Aerofly 2 Released; Beta; Steam Games

[lionheart]

I've been flying around...... and wondering why I have such a visceral gut reaction to this program, when photoscenery is hardly a new phenomena, and other sims also have better systems implementation. Part of it is that this sim is made from the ground up for photoscenery, and at times its so razor-sharp I almost feel like my eyeballs might be cut by looking at it. The second, more subtle thing is just what you mentioned: the lighting that just FEELS right, and satisfies some subtle mental cues that you're hardly aware of until you see it finally done to modern standards. (Finally!)

Third is a sense of buy-in that the whole thing is photoscenery. Other sims have it, but its only a visitor in those: a novelty: but here that's all there is, and the reality of it makes you do something that's gotten harder and harder for some of us to do in our current sims, and that's to just sigh and sit back and totally accept the reality of your surroundings.

No roads across stadiums and jigsaw-puzzle collages of repeating patterns. You're there, and its real.

And because of that, you can do exactly what I see you doing. Explore! Mountains, rivers, dams, interesting rock formations, strange apartment complexes.......

The little kid is restored again, and flying is an adventure.

Rather than responding to the systems (which honestly are very basic) I think people are just soaring: no stuttering, no breaks in the suspension of disbelief (or at least smaller ones)

Its what people want to see and feel like when they imagine flying.

Ipacs has the ball in their court. They could easily have a home run, as long as they don't somehow massively screw up.

Its their game to lose.

Well said Devon... Salute!

Yep... Exploring...

Now when I go out in the car for supply runs, I'll look at a mountain range and say 'I have to see what that looks like from the air in Aerofly.' ...and usually I am amazed. The terrain is so wild in Arizona. I never knew it was this diverse. Also, tons of these triangle WWII auxiliary airfields all over the place.

 

[HiFlyer]

Well....... damn.

Now I know why it can take a while to even find you if you crash up in them thar' mountains.

Like, maybe a year or two.

 

[lionheart]

Lost in Arizona....

Taking off out of Bagdad airport in Arizona. This is whats over the end of the runway, and its spectacular. A wow moment. Strip mine. When taking off, there is a Solar Panel grid that is huge on your left, then the drop off into this. I would hate to land in there with a power out during takeoff. :S

An amazing terrain far North East in Arizona. So weird looking. Dark soil ahead on a higher plateas, orange planes on a lower plateau. I think Monument Valley (very orange and red) is off to the right on the horizon.

This is Sedona in the Short. Flew out of Prescott over Jerome to Cottonwood (airport is there but not the sim version yet), and hopped to Sedona. Dropped off the KingAir for the Short. Went looking for the alien base in Sedona. Ended up playing Luke Skywalker on Tatooine dodging through the out-cropping of orange towers in Sedona. So many canyons I never knew existed, and now higher resolution. Crashed 3 times flying through canyons. :S

More of that weird terrain in NE Arizona. Off to my left should be the Grand Canyon, perhaps actually to me slight left front.

Loved that shot with the sun. Over Northern Arizona looking for lakes and weird trails. Flagstaff hidden to the left.

This is crazy... I think its near Lake Powell, I dont know. There are water-way canyons below and behind me in extreme detail that I just flew over, and now I go into a huge area called Marble Canyon. A huge drop off. Breath taking. Looks like something in Arizona Highways magazine. Absolutely brilliant.

A cool mountain range I didnt know we had in Arizona. This is past Powell, edge of Marble Canyon. I never knew we had so much orange and red soil in this state. Its like its made of metal and copper....


This was one night of adventure. I set out to just do touch and goes in Phoenix, and I end up everywhere else.... Couldnt stop. The 'virtual' tour of Arizona Highways magazine...

I think I have near 30 hours now in the sim.

Glad I did the 85 Gig download for rez upgrade. (Free).

 

[lionheart]

Some of the runways are bowed, like hills. The Bagdad airport had a bowed runway. You didnt know that you are near a strip mine when taking off. Total surprise.. Cool to see runways that arent glass-flat.

 

[HiFlyer]

What I'm thinking is that local area airstrips might want to try their hand at sprucing up their own areas, and sailing clubs might be able to create customized maps of local thermals, etc.

If you flew from an airstrip out that way, wouldn't you be tickled to have it in detail and Hi-def?

I wonder if the sdk will make if possible for developers to add specific higher def zones to custom areas just like Ipacs does/did.

 

[lionheart]

What I'm thinking is that local area airstrips might want to try their hand at sprucing up their own areas, and sailing clubs might be able to create customized maps of local thermals, etc.

Yes, that would be nice. This has some brilliant gliders in it, so that would be a huge plus.

If you flew from an airstrip out that way, wouldn't you be tickled to have it in detail and Hi-def?

Yes, absolutely.

I wonder if the sdk will make if possible for developers to add specific higher def zones to custom areas just like Ipacs does/did.

I was sent the SDK by Torsten 2 days ago. I havent had a chance to check it out yet. My version of Max doesnt work with it, but he is having one done for 2014 that hopefully will be done in a week or so.

I'll have to ask him that question on high rez zones. Maybe they can be obtained from the IPACS team and blended in, as they seem to have access to all area's.

 

[HiFlyer]

I'll have to ask him that question on high rez zones. Maybe they can be obtained from the IPACS team and blended in, as they seem to have access to all area's.

One part of the sim that needs work/attention is the indiscriminate auto-gen tree placement. At anything but "low" tree settings, Las Vegas buildings (for one example) have zillions of trees poking out of their centers. The trees are everywhere: on roads, poking through buildings, swamping golf courses......

I know it would be hard for the developers to do it any other way, but it does look sloppy. I hope tree removal and individual placement are part of the tools in the bag of tricks.

 

[lionheart]

Check out John Wayne International. Tons of parked planes on the ramps. Then from there, fly up to Malibu along the coast. With the High Rez package, it is brilliant...

Earlier this evening I decided to fly the F4U around San Diego. Brilliant plane. Did some circuits at North Island AFB, then flew up to Ramona and flew around in the canyons a bit and then returned it back to the Navy. Nice bird.

Flew the Pitts up to Malibu all the way up the coast at 5K ALT. That was nice. Morning sun. That coast way is just amazing.

I'll have to start doing some airliner runs and see what thats like.

Man, if they did the entire country, it would have to be on 2 or 3 10TB drives, lol... You would have to only be able to get it by ordering the drives. Downloading would take 2 weeks.

 

[CanadaKen]

Will there be a non-Steam version?

CK

 

[lionheart]

Will there be a non-Steam version?

CK

I'll ask at the Discussions forum in Steam. I was thinking on this yesterday. It might not be because Steam has specific requirements, so they may have just made all their software around the Steam game sdk.

 

[=rk=]

Will there be a non-Steam version?

CK

In this circumstance it might help to consider Steam (by Valve), as a publisher, like Flight1 or Aerosoft. It's reasonable to imagine that Aerosoft would frown upon independent publication, for obvious reasons and might very well apply a condition to any agreement that prohibits any outside sales. Other types of agreements include a sliding scale that could be roughly related to return vs. exposure, allowing the developer to profit from outside sales at a reduced commission. It seems like developers here would be very familiar with those sorts of circumstances.
It might help to put the situation in context. Is this some sort of Grand Theft Auto/Madden football thing that Valve is obliged to add to Steam's portfolio in order to keep it relevant? More likely Valve would have the necessary leverage to apply exclusivity. It does give rise to the question as to why you might want a non-Steam version. If, for example, it is because of network reliability and this software will not run without a connection to an authentication server, in order to retain exclusivity Valve will not want to allow a version which circumvents online authentication.

 

[HiFlyer]

 

[HiFlyer]

Well I know who should love this!

 

[lionheart]

Great videos...

Thanks Devin.

 

[jvile]

@lionheart
@Devin

I develop for my FS9, FSX, side by side FSX:SE and P3D V3.3 which is all on the same computer (highend Jetline Win 7/64).

Any issues adding Aerofly FS2 to my non-SSD F:\ drive?

 

[lionheart]

@lionheart
@Devin

I develop for my FS9, FSX, side by side FSX:SE and P3D V3.3 which is all on the same computer (highend Jetline Win 7/64).

Any issues adding Aerofly FS2 to my non-SSD F:\ drive?

I have V2, V3, FSX, FSX Steam on mine. I have V2 and FSX on F (SSD) and AF2 and V3 on an external HDD laptop mini drive, runs great.

 

[HiFlyer]

It runs wherever your steam folder is, I believe. If there are missing files on your main drive, Steam will automatically set them up when you first run Aerofly Fs2....

 

[Gliderfan]

Wow! That's one of the best screenshots I've ever seen in any flight sim. 10 out of 10 (minus two points for that awful menu that keeps getting in the way--

Another hot video found on youtube--

 

[HiFlyer]

Wow! That's one of the best screenshots I've ever seen in any flight sim. 10 out of 10 (minus two points for that awful menu that keeps getting in the way--

Press "I" and the menu goes away at need.

Another hot video found on youtube--

Ugh! I usually hate wing videos, but that was short and got right to the landing.

 

[lionheart]

HiFlyer is on it. It will install into your SteamApps folder. But, you can add a folder location to your system. Some people buy so many games, they need 2 or 3 hard drives to put their games on. I have 3 locations on mine. I didnt do things right and now all my games are loading into a Mars sim, lol... Google it and you'll find instructions on how to load multiple locations for SteamApps.