Flyout – Does anyone know about this game ?

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Merlock

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I’ve just heard about today, this game availble on Steam. Acording to Steam, This is "an aircraft building game with an emphasis on design freedom and realistic physics, sound and effects. Use the in-game modeling tools to create an aircraft of any shape, add and configure engines for your needs, set up control surfaces and take your design on a test flight around an earth-sized procedurally generated planet."

I’ve found on Youtube an example of fly tests with Community Designs! (the last one is purely HILARIOUS!!)
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X81aVtPyXdo


Currently, Flyout is still on Early Access, but I bet it is already of the highest interest !

So ? Has anyone ever heard of this game ? What is your opinion ?
 
Having seen some of the ?video ad? I see nothing to get excited about. I will not be buying whatever the commentary make was drinking either, seriously bad moonshine methinks.
 
That's fair enough, I suppose, but... Isn't a game that lets you design an original plane an interesting project? Particularly for a forum such as this one whose theme is precisely to discuss "exotic" or "what If" aircraft?

The question being, of course, whether this game respects the laws of physics or aerodynamics enough to be interesting...
 
I do like the idea behind it, Sprocket (On steam etc) being a tank design program is of the same ilk. The conduct of the commentator suggests it is for young children who perhaps have little or no concept of aerodynamics and gravity etc. A pity as it could fill a sizeable niche.

There were a couple of WW1 desktop sims about some time ago, small and simple but fun all the same. Swapping out engines etc and stretching wings much like the designers of the time did to adapt aircraft to new roles.

I believe the Sopwith camel had a few extra feet of wing as an experiment to allow the RFC to attack Zeppellins etc.
 
Hi Merlock,

Merlock said:
I’ve just heard about today, this game availble on Steam. Acording to Steam, This is "an aircraft building game with an emphasis on design freedom and realistic physics, sound and effects. Use the in-game modeling tools to create an aircraft of any shape, add and configure engines for your needs, set up control surfaces and take your design on a test flight around an earth-sized procedurally generated planet."
Click to expand...

What's really turning me off is that I found two apparently well-considered reviews on steam that criticized the user interface, especially the lack of an undo button.

If you're familiar with X-Plane, I am fairly happy with Plane Maker's wing edit mode where I enter numerical data to get the wings I want, and I absolutely hate the fuselage editor where it's all graphical, mouse-clicky and barely undo-able.

From the video you linked, the look and feel of the build interface looks a lot like that of KSP, which was good for spaceships but didn't really give the kind of accurate control I'd want for an aircraft design.

Coincidentally, in X-Plane I built a fairly "realistic" model of the three-engined Blohm & Voss Schnellbomber that's featured in the Flyout video too. As detailed in the original Baubeschreibung document, X-Plane doesn't see enough vertical tail volume to make the design even borderline flyable. No surprise actually, as the small vertical fins of the outer nacelles are barely behind the centre of gravity. Richard Vogt of Blohm & Voss was a really bright guy, but I have no idea why he thought these little fins could give ample lateral control even in an outboard-engine-out case (as stated in the Baubeschreibung).

So if that Schnellbomber flies really well in Flyout, that makes me doubt its physics engine a bit. Only a bit though - a determined designer using all the features of a simulation might be able to create an aircraft model that flies well even if it realistically shouldn't, even if the physics engine is perfectly good.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)
 
Simple planes and simple rockets (Also on steam) might be a more worthy example of the genre perhaps.
 
HoHun said:
If you're familiar with X-Plane, I am fairly happy with Plane Maker's wing edit mode where I enter numerical data to get the wings I want, and I absolutely hate the fuselage editor where it's all graphical, mouse-clicky and barely undo-able.
Click to expand...

In X-Plane you can manually enter the coordinates of each vertex. So, one can actually make fuselages/bodies without using the mouse.

An issue is that they are very low-poly, but the bodies made in the plane-maker are used for calculations, and one can bring in a high resolution 3d model for graphical purposes... so that isn't that big a deal. There are issues with precision though, and one gets about three times the precision if one works in non-metric (as the interface has the same number of decimal places in metres as it does in feet)!

It is quite possible to get a fairly precise model though, through measuring orthographic three-views of an airplane and entering all of the values.
 
Foo Fighter said:
There were a couple of WW1 desktop sims about some time ago, small and simple but fun all the same. Swapping out engines etc and stretching wings much like the designers of the time did to adapt aircraft to new roles.

I believe the Sopwith camel had a few extra feet of wing as an experiment to allow the RFC to attack Zeppellins etc.
Click to expand...

I'd love a pre-1914 game which allowed you to pick spars and joiners, and build up an aircraft to fly (including calculating the flight model and calculating wing strength ...although that wouldn't need to be done in real time). It'd need to be pretty high fidelity in terms of the flight model though.
 
Hi,

Avimimus said:
In X-Plane you can manually enter the coordinates of each vertex. So, one can actually make fuselages/bodies without using the mouse.
Click to expand...

My point was just meant to illustrate that there are better and worse ways to implement an editor that is capable of delivering engineer-quality models, and that X-Plane in some aspects of its interface is relatively good and in others, it's relatively not so good.

My conclusion regarding Flyout was that with the limited information I gained from the two user reviews I mentioned, it sounds like Flyout's editor might not be the type of editor I'd consider fun to use for the engineer-quality models I'd aspire to create.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)
 
Avimimus said:
I'd love a pre-1914 game which allowed you to pick spars and joiners, and build up an aircraft to fly (including calculating the flight model and calculating wing strength ...although that wouldn't need to be done in real time). It'd need to be pretty high fidelity in terms of the flight model though.
Click to expand...
Simple planes is not limited to an era and is not as far as I know, a game. Make an aircraft to your design specs for any periopd. No idea about engine types relevant to the period but no doubt the forum will give you that answer. I highly doubt the engine format being a limiting factor.

SimplePlanes | Forums

PC and mobile game about building airplanes.
www.simpleplanes.com
 
I would say that Patchbits is not particularly good at the game, Messier 82 makes better planes.
 
Foo Fighter said:
Simple planes is not limited to an era and is not as far as I know, a game. Make an aircraft to your design specs for any periopd. No idea about engine types relevant to the period but no doubt the forum will give you that answer. I highly doubt the engine format being a limiting factor.

SimplePlanes | Forums

PC and mobile game about building airplanes.
www.simpleplanes.com
Click to expand...

I was dreaming of something more like Rise of Flight / Flying Circus levels of fidelity :) Something with proper complex stalls etc.

I got Simply Planes a while back, but the limits to the flight model kept me from getting into it (and also kept me from getting Stormworks, as it also lacks a complex FM).
 

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