View Full Version : What Phoenix lacks
perry59
07-29-2008, 10:41 PM
I have both Phoenix and Realflight g3.5.
Both are great sims as far as I can tell but Realflight is simply unusable on my older
computer. Phoenix, on the other hand works fairly well, with an occasional hiccup, and still has great graphics. As much as I like Phoenix, it is still missing some things and they would do well to examine Realflight. The training modules are pretty useless.
Just short videos of people pulling off cool moves. I can download tons of good videos from the freak or cough runryder of people doing really cool moves. That doesnt teach me squat, just shows how inexperienced I am. They need to address that.
The biggest, and simplest thing Phoenix lacks is a user forum on their website.
Realflight has this and its very good. A place where users can share tips, ask questions, share models and setups, without having to write to tech support. A simple forum like this would help Phoenix a lot and take some of the burdon off their developers (not having to answer so many questions). Also, on the subject of "sharing models" Phoenix should open up their format on models so that experienced users who have 3d modeling capability can create their own models. Realflight does this.
I can use 3D studio, blender or wings3D and create whole new flying contraptions which will import into Realflight.
So while I cant use my Realflight, it does have some great features Phoenix should have as well, again its training modules are vastly superior.
Are you listening Phoenix???
burnside
07-30-2008, 03:11 AM
"Just short videos of people pulling off cool moves"
Have you slowed them down with the on screen transmitter ?
"The biggest, and simplest thing Phoenix lacks is a user forum on their website."
whats wrong with here/RR/Rcgroups ?
"create whole new flying contraptions which will import into Realflight"
whats the point there will be 1000s of unrealistic hashups just like sims that have this feature - nobody knows if the models are realistic and therefore all you have is a load of gamey nonsense.
I like the fact that each model released by phx is professionally modelled by people that have the experience and time to make sure each one is to a high standard.
You have a small point on the training, but really in Realflight theyre just the same videos but with some bored sounding guy speaking over them.
The other points, well their support is top-notch, and there are loads of forums where people can do the things you say.
As for user-created models, as Burnside says, at the moment you can download a new model and be fairly sure it will look and fly very well, but as soon as you add user-created models this goes out of the window.
They have released the PhoenixCreator tool for creating your own colour schemes, which in itself is a hell of a lot of work to release for free download to users.
perry59
07-30-2008, 02:04 PM
Dont get me wrong, Im not trying to bash Phoenix. I really like it and it works fairly well on my old computer. Just saying there is room for improvement.
The training videos in realflight show stick movements, which is helpful. The voiceovers may or may not be.
There is nothing wrong with the forum support here, I use it a lot. Still think it would be good though for Phoenix to have their own, dedicated forum. There are still some RC flyers out there who are not yet a member of helifreak, and the first place they will likely look for help/advice would be the Phoenix website.
As far as "rolling your own" models, sure, someone could make and upload some pretty bogus stuff. But many of the user created models for realflight are pretty darn good.
Oh, and yes, Phoenix's support is top notch, they have always quickly replied to the few questions I had for them. Having their own forum though may reduce the number of emails they get though.
You do realise that if you have the onscreen controller enabled from the View menu then this shows the stick movement on the training videos in Phoenix too?
As for user-created models, as Burnside says, at the moment you can download a new model and be fairly sure it will look and fly very well, but as soon as you add user-created models this goes out of the window.
I don't know how you guys can say this. There are many people out there that take pride in making their models as accurate as possible. There are quite a few free models made by individuals that far surpass, or are at the very least on par with, the quality of models on standard realflight or phoenix. Is there something special about the phoenix modelers that makes them perfect? Most models that are made free lance are perfected by the people that fly them for real and get some hard core attention to details to make sure the models are correct.
Personally I also own realflight and when I have used it I only used models that I found online as they were always the best ones. If anyone here actually used the realflight swap forums they'd see its easy to find top quality models as they're also rated. People work their a$$es off to try to get a good a rating as they possibly can.
I mean common phoenix has yet to even see fit to release a rex 450 v2 model or even a skin... That's a serious lack of vision imho seeing that its probably the single most popular 450 on the market and people using the sim would like to see it in the air, and not the v1 model. If people had the ability to create their own models we would have see a true v2 model months and months ago that would probably fly much better. All we have are skins for the v1, which btw has only been done by outside people and not officially by phoenix.
Just my 2 cents
dna001
07-30-2008, 04:08 PM
Only thing phoenix needs is more gravity,,,my dam helis all seam to fall out of the sky much faster than they do in the sim. :-P
BigAl07
07-30-2008, 04:40 PM
Only thing phoenix needs is more gravity,,,my dam helis all seam to fall out of the sky much faster than they do in the sim. :-P
:lol: Afraid that will ALWAYS be the case!!! that comment cracked me UP though!!
perry59
07-30-2008, 11:20 PM
You do realise that if you have the onscreen controller enabled from the View menu then this shows the stick movement on the training videos in Phoenix too?
What was that that Homer Simpson would say when he did something stupid???
Oh yeah.....
DOH !
ok, so I take back some of the comments about the training videos. Although realflights controller is easier to discern stick movements, just nitpicking here.
perry59
07-30-2008, 11:23 PM
I don't know how you guys can say this. There are many people out there that take pride in making their models as accurate as possible. There are quite a few free models made by individuals that far surpass, or are at the very least on par with, the quality of models on standard realflight or phoenix. Is there something special about the phoenix modelers that makes them perfect? Most models that are made free lance are perfected by the people that fly them for real and get some hard core attention to details to make sure the models are correct.
Personally I also own realflight and when I have used it I only used models that I found online as they were always the best ones. If anyone here actually used the realflight swap forums they'd see its easy to find top quality models as they're also rated. People work their a$$es off to try to get a good a rating as they possibly can.
I mean common phoenix has yet to even see fit to release a rex 450 v2 model or even a skin... That's a serious lack of vision imho seeing that its probably the single most popular 450 on the market and people using the sim would like to see it in the air, and not the v1 model. If people had the ability to create their own models we would have see a true v2 model months and months ago that would probably fly much better. All we have are skins for the v1, which btw has only been done by outside people and not officially by phoenix.
Just my 2 cents
I agree Raza. Most of the models on the realflight forums show that the creators put a LOT of effort into making them top notch. I've downloaded several of them and they seem to work very well.
Buzzkill
07-30-2008, 11:46 PM
Not to knock the guys that have made fantastic models for RF G* but the vast majority of the models absolutely suck. I believe what the people here are saying is that they'd rather wait for professionally made models then sift through hundreds of crappy one to find a gem.
fr92Furtif
07-31-2008, 05:16 AM
...I believe what the people here are saying is that they'd rather wait for professionally made models then sift through hundreds of crappy one to find a gem.
Totally agree.
Not to knock the guys that have made fantastic models for RF G* but the vast majority of the models absolutely suck. I believe what the people here are saying is that they'd rather wait for professionally made models then sift through hundreds of crappy one to find a gem.
Totally agree.
The phrase don't hold your breath comes to mind. I don't think it's unreasonable to want to fly a 450 v2 with phoenix but I could apparently wait forever and will not see it happen. As I said before if users were allowed to create their own models we would have seen a v2 looooog ago. Not to mention any of the other 100's of models that people may own and would like to see fly in the sim. Also, don't forget that phoenix is not just a heli sim, it's for plankers as well, and the available planes and helis for this sim is actually pretty bad and could really use a boost by the community which surely would support it whole heartedly.
Anyways, I don't understand the logic. If you don't like user created content, no one would force you to use it. At least it would allow those of us that would like to fly our real life heli's and planes in the sim to do so. This is the one area where RF truley domintaes over this sim.
Why do you need a V2 ?? The only difference you will see is the canopy which you can make your own in the Creator.
Why do you need a V2 ?? The only difference you will see is the canopy which you can make your own in the Creator.
I don't know, I'm just silly like that I guess. We also could have just skinned the jr vibe 90 and got a trex 700 too right? Somehow I don't think people would have been satisfied with that. Because there's also the issue that the 450 se model as is, flies like crap. Skinning it gets you a nothing more than an se that flies like crap, but it kinda looks like a v2. I would hope that a new model would be more than just a fix to the canopy.
Ummm the 450se and V2 fly identical for the most part, a vibe90 and 700 don't. What in particular don't you like about the 450se model ?? The 3D is pretty close, its alittle slow on the cyclic but other than that its damn close to what i run (I bumped up the piro rate to 450, the cyclic tuning to 120 and the HS to 3200, dropped the blade inerta to 0.05).
What I dislike the most, and for all I know this is a physics engine bug and not paticular to the 450, is how headspeed and pitch changes take so long to take effect. Slight changes to the collective may not truely take full effect until many seconds later. When inverted hovering, it's sometimes like flying 5 to 10 seconds behind your minute inputs (this is noticable on the 600 as well). And don't get me started again about the throttle hold (float forever in the air) problems. If this is a physics problem that should be addressed as an app update. If it's an error in the model the least they could do is release an update to the 450.
Since all I've really flown in the sim is the 450 and 600 I don't know how much of this is true with other helis.
Something is wrong with your install if your getting any delay on the collective.
nope. i never said there was a true delay in the collective input. there is no delay between my transmitter and the sim. the delays im speaking of is the amount of time it takes for a collective or headspeed change to take effect.
Iam telling you there is, there is no delay on the collective problem from any of the numerous people i sim with every night.
and im telling you there is not
The response time delay is what iam talking about. If anything its too fast on the 450.
Well what im talking about is say you are hovering inverted and you are trying to remain perfectly level. if you give a very slight touch up or down you may not see any initial effect on the heli but after a little while you will notice the change more. For example you may think you have it set to hover but it may start to drop or rise after a few moments... Anyways this isn't really a big deal. Not having to constantly adjust isn't realistic anyways. My biggest problem with the 450 is as will always be the autoing. It's just horrific. When you cut the power it acts as if nothing happened, and continues to do so for quite a few seconds (10 I've counted). I would think this could be fixed.
Drop the blade interia to 0.05
I've done that. It helps, but is not really a complete solution. Dropping the inertia too low means you can do blade stops way too easy. Seems like the sim could use a drag coefficient on the blades as well the inertia setting.