How possible are flight simulator quality aircraft?

Ryan3215 · Post by **Ryan3215** » 2007-11-23 22:57

I've wanted to know how possible it would be to get a flight simulator quality aircraft in PR. Something that looks almost exactly like the real thing, with gauges, and with realistic physics. I don't really care about "graphics" or how good it looks; just that it works properly. I suggest you take zangoo and CAS's physics and such. This would make PR much better and make jets more valuable to the game. So to sum it all up: make the aircraft (including the helicopters) more life-like, such as maneuverability, throttle, and physics all together.

zangoo · Post by **zangoo** » 2007-11-24 00:29

well making the aircraft like real would make some problems, if there are new 8x8km maps then the planes might be able to be real. right now if you have tried our mod thing you will soon see the kashan is really small and that bigger maps are a must if you want realistic planes in pr.

zardez · Post by **zardez** » 2007-11-24 00:46

lol if the planes were realistic you would be flying over the entire map in about 3 seconds

now that would make for some interesting air battles...

Post by **Dunehunter** » 2007-11-24 01:15

While much might be doable within the limits of the BF2 engine, the limits are there. This game was never intended to be anything even close to a realistic flight-simulator, so I doubt whether it will be possible to approach perfection. Of course, the realism is already a lot higher than in vanilla, and I am certain that it will become even more realistic in future releases.

zangoo · Post by **zangoo** » 2007-11-24 01:29

well if pr ever gets 64x64km maps then the planes could be very real, but untill then going mach 1 in kashan wont happen.

CAS_117 · Post by **CAS_117** » 2007-11-24 02:02

Here we go:

Avionics: the hard part. With BF2 making accurate weapons, scanners, heat objects ect are like trying to pick a lock with a wet towel. Very unforgiving in the bug aspect as well, lots of crashes and freezing, but thats what backups are for. Of course I don't mind the trial and error aspect, but the problem starts when you have more errors than you do trials is when you want to go:

Control Panel -> Program list -> uninstall

Airframes: Very easy to do. Change some random numbers and press go. Don't like it? Change it around. Right now I'm working on making it possible for planes to bleed off their energy when turning, its just a matter of copying the inertial modifier to all the aircraft {X: X/Y/Z > 0} . Right now its just that I find homing JDAMs more interesting so if your F-16 suddenly start doing backflips that why.

Post by **Ninja2dan** » 2007-11-24 02:34

Right now PR is doing much more for BF2 than was originally intended. The PR staff has stepped over the line of what was thought possible, and has already begun creating maps and statics that others thought were not possible in this engine. There are many obstacles in the way such as hardcoding and having no source available yet, but every day or two someone comes up with another interesting idea to work around the code and make something new possible.

That being said, making the aircraft in PR will be highly limited to the game engine of BF2, and as mentioned above there are many faults in the engine that prevent ultra-realism in aircraft. The same goes for armor and most other new objects. Working gauges, HUD panels, MFD's, etc will probably be impossible to code in right now or would lag all to hell. And it looks like Caboose and other DEV's are working on improving the flight dynamics of the aircraft as we speak. Before long I think aircraft will be more realistic than they are now, and they will have a suitable and accurate AA to counter them.

One thing to remember though is that PR and BF2 are centered around Infantry combat. The vehicles are not meant to be the primary role in the game, but as support. I feel it is more important to keep the realism of the ground-pounder to highest standards and priority, while keeping the support aspects such as vehicles and statics closely behind. With all of the current bugs and problems regarding infantry, I think those issues should be addressed as a higher priority than making aircraft use functioning VSI gauges.

Some games like OFP/ArmA have a lot better realism aspect for aircraft, but those games were originally intended to support third-party addons and has a much better coding and scripting engine. I love ArmA, but it still has many features that are lacking where PR picks up the slack. I think PR is the perfect mix of vBF2 and OFP, and I'm already quite happy with what we have. Be patient though and I'm sure you'll see better aircraft systems in upcoming releases.

BloodBane611 · Post by **BloodBane611** » 2007-11-24 08:44

That level of realism in a mod is completely at odds with the basic system of battlefield 2. It just wasn't designed to be taken in that direction. I'm not sure what direction it is supposed to go, its just not that one.
Even so, it is important to keep in mind that the BF 2 designers meant for the game to be modded. They were just smacktards about it.