Quote:
Originally Posted by Splitter
I have to disagree here. I know X-Plane better than MSFS, but you can definitely "over-G" your aircraft. Wings fly off and you have no parachute  . It's a long, spinning ride to a quick stop....I've done it more than once lol.
I would also say that the flight models, for well done aircraft, are closer to reality than a combat sim. The flight sim spends all of the computing power on the flight model (not counting elements common to both flight sims and combat sims). Combat sims have a lot more going on (ballistics, other aircraft, damage, etc..) and have to "cheat" a bit with the flight models.
So while flight models on well done aircraft and weather effects may be better in a flight sim, no flight sim can do "good" combat. The computing resources just are not available and I know as far as Laminar Research (X-Plane's developers) are concerned, they have no interest in combat.
Between such a flight sim and a combat sim like SoW, one is not better than the other...they are not the same thing. I LOVE both and cannot knock either. A flight sim gets old sometimes and I want combat. Then after a while I want to do some good old fashioned bush flying.
There is room on any game shelf for both. I'm definitely buying X-Plane 10 when it comes out around Christmas AND can't wait to get my hands on SoW whenever it comes out.
Splitter
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I haven't tried over-G in X-Plane, but when I tried spinning Cessnas (in both X-Plane and FSX), I was disappointed with the results. I couldn't get the planes to spin, and my experience flying Cessnas told me that it was wrong. In IL-2, you can easily enter a spin through a sharp uncoordinated turn as well as through a stall. I guess that particuarly bothered me, because it was one of the things I enjoyed most about flying Cessnas.
In theory, if all things were equal (spec vs. performance), then a combat flight sim either couldn't do as much, or would have to have lower fidelity than a non-combat flight sim. But different flight sims are built off of different code, have different modeling methodologies, and different system requirements. It's not true that a combat flight sim must have lower flight fidelity due to dealing with things like ballistics. The same code would just require additional resources.
Sometimes aircraft with particular handling characteristics don't fit well in a survey sim. As an example, the Me 163B in IL-2 is much less forgiving than what I've read about the real aircraft. Then again, in IL-2 it won't blow up wihout external influence, so maybe it is a compromise.
I will most likely get X-Plane 10, too, and I hope that I have a better experience with it than with version 9. MS Flight looks like it might be less realistic than FSX, just laden with more eye-candy. If so, I will probably skip it.
Needless to say, I will buy SOW at the first opportunity that presents itself.