Tower Simulator Service Pack 1

{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Jon Braid 07.03.08 at 6:00 pm

I’ve just downloaded SP1 to Tower Simulator and had a quick look. I’ll post a better SP1 review later, but for now I suggest users sit on their hands. There are a couple of minor improvements, but also a few things that they needed to sort that they haven’t - the AI voice for one. I’ll post again in the next couple of days with details.

2 mark.avey 07.03.08 at 6:24 pm

Thanks Jon - keep us posted

3 Jon Braid 07.04.08 at 9:26 am

Okay, here’s an update, using Wilco’s listed improvements:
AI aircraft behaviour
Firstly, one of the most obvious improvements is the AI model rendering - the jet models do look better and less rough around the edges. But before you rush off to buy Tower Simulator now, let me qualify that; the AI models are now okay and by that I mean they were pretty crude before SP1 and now they’re a bit better - they’re still not as smooth as the AI in FS2004. Their behaviour doesn’t seem to have changed much. In particular their movement is still fairly unrealistic - they zoom off from a starting point, continue to do rolling take-offs all the time and their climbout from the runway still looks way off the sort of profile a real jet would use. They do look a little better on approach and their behaviour on rolling out on the runway is now a little more realistic, although they do tend to dawdle too much on the runway now after landing. While taxying in between parking and runway the aircraft models are still remarkably jumpy for a 2008 render (I’ve waited long enough - time for comparisons) and BAO’s Tower managed much more realism in all but modelling years ago.

Parked aircraft position
I’m not totally sure what’s been fixed, but if they mean parking slots have been enhanced it’s a fairly obscure improvement and they could have spent their time better.

Aircraft speeds and movements
…Are still pretty poor. See comments above.

Voices improvements
I haven’t heard any. The AI voice is still very, very annoying and I’m surprised they’ve released SP1 without a major overhaul of the voice - in fact it’s one of the key features that makes you look for the e-receipt for what you paid and ask ‘how much?’ Notwithstanding the voice itself, which is generally stacatto, they’ve still not fixed the half second+ gap between ‘Taxi to..’ and the runway number. I’m gobsmacked they haven’t dealt with this.

Service car logic
Again, I’m not sure what this improves as I didn’t notice an initial snag - if handling vehicles looked unrealistic on the first release, once again I would suggest this was one of the least of their problems.

General shadow appearance (causing “floating airplane effect”)
There are far more AI aircraft issues to resolve before worrying about shadows.

Penalty errors
I managed to land a jet on another one yesterday and it caused the landing one to pass through the one taking-off. This may have caused some sort of penalty - I’ve not stayed with the program long enough to bother with scores yet - but something more dramatic would perhaps have been nice.

More stable controlling logic (such as “after takeoff fly heading xxx”)
Well despite claiming they were going to do so, my printed commands still number 37, of which most are irrelevant. The manual tries to wow the audience with ATC stuff, but there’s little point including commands such as to change headings if there’s overtly no point in turning an aircraft; it pops up on approach, you give it landing clearance - it wants to take-off, you let it then hand it over to departures - there’s no need to fiddle with it anymore than that.

Overall stability
Apart from a couple of crashes when I first loaded the original, I’ve not had any crashes since. I did sort of pick-up on the program feeling more stable, but it was more sixth sense than because of a new dynamic experience.

I read that when Capt Sim’s Legendary C130 first came out it was a bit of a goat, and was vastly improved and only saved by SP1, so I was eager to see what Tower Simulator could become. Suffice it to say that after my first departure from John Wayne Airport I quit the program to check I was using the SP1 version and not the original. There remains lots wrong with this program, ranging from the interface (they didn’t take my idea of pop-up windows using f-keys), gameplay is non-existent and the AI voice remains an insult to 21st century programming. AI models are a noticeably better, but still not close to the AI of FS2004, their lack of realism hasn’t been fixed at all (Go to an airport developers!!) and I still can’t see what will stop this becoming a £2.99 title in short order - it just seems that the basic foundations are flawed and you can’t build something good if the original model is so bad to begin with. Sorry Wilco, this is still a big mistake.

4 mark.avey 07.05.08 at 4:18 pm

Thanks for the detailed update, Jon. Looks like they’ve got a long way to go yet…

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