Thief13x on 18/5/2003 at 17:06
Wow, these forums are really dead.:sweat:
As you can guess by my name, i am a HUGE fan of the Thief series, and i currently use FS2002 to aid with my flight training. I was just wondering if there were any other pilots in this community, and if so, what is your 2 cents on the realism of this game? is it worth buying?
ekeko on 3/6/2003 at 06:17
Well, I am not a pilot, but I will tell you that after playing, I took some glider lessons and impressed the instructor on the first flight. He showed me how to do the loop and since I had done it countless times in the sim, I was aware of pulling harder on the bottom of the loop and easing on the top. Made for a nice, even loop....
BTW, I can hardly wait for Thief III. Been playing thievery UT for sometime.
ANTSHODAN on 3/6/2003 at 12:39
Well, I go flying, but im only 15 so i cant get my pilots license yet and i have to fly with an instructor. But I spent a while on the landing training on FU3, and remembered all the details, and I asked my intructor if i could land, he agreed, despite i hadnt any training, so I took it in for a beautiful landing (albeit i nearly landed on the wrong runway:thumb: ). So yeah, I reckon it helped me, as i didnt need the intensive training, and when i get my training to get my license, ill be playing it more because lets face it, its more of a simulation than FS2002 which is made pretty much for the mainstream market...
Shadowcat on 3/6/2003 at 21:43
Quote:
Originally posted by Thief13x i currently use FS2002 to aid with my flight training. I was just wondering if there were any other pilots in this community, and if so, what is your 2 cents on the realism of this game? is it worth buying? I'm not a pilot, but...
The Flight Unlimited series broke a lot of ground, and (IMHO) each of the Flight Unlimited sims basically kicked MSFS's butt, but it's been five years since FU3 and that's a long time in the software industry, and many of the advantages that were unique to Looking Glass at the time (e.g. good interactive air-traffic control since FU2 in 1997) have since appeared in the other general aviation sims.
The original "Flight Unlimited" still makes an interesting sim for anyone interested in aerobatics. That was its entire focus, and it provides some aerobatic features, views, and training that I suspect are still unique to the flight sim genre. Graphics are surprisingly acceptable for an eight-year old sim, as Looking Glass included an at-the-time utterly unuseable 1024x768 resolution :)
"Flight Unlimited 2" is good, but mostly useful as a scenery pack for the third installment (if you have that).
"Flight Unlimited 3" has held the crown for the very best dynamic weather systems in any PC flight simulation since its release, however (which includes thermals for gliders, as ekeko mentions), and some people also find that while MSFS2002 is better looking, FU3 'feels' better. I'm not a pilot and I don't own any of the MSFS series, so I can't comment there.
MSFS2002 is good (the first genuinely good version of the series, from what I've seen and read), and its panels and aircraft models far outshine the Flight Unlimited series, and of course it allows you to fly anywhere around the world, which many people seem to appreciate. Terrain is perhaps a matter of opinion nowadays -- although unmatched when it came out, you might consider the FU2/3 terrain a bit on the low-res/blurry side these days (at low altitude, at least). Its remaining advantage is that there are no generic textures -- the entire region uses satellite images, and it still looks gorgeous from the right altitude :)
MSFS has the biggest community and hence the most modifications and additional aircraft, but FU3 has some dedicated fans who have provided a nice library of mods at the avsim.com servers. If you do pick up FU3, be sure to check that site out. I think you'd need to use customised aircraft in order to get realistic panels -- I think the default planes opted for panels that made it easier for the virtual pilot to see all the instruments, rather than replicas of the real things.
MSFS2004 is on the horizon of course, and its big new feature is its weather modelling. It remains to be seen whether it finally catches up to the 5-year-old weather code of Flight Unlimited 3, but with the raw processing power now available, it must have a reasonable chance.
Have a look at the avsim.com forums -- there's a Flight Unlimited forum there where some of the faithful still hang out :) I think you'll likely find a few pilots there, I think.
At the time of release I think FU3 was unrivaled, but while I think that it <i>does</i> still have things to offer, I would imagine that these days the MSFS series offers somewhat more for the pilot-in-training.
Good luck with the training, and be sure to let us know if you go ahead and get FU3 (if you can find a copy... AFAIK the avsim.com forum still maintains a thread letting you know where you can still find the sims.)
Thief13x on 21/6/2003 at 13:41
Wow, thanks guys. Oh BTW, I find myself playing Thievery Ut more often than i should:cool:
Anyways, it sounds like when microsoft announced the "break of the century" with the "revolutionary" new Air traffic control feature in fs2002, that they actually were beaten to it by 5 years, yes? Anyways, i would go about buying FU3, but right now FS2002 seems to be working out pretty good with my flight training (as i can fly at my home airport in the sim):ebil:. Of course, if Ion Storm Austin happened to release a FU4........I might find myself saying -F*ck u- to mainstream microsoft, and going with FU.
Anyways, thanks for your time everyone!
Timmy
P.S :cheeky: i was doing some glider flight yesterday up at Grove City Airport in Pennsylvania USA! I'm not talking Sim Glider either, i was doin the real thing!:ebil: :cool:
