User wish list to Condor creators

[wingover]

Great simulator and have been flying it for 8 years. Thought I might throw out a wish list for items I feel would make it even better,

1. Change miracle lift increment from 1500 ft to 250' or 500' (for a total of 1500' after multiple key strokes). Students training with instructors can regain altitude at more manageable increments. Would be very helpful to new pilots trying to keep up with instructor.

2. Allow PDA to switch off/on turnpoint tags, location names, and flarm contact icons. Flying in complicated mountain terrain becomes very difficult when cluttered with mass of plane contacts and tags.

3. Depict wave lift in the lift helper mode. Condor 2 brought the wonderful dimension of wave but difficult to understand how to use it without a training aid. Adding depiction into the lift helper would be very helpful indeed.

This wish list comes from someone who does not understand how much effort it would take to implement. Some might be easy and some very difficult. Would it be possible for a response from the owners?

Anybody else have some dream features they would like to share?

[KipperUK]

Upload an airspace file, or create penalty zones using circles, pan handles, and other shapes present on aviation maps - for tasking around, under, over airspace and for teaching people how to avoid it in lessons.

Lower level standing wave clouds; it's not all about the lenticulars!

Wave that behaves like real wave (extends out further) in areas of less epic, but still large hills (yes, the Pennines, I'm looking at you).

Convergences/Sea Breezes, Rain showers, CB cloud with chance of rain/lightning - ie. more dynamic weather conditions. More fine-grain control over weather (draw fronts on map maybe).

Lights for the tops of masts/towers and for posh gliders with LED landing lights.

Allow setting of a winch location in an airport file to position them where they should be.

Make it so that gliders take off from the end of the runway; if there's a grid, and space to put gliders two or three abreast, do that, bunch them up and pull them forward a little bit for launch. This is how real short runways operate!

Allow multiple runways in an airport so that you can easily select which you prefer without having two airports on top of each other.

Allow finer editing of the terrain mesh for airports with slopey runways (and allow takeoffs from slopey runways) or sheer cliffs.

Make grass strips feel a little bit bumpier.

Disallow landing on the water texture / give water a depth so that gliders sink into it.

Eurofox 80 and 120hp versions and Pawnees as tugs (I know this is possible, you clever modellers you)

Spectator mode once you've landed out in a multiplayer competition.

Automatic saving of IGC files following exit from a competition.

Automatic sharing of custom skins when entering multiplayer with them (if the receiving player permits) so that peoples gliders look like themselves.

Custom pilot jeans/shirt/hat colour and sunglasses style? (pointless but hey, every other software does it with avatars!)

VFR navigation objects given much longer LODs so that large objects can be seen from an appropriate distance (cooling towers, etc)

The occasional bit of movement - a bird here or there, high altitude airliners, maybe allow civilian traffic (autogen). Bit of smoke from fires or towers blowing with the wind with possibility to fly through it (lower than cloudbase).

FLARM and real-world instruments and the ability to re-instrument the gliders without nasty edits.

Pilots using trimmers and other cockpit controls.

[Filgueiras]

The occasional bit of movement - a bird here or there, high altitude airliners, maybe allow civilian traffic (autogen). Bit of smoke from fires or towers blowing with the wind with possibility to fly through it (lower than cloudbase).

WOW!!! Great Idea!!!

Sail birds to signal thermals !!!

( and a lot of money to make possible to buy a computer powerful enough to process all that stuff ) !!!!

[Tbi]

Upload an airspace file, or create penalty zones using circles, pan handles, and other shapes present on aviation maps - for tasking around, under, over airspace and for teaching people how to avoid it in lessons.

Lower level standing wave clouds; it's not all about the lenticulars!

Wave that behaves like real wave (extends out further) in areas of less epic, but still large hills (yes, the Pennines, I'm looking at you).

Convergences/Sea Breezes, Rain showers, CB cloud with chance of rain/lightning - ie. more dynamic weather conditions. More fine-grain control over weather (draw fronts on map maybe).

Lights for the tops of masts/towers and for posh gliders with LED landing lights.

Allow setting of a winch location in an airport file to position them where they should be.

Make it so that gliders take off from the end of the runway; if there's a grid, and space to put gliders two or three abreast, do that, bunch them up and pull them forward a little bit for launch. This is how real short runways operate!

Allow multiple runways in an airport so that you can easily select which you prefer without having two airports on top of each other.

Allow finer editing of the terrain mesh for airports with slopey runways (and allow takeoffs from slopey runways) or sheer cliffs.

Make grass strips feel a little bit bumpier.

Disallow landing on the water texture / give water a depth so that gliders sink into it.

Eurofox 80 and 120hp versions and Pawnees as tugs (I know this is possible, you clever modellers you)

Spectator mode once you've landed out in a multiplayer competition.

Automatic saving of IGC files following exit from a competition.

Automatic sharing of custom skins when entering multiplayer with them (if the receiving player permits) so that peoples gliders look like themselves.

Custom pilot jeans/shirt/hat colour and sunglasses style? (pointless but hey, every other software does it with avatars!)

VFR navigation objects given much longer LODs so that large objects can be seen from an appropriate distance (cooling towers, etc)

The occasional bit of movement - a bird here or there, high altitude airliners, maybe allow civilian traffic (autogen). Bit of smoke from fires or towers blowing with the wind with possibility to fly through it (lower than cloudbase).

FLARM and real-world instruments and the ability to re-instrument the gliders without nasty edits.

Pilots using trimmers and other cockpit controls.

Yes i think a new weather system would be very nice

[maymar]

Grid on airfield + contest towing (towing on take-off direction then 180* turn and release above field on designated towing height)

[manolle111]

Some very nice ideas hear!
As Condor is about soaring I would hope that the limited Resources of the dev. Team ( don't forget its done in there spare time)
will most of all focus on the weather System.


A while ago a very experienced XC teacher from our flying school asked me if he could try out Condor.
It was extremely revealing to suss out the differences between real live and Condor.

Where a seasoned Condor Pilot will automatically switch into a Condor way of thinking, he just flew as he
would in real life.
I let him play in his all season Playground Eastern Alps. He knows this place rather well.






We tried to work out the points where he thinks Condor could increase its Awesomeness by tweaking the weather system.
Most important ones are on top.


He tended to follow the ridge lines and ignore big thermals if they where not directly on his route. This got him quite low right in the beginning. It got immediat apparent he expected more lift from anabatic flow on his route.

-Increasing the Strength of the Anabatic Flow and more small thermal sources that connect to a big one or don't
go all the way up could do the trick.



On sunny lee side mountain slopes he would expect more/stronger lift. Sunny lee sides produced way to much sink. A real life lee thermal is rough, tight and strong, specially below the ridge. In condor its far to weak.

-The sun needs to be more prominent over the wind.




If clouds line up (Eg. Pinzgau) the sink would mostly be on the left and right. Between the clouds would be usually no drastic sink.
In condor the sink around a thermal is quite circula.



Now this are all things that would make xc flying in Condor easier. So lets have a look at the things that make it hard in real life.
Most of them have been mentioned before.

The most important would be to try and make the weather less uniform.

-Day changing
trying off / propagation, spreading of clouds
Overdevelopment, rain

Windsystems like veally winds, Convergence etc.

Wind changing over time and space.




What we both think is incredible impressive, is how accurate the thermal system gets the big and reliable "hotspots" right. If you know how to set the weather you will have 95% of the thermals right where you expect them to be in real life.


Conclusion after 6 hours of virtual flying: Condor is Awesome! But leads you into a "hot spot" thinking.


Some of the things could be relatively easy to change, others are probably hard to impossible.

I hope that the dev. Team will look into a few things mentioned, I think even a few of the small changes could do quite a big difference.

As a guy that fly's condor since 2006 and real life since 2000 I just think it was extremely productive and interesting to se how a Condor beginner but real life master would look at Condor. Thought it my interests a few others if I share what we discussed.


Thank you for keeping up that awesome Sim!!

[soldano]

AI Competitors.
I used time ago to fly "Sailors of the Sky" ,which by the way, at its time was an excelent and advanced sim. As I dont fly online, the only thing I miss from it , is the lack of AI competitors flying with me.
At SOTS that was very well implemented. You could fly against them in a very reallistic way.
I guess coding that is very dificult, but can be done.

[wickid]

AI Competitors.
I used time ago to fly "Sailors of the Sky" ,which by the way, at its time was an excelent and advanced sim. As I dont fly online, the only thing I miss from it , is the lack of AI competitors flying with me.
At SOTS that was very well implemented. You could fly against them in a very reallistic way.
I guess coding that is very dificult, but can be done.

Why don't you fly against ghosts? You can download the flight tracks from the big competitions and fly against real pilots offline.

[nev_vern]

I would like to see a 3rd PDA "4" page where we see wind direction/speed relative to the aircraft rather than relative to North.

[maymar]

I would like to see a 3rd PDA "4" page where we see wind direction/speed relative to the aircraft rather than relative to North.

it is already in CoTASa viewtopic.php?f=29&t=18705

[Bre901]

I would like to see a 3rd PDA "4" page where we see wind direction/speed relative to the aircraft rather than relative to North.

it is already in CoTASa viewtopic.php?f=29&t=18705

... and in XCSoar
I'd rather have a wind arrow in screens 1 & 4

[Mayer]

Hello PILOTS

In Condor 1, there was the little reflection from lower gliders in front. The icons are not to see, but somtimes its possible to se where the others are.

for me, i like it very much

regards Mayer

[nev_vern]

I would like to see a 3rd PDA "4" page where we see wind direction/speed relative to the aircraft rather than relative to North.

it is already in CoTASa viewtopic.php?f=29&t=18705

... and in XCSoar
I'd rather have a wind arrow in screens 1 & 4

I have seen this before but I have absolutely no idea how to interface it with the sim. I have been using condor for a while but am new to the forums, but can't seem to find out how to use it.

If there is a walkthrough of how to get it working with Condor somewhere it will be greatly appreciated.

EDIT: Never mind. I forgot/never needed to use the Condor manual before so never checked it out. Describes everything there.

[TomD_1001]

First of all: A big big big THUMBS UP to the developer team!

Condor2 helps me so much in times that make me feel like a moulted penguin.

Nevertheless immodesty can be such an inspiring force...

1) Enable/Disable the internal PDA - SOLVED
We connect our own external PDA and fiddle around until its perfect. Dont want to think about how many near misses in real life have been prevented by that already.

Edit:
This already is possible, as I learn now! When setting up the flight, in NOTAM / Realism there is a "Allow PDA" checkbox.

2) Flaps-LED-indicator
If you are used to it you dont want to miss it - so much less head turning. Here's a quick sketch I've made...

20200326_Condor2_01_aw-edit-aw.jpg

3) Individual volume level for V- and S-mode of the vario
If you are used to it you dont want to miss it - for me they always differ, so that the volume alone tells you which mode you are in. I need to add, that I dont use a two-position-switch (where the position tells you all) in real life, but it's a push button (comfy and just like in the sim).

4) 25 / 8.33 kHz option for the radio
To set and learn the correct frequencies

5) A way to get information from the airfield ahead: QNH and wind (direction, speed)
e.g. setting the frequency and pushing the transmit button three times

Edit:
This does not make sense of course while QNH and wind do not change through time and location.

6) A rudimentary editor for the cockpit layout

Tears have dried now, back is still aching... but THAT was a challenge...

DG808-Panel-edit-aw-b750-aw.jpg

Maybe a way to make Condor update the panel arrangement on the fly would help enough. Now I edit the file and then need to restart the program to see... no, still not good enough... again, again, again, ...

[Zligor]

Let water ballast be at maximum by default, not empty.
It's much easier to drop water if you don't need it, than to forget it to take with you