Henri wrote: > Please don't fall in the MSFS policy, when the eye candy is the main > approach.
I don't see 'accuracy' and 'visual detail' as mutually exclusive - you can have both. I for once am interested in 'realism' in a simulator. An important part is that the aircraft behaves like an aircraft, rather than an antigrav vehicle. But part of that is also the visual impression - that metal surfaces look like metal and clouds look like clouds is for me part of the immersion experience in the simulation (and yes, I am bugged by the fact that they behave weird in aerobatics - I just can't fix it...). I like to look out of the window and watch the terrain and clouds go by. I realize fully well that there are also people who are mainly interested in IFR flight who would probably be equally fine with a wireframe terrain or no terrain at all - but not everyone is like that. Equally well, while you think it is sufficient that an instrument is readable, I enjoy the experience more if it looks like a real instrument. > A cockpit must be close to the real one, instrument position, and > functionality There may not be 'the' real cockpit. The ASK-13 cockpit in Flightgear has instruments arranged differently from the ASK-13 I have flown in real life. Should this disagreement in positioning bother me? I have an altimeter in front of me, a vario, airspeed gauge, they look like they should, they work - and I just assume it's not the same aircraft and has a different cockpit arrangement. And naturally instruments must be functional (I didn't say it anywhere because it seemed obvious, but instrument fakes, i.e. photo-textures of gauges which are not operational didn't count as detail in my rating - they count as 'empty spots'). Hal wrote: > On the other hand I do disagree with Thorsten with regard to the > need to have all the ratings done by a single person or group. Short remark: We don't actually disagree here :-) - what I wrote is "which means either by a single person (or a group of persons with averaging the opinions), or by a set of sufficiently well defined objective criteria as stated above" Vivian wrote: > If I might interject here, I would draw your attention to the KC135. I looked it up and it got a 3 - seems to be reasonable, even given your description (it shouldn't get zero because it actually flies - it shouldn't get 1 because it has usuable gauges, thus maybe it really (= according to a more involved set of criteria) should be a 2. So, funnily enough, the rating did produce a reasonable number, even given the additional info which I could not have known (and indeed did not know before). Your point being? Stuart wrote: > In the great tradition of re-inventing the wheek, I'd propose 4 criteria: > - FDM > - Systems > - Cockpit > - External Model. It sounds very neat and if a large fraction of aircraft ends up rated that way, then I'll be the the first to admit that it works better than my scheme because it contains more information on other aspects. The main problems I see is: * it relies on a large number of people (= almost every developer should do it), otherwise if you create a list and people use it to pick aircraft, they will pick based on who bothered to self-rate, not based on what is good * different people may have different ideas what for example an 'accurately modelled cockpit' is - the same way as right now 'alpha' and 'beta' ratings on the download page mean very different things dependent on developer So - let's simply see what happens! For comparison, here is a draft for how I would rate systems. I think an important idea is that a model should get full points whenever it is complete, i.e. implements all there is - so gliders are not punished for the lack of an engine startup procedure. "0: doesn't have any instruments, flown with default HUD doesn't have controllable systems, engine is always on, no brakes, flaps etc. 1: has basic set of instruments (altimeter, airspeed, vario,...) has basic set of systems, can switch engine on and off, can extend and retract flaps and brakes 2: has extended set of instruments (navigation, engine gauges,...) has a working AP 3: has special instrumentation (basic radar, GPS,...) has realistic set of engine start/stop procedures, has tuned AP 4: has complete set of instrumentation (obviously, gliders don't have much instrumentation and it's unfair to ask for it, so whenever you have all instruments and systems an aircraft has in reality, you get this score) has realistic emergency procedures (engine flameout in the air, cf. the Concorde's ram air turbine or the emergency gear extraction of the IAR-80), models systems beyond those necessary for flight (the F-14b targeting radar and missiles for example)" Cheers, * Thorsten ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Increase Visibility of Your 3D Game App & Earn a Chance To Win $500! 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