YSFlight Wishlist

[YSFHQ]

Hey everyone, this is the new wishlist, and how we will now build our knowledge about what makes YSflight great, and where its potential lies. When you post, consider the following:

1. What is the best thing about YSFlight for you? It's best feature?

2. If you had only one thing you wish you could do with YSFlight, what would it be?

Please keep in mind this isn't for modding requests, go to the request section for that. Also, no discussion of nukes or trying to get soji's source code. (He specifically points out on his site not to ask for it)

Most everything else flies, just try to keep in mind what's reasonable. Have fun!

[Gunny]

Easy in flight weather variables like rain, snow,wind and time of day variables and a big old moon at night and sun in the daytime.Not asking for much right.

[Flake]

The best thing about YSF atm ia the flight record. Pretty detailed, easy to read and understand.

The worst thing is the close endedness of it.

[NavyGator]

I got an idea the other day. How about being able to specify the air temperature?
Wouldn't that modify the flight characteristics of a lot of the aircraft?

[Dragon029]

Indeed it would.

The 2 things I would like:

Ground vehicles to be expanded upon; I think it'd be best if ground vehicles and aircraft were made one and the same; if it could fly, the joystick would control attitude, if it couldn't, it'd control the turret; that could be toggled with a simply yes / no statement in the .dat. Then the ground handling, turret capabilities, and aircraft capabilities could be all merged.

But even more than that, I would absolutely love to have custom weapon .dat's; our concern in the past was to do with nukes / overkill weapons, but again, I really don't think it's an issue - in the past, server admins have prevented cheat planes from being used, by not installing them. If we didn't want nukes on servers, etc, we simply wouldn't install them (or create them).

The advantages of such a system are awesome though; custom missiles that more accurately model the characteristics of different systems; long range missiles; bombs that are more realistic (a lot of modern aircraft carry 1000lb JDAMs on sorties for example), sci-fi weapons that work properly, weapons like lasers could be made, glide bombs, drone bombs, etc.

[decaff_42]

sci-fi weapons that work properly, weapons like lasers could be made,

This is sorta possible right now. The TIE fighter uses guns, and has them set for crazy fire rate. Not a true laser, but having the real ones would be cool.


One of the awesome things for YSF is that we can make weapons skins to make flying more realistic.

That being said, having a flying animation (.dnm) rather than a flying Srf would be a neat thing to do. It would allow for detailed exhaust fire and look cool for replays. It could also create 'mini bomblets' as a posibility. No multiple explosions, but you'd get the visual of it working.

[Shutter]

That being said, having a flying animation (.dnm) rather than a flying Srf would be a neat thing to do. It would allow for detailed exhaust fire and look cool for replays. It could also create 'mini bomblets' as a posibility. No multiple explosions, but you'd get the visual of it working.

It's semantics, but iirc you can use a .dnm weapon skin, it just stays stuck in one STA though.

[NightRaven]

The thing I like about ysflight us that it's compact (it's only about 10-20 megabytes by itself) and very simplistic. And it runs smoothly on the computer I'm using, most of the time.

I wish that I could switch planes without pressing the escape button twice so I can take off where I landed without having to search for it's start position. Somewhat similar to one old post in the previous wishlist.

[Flake]

I would like to see physics fixes most of all.

The rudder STILL works relative to the world and not to the aircraft. It changes the nose heading and that's it. there is no real acceleration change. It sucks!

I would like to see wheels act like wheels when they are at odd angles. If you land banked left, the plane should rotate around that wheel. Much like how a motorcycle turns. To understand this, roll any old round coin and watch what happens.

That's my dream for YSF. Physics.

[Shutter]

I would like to see physics fixes most of all.

The rudder STILL works relative to the world and not to the aircraft. It changes the nose heading and that's it. there is no real acceleration change. It sucks!

I would like to see wheels act like wheels when they are at odd angles. If you land banked left, the plane should rotate around that wheel. Much like how a motorcycle turns. To understand this, roll any old round coin and watch what happens.

That's my dream for YSF. Physics.

Rudder physics in YS being a longstanding joke, yeah, that'd be cool. Banking on a wheel though, now you're just wishing for motorcycles.

[Hawks]

+1 on that physics thing even if I don´t know what you´re on about

What I like most about YSFlight is that it reminds me of "Chuck Yeager´s Advanced Flight Trainer" which I played a lot in my youth. No-nonsense scenery, just board a plane and ride without having to shell out big bucks for a high-end PC first!
Thanks for that!

[Drachenfire]

Physics for me too.

Yes the performance, especially lift/drag is ridiculous. This makes YS dogfighting like guitar hero is to actual guitar. Airliners that can do mach 1.1+ but stall at 60-100 knots? Chop the throttle on a WW2 plane and enjoy gliding for 20 min? Pulling 50+Gs, blackout or not? Pitch authority must be able to be reduced with speed. The Hooke (spring constant) model used for pitch is a groaner. The 'stickyness' of interaction of aircraft with the ground during takeoff and landing. The retarded AI. The lack of chat options.

Until these issues are addressed, YSF is butch sim.

That being said...This is why I keep coming back to YSF. I enjoy the lack of seriousness, the escapist fantasy of the dream of flight that YS provides. I love the simplicity, the sillyness. YSF isn't supposed to be a suit and tie formally competitive sim. I don't want gameplay, but I don't want to mess with a 20 min engine start procedure either. YSF fills this perfectly. She is the low maintenance cute enough girl next door who is ready to always good to go. Yep. Not marriage material, but fun as hell.

Conclusion: YSF is my sim with benefits.

--XOXO, Drachen.

P.S. Autopilot features like altitude hold, heading hold, etc would be nice.

[decaff_42]

Physics for me too.

Yes the performance, especially lift/drag is ridiculous. This makes YS dogfighting like guitar hero is to actual guitar. Airliners that can do mach 1.1+ but stall at 60-100 knots? Chop the throttle on a WW2 plane and enjoy gliding for 20 min? Pulling 50+Gs, blackout or not? Pitch authority must be able to be reduced with speed. The Hooke (spring constant) model used for pitch is a groaner. The 'stickyness' of interaction of aircraft with the ground during takeoff and landing. The retarded AI. The lack of chat options.

Until these issues are addressed, YSF is butch sim.

That being said...This is why I keep coming back to YSF. I enjoy the lack of seriousness, the escapist fantasy of the dream of flight that YS provides. I love the simplicity, the sillyness. YSF isn't supposed to be a suit and tie formally competitive sim. I don't want gameplay, but I don't want to mess with a 20 min engine start procedure either. YSF fills this perfectly. She is the low maintenance cute enough girl next door who is ready to always good to go. Yep. Not marriage material, but fun as hell.

Conclusion: YSF is my sim with benefits.

--XOXO, Drachen.

P.S. Autopilot features like altitude hold, heading hold, etc would be nice.

There is a chat function, press 0 and type away. There is autopilot press delete to open the menu. Options include takeoff, landing, circling, and alt/heading hold.

EDIT:

Also, airliners don't do Mach 1.1, even if that is what is indicated. The TAS setting allows you to see that they are going about 550kts, which perhaps a little high, is still reasonable speed. The Mach calculator could use an update/ more sophistication.

[Drachenfire]

There is a chat function, press 0 and type away. There is autopilot press delete to open the menu. Options include takeoff, landing, circling, and alt/heading hold.

Reread more carefully. That's not what I said. I didn't say there wasn't a chat function. I said I want more options. (Like reading chat you just missed because you looked away, etc)

You are perhaps confusing the current 'Straight and Level' AP function with exclusive alt or heading hold modes. Altitude hold mode usually allows changes to heading and throttle/airspeed while the AI manipulates pitch. Heading hold mode allows changes to airspeed and pitch while the AI manipulates roll/yaw. Yes there is the heading bug, but the interface is clumsy and changes to speed and alt are not possible.

I have made a student exercise and final research paper on backwards deriving Soji's mathematical model for YSF atmospheric density/alt for my differential equations class in college. It is a simple and direct model with easily observable features. Mach number in YSF is a direct function of TAS and alt.

The stock 747 can do 625 KTAS. Mach 1.1. it stalls at 102-103 knots @ 5% fuel loading. That's pretty sandbox.

[decaff_42]

Ah, I didn't realize what you ment by the different alt/holding autopilots. that would be really cool to have. The max speed of the aircraft is defined in the dat file, so you would just have to change that to a realistic number to get the real-life stuff.

[Drachenfire]

I know.

[flyingfisch]

The thing I like best about YSflight is probably Select Airplane/Flight Record. Makes offline flight tons more fun.

My wishlist has three items:

1. Ejection seats. So we can eject, and then the enemy tries to shoot down your parachute, and you try to land your parachute. I suppose an FPS could be made on the ground but that may be asking for too much. What I would like though constitutes my next request:

2. Ability to change aircraft as well as loadout by pressing the HOME key. And, to integrate with my previous request, if you can walk your player back to base without being killed, allow the player to hop into another plane.

3. In network mode, allow a player in observer mode to request to take over flight of a plane currently in flight. It could work like this:
Pilot in observer mode presses F5 until he is in the plane he wishes to take over.
Pilot in observer mode requests to take over plane.
Pilot currently flying plane can either give over the controls, or he can choose to remain flying the aircraft.
If he allows the controls to be taken over, he is put into observer mode, and the other pilot is now in control of the plane.

This could make training more realistic.

[Turbofan]

You are perhaps confusing the current 'Straight and Level' AP function with exclusive alt or heading hold modes. Altitude hold mode usually allows changes to heading and throttle/airspeed while the AI manipulates pitch. Heading hold mode allows changes to airspeed and pitch while the AI manipulates roll/yaw. Yes there is the heading bug, but the interface is clumsy and changes to speed and alt are not possible.

Yep, this is on my list of things as well-better altitude hold/speed holds-right now they're too "jerky", as in too spontaneous. Even the banking rate is too fast at least for civilian jets. The moment you select a heading with the heading bug-bam, the plane immediately turns to that heading (making civilian jets behave like fighter jets). It should be a lot gentler. Here's a great example of how fast (in general) the turn rate should be for the heading bug. Skip to 1:50 and 2:54 in the video, that's what I mean by the banking rate (rate at which the plane's computer banks the wings to the correct bank angle).

That entire video in fact is great for borrowing "elements" for YSFS flying. Not everything in there can be replicated in YS of course but little bits here and there can be.

[decaff_42]

The roll rate stuff, you might be able to fiddle around with according to the dat file

Code: Select all

MXIPTAOA 15.0deg              #MAX INPUT AOA
MXIPTSSA  4.0deg              #MAX INPUT SSA
MXIPTROL  20deg               #MAX INPUT ROLL

REM CPITMANE corresponds to Spring Constant K
REM CPITSTAB corresponds to Damper Constant B
REM To be critically damped, B=2*sqrt(K)
REM 2% Settling Time=??

MANESPD1  80kt                #MINIMUM MANEUVABLE SPEED
MANESPD2 120kt                #FULLY MANEUVABLE SPEED
CPITMANE 3.5                  #PITCH MANEUVERBILITY CONSTANT
CPITSTAB 5.0                  #PITCH STABILITY CONSTANT
CYAWMANE 4.0                  #YAW MANEUVABILITY CONSTANT
CYAWSTAB 3.0                  #YAW STABILITY CONSTANT
CROLLMAN 3.0                  #ROLL MANEUVABILITY CONSTANT

That last line should give you the ability to fiddle with it.


If Soji made some pre-made catagories like large transport, small transport, medium etc and averaged the 737 and 320 for a medium transport, it might work better, otherwise you can alter the dat file accordingly for your addons.


I think the single greatest contribution Soji could do is create a document fully explaining the dat lines in their entirety and giving the background equations and such.

[Flake]

This and a full netcode explanation. What i have of the netcode right now is helpful, but it's incomplete.