tell you that for everyone who is interested in flying has to chose between these two options. MS Flight is a big overloaded donkey, where people have put so much stuff and addons to, that the donkey finally gave up walking. It's overloaded and doesn't offer any of the details I or any of my flight sim fans look for.
Then there is X-Plane. Well, it's X-Plane and as far as I can remember it has the most ridiculous physics I have ever come across in a flight simulation.

To understand what flight simmers really need, it comes down to the things Kelvinr and others have posted already. It's about looks, physics and expendability. If an engine is able to provide these basic modules, it's an instant win.

But I would like to speak for another group within the flight simmers, that I think is a little underrepresented here. Because I'm actually not interested in flying a Cessna from A to B, looking to the left and right. It's fun, yes and sometimes it can be very educational.

But I am into the military flight simulation all the way. And let me tell you, there are so many military flight enthusiasts out there, it's incredible. Military flight sims were the first games so many people were confronted with in the old days. And they have grown up. So did technology. But the simulation genre didn't for some reasons. Now what people still stick to, are games that are totally outdated. Like Falcon - which is an incredible simulation but just grown out. There are addons like BMS that still try to keep only the Falcon community alive and attracted. I've been playing this simulation for years and I love it. But it's time for a real game changer. People thought, that DCS might be able to do it - but they didn't.
So I think, that the military flight simulation could boost Outerras development to a whole different level and the fact, that it is able to process data so detailed will let every mil-flight-sim fan fall in love immediately.

In fact, I have thought about combining the civil and military flight sims, +war simulation and strategy/ economy into one big sim and let it run online in a "persistent world". ATC's could be implemented, diplomacy and strategy ... the perfect next-gen MMO
I can go on with my idea - whoever might be interested, I can offer a book of ideas!

So - flight simmers need lots of things. But it becomes truely amazing with military simulation. It's like a beer. It's great, but ultimately amazing when it's cold.

[Karamich]

Everything is already said in this thread about what a flight sim should be so I also dream about one to come out of superb Outerra platform

[PytonPago]

One more - touchable virtual cockpit.

ONLY, if you use a kinect and reach out to touch them. Which is feasible...

A full-clic pit would do it, just like some DCS comunity people : My Power Glove - Updated DL Link
Homemade is homemade! Let it to the comunity people.

[traumstrand5]

A very interesting topic here!
I am into flightsimming for quite some time now with FlightSimulator X as my core platform.
And indeed:
Most of the things that I expect from a new “state-of-the-art-flightsim” have been mentioned here already – especially Kelvinr’s list says a lot!
I also really like the ideas of  Michael and his approach towards military flightsims – although I am into general aviation and airliners, I can really understand his enthusiasm when it comes down to military-planes.
So:
It would be great to keep multiple options available…
For the General Aviation people, all their light planes,
For the Militaryflyers all their iron,
For the Airliners all their heavy planes and for the Vintageflyers all these wonderful old planes …
But besides that and yet really, really important:
An environment and virtual world that is really worth (!) to fly into then and to be explored and experienced!
It can be achieved…, become real and run all together – as long as there is an engine available that generates the environment for it – and Outerra truly has the potential to do exactly that!
So keep on with it!
But(!): Please…
Keep it open for the community – users/freeware developers and commercial developers!
Because only then the “Outerra-world” will grow, become alive, get the most detailed airplanes and other vehicles, become updated on a regular bases and improved continuously and so on …
It does not and can not be here all at once and from the start – no one can expect that.
But if there is a reliable, good working core- or basic-platform/engine that offers the opportunities to build on it continuously, it will become a great world – a great Outerra and a great flightsim!
At least that’s what I think …   

[Airhogg]

I'm honestly amazed at how fluid Outerra is while flying.  The terrain detail is amazingly accurate and I could do touch and go's all day long even in this alpha stage.  I think Outerra could really "take off" as a SERIOUS flight simulator with just a few additions to show it's full potential.  The timing couldn't be better.  There are so many upset simmers right now (and 3rd party developers) with their limited options that Outerra could quickly become the new leader in flight simulation.  Add the following list (just for starters) to awe the potential market.  Then be ready for the explosion.  This thing is going to get hot fast.

Add:
At least all the MAJOR airports in the world.
Simple clouds (a complex atmosphere generator can come later and could probably even be a third party add-on.)
Major bodies of water (rivers and lakes)
An improved flight model would be nice, but for demonstration purposes what you currently have is o.k.

Bonus:
Radio towers
Navigational aids (VOR's NDB's etc...)

These are just the basics that should be added to show that Outerra is capable of pulling this off.  To answer the original question of what I would eventually want in a perfect/complete flight sim would be:

MS FSX flight engine and airport/navaid database including obstacles (radio towers mainly)
REX weather including real time world weather
ORBX quality scenery (as an add-on by airport or city is fine, but the quality is what I'm referring to)
An improved Radar Contact type ATC engine
A live traffic utility (like AirNav's FS Live Traffic)
All merged on to Outerra's world terrain (Can we really not get this in 3D???)

I'll then give up my pilot's license and finish my home cockpit.

But seriously... show real intent of moving Outerra towards flight simulation by adding the basics that I listed at the top.  Open a donation center and list Outerra and it's intent on every flight simulation forum known to man.  You WILL get donations, because flight simulation is like a drug.  Use that money and develop THE best flight simulator possible.  You have the technology.  You have a desperate market.  And you have established 3rd party developers that are on standby to see who is going to do this.

I'd donate right now if I knew a complete full world flight simulator was the direction.   

[cameni]

We are receiving emails about donations to make a flight sim, I'll copy my recent reply here:

We've been thinking about it, not just for a flight sim platform but for a global simulation platform uniting several simulation cores into one world, since with Outerra it's became possible, probably for the first time. In fact, it's our long term goal anyway, but we are considering the ways to speed it up and committing to it publicly.

However, it's a huge undertaking in any case, and we don't feel like we should rely on donations. I have been thinking about crowdfunding for the project, via sites like Kickstarter, where developer sets up a funding goal and people pledge donations, and if the goal is reached in given time, only then the money change hands.
An approach like that would show us the support, allow us to fully take on the project, expand our team and dedicate devs to it, all of which would be hard and/or risky if we had to rely on the donations only.

There is couple of successful projects that got their funding this way, see for example Wasteland 2 or Double Fine Adventure. It would be interesting to see how sim fans would react to it though.

What do the flight simmers here think?

[PytonPago]

What do the flight simmers here think?

Actually, whyte the possability to donate and comunity-giwen stuff (modells, fine tunning and some more in-depth works of people, who just do it for the comunity and dewelopper for free), if we (the free will stuff comunity) would ewen group-build ourselwes (whyte the hard work and siding in certain problematiocs and stuff - like simulation realistics enhancement, single type modell building (like just airplaines or age-oriented ...) etc.), it cloud be an werry progressive/teaching and effective way of building up Outerra and its comunity ....

 ... so, who´s getting in the air-, ground-, ship- and who to the submarine-creation group ? :JP (saying, all of these would group an substructure : model building, internal model building(cockpits-insides), simulation, advanced simulation (specials a the weapon-related stuff for war-simmers), etc., making it for "ready to integrate" stage, witch would be then taken from the Outerra team, letting it working corectly in the engine and update it to the "Download stuff" menu)

[mctash]

hey Cameni,

I'm about to have a brain fart so this is just stuff that pops out in no particular order:

Although its a pleasent thought to think that Aerosoft et al will all jump aboard and start hammering out quality 3rd party stuff there is no infrastructure to support this yet afaik?

What happens if you crowdfund but only come up with a small amount?

Have you thought about approaching the flight gear crew to assist? The flip side to this is if you FOSS the development you are cutting yourself out of a chunk of money at the end.

How about venture capitalists? If you don't want to give up the engine (as in for the capitalists cut), you could make an entirly seperate business for the flight sim licencing the engine from yourselves.

Perhaps a dedicated Outerra flight sim website so we can spread the word throughout the sim community and try and get people to register their interest/support.

A more disturbing trend I have noticed is that most places I see Outerra mentioned (be they forums or sim sites) there are alot of people who don't believe Outerra is suitable for flight simulation. This is way off the mark in my opinion. Here is an example from simflight.com from when the tech demo was released.

A lot of people seem to believe that Outerra is going to be the next great thing in the FS arsenal, while to others it is simply a procedural world generator that happens to include a flight mode to show off the created world, but it will never be a viable ‘hard core’ flight simulation.

http://www.simflight.com/2012/03/02/outerra-demo-released/

As far as I'm concerned this is just plain mis-information.  What about that orbx guy slating outerra in some forums? These sites/people are influential in the flight simulation community and some people will just follow what they say blindly.



You have the seed from which the best flight simulator ever produced can grow from but how to manage that transition? Wish I could help more.

[cameni]

What happens if you crowdfund but only come up with a small amount?

That's actually the nice thing about Kickstarter-style funding: if the funding goal is not met, nothing takes place. Because there's no point in even starting it.

To get things straight - we aren't desperate to get a funding, I'm just wondering if (with the amount of flight simmers wanting to donate and make it happen) it would be a way to launch the development of a sim. Mostly in parallel with the development of OT, that's going to happen regardless.

A more disturbing trend I have noticed is that most places I see Outerra mentioned (be they forums or sim sites) there are alot of people who don't believe Outerra is suitable for flight simulation. This is way off the mark in my opinion. ....

They have their rights to doubt, but it's true some make judgement without even knowing anything about the tech. But most of them simply say that it's a lot of work and given that they have been promised many things by many companies (or just by the One), they take it as improbable and treat it as such. But I think it will change as we are going to add more stuff, and I'm not worried about that at all.

What about that orbx guy slating outerra in some forums? These sites/people are influential in the flight simulation community and some people will just follow what they say blindly.

Been in contact with John Venema for a quite short while, way back. We gave them pre-pre-pre-alpha for a peek, and that was a mistake. When John today says he was/is not impressed and that it's not suitable for a sim, he's largely basing it on that first encounter. I don't know what he expected, he saw the videos and got interested, and then he was disappointed by the very same thing live? I thought he'd be able to see the potential (the version he got was really ugly in comparison to what we've got now), but from the experience with these companies (AS, too) I can say that they always play it safe and wait for another big fish to attach to. In that respect it's quite ironic what M$ did to them during the development of Flight.

From what I've read at the Orbx forums later, I understood that they thought someone bigger was behind us and that we were making a sim ...

You have the seed from which the best flight simulator ever produced can grow from but how to manage that transition? Wish I could help more.

Again - we are perfectly fine as it is, we are patient (ehm, at least I am ) and know what we've got here and where we are heading. I'm just loosely thinking about the situation with flight sims, what simmers want and would like to happen. You raised an important issue there, how flight sim companies would react and how they could kill it by a negative backlash too ...

[mctash]

Thanks for answers Cameni

I don't doubt your drive and ambition, I just fear that, as you have previously said, making a flight sim is an expensive business and could lead to ruin if done wrong.

I think with FS companies and negative backlash, these people are in the business to make money (and I guess they like flight simming ). If you can create a base sim which attracts alot of simmers they will eventually have to follow the simming crowd (i.e. money)  or risk business failure.

[PTTG]

As I've said elsewhere, an accessible, broad sim makes the most out of the unique capabilities of this engine. The fact that you can easily have the player walk around in a space station, get in a spaceplane, fly down to the planet and come in over berlin, fly across the Mediterranean, land in Tunisia, get in a car and drive to the dock, get in a speedboat and hydroplane out to an oil derrick, get on a sub and dive down to the sea floor, and do that all without seeing a single loading screen, is almost totally unheard of.

So don't limit the potential of the game by focusing exclusively on flight simulators, and don't limit the audience by demanding an extreme level of mastery over flight controls.