Posted by badboy in the wrong forum (but it is a good one.. so I brought it here):
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Hi,
EA have posted a news article:
http://www.ea.com/worlds/games/pl_airwar00/nw_devnews1.jsp It seems they would like us to think that they have something new and spectacular in store for us in the future. With outrageous statements like “No other flight sim had anything remotely approaching this, no matter how famous its brand name.” Their advertising spiel attempts to convince us that they have some “well-kept secret” that would be “dynamite” if their customers are all patient enough to continue paying for it while they work on it. Unfortunately, those claims would have been funny if it wasn’t for the fact that those customers waiting for something good are destined for such a big disappointment.
In order to expose the weakness of their claims, let’s look at the details of what amounts to little more than EA propaganda.
During the 1980s and early 1990s, flight sim creators usually relied on programmers to create the flight model. Given the limitations of the PC, this was the only feasible method.
What flight sim creators are they referring to? At least one of the flight simulations published by EA during that period had an excellent flight model and was written by an aero graduate. At least three of the flight simulations I’ve been involved in, or written about, in the same time frame, have had aerodynamics engineers involved in the project. But they did say “usually” so I guess they covered their bases on that point.
But in the late 1990s, EA.com's Kesmai Studios began working on a revolutionary new approach to flight models that started with flight models for a Vietnam-era flight sim
It takes some balls to cite vapour-ware in your advertising
Air Warrior Vietnam used an approach so revolutionary the world wasn’t ready for it…lol. Oh but wait… They are going to tell us what the revolutionary part is:
In seeking a better answer, the Kesmai team turned to two respected experts in this field. The first was Robert Shaw, author of "Fighter Combat," widely read by military combat pilots as well as flight sim gamers. The second was Dr. Brian Stevens, author of the classic standard graduate-level aeronautical textbook, "Aircraft Control and Simulation," and currently a fellow at the Georgia Tech Research Institute.
This is a very common fallacy, and unfortunately there has always been a trend in advertising to take an inferior product and lift it onto the shoulders of celebrities. In a flight simulations context this amounts to giving a copy of your game to a test pilot or war hero and quoting them on the box saying how realistic the flight model is. EA are taking this a step farther, Respected fighter pilots and honourable academic figures make for good advertising, but do they make for a good flight model? Let’s allow the rest of the news flash to speak for itself.
Stevens and Shaw developed a method that combined tabular aircraft data with some very sophisticated non-linear algorithms.
Hmm, could this be the new approach they have been referring to? I hope not because there is nothing new about that… “tabular aircraft data” simply refers to the use of look up tables, a technique that has been used in flight simulation from its inception. The “non linear algorithms” might be called sophisticated, but all it really means is that instead of modelling some of the aerodynamic relationships as straight lines, they use curves. Is that new? Well one of the first real time simulators to use non-linear functions was the Bell & Western flight simulator built in 1943. About 32 of these were built and they simulated the aerodynamic characteristics of at least seven different aircraft for the US navy. Almost 60 years old, it can hardly be called revolutionary. But wait they are talking about PC based flight simulations right? Well Spectrum Holobyte had a non-linear flight model in Falcon3 when it was released way back in 1989, and Falcon4 features a combination of tabular aircraft data and non-linear algorithms, so it has been done before. Perhaps what they meant was that the method was new to them, and revolutionary only to themselves? Sheesh, they covered their bases there too.
The results were amazing. The results were so accurate that the model even produced the correct "feel" of the plane as it flew through the air.
Amazing… Of course no other flight simulation has ever done this… I laughed so hard when I read that it almost hurt.
For many WWII era planes, this information simply wasn't available. We solved this problem by acquiring a commercial aerodynamics-modeling package.
While the developers who already have good flight models continue to scrape together every scrap of real world data, building their models so as to produce results as accurate as possible to how the real aircraft performed, we are informed that EA will be using a bog standard aero package to help guess how they performed. Anyone else think that EA are missing the point?
Personally, I would rather accept what meagre flight test data is available, backed up with anecdotal evidence from the pilots who flew it, over just another aero package, particularly one where they couldn’t even trust the “expensive” prop add on.
They also make the excuse that the prop has been left off because they were doing something even more accurate… Well, I guess they already knew that aircraft behave very differently under power, than when gliding without a prop, and the image they have posted shows very clearly an aircraft with streamlines entirely unaffected by propwash, which of course means that they will produce correspondingly erroneous aerodynamic coefficients. Naturally, they intend to fudge that later
A highly detailed model of an airplane goes in, computer does a bunch of calculations on it through various angles of attack, yaw rotations, elevator deflections, etc., and out pops a *lot* of data. Good geeky data that engineers love. Good geeky data that makes for cool flight models.
So that’s how they are obtaining their tabular data… And their fancy aero package must be the non-linear part… Oh boy my sides are hurting! A "cool" flight model, EA are killing me!
Our model also includes specific engine performance attributes, real RPM values, changes in output with altitude and/or boost, and more.
Off course it does, the flight model wouldn’t be worth a damn if it didn’t! The only WWII simulation that has come out in the last few years that didn’t do this was… Hmm let me think… Yep Air Warrior!
Will these new models be harder to "fly" in the game? Well, yes, if we don't do anything. But we've noticed that relaxed realism is more popular than full realism. Flinn had the breakthrough idea of applying modern "fly by wire" concepts to the game.
So let me get this straight, they are building a “revolutionary” new flight model that will be “dynamite” and it is for relaxed realism? What’s wrong with that? If they only want something for the relaxed realism player, why don’t they stick with the flight model they already have?
A lot of the drudgery is taken out of getting the plane to go where you want, but the performance and handling are correct, the edges of the envelope are where they belong, and you can watch the rudder move as you maneuver.
That’s ok then, they are just taking out the drudgery, I can still watch the rudder move… Phew for a minute there they had me worried! But wait a moment, they say the performance and handling will still be correct… Don’t forget, when they say correct, what they really mean is that it will match the “geeky data” (their words not mine) output from their dodgy aero package.
So, it looks to me as though we will be getting something different, but it won’t exactly be new or revolutionary. The good news is that for those in the community really interested in aircraft that match their real world counterparts, as closely as possible, and in high fidelity aerodynamic similarity, the simulations out there already delivering that aren’t going to be threatened by AW, that seems to be destined to maintain its status as the laughing stock of the WWII simulation community.
Badboy
