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Kilonum
Sep 30, 2002

You know where you are? You're in the suburbs, baby. You're gonna drive.

Welcome to the flight sim thread. Here we talk about flight simulators of all kinds, associated hardware, and other things associated with flying.

IRC: irc.synirc.net #flightsim
Mumble: AirGoons.mumble.cc:31148 is dead.
Discord: AirGoons


Civilian Sims

Microsoft Flight Simulator X Still the yardstick after 8 years Now available on Steam!
X-Plane It's getting better Also available on Steam.
Prepar3D DON'T HAVE FUN WITH THIS!


Military Sims

Digital Combat Series (DCS)
IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946
Wings of Prey
Rise of Flight Free to Play with 2 Planes, other planes are DLC
Strike Fighters 2 series/First Eagles Sim-Light, SF2 series is Jets from the 50s through the 70s, First Eagles is WWI
Over Flanders Fields - Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 3 required!
Falcon BMS, a free total conversion of the original Falcon 4.0 game from the 1990's, with a focus on the F16 variants in fully clickable and spergy cockpits. Used by many actual air forces. Basically, imagine DCS F16.

The thread for spergy and clickable military simulations, DCS World and Falcon BMS among them is here

Sauer posted:

DCS is like that really hot guy with a great body who's never had sex before, so he doesn't know what to do with his hands and blows his load in ten seconds so the fun ends quickly.

BMS is a guy who's been having sex for fifteen years and knows a million ways to surprise you and keep it fresh in the bedroom. But he's not very good looking and sometimes looses consciousness for no reason.

DCS is a pretty good looking game but the static packaged missions are fun once and you eventually run out of them. The dynamic campaign engine in Falcon is it's killer feature. Every game progresses differently; every mission proceeds differently; and you can watch this massive war going on all around you and you're just one dude stuck in it.

OH GOD I WANT MORE

Joysticks / Rudder Pedals / Other

CH Products - Expensive
Saitek - Somewhat affordable, quality can vary.
Thrustmaster - Expensive / Affordable
Logitech - Expensive / Affordable
Cyborg - Affordable / Console Compatible

This section stolen from an older Elite: Dangerous thread:

Rotation Confusion posted:

Joystick Hierarchy:

Thrustmaster Warthog: Very expensive ($400-500). Requires Pedals for yaw (+$50-100). Will last forever. Every button. Well made. Profile software designed by Satan.

CH Products Fighterstick Pro and Throttle: Expensive ($230ish together). Very solidly built, could knock down a house with them. Throttle is linear glide which some ppl love some ppl hate.

Saitech X-55: Expensive ($200). Great all around features. Iffy track record on durability. Plenty of buttons. Tech support terrible.

Saitech X-52 Pro: Mid-range ($150). Good features. Good track record on durability recently; bad at launch. Enough buttons. Black. Tech support terrible.

Saitech X-52: Mid-Range ($120). Good features. Good track record on durability recently; bad at launch. Has some plastic in places the Pro has metal. Enough buttons. Looks like a toy. Tech support terrible.

Thrustmaster 16000M: Cheap ($50). OK features, base is nice and heavy. Good durability. You will need to keyboard a lot of button commands.

Thrustmaster T-Flight HOTAS: Cheap ($40). Cheapest "hotas" and a good way to see if you'll like HOTAS. Not enough hats or buttons, so not equivalent to the above ones.

Logitech Extreme 3D Pro: Cheap ($30). OK features. Good durability.

Headtracking

Natural Point's TrackIR - Expensive
FreeTrack - Free / DIY
FaceTrackNoIR - Free / Experimental / Webcam-based

Civilian Sims
  • VATSIM - Virtual air traffic simulation network, works with Microsoft Flight Simulator series and X-plane (and others through some trickery), better than the lovely AI Air Traffic Control in FSX/FS9.
    • Vataware - VATSIM flight tracking. Previously maintained by a goon, it is now under new management, still has some stuff to work out
    • VatStats - Similar to Vataware
    • Vattastic - Web-based VATSIM servinfo tool, shows who is online and where on VATSIM
  • Simroutes - Good for flight planning, some issues with SIDs/STARs.
  • VATSIM Chartfinder - US and Canadian airport charts (Canadian charts are out of date).
  • Skyvector - actual US IFR high, IFR Low and VFR charts, as well as airport charts. Also has generated charts for the rest of the world, but not as detailed.
  • X-plane.org - Plenty of free add-ons for X-Plane + plenty of payware stuff.
  • Simviation - Lots of freeware add-ons for FS9/FSX.
  • PMDG - FSX/P3D Payware addons, namely Boeing 737-600/700/800/900, 747-400/400F, 777-200LR/F/300ER, BAe Jetream 4100 and McDonnell-Douglas MD-11. Insanely detailed. Expensive, but worth every penny.

OH GOD MAKE FSX WORK HALFWAY DECENTLY http://www.venetubo.com/fsx.html Tool for optimizing FSX's lovely old code for your modern system.

Military Sims
Combat Ace - Lots of addons for various Military flight sims


Other

SimHQ - Simulation news and forums for sperglords.
SelenicMartian's Strike Fighters 2 LP

FAQ

How do I turn on time acceleration in FSX?
:frogout:

Thanks to pixelbaron for the formatting!

Kilonum fucked around with this message at 17:22 on Feb 13, 2018

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Kilonum
Sep 30, 2002

You know where you are? You're in the suburbs, baby. You're gonna drive.

PadreScout's idiot's guide to Microsoft Flight Simulator X (FSX).

What the gently caress is FSX?

Here's the skinny: FSX is the defacto flight sim these day for the civilian dick wagging flight sim folk. The other big one seems to be X-Plane, but I haven't got that one. So suck a box of dicks, I'm not made of money.

I think of FSX as a little framework to which you can hang a retarded assortment of free and pay content to turn it from a graphically "meh" flight sim into a jaw dropping visual feast complete with real life air traffic controllers who will steadfastly ignore your requests for take-off from Atlanta(drink more Coke, newb). More on these later, what you need to take away is "boring", "ugly", and "no guns"

PLUG INS:

Ok, like I said before, FSX is kind of gently caress ugly in vanilla format. This is ok because I have painstakingly researched all the bullshit you'll want to buy and plug into your copy to make it rival any modern flight simulator in the eye candy department.

MUST HAVES:

UTX: To be honest I'm not super sure what this one does, but I was assured it does something you want that involves replacing roads and .. meshes? I recall hearing that word at some point in the conversation. Definitely the roads part.
http://www.scenerysolutions.com/ut_fsx_usa.html

Active Sky Next: Replaces all sorts of textures and additionally has a kick-rear end weather modeling system built in. Really worth the :20bux::20bux::10bux:

http://www.hifitechinc.com/products/activeskynext


So there you go, basically you get these 2, it replaces basically everything except for the actual plane models and makes things look super sweet. This will inspire you to aimlessly fly around for hours on end "ooing" and "ahing" and generally tugging one off for mother nature.


OK- So lets assume you dropped 75 bucks on this stuff and now you have graphics all lined out, what else is there?

VATSIM:

Vatsim is real life air traffic controllers for your FSX. Yeah, you heard me, real loving life people train to become virtual ATC Controllers and then spend their evening routing people around Cleveland. This adds another level of immersion and is supposedly really awesome. The software is a plugin that you add to your FSX and you then register and account and do some other stuff, basically- think plugin, learn some poo poo, use your headset to feel just like a real pilot.

http://www.vatsim.net/index.php?id=start


Additional Planes:

The basic software comes with something like 18 aircraft to fly. If you get tired of those 18 there is a loving WORLD of planes to add on. Everything from free poo poo people make because they have way too much free time to poo poo that costs 35 bucks a plane and is modeled accurately to every detail. No, really http://www.precisionmanuals.com/pages/product/738.html. Google some more of that stuff up but seriously, I'm pretty sure at this point commercial outfits and community modders have added everything from the SR-71 to a loving Veritech fighter. The quality isn't terribly consistent across the board, but a little research should save you heartache.

Additional things to waste time on:

I'm told you can even become a pilot for a real life, honest to god pretend airline. They make you run flights, following routes and poo poo- supposedly some of the even run metrics to evaluate your on job performance and customer comfort.

Here are two examples: http://northeastva.org/ http://www.freightdogs.info <-- Kilonum is a manager in this one :spergin:

Seriously though, there are a ton of these things, just google 'virtual airlines', there must be 30 of the things.


So why should you play the FSX? Basically- it's an incredibly complex simulation that will allow you to build and test your skills over a consistent and incredibly extensible framework of awesome. Every time you think you have got things mastered- there are more things that you can tack on to make the experience even more elaborate. It's a hoot. I've been at it for 3 days now and am just working out what all those funny dials in my cockpit do (mostly) but I look forward to getting a lot of plug-ins and really pushing this as far as it will go.

Daimo posted:

I love sorting through freeware stuff. Here is a selection of the best planes, scenery and utilities that I've collected over the years. I haven't tested all of the the download links so apologies if they don't work. Enjoy.


AIRCRAFT



Tiger Moth
Very detailed model and VC. Very fun and very recommended.



Beech Bonanza
Accurate flight model, VC only. Roughly equivalent in quality to stock aircraft.



hypothetical blended-wing-body Boeing 797
This 7 is a bit of fun and may or may not be to everybody's tastes. Functional VC and a challenge to fly.



Cessna C310Q
Very realistic flight model and graphics quality is similar to stock aircraft.



Concorde
The model and VC are amazing but the flight model is rather wobbly at realistic speeds and altitude. If you don't mind not being entirely authentic you will have a lot of fun (especially landing) this one.



Enstrom 280FX
Not a special helicopter but the flight model and graphics are to die for.



Get it here
The best Bell 206B.



Piaggio P-180 Avanti



F-14
Payware quality but free. All the features of the Acceleration F-18 and possibly more. Essential.



F86 Sabre
Goes like hell in a straight line but you'll struggle to balance the power and land the thing in the extremely cramped cockpit. Perfect.



Schweitzer sailplane
The best model I can find, good for nostalgia flights.



Hawker Hurricane
Bit of a frame rate killer on my computer but excellent graphics and model.



A Hang Glider!
There isn't much to it, but it's different and worth a try.



Icon A5
I went looking for the A5 after seeing it on Flight, but not wanting to try flight. There are two different models and this is the better one. A bit of fun but not essential.



Cessna 152
This is Just Flight's 152. It's not Carenado, but worth adding to your collection (Note: Signup required - you get special offer emails which aren't entirely bad).



Rolladen-Schneider LS8-18
A very high performance glider. It's also worth checking out the Discus on this site, but they're all great here.



Nardi FN-333 Riviera
A very well done floatplane. I haven't flown it much but it is well worth a download if this is the type of thing you enjoy.



OV-10A
The forerunner to the A-10 Warthog. Excellent flight model that I've spent a lot of time in. You really get a sense that you're in a hugely powerful turboprop with engines that tower above you. Great VC. It's probably also worth checking out the other planes on this link.



Pilatus PC-7
Not a plane I've flown in but it comes highly recommended by various freeware lists on the internet.



Pirat
You probably already have this in your collection due to rave reviews. It's gorgeous.



Pondracer
Fast and responsive with decent VC, nice alternative to the extra



Sopwith Camel old version



T-45C Goshawk
This is by the same studio that did the F-14 above.



Chinook
Anything by UKMIL is going to have a good flight model but relatively poor cockpit. This is the best of them though.



Aero Commander 500 (Cargo Version)
Great aircraft for flying around the boonies. There are several different versions on the site (NASA, wood panel, etc) if you fancy it.



Sopwith Camel
New version. Includes simulated machine gun by activating taxiing lights.



De Havilland Dash 7
The Dash series of aeroplanes are awesome and this is the best freeware available, the cockpit is a bit cranky however. Made for PC Pilot magazine apparently!



Grumman S2 Tracker
Eagle Rotorcraft Simulations' latest and greatest aircraft.



Antonov AN-2
Goons love these things and it's not hard to see why. Crank the flaps, set a headwind of 30 and take off at 20kts.


Basler BT-67
Love DC3's? Of course you do. Get one with a Turbo.

SCENERY



Grand Canyon Photoreal



Aerosoft Alcatraz



Aerosoft Wasserkuppe airfield
Great place for ridge lift and gliding (Get Cumulus X if you don't already have it!).



Kiev VFR



Gibraltar
Note, you'll need a better mesh than default (in link) and you'll probably want a better airfield, such as this.



Ballina, Australia
This is just one of Ant's sceneries and I can't recommend them enough!


MISSIONS



Miracle on the Hudson
Can you make it back to Laguardia? Includes the real cockpit chatter!


UTILITIES


before

after

FSrealWX
Freeware weather system. I cannot begin to explain the difference this makes so judge by the pictures! Note you will need the cloud textures below...



HDE - High Definition Environment - V2.0
If you want nice skies but don't feel like buying a weather/texture package then check this package will give you nice clouds and also includes a bloom shader. There is a catch though, it (bloom) only works properly if you're using a single monitor and that's why I don't use it. Please backup your textures folder before installing this! You also want longer contrails.



Cumulus X
Adds proper ridge lift, no excuse not to get it even if you don't glide.


Edit Voice Pack
This program will make your ATC more realistic by changing the speed/syntax and phrases.


Flight Creator
This is a poor man's Air Hauler. Add you start airport, select rough distance and it will create a mission for you. A bit limited because it was never updated past 22000 airports but it's added to my enjoyment.


Runway Awareness and Advisory System (Youtube)
Adds callouts and much more.


PANELS



Panelmania
Have a second monitor and want to use it as an instrument panel? Check this out.


LINKS / MISC


I really recommend you sign up to https://www.sim-outhouse.com (it's free) and then run a search like this to get the best results.

Saab Draken project. This is a complete aircraft with realistic startup/shutdown/avionics. Unfortunately the cockpit is all in Swedish so I haven't mastered it. Easily as good as any payware package.

Anything from FSND is amazing.

http://www.premaircraft.com/ Have a lot of good rare stuff but graphics quality varies.

http://www.eaglerotorcraftsimulations.com/

And now a critique of the steaming pile of poo poo that was MS Flight:

Jonny Nox posted:

MS Flight was killed by being poorly marketed, poorly conceived, poorly communicated, tied to a terrible DRM system, closed DLC, and an atrocious choice of addons.

It SHOULD have been the perfect gateway drug into mainline Microsoft Flight Simulators. It most of the ingredients to be just that. (It's how I personally got into flight sims, tbh) It traded geographical limitations for focus of gameplay. It had really good tutorial missions and a leveling system that allowed the player to feel progression as he/she learned basic airmanship as well as allowed the developers to focus the player improving their play. It was much more gamey than FSX where you COULD just fly between 2 airports, but how much cooler was it when you were taking a friend out for a $100 hamburger (and the person would talk to you, and get pissed off if you flew like an rear end in a top hat) The starting planes were pretty great for this kind of game too. 2 LSAs (one a seaplane) a larger GA plane, and a aerobatic capable trainer. It had achievements, daily challenges, a great sound system, really enjoyable music, voice acting on the missions. Some of the "Campaign" missions were of the "let's fly around to some historical sights around Hawaii, oh and land at that abandoned WW2 airbase while we're here please"


sure was pretty though

But Microsoft started out on the wrong foot right from day one. (later on they would shoot themselves in the foot) The HAD to have known that the core audience would be apoplectic with the announcement. Every community hates the next thing in line, but if there is even a hint of "dumbing down" the screaming gets biblical. And this is exactly what happened as Microsoft announced a new flight simulator and everyone assumed it was the sequel to FSX. How do you think they reacted when it looked like they were going from a worldwide flight simulator with strong third party support to a limited flight simulator with closed dlc addons and locked to a market system everyone already hated (GFWL). This is also where the poor communication comes in since Microsoft should have noticed that their "This is not an FSX sequel" message was being ignored. If they had just rolled the improvements the Flight team were making in their engine back into FSX and released it as a backwards compatible sequel, or done what Dovetail ended up doing a few years earlier, they could have had a product they could point at and say "this is for you, that is for your friend who isn't really into flight sims but wants to try something out"

At least they released it on steam, or even fewer people would have discovered it. As it was I don't think there was much in terms of advertising in the mainstream games media, which is where they should have been focusing their efforts. It was a free to play flight sim that gave you a pretty juicy taste for the free portion. The starter pack made it into a game a casual flight sim fan could have dumped a hundred hours into no problem. There is no reason that they couldn't have had decent penetration at the start.

The first time you load up Flight, you start in a Icon A-5 on final approach. A lady in your ears then directs you over a beach out over the ocean, past a cruise ship and touching down for a perfect landing. It was the first time I had ever landed a plane in a flight sim, and that feeling DROVe me. I litterally bought every piece of DLC. I accidentally learned basic airmanship as I tried to finish as many missions and challenges as I could to get those sweet sweet gamerscore. So Flight is where I leaned about Vapp, using PAPI lights, taxiing, using checklists, all that stuff.

But the cracks were showing on day one. I never had a problem with GFWL, but many people did. And ask EA what happens when your DRM kills the ability to play the game.

The Islands of Hawaii were really nice and detailed, and there were plenty of airports to land at. But if there were any radio navigation aids, they certainly weren't pointed out in game. There was absolutely no ILS systems, or IMO markers. You knew where you had to fly because there was a marker in the sky with a distance underneath it. You knew how far from the runway you were because there was a distance floating in the sky above it. LAME.

The "campaign" missions, landing challenges, and collectables were all perfectly functional, and fun. This contrasted with the job board missions (each airport had a random job board of hauling, tourism, and similar missions) where you started to really notice the shortcuts the developers took. First of all, if you crash during a challenge or campaign mission you say "whoops" start over and it feels suitable gamey (since that is what Flight was supposed to be) the job board missions were a different story though. They would have a voice pack so either a co-pilot or passenger would talk to you when flying. This actually detracted from the gameness, which might have been good except if you crash and retry the mission, it reloads with a completely different person in the plane with you. You would also suddenly have to deal with a dispatcher (not really but they would talk to your co-pilot on cargo missions) This was REALLY jarring because it felt simmy as hell, but only appeared on one type of randomly created missions. Also because normally you are the only person in the world.


The challenges. Mostly not done because I suck.

That's right, in MS Flight, you might have disembodied voices talking to you frequently but you are the only person in the world. You can get out of your plane and walk around and there are NO people around. There is NO ATC to deal with. Which makes sense because there is no AI traffic of any kind either. There are not even static airplanes. There is no ground equipment. If you load heavy cargo in your Maule M-7 the suspension flexes but it would be better if they didn't even try since there is no ground crew loading the cargo into your plane. Knowing that some of these things were in FSX made this completely inexplicable, and was #2 on the unforgivable mistakes that killed MS Flight.

The first DLC was day one downloadable Stearman and the rest of Hawaii. This was perfectly fine since the free game was only enough to whet your appetite. Again if they had built this as a gateway drug this would have been a perfect strategy. The first one is free, if you want more you gotta put something up. The Hawaii Adventure came with a Vans RV-7 and expanded the basic missions in the free game. The Maule, Stearman and RV were all complete planes with fully clickable cockpits. If you had them, there were a ton of plane specific landing challenges and other special missions available in the game. They really felt like you were adding to your experience by getting them.


look at this poo poo. The planes with the fancy borders are the ones with cockpits. At least the specs on each plane mattered a lot. (yes I bought ALL the DLC)

They would not release another complete plane until AFTER the next scenery expansion. The released planes included a free RedTails P-51, a Corsair, Warhawk, and a Zero. They were $6-7 each and none included a cockpit. If you went to the cockpit view you would just have a screen filled with scenery. The speed you were traveling was displayed above you in a status bar. This could have been fine for them if they hadn't done the same for the Carbon Cub released with the second Scenery pack, Alaska. The Cub was later released as a full plane, but as a paid addon and way, way too late. Releasing Alaska with a cockpit-less plane was unforgivable sin #3. After MS pulled the plug on the whole debacle they released the first multi-engine plan for Flight, the C-46. It had no cockpit. Also it was broken (it would fall out of the sky at random)

So in conclusion, if MS had abandoned GFWL way earlier than it needed to, put some AI in the game, and released full aircraft or nothing at all, they could have overcome some of the missing features of the game. They could have put FSX or a sequel to that later and probably pulled in more fans for what is really a niche hobby. Alas they didn't.

Honestly I would have loved it if they had played up the game-ness and made the planes physical things in a living world. So if you parked your M-7 in Anchorage and needed it to be in Seward you would either have to fly it there or have it ferried. You should have had to deal with a simplfied ATC when around airports and on the ground and had planes lining up for runways and passing you in the air. You could walk around the world outside of the plane and they should have had upgrade shops in the airports you could walk into and get better spark plugs or fairings for your gear and stuff like that.

I still feel that a spritual sequel to the game, where you are in Alaska and start with a busted up old CUB your uncle left you combined with Eurotruck Simulator style career mode is a viable and potentially fun game. Basically start the player with a CUB or other small plane and let them run cargo, build contacts, buy planes, and expand to a minor regional airline would be awesome. Just make the plane selection include something like a Maule M-7, a Beaver, a Twotter, and up to DC-3 or early DC-9 sized planes and limit it to something like the Pacific NW, or the NE, or Alaska. Track abuse and maintainance of your planes, make you budget for fuel costs, apron space, hangers etc. would be super cool.

anyways that's my $0.02 $5 on the matter. I have many hours in MS Flight and I think it was a fundamentally sound game carried off in a deeply flawed way.

INTJ Mastermind posted:

For the XP10 newbies here's a list of addons to improve the graphics and scenery that I've personally used.

FREEWARE
HD Mesh V3: HD meshes.
http://www.alpilotx.net/downloads/x-plane-10-hd-mesh-scenery-v3/

World2Xplane: OSM vector road data, user-submitted custom buildings. Some cities literally have every road and building modeled in 3D and its like flying via Google maps.
http://simheaven.com/?page_id=3091

Prefab Airports: Adds a generic ramp, buildings, and static aircraft for the 30,000+ small strips
http://www.4xplane.nl

RealTerraHaze: Custom plugin to modify the default atmospheric effects.
http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=22387

PAYWARE Addons:
SkyMaxx Pro: Better looking and performing clouds. $40
http://www.x-aviation.com/catalog/product_info.php/skymaxx-pro-p-115

UrbanMaxx: A set of generic city tiles for those who want a busier cityscape without the rendering load of heavy autogen. $8
http://www.x-aviation.com/catalog/product_info.php/urbanmaxx-p-102

Freeware airport scenery can be found at x-plane.org site. http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads

MisterX has some excellent sceneries for KSFO, KLAX, KSAN, KPHX, and PAJN.

The x-plane scenery gateway (http://gateway.x-plane.com/airports/page) contains user-submitted airports made via the built in world editor. These are slowly being rolled in to the default install with each software update.

The X-Plane.org store http://store.x-plane.org is a great resource for payware aircraft and sceneries. Stuff goes on sale pretty regularly here so watch something for a week or two before paying full price.

Kilonum fucked around with this message at 15:52 on Dec 21, 2015

Kilonum
Sep 30, 2002

You know where you are? You're in the suburbs, baby. You're gonna drive.

Captain Apollo's VATSIM Guide

Gee golly flightsimmers, I've never understood what VATSIM is...so what is it?!?!
VATSIM stands for Virtual Air Traffic Simulation.
In essence, VATSIM replicates real world air traffic operations across the WORLD. Some people log in as controllers to control air traffic, and the majority of us log in as pilots and fly from place to place talking to air traffic. VATSIM takes themselves very seriously. They do not allow attempts to fly into any buildings. If you want to do this, or be a complete douchebag to people online, go somewhere else.

Again, VATSIM tries to professionally replicate the real world as much as possible while still remaining friendly and understanding that we're all staring at a computer that might crash at any time.


First question when it comes to VATSIM

What software am I going to use??? You have options. Flight Simulator X, or X-Plane.
Personally, I believe X-Plane is a better flight simulator, however, FSX really is the way to go if you want to do VATSIM. The plugins all around for FSX are better and VATSIM works better with FSX.

If you don't have FSX, go to your local electronics store or amazon and pick up Flight Simulator X: Gold Edition. It has all the latest updates and the Acceleration pack that you want.

Second question for VATSIM
Okay, I've got FSX/Xplane, now how do I connect to VATSIM??
If you are using FSX, please follow this information sticky step by step. You probably want to read the first post all ONCE(It's quick) and then follow the instructions so you have a complete grasp.

FSInn
http://forums.vatsim.net/viewtopic.php?t=20466

If you have X-Plane, download Squawkbox and install from here
http://www.squawkbox.ca/downloads/

SPECIAL NOTE FOR FSX FSINN USERS.
After installing FSInn, navigate to Start/Programs/FSCopilot and click the FSInn Control Panel. Open it and then click the CHAT button. After it loads properly, close out the program.


Start FSX(Xplane) and load up a free flight mission. Get in the habit of loading up your free flight on a runway, and OFF OF THE RUNWAY. GET IN THE HABIT OF LOADING UP AT A PARKING AREA. Remember this is like real life, if you connect on an active runway, air traffic control will get pretty upset!

So once fsx is up, press the alt button on your keyboard to make the toolbar come up. Then navigate to Addons and then FSCopilot and FSInn Control Panel. It will cycle through and update a list of airplanes, just be patient here.

Now, click on the bottom right "SET" button. Under "BASIC" fill in your real name, this is important, do it.
Then navigate to "NETWORKING" and reset the IPs. Now, the default servers for FSInn and most likely squawkbox are OUTDATED.
Click for a list of updated IP's
http://faq.apollo3.com/ljames/fsinn/vatsim/data/showservers.pl

After updating all information, close the settings dialog box. Then, while looking at the FSInn Control Panel, click the button to the left of the big green VATSIM sign. It should turn the WHOLE BOX bright green. That's when you'll know you have successfully connected to VATSIM. If it turns red after about 10 seconds, your vatsim ID and PW or your user information has not been inputted correctly.

Congrats, you're now connected to ONLINE VIRTUAL AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL :)


Having problems, have a question that can only be solved by human interaction? DROP BY OUR IRC CHANNEL!
irc.synirc.net #flightsim Connect with http://mibbit.com if you don't want to be a constant idler, but I bet we'll convince you to stay!

sellouts
Apr 23, 2003

Are we still recommending gex when active sky now comes with textures as well?

Kilonum
Sep 30, 2002

You know where you are? You're in the suburbs, baby. You're gonna drive.

I fixed it.

bloops
Dec 31, 2010

Thanks Ape Pussy!
X-plane 10 is also a very viable option. I could write up a quick blurb or so about it for the OP, if that's something that you'd toss in there.

Dark_Swordmaster
Oct 31, 2011
Does X-Plane 10 still require the USS Enterprise's computer to run? I enjoyed 9 but when trying out 10 last it STILL ran sub 1fps. This was about a year ago now though.

Dalrain
Nov 13, 2008

Experience joy,
Experience waffle,
Today.
The bigger problem I had noticed before (but is resolved now) is that the sim wasn't 64-bit, so it didn't use all the RAM available on the machine. Performance went way up since I got the 64-bit installer and run it natively now. YMMV.

bloops
Dec 31, 2010

Thanks Ape Pussy!

Dark_Swordmaster posted:

Does X-Plane 10 still require the USS Enterprise's computer to run? I enjoyed 9 but when trying out 10 last it STILL ran sub 1fps. This was about a year ago now though.

I'm running an overclocked i7 at 4.2ghz, 8 gb ram, and a GTX 670. The sim runs tons better than FSX ever did for me with many of the options way way up there.

Forums Terrorist
Dec 8, 2011

Is there any reason you're still recommending FSX over Prepar3D? FSX running like literal poo poo is why I stopped flying.

sellouts
Apr 23, 2003

Xplane crashes like crazy for me in the payware 727 with stock settings. If someone writing up xplane wants to cover how to fix crashes to desktop or delve into settings that would be amazing

Fatrick
Jul 19, 2003

*Jumping Peppers!* *Enjoy the Sauce!*
I used to work with the creator of Squawkbox. He did a big release around before Flight Sim X came out and had a bunch of people, including a few Microsoft peeps come to his launch party.

He made Squawkbox to teach himself some programming techniques, and it just blossomed from there.

He's a really awesome guy, works for Hothead games now making mostly iPhone games.

cool new Metroid game
Oct 7, 2009

hail satan

I bought a new headset and the headband part is a bit too thick for my TrackIR clip. I managed to just about squeeze it on but after a while it popped off chipping a tiny bit of plastic in the process. It still clips together but I don't want to try that again. How am I supposed to sperg now? :sigh:

Kilonum
Sep 30, 2002

You know where you are? You're in the suburbs, baby. You're gonna drive.

I had a rough day flying yesterday



:goleft:

SocketSeven
Dec 5, 2012

Megadyptes posted:

I bought a new headset and the headband part is a bit too thick for my TrackIR clip. I managed to just about squeeze it on but after a while it popped off chipping a tiny bit of plastic in the process. It still clips together but I don't want to try that again. How am I supposed to sperg now? :sigh:

My Track clip Pro is held together with hot glue. I sent Naturalpoint my shipping invoice, a photo of the broken clip (mine broke at the movable joints, not the clip), and asked them if they could help me out. They sent me a new Track Clip pro no questions asked, and I didn't have to return the old one. The hot glue is still working fine so I'm milking the old clip for as long as I can keep it held together.

SwimNurd
Oct 28, 2007

mememememe

Kilonum posted:

I had a rough day flying yesterday


So a normal day for you?

Kilonum
Sep 30, 2002

You know where you are? You're in the suburbs, baby. You're gonna drive.

SocketSeven posted:

My Track clip Pro is held together with hot glue. I sent Naturalpoint my shipping invoice, a photo of the broken clip (mine broke at the movable joints, not the clip), and asked them if they could help me out. They sent me a new Track Clip pro no questions asked, and I didn't have to return the old one. The hot glue is still working fine so I'm milking the old clip for as long as I can keep it held together.


I'll have to remember that when I replace my current one (being held together with duct tape and recycled chopsticks) and the new one breaks.

It's always at the joints. ALWAYS.

Kilonum
Sep 30, 2002

You know where you are? You're in the suburbs, baby. You're gonna drive.

Last mission of my SF2 campaign, My F-86 got a little shot up



But at least I landed safely

Shanakin
Mar 26, 2010

The whole point of stats are lost if you keep it a secret. Why Didn't you tell the world eh?
I enjoy SF2 well enough after buying it on a recommendation from IRC but I wish it didn't make the venerable Il2 appear practically modern.

Insert name here
Nov 10, 2009

Oh.
Oh Dear.
:ohdear:

Kilonum posted:

Last mission of my SF2 campaign, My F-86 got a little shot up



But at least I landed safely


Worked better than mine at least:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_VJYeCeMaw&hd=1

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck
Ha, what a shame. That looked really survivable until the huge explosion.

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

The Ferret King posted:

That looked really survivable until the huge explosion.

If the current thread title didn't already make me giggle every time I see it, I'd suggest this as prime material.

Insert name here
Nov 10, 2009

Oh.
Oh Dear.
:ohdear:

The Ferret King posted:

Ha, what a shame. That looked really survivable until the huge explosion.
I was laughing for a good five or so minutes afterwards because I totally didn't expect my plane to just spontaneously explode. I'm glad I had enough foresight to hit the record button to capture this moment.

Diet Crack
Jan 15, 2001

FSUIPC should be in the OP in my opinion. Everything by PMDG should also be in there.

Tumblr of scotch
Mar 13, 2006

Please, don't be my neighbor.

Insert name here posted:

I was laughing for a good five or so minutes afterwards because I totally didn't expect my plane to just spontaneously explode. I'm glad I had enough foresight to hit the record button to capture this moment.
Yeah, while it's pretty good in other areas if you fiddle with the difficulty settings, SF2 doesn't do a whole great job with belly landings. :v:

SkopeDog
Sep 6, 2011

That's some serious Looney Tunes poo poo. *tink* *KABOOM*

I still have yet to master the AIM-9 in the F-100
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Sy2q4oDc10&hd=1

Falken
Jan 26, 2004

Do you feel like a hero yet?
What title is that? One of the "wings over ____" series? I loved Wings over Europe, but that was a few years ago.

Have an old-rear end video of me landing an F4 phantom with a section of wing absent. I have no idea how this didn't explode on contact.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8j_pGfRjjI

Also, it got alot of negative votes because people thought they were going to see a real F4 land without a wing.

Tumblr of scotch
Mar 13, 2006

Please, don't be my neighbor.

Falken posted:

What title is that? One of the "wings over ____" series? I loved Wings over Europe, but that was a few years ago.

Have an old-rear end video of me landing an F4 phantom with a section of wing absent. I have no idea how this didn't explode on contact.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8j_pGfRjjI

Also, it got alot of negative votes because people thought they were going to see a real F4 land without a wing.
Close. Strike Fighters 2, which is basically just WoX with Vista/7 compatibility and slightly better graphics.

Meiwaku
Jan 10, 2011

Fun for the whole family!
Any thoughts on the Oculus Rift replacing TrackIR for sims?

Shart Carbuncle
Aug 4, 2004

Star Trek:
The Motion Picture

Meiwaku posted:

Any thoughts on the Oculus Rift replacing TrackIR for sims?

There are some issues with that. Firstly, the low resolution on the current devkit makes distant objects less than clear, and it would make it nearly impossible to read the instruments in a virtual cockpit. That will be better with the consumer version, but it still may not be ideal. You could design around some of it with a clever UI.

The other problem is that of finding your way around the controls. Flying a Piper Cub with a stick and pedals, etc. would be fine, but for more complex stuff, I find myself reaching for the keyboard and mouse and having to actually look at what my hands are doing pretty frequently. Again, you could design a sort of specialized "virtual" interface for lesser used functions. (Some people are doing stuff like a floating radial menu that you operate with your face, for instance.)

In fewer words, I think you could design or modify a sim for fairly painless Rift integration, but it'll present some significant hurdles.

Hadlock
Nov 9, 2004

The current Occulus Rift is what, 800x600 right? I would want to wait for at least the 1024x768 or 1366x768 version before buying in to that technology, preferably 1280x1024.

800x600 was barely acceptable for 3D games in the 90s, there's a reason why the industry standardized on 1024x768 and not 800x600 even when hardware could barely support it.

Shart Carbuncle
Aug 4, 2004

Star Trek:
The Motion Picture
It's currently a 1280x800 display in there, which means 640x800 for each eye. This is exacerbated by a few factors, too:

1) Your face is all up ons

2) the optics of the Rift stretch what little resolution is there all crazy over your periphery in a non-linear fashion

and 3) the image doesn't even fill up the display... the edges aren't used (this is due to a last minute change in the current kit and won't be as much of an issue later).

So yeah, pixels the size of small dogs of varying apparent size.

edit: I'm really tired right now, so this didn't come out as clearly as it should have, but I think you get what I'm saying.

Shart Carbuncle fucked around with this message at 18:44 on May 31, 2013

Mike-o
Dec 25, 2004

Now I'm in your room
And I'm in your bed


Grimey Drawer

Falken posted:

What title is that? One of the "wings over ____" series? I loved Wings over Europe, but that was a few years ago.

Have an old-rear end video of me landing an F4 phantom with a section of wing absent. I have no idea how this didn't explode on contact.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8j_pGfRjjI

Also, it got alot of negative votes because people thought they were going to see a real F4 land without a wing.

Jesus christ people get mad at stupid poo poo. Why did I read those comments :negative:

Dark_Swordmaster
Oct 31, 2011
Occulus Rift doesn't have 6DoF. Now if there was a way to somehow bastardize TrackIR and the Occulus Rift, then you've got my interest.

SocketSeven
Dec 5, 2012
Occulus would be a nightmare in DCS. You'd need virtual hands to to flip cockpit switches, because you have no way of looking at your controls, or telling where your real hands are.

I really want it to work, but I still can't believe that the occulus will be anything but a toy that very few people have. I'm hoping I'm wrong.

Hav
Dec 11, 2009

Fun Shoe

SocketSeven posted:

Occulus would be a nightmare in DCS. You'd need virtual hands to to flip cockpit switches, because you have no way of looking at your controls, or telling where your real hands are.

I'm seeing a crossover between OctoDad (http://www.octodadgame.com/) and DCS A-10 here.

Insert name here
Nov 10, 2009

Oh.
Oh Dear.
:ohdear:

Flagrant Abuse posted:

Close. Strike Fighters 2, which is basically just WoX with Vista/7 compatibility and slightly better graphics.
Also no multiplayer. I heard the WoX MP was buggy and lovely and no one played it anyway and that's why it was removed but it's a shame because I'd love me some SF2 multiplayer.

Kilonum
Sep 30, 2002

You know where you are? You're in the suburbs, baby. You're gonna drive.

Insert name here posted:

Also no multiplayer. I heard the WoX MP was buggy and lovely and no one played it anyway and that's why it was removed but it's a shame because I'd love me some SF2 multiplayer.

That and Microsoft dropped DirectPlay from DX10+ (WoX is DX9, SF2 is DX10) and TK didn't have the time or money to spend on recoding multiplayer.

And speaking of SF2, new patch dropped on Wednesday.

Changelog from the previous patch:

* Expansion Packs can now be installed on any SF2 install.

* Minor tweaks to improve performance.

So now you don't need SF2:I for Expansion 1 or SF2:E for Expansion 2.

Hadlock
Nov 9, 2004

Wikipedia Brown posted:

It's currently 640x800 for each eye. This is exacerbated by a few factors, too:

2) the optics stretch what little resolution is there all crazy in a non-linear fashion

and 3) the image doesn't even fill up the display... the edges aren't used

Yikes, yeah 800x640 is just too small for each eye. I will wait until they make it up to 1024x768, I think.

I don't own one, but do the stretched pixels in the edges really matter? Your eyeballs are effectively fisheye lenses as well, but your brain does postprocessing and makes your vision look "flat", so I would think that the stretched pixels at your perhipery would be "auto adjusted" during normal use (unless you're "looking" for it). I'm really curious.

Are there any Occulus Rifts on display anywhere in the DFW area? I'd love to see a tech demo somewhere... any idea if they're going to be at Quakecon this year?

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Full Collapse
Dec 4, 2002

And on the Oculus Rift, Andrew Reisse was run over and killed.

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/orange_county&id=9122999

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