> > >I'm sure Dave would appreciate extra eyes trying to find the bugs. > > >Eventually, we'll want to actually fly the other planes using an > > >FDM/autopilot combination so that they respond realistically to wind, > > >temperature, and so on. > > > > I personally think that fdm/autopilot is overkill given that they're dots > > in the sky unless you're illegally close. > > I really think you should use FDM instances for the AI traffic ... > (1) So differenty types of aircraft will be handled correctly > (2) So slips, wind drift corrections and turbulence will happen right > (3) So we can use one autopilot interface and one FDM interface for both > (4) So the AI aircraft can merge nicely with multiplayer support
PS. To clarify ... I do think you need to do a simplified thingy that just knows how to shuffle huge quantities of aircraft efficiently around the sky, so that they (eg) fly the pattern, or fly between airports, or wander around airways, or keep doing missed approaches at the same sequence of airports, or similar. However, I think you should build it as an FDM (or extend an existing FDM, if you prefer) to provide the functionality. That way, 90% of the AI vehicles can be completely trivially simulated and will be trivially rendered as a tiny distant white blob (due to someone finally putting a ssgRangeSelector on the aircraft visual model infrastructure). Taking that approach lets us easily have the remaining 10% that we will be flying close to be extremely realistic, even for formation flight (which is permitted by the FAA, by the mutual agreement of both pilots). The only time that you can be illegally close to another aircraft is if the other pilot doesn't expect you to be there (or if you busted another rule to get that close, of course). _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
