A little perspective on Cliffs of Dover Blitz

[ATAG_Snapper]

Hi everyone,

I am not a member of Team Fusion Simulations, so I am being a bit presumptuous in starting a thread in this subforum. Earlier today we were given a heads up on a quite negative YouTube review of Cliffs of Dover Blitz which sounded off a huge BS alarm to me. I had the honour of working with the TFS 4.5/4.53 Beta Team which only increased my respect and admiration for the effort put into Blitz by every TFS member - from the Team Leaders to the TFS coders/3D modellers/map builders etc. When I read this so-called "review" a post that was made to the Beta Team subforum came to mind. I asked the poster, IvanK, for permission to repost it here, which he generously gave the OK. I cannot describe the admiration I have for this TFS Team Leader enough. I wanted to list his accomplishments as an Aussie fighter pilot, but he modestly declared his jet fighter days were "many moons ago" and he preferred to simply be referred to as a "Current Formation Aerobatics Display Pilot".

OK, fair enough. I could go on and on about his qualifications re real life ACM's, comparative flight modelling evaluations, etc. but...I'd prefer to just post what IvanK shared with the Beta Team last Dec 16th. See how this squares with the "armchair YouTube experts".

Sincerely,

Snapper



Re: Request: Feedback on the Flight Modeling of the aircraft in Release [TFS 4.5/4.53]
By: IvanK, TFS Team Leader

Caution rant/monologue warning on

All in all I think what we see FM wise in 4.5 is brillant. I am a bit of a nark as far as FM’s go and Buzz and I have had a few intense exchanges That said few people can turn that into an FM that “feels” right ... Buzz has done that . I say “feel” because feel is impirical to FM’s it’s not just data. I have taught BFM and dissimilar aircraft performance comparison IRL and still regularly indulge in BFM in the Yak and Nanchang world. No other flight sim out there (including DCS and BOS) comes as close as Clod does. When I enter a rolling scissors in Clod the hairs on the back of my neck go up ... doesn’t happen in other sms .... why ?..... because Clod just feels so right... I look across to the other guy and say ok you are in a type xxxx this is what I expect .... but I don’t know who you are ... relative performance is one thing but pilot shit cunning is additive to that ( and the fact is there is always someone better than you). Soo into the tussle you start measuring up your opponent ... if you know the real world performance of his mount and yours you have half the battle done .... then you need to see if he has the same knowledge base as you .... if he does you are in potentially a world of hurt... can he then actually put that into practice ... if he can then game on. In Clod this happens and it does so because the team has produced an FM that is pretty darn good on the data but it’s exceptional in its application that produces the “feel” of the Fm... an Fm without the feel is not an FM.

What I see in 4.5 data wise matches closely to what I know of the real world aircraft performance data. Few if any dev teams have spent the time in the archives gathering the data TF has done... and can document it then apply it to make the FM feel right Clod does this in spades.

Is it perfect ... of course not and no flight sim ever will be (including certified flight simulators). Where are the areas that I think need tweaking ? The engine power physics have been completely rewritten by Colander and the result is stunning. To go with this the power versus heat generation needs a little tweak imo .What we have is pretty neat but as even Buzz will admit it is a little awkward.... and that is a hangover from the original modelling. Ground handling we know surface friction is not yet accounted for (heading drift on spawn with a crosswind is the easiest way to describe this omission). Be really nice to see this sorted at some stage. Structural G needs to be added to the FM. Any sim worth its salt needs this to be part of the FM .. both symmetrical and rolling, we know how to do this so it can be done. Finally the vexisous subject of rudder versus roll and yaw and side slip drag. This is a really complex area that is very type dependant. There is room for tweaking ( not a gross rewrite) and I am sure this can be done.

So for me what I see in 4.5 is some pretty exceptional FM work. Clod is my WWII sim of choice because FM wise none of the others are as good. Hats off to the team for turning the Clod Fm from a raw gem into a nearly finished stone ... bravo gents.

Rant off

[farley]

Thanks for posting this Snapper.

It's great to hear IvanK, a person with such vast and varied experiences, and likely thousands of hours in an pilot's seat, share his thoughts, and what he said was very encouraging.

Once again it reminds me of the dedication and effort that has been put into this sim to make it the fine one that it has become.

The future looks bright because we have TF and many others always striving for excellence.

And of course the bunch of ragtags here on ATAG always make it a pleasure.

It truly is a breath of fresh air when I enter this world, and i feel quite lucky to have found it.

[ATAG_Pattle]

Having spent 10 minutes with IvanK (Thanks for the bloody funny background on your nickname) on Saturday, including sitting in the cockpit of his aircraft and getting instructions on certain aspects of the cockpit (except aircraft ID - he knows what they means ) I can say, it was a real privilege to simply be in his company.

I also say to new people in the community that the sim is outstanding, but is only as good as the community that inhabits it. That is everybody and every squad/forum.

We are lucky to have people like Ivank, and many others around.

Great post Snapper.

Pattle

[DerDa]

Thank you for sharing this!
Great post.

Just some days ago I suggested to one of my squad mates (who is a real live pilot) to start a thread here on ATAG, something like: 'Who else here is flying in the real world as well?'

I knew that several TFS members are experienced pilots and quite a lot of other gentlemen here mentioned similar experiences. A thread like this might be useful to take the wind out of posts of the 'I once sat in a XXX, now let me tell you from my vast experience what you do completely wrong' type.

[RAF74_Buzzsaw]

I'll add my two bits to this post...

While I am theoretically the guy who develops the FM's... I always turn to Ivank (Sean) when I have any doubts as to whether what I am doing is right.

And he has no hesitation in bringing me up short if he thinks I am straying off path.

For that I am very grateful and for his feedback I will always be in his debt.

Now we just need to get the Overheat modeling up to the same standards as the power modeling and we'll be well on our way.

[ATAG_Highseas]

It's good to hear what real pilots think, and just generally great to know they don't all just say "Pffft," and give it the brush off as just a silly game.

Sounds to me though Cliffs is indeed giving us (whether we thought so or otherwise) a superb representaion of flight models.

We already know it's doing a top job of being tremedously good fun.

That's sounds to me like a winning combination.

Regards the nay says... I've never been one to stop doing the things I enjoy because somone else doesn't. And I don't expect anyone to like something just because I do.


Cheers fellow flyers !

[wuffman]

Bad reviews can be expected from a segment who's perception is based on limited exposure.

Having the gift of many years experience with CloD, I offer that I remain in constant amazement at the level of professionalism and proficiency from a small band of dedicated devs., who are doing this basically for free.

There is still a future to look forward to, IMHO.

~S~

[ATAG_Highseas]

There is still a future to look forward to, IMHO.

~S~

Totally.. !

As we all know the future officially started in 2000


and Cliffs was 11 years into the future at that point already... we had to wait 11 years just to catch up with it.

now its 18 years into the future.... and we are still going ! At this rate it won't be terribly long until it is so far into the future it will have left us all behind... until then though...

Heres to the future chaps !



Living the dream !!

[ATAG_Bliss]

Interesting post, thanks Snapper

OT
although i was much more interested in the other thread you closed just before opening this one. which i honestly don't understand why it was closed, and that's why i'm writing this here (since i think this thread was mostly made to hide the other)
Having a clue of what clod needs in order to attract more people is surely more important than a random guy saying clod has the best FM ever and a list of the usual clod lovers being happy for it.
I mean, cheers to him and to his real life achievements, but i could pull up discord right now and grab statements off at least 3 other real civilian\military pilots saying the exact opposite.
TFS needs to get in touch with what the flight simmers expect from a game, if selling TF5 is still in their plans. I think there's a thin line between being supportive and feeding false hopes to devs
and not all critiques come from a place of hate
/OT

Snapper made it pretty clear why the other thread was closed. A select few that constantly spew hate and vitriol towards TF and ATAG think they can do that here. That's not how we operate. You can be part of as many forums you want where people are allowed to belittle, insult, mock and call other's names, but we will never allow that here.

And this entire statement of "having a clue what clod needs" is about the most laughable thing I've ever read. Maybe it hasn't been said enough, but up until just under a year ago there was no source code. There were literally 3 years of hacking, trying to fix problems with Cliffs, many of those "fixes" being performed because the coder stumbled into that part of the code and fixed what he could. There was hardly picking and choosing of "lets fix this" or "lets fix that".

There were game breaking things that were specifically searched for, months spent on trying to track down where they were etc., but to think that the entire philosophy is to fix this over that is asinine. It just happened to be the area in the allotted time the coder found a problem and fixed it.

So it took 3+ years to get to 4.312 (which consists of 5 plus different mod packages released), before TF had the source code. 4.5 involved every single hack, mod...., essentially every single fix up until that point to be written in proper code. Think about that for a second. Virtually every thing up until that point was fixed via hacks and mods. Not only in a years time did the coder have to re-write and fix (properly) 3+ years worth of fixes he did with hacks, without the source code etc., he also added DX11, fixed a tremendous bug with the flight model calculations, he also performed numerous other stability, FPS, and network improvements.

So this is where we are now. And you think that there's some magic pick and choosing going on? Up until the point of any paid add-on, not a single existing customer has had to pay one red penny for all the years of TF's trying to fix this sim. Not a dime. Not a damn thing. And you think it's cool to sit back and mock them? You think it's right to "demand" how they do their jobs? Excuse me while I laugh out loud lol. But every ounce of priority has been fixing what could get fixed as time allowed and it has nothing to do with favoritism.

I think you need some perspective on reality. And everything above is about as straightly shot as humanly possible.

[farley]

@Dix, I might be wrong, but i think that some posts, that you perhaps didn't see, were removed by Snapper prior to the thread being closed.

I agree that people should, of course, be able to freely criticize constructively, point out flaws, and make suggestions in an attempt to improve the product.

But when it becomes nasty, mean spirited, spiteful, and likely to spiral down, then it's closed.

[Baffin]

An awful lot of technical complaints simply end up in the wrong place in our forums. There's a nice link to the "Team Fusion Bug Tracker" on the forum home page, but it's very easy to overlook, so valid criticisms end up all over the place instead of where the experts can view and act on them. Perhaps the forum admins could emphasize this link with different placement, fonts and colors to encourage its use.

[ATAG_Snapper]

An awful lot of technical complaints simply end up in the wrong place in our forums. There's a nice link to the "Team Fusion Bug Tracker" on the forum home page, but it's very easy to overlook, so valid criticisms end up all over the place instead of where the experts can view and act on them. Perhaps the forum admins could emphasize this link with different placement, fonts and colors to encourage its use.

Not a bad idea re highlighting the Bug Tracker link. It’s actually something all of us should do periodically - review the bugs and vote & comment on the all the entries (old and new!).

We (ATAG) field a lot of opinions and suggestions for improving Clod, as certainly TFS does, too. That’s certainly not the issue. Heck, one of the most popular threads here is The Wishlist. I created that specifically for forum members to express their ideas and suggestions where TFS is welcome to view them but under no obligation to necessarily supply answers/responses which would take away from the work at hand.

As we have said, it’s the negativism and outright disrespect thrown at both TFS and ATAG that we have an issue with on this forum. Other forums, YouTube channels, and Facebook pages each contain enough “ATAG is The Dark Side” posts that we just won’t put up with here.

[DOWNEAST]

Thank you for sharing this!
Great post.

Just some days ago I suggested to one of my squad mates (who is a real live pilot) to start a thread here on ATAG, something like: 'Who else here is flying in the real world as well?'

I knew that several TFS members are experienced pilots and quite a lot of other gentlemen here mentioned similar experiences. A thread like this might be useful to take the wind out of posts of the 'I once sat in a XXX, now let me tell you from my vast experience what you do completely wrong' type.

I would like to see this as well. Perhaps like the age poll but indicating private and commercilal/military licensed, crew and type AC. Might be interesting to know how many play ClOD because of realism tied to their previous real flight experiences.

[Baffin]

RE: "Down East's" reply (Post #13) above:

Thanks for sharing in your Forum Profile!

The "Profile" section of the "Settings" tab at the top of the forum is the obvious place for looking up someone's "Bona Fides" after they make a statement in our forums. It's the first place I look to check the veracity of opinions I find confusing or downright incorrect. The problem is that only about 5% (IMO) of users have posted anything at all to look at.

What is so hard about disclosing, in the most general way, a few vital statistics, educational, and professional qualifications that almost all of us have picked up along the way? I've addressed this before and been treated like a data miner for facebook because I find it interesting to know something about those I'm talking to or listening to. Consider posting at least your age, location, flight experience and professional expertise. It's not like we want your credit card numbers...

EDIT: Just to clarify... this is not aimed at anyone in particular, rather it is meant for all of us using the ATAG forum.

[DerDa]

"It's not like we want your credit card numbers"


weeeeeell, now you mention it ...

[IIJG27Rich]

I copied and saved your post to a wordpad so I'll have it forever Snapper