18 ms·

YSFlight – A free flight simulator where anything is possible

308 points by app4soft 5y ago

app4soft 5y ago
YSFHQ (YSFlight Headquarters) is international users community.[0] There is large list of addons created by users, which highly extends YSFlight.[1] Also, there are a lot of open-source utilities for addons makers.[2] Read «YSFlight Handbook»[3] and «YSFlight Scientific Research»[4] papers for understand addons formats and some internals of YSFlight. [0] https://forum.ysfhq.com https://forum.ysfhq.com [1] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1caVHoWU6g1YSB-G-W5Q-j2JPuGtYxcZBVca0ul5vjTU/edit#gid=0 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1caVHoWU6g1YSB-G-W5Q-... [2] https://github.com/YSFlight-opensource https://github.com/YSFlight-opensource [3] https://forum.ysfhq.com/viewtopic.php?t=8172&p=92286#p92286 https://forum.ysfhq.com/viewtopic.php?t=8172&p=92286#p92286 [4] https://sites.google.com/prod/site/ysdecaff/ysflight-scientific-research/ https://sites.google.com/prod/site/ysdecaff/ysflight-scienti...
- app4soft 5y ago
  The story of YSFlight is long, but FLYBY2[0] screensaver for Windows 98 is probably one of initial implementations of YSFlight flight engine (aircraft 3D models distributed with FLYBY2 are now distributed with YSFlight in same DNM-format). Few weeks ago Soji Yamakawa open-sourced[0,1] FLYBY2 and ported it also for FM TOWNS. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30214412 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30214412 [1] https://github.com/captainys/FLYBY2 https://github.com/captainys/FLYBY2
nonbirithm 5y ago
The author also made an interesting demscene release for the Fujitsu Micro 7. https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=72288 https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=72288
- app4soft 5y ago
  Author, Soji Yamakawa[0], is not only active demoscene performer (few times winner of Demosplash Party) but also is a big fan of Fujitsu FM TOWNS[1] — in last few years he did an open-source emulator, "Tsugaru"[2]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=in.coocan.jp https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=in.coocan.jp [1] http://ysflight.in.coocan.jp/FM/e.html http://ysflight.in.coocan.jp/FM/e.html [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23269460 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23269460
  - bane 5y ago
    I believe he's also a professor at CMU. His demoscene contributions also often represent many of the first demos ever on their respective platforms. If anybody is even remotely interested in Japanese retro computers he also contributes many of them to the retro petting zoo at Demosplash (when they're live). The computing club there goes through some serious heroics to keep many of the old systems alive and is responsible for a huge amount of these platform first demos in the scene.
punnerud 5y ago
Of Mac with M1 it will crash as long as you don't give permissions to listen to key-input. So yes, it works with M1.
- app4soft 5y ago
  > Of Mac with M1 it will crash as long as you don't give permissions to listen to key-input. So, it under macOS BigSur with M1 it works if "give permissions to listen to key-input", right?
  - punnerud 5y ago
    Yes, just tested with the 2019 version
    - app4soft 5y ago
      > with the 2019 version Ther is no YSFlight version 2019xxxx, latest version is 20181124.[0] [0] https://ysflight.org/download/ https://ysflight.org/download/
sockpuppet69 5y ago
jillesvangurp 5y ago
Interesting; I was not aware of their existence. They seem to be free as in beer; not as in speech. They seem to make money with shareware provided by the same company. Nothing against closed source though. For example, I enjoy x-plane a lot which while not free (in either sense) of course has a large community providing both free and non free add-ons. This seems more of a game with a focus on combat and less on realism or looks. An actual free, open source flight simulator that deserves mentioning is Flightgear. I've played with that a couple of times but always end up reverting to x-plane. But flightgear has some nice features and also a nice community. It just doesn't look and feel anywhere near as good as x-plane (which is a tall order because it is very good). Anyway, I checked out some footage on Youtube. Visually, it has nothing on even Flightgear; which I'm pretty sure probably has some combat mods. Or even any version of that the last few decades or so, actually. It actually reminded me of some dos games I used to play in the early nineties. E.g. Jetfighter II (released 1990) was pretty awesome back in the day. It looks like that but with higher resolution. But e.g. the ground is a featureless green blob; just like in Jetfighter II, and clouds are white polygons hanging in the sky, etc. And Jetfighter II had a HUD that was about as feature rich as the one in this game. Of course it was way more pixelated than this. But they even managed a cockpit panel :-). I wouldn't call it photo realistic but it didn't look half bad for the time. There are probably better/later game that this thing is shooting for. But I just never really got into combat flight simulation. I guess they are trying to recreate some of that experience. Not that it matters; but I guess the gameplay is more important than the looks for this. Actually looks like it could be a lot of fun. BTW. I have nothing against MS Flightsimulator. The latest version looks great. But I just don't have any windows computers anymore at this point. Combat is not really something either of the other flightsims I mentioned are made for or even good at.
- app4soft 5y ago
  > Nothing against closed source though. To be clear, YSFlight is partially open-source software. Here is official repo[0] of its GUI toolkit (OpenGL-based) and various miscellaneous apps based on it. PolygonCrest (aka `ysgebl`), an official 3D editor for addon making for YSFlight, based on the same toolkit as YSFlight, is fully free & opensource. [0] https://github.com/captainys/public https://github.com/captainys/public [1] https://github.com/captainys/public/tree/master/src/ysgebl https://github.com/captainys/public/tree/master/src/ysgebl [2] https://forum.ysfhq.com/viewtopic.php?t=6374 https://forum.ysfhq.com/viewtopic.php?t=6374
galcerte 5y ago
I never expected this to be on the front page of HN, it brings back so many memories. I was big into this game when I was a teenager back in 2010, 2011 until 2015, also being very active in the community that made this page in that period. Sadly, even all those years back, the online scene was still what most would consider dead. I have a bit of a thing for "dead" games, I wouldn't really consider 1-2 full servers at night to be dead, which is what we had. In the following years, however, server population declined even more, to the point where I would really consider it to be dead. I'd love to be proven wrong though, but that was what I percieved. If you really wanted to ride the wave, I'd tell you to get yourself a time machine and go all the way back to 2005, 2006 or 2007. Servers were ablaze with squadrons (~groups of people having their own paint schemes on certain aircraft, playing air-to-ground missions and air-to-air missions against other squadrons...) fighting and calling each other names. It wasn't pretty, but according to what I was told, passion wasn't exactly in short supply. Fun fact: the game looks like that because it has no textures. Instead, every polygon is colored individually. Through a recent update did give the terrain textures. Aircraft still don't have them.
- ehnto 5y ago
  > I have a bit of a thing for "dead" games, I feel your pain. Unique and interesting games are rarely the most popular. I have come to realize that you need to grab a multiplayer game by the horns and jump right in when it's popular, because every game has a "golden era", before which it dies. These communities are all moments in time.
  - sslayer 5y ago
    I've come to learn that anything online is impermanent. Websites/communities/gaming/business/programming languages - it will all eventually be deprecated for something newer/faster/better - Honestly, the only thing that is mostly untouched are the underlying protocols - and there are plans to change those as well. The absolute worst part about it is the loss of history, however even the physical world can't escape that - like tears in the rain.
    - 5y ago
ziggus 5y ago
This looks interesting, but the coolest part of this site is the forums. I had no idea that phpBB was still in active development/maintenance. It's surprising how ridiculously fast it is, and how much information is packed into each page. The topic pages are full of images and complex layouts, but it still renders completely in less than a second. Granted, Cloudflare and caching are a big help, but it goes to show what years and years of continued development and optimization can do.
- lpcvoid 5y ago
  This was pretty much always the case with these old school forums. They where always pretty fast if run on decent hardware. Unlike modern web things.
  - app4soft 5y ago
    > Unlike modern web things. I'm fully agree on it phpBB-based sites awesome in performance and, as for me, it is exactly "classic" forum engine, which also used by RCGroups[0] and FlightGear[1]. [0] https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/index.php https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/index.php [1] https://forum.flightgear.org/ https://forum.flightgear.org/
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  > It's surprising how ridiculously fast it is This is why server-side rendering is making a comeback; for over a decade, ever since Chrome and V8 came out, the focus has been on making JS faster, but in the meantime rendering plain old HTML and CSS (especially without animations or other complexer calculations) hasn't stopped. Especially newer versions of rendering engines, employing 3D acceleration and tile-based rendering will make these things really fast. Years ago we decided that vBulletin 3 was getting too old (it had been superseded by the slower 4 and 5 by then; slower because they did more 'tidy' coding in the back-end (object-oriented PHP) and tried to build a more JS-heavy front-end.). We first tried Discourse - we tried it for days, trying to migrate posts, but it was just so heavyweight, it seemed aimed at enterprise companies with a free-to-spend credit card linked to AWS, not some random fansite out on the internet. I gave up eventually. Instead we went to Xenforo, which was built by the same people behind vBulletin up until v3, after which that company was bought out and the people left. They built Xenforo with similar goals as vB 3, just with a fresh start, and the result was an old-fashioned but fast forum software, suitable for mobile, some JS sprinkled here and there for e.g. instant posting without a full page reload, but other than that a pretty vanilla piece of software.
superfunny 5y ago
MalwareBytes flags this site as potentially containing malware
- app4soft 5y ago
  Don't use MalwareBytes[0], even MS Windows at all. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malwarebytes_Anti-Malware#Security_vulnerabilities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malwarebytes_Anti-Malware#Secu...
- LinuxBender 5y ago
  This and another highly upvoted site submitted yesterday were flagged by MWB. Giving it the benefit of doubt could be that user submitted content for the game may be the culprit but I am just guessing. Worst case there could be an active campaign to infect people in the tech industry just prior to a military engagement. I will assume and prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
mosfets 5y ago
Intersting to see a flight sim post would make to the front page of HN lol. I'm also working on a free flight simulator lately, but focusing on drones/quadcopters/FPV and stick feel. It's browser based but can be played with gamepads or radio controllers. Give it a try if you are interested and let me know what you think, located here: https://dronesitter.com/sim https://dronesitter.com/sim
- app4soft 5y ago
  > I'm also working on a free flight simulator lately, but focusing on drones/quadcopters/FPV and stick feel. Guess, it would be better post it in "Show HN" section[0], beacuse your flight sim is online/WebGL-based — it is probably has nothing to compare with YSFlight. As side note, it is not good to launch WebGL-app immediately after user just visits your site — my PC near stuck with full CPU/GPU load; it would be much better give a user button "Launch now" instead to launch WebGL without permission by user/site visitor. N.B. YSFlight could be used with RC-transmitters connected to PC as joysticks, and even more, there are already a lot of drones "aircraft" addons for YSFlight too — so you may combining it with something like Oculus or Google VR Cardoard to use YSFlight for playing in FPV-mode. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/show https://news.ycombinator.com/show
  - mosfets 5y ago
    Thanks for the advice! This is due to a recently added feature that maximizes FPS, I should have considered wider ranges of devices.
  - cshimmin 5y ago
    Yeah, clicking this link on my 2016 MPB caused all of Chrome to completely hang for about 3mins until I could close it... yikes.
- meheleventyone 5y ago
  I found the calibration hard to use and it didn't give me much feedback to say if I was doing what it wanted or not. The end result seemed to get the axis extents correct but the mapping all over the place.
marcodiego 5y ago
Don't forget Linux Air Combat: https://askmisterwizard.com/2019/LinuxAirCombat/LinuxAirCombat.htm https://askmisterwizard.com/2019/LinuxAirCombat/LinuxAirComb...
- app4soft 5y ago
  Yep, LAC[0] (fork of GL-117) even has a thread on YSFHQ forum.[1] BTW, I think YSFlight is more related to ACM[2] & Vertigo[3] flight simulators, instead of GL-117/LAC. As for more advanced open-source flight simulator than LAC, take a look on Marek Cel's[4] Mscsim and FightersFS.[5] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27073052 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27073052 [1] https://forum.ysfhq.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=8496 https://forum.ysfhq.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=8496 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22549969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22549969 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27598269 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27598269 [4] https://github.com/marek-cel?tab=repositories https://github.com/marek-cel?tab=repositories [5] https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=github.com/marek-cel https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=github.com/marek-cel
fortyseven 5y ago
It can bring back my dead wife?!
- rei_ayanami 5y ago
  Only if you want it to.
scionthefly 5y ago
Is it sponsored by Zombo?
WFHRenaissance 5y ago
Wow, I've been flying in YSF for what feels like over a decade. Up until recently it was just a game I installed on my parent's computer and would play when I went home. One thing I love about the game is that they nailed the F-22's thrust vectoring and supermanueverability. I play the game with a keyboard and a mouse (as opposed to a HOTAS setup), and after all these years flying the F-22 I'm proud to say I can execute stalls, a Pugachev's Cobra, and more maneuvers. I'm not your typical gamer (I don't own a console, and I own 2 games on Steam that I never play), but YSFlight has been my "Come To Jesus" moment for recreational simulation. If you're on the fence about downloading it, I encourage you to do it. You will not be disappointed.
bitwize 5y ago
LGR recently did a Blerb about a floppy disk found in a computer from Lockheed Martin, that had a screen saver based on an old version of YSFlight on it. The screen saver would stage flybys of YSFlight's distinctive, untextured models of fighter jets.
- app4soft 5y ago
  > LGR recently did a Blerb about a floppy disk found in a computer from Lockheed Martin Here is already comment[0] on this with links to related HN thread. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30299850#30301403 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30299850#30301403
squidhunter 5y ago
YSFlight sim used to be my jam! Back in high school (~2004), a few of my friends and I all had YSFlight sim loaded on some zip disks. Then throughout the week, our schedules would occasionally align so that we were all in separate classrooms but each had access to a computer and we could play the multiplayer combat mode over the schools network. YSFlight sim was also my first introduction to modding. I was able to take the F-22, give it unbelievable amounts of thrust (millions of lbf), zero mass, and virtually unlimited ammunition. It was great, I could fly across the entire map in a second, then loiter like a helicopter. I dominated for like a week until I gave the secret away...
dang 5y ago
Just a little bit of previous discussion: YSFlight RIAT 2021 – The Marine's Rally: A Tribute to Gunny [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28845160 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28845160 - Oct 2021 (1 comment) Announcing YS Flight (2003) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27047041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27047041 - May 2021 (1 comment) YS Flight Simulator 20th Anniversary - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20303825 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20303825 - June 2019 (1 comment)
- jker 5y ago
  Thanks dang for always being such a great steward of this community!
tomxor 5y ago
It's still alive! Yes. For Linux users who don't want to run the .py install script... The Linux binaries are hiding inside the MacOS .app dir, you can run them in-place without installation, e.g after unzipping, the 64bit GL2 one can be run with: ./ysflight64_gl2.app/Contents/Resources/ysflight64_gl2
5ESS 5y ago
If the graphics quality increases I might play it one day.
3z 5y ago
I'm happy to see a flight simulator that isn't locked down with annoying rules. What's the point of playing digital games if you can't go crazy?
nyolfen 5y ago
if you're into this you should check out Tiny Combat Arena: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1347550/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1347550/ spiritually similar, but single-player and cuter graphics. the release is in two weeks, but i've been following the dev for a year because the clips are so fun to watch.
pmarreck 5y ago
Is there something like this but in the browser?
rideontime 5y ago
The author brought several Fujitsu computers to Demosplash and wrote some fun demos. Much appreciated.
MrBra 5y ago
I just tried it and I'm not impressed at all. There are many better, yet still free alternatives, so not sure I understand why this got on front page...

308 points by app4soft 5y ago

YSFHQ (YSFlight Headquarters) is international users community.[0] There is large list of addons created by users, which highly extends YSFlight.[1] Also, there are a lot of open-source utilities for addons makers.[2] Read «YSFlight Handbook»[3] and «YSFlight Scientific Research»[4] papers for understand addons formats and some internals of YSFlight. [0] https://forum.ysfhq.com https://forum.ysfhq.com [1] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1caVHoWU6g1YSB-G-W5Q-j2JPuGtYxcZBVca0ul5vjTU/edit#gid=0 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1caVHoWU6g1YSB-G-W5Q-... [2] https://github.com/YSFlight-opensource https://github.com/YSFlight-opensource [3] https://forum.ysfhq.com/viewtopic.php?t=8172&p=92286#p92286 https://forum.ysfhq.com/viewtopic.php?t=8172&p=92286#p92286 [4] https://sites.google.com/prod/site/ysdecaff/ysflight-scientific-research/ https://sites.google.com/prod/site/ysdecaff/ysflight-scienti...

app4soft 5y ago
The story of YSFlight is long, but FLYBY2[0] screensaver for Windows 98 is probably one of initial implementations of YSFlight flight engine (aircraft 3D models distributed with FLYBY2 are now distributed with YSFlight in same DNM-format). Few weeks ago Soji Yamakawa open-sourced[0,1] FLYBY2 and ported it also for FM TOWNS. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30214412 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30214412 [1] https://github.com/captainys/FLYBY2 https://github.com/captainys/FLYBY2

nonbirithm 5y ago

The author also made an interesting demscene release for the Fujitsu Micro 7. https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=72288 https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=72288

app4soft 5y ago
Author, Soji Yamakawa[0], is not only active demoscene performer (few times winner of Demosplash Party) but also is a big fan of Fujitsu FM TOWNS[1] — in last few years he did an open-source emulator, "Tsugaru"[2]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=in.coocan.jp https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=in.coocan.jp [1] http://ysflight.in.coocan.jp/FM/e.html http://ysflight.in.coocan.jp/FM/e.html [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23269460 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23269460
- bane 5y ago
  I believe he's also a professor at CMU. His demoscene contributions also often represent many of the first demos ever on their respective platforms. If anybody is even remotely interested in Japanese retro computers he also contributes many of them to the retro petting zoo at Demosplash (when they're live). The computing club there goes through some serious heroics to keep many of the old systems alive and is responsible for a huge amount of these platform first demos in the scene.

punnerud 5y ago

Of Mac with M1 it will crash as long as you don't give permissions to listen to key-input. So yes, it works with M1.

app4soft 5y ago
> Of Mac with M1 it will crash as long as you don't give permissions to listen to key-input. So, it under macOS BigSur with M1 it works if "give permissions to listen to key-input", right?
- punnerud 5y ago
  Yes, just tested with the 2019 version
  - app4soft 5y ago
    > with the 2019 version Ther is no YSFlight version 2019xxxx, latest version is 20181124.[0] [0] https://ysflight.org/download/ https://ysflight.org/download/

sockpuppet69 5y ago

jillesvangurp 5y ago

Interesting; I was not aware of their existence. They seem to be free as in beer; not as in speech. They seem to make money with shareware provided by the same company. Nothing against closed source though. For example, I enjoy x-plane a lot which while not free (in either sense) of course has a large community providing both free and non free add-ons. This seems more of a game with a focus on combat and less on realism or looks. An actual free, open source flight simulator that deserves mentioning is Flightgear. I've played with that a couple of times but always end up reverting to x-plane. But flightgear has some nice features and also a nice community. It just doesn't look and feel anywhere near as good as x-plane (which is a tall order because it is very good). Anyway, I checked out some footage on Youtube. Visually, it has nothing on even Flightgear; which I'm pretty sure probably has some combat mods. Or even any version of that the last few decades or so, actually. It actually reminded me of some dos games I used to play in the early nineties. E.g. Jetfighter II (released 1990) was pretty awesome back in the day. It looks like that but with higher resolution. But e.g. the ground is a featureless green blob; just like in Jetfighter II, and clouds are white polygons hanging in the sky, etc. And Jetfighter II had a HUD that was about as feature rich as the one in this game. Of course it was way more pixelated than this. But they even managed a cockpit panel :-). I wouldn't call it photo realistic but it didn't look half bad for the time. There are probably better/later game that this thing is shooting for. But I just never really got into combat flight simulation. I guess they are trying to recreate some of that experience. Not that it matters; but I guess the gameplay is more important than the looks for this. Actually looks like it could be a lot of fun. BTW. I have nothing against MS Flightsimulator. The latest version looks great. But I just don't have any windows computers anymore at this point. Combat is not really something either of the other flightsims I mentioned are made for or even good at.

app4soft 5y ago
> Nothing against closed source though. To be clear, YSFlight is partially open-source software. Here is official repo[0] of its GUI toolkit (OpenGL-based) and various miscellaneous apps based on it. PolygonCrest (aka `ysgebl`), an official 3D editor for addon making for YSFlight, based on the same toolkit as YSFlight, is fully free & opensource. [0] https://github.com/captainys/public https://github.com/captainys/public [1] https://github.com/captainys/public/tree/master/src/ysgebl https://github.com/captainys/public/tree/master/src/ysgebl [2] https://forum.ysfhq.com/viewtopic.php?t=6374 https://forum.ysfhq.com/viewtopic.php?t=6374

galcerte 5y ago

I never expected this to be on the front page of HN, it brings back so many memories. I was big into this game when I was a teenager back in 2010, 2011 until 2015, also being very active in the community that made this page in that period. Sadly, even all those years back, the online scene was still what most would consider dead. I have a bit of a thing for "dead" games, I wouldn't really consider 1-2 full servers at night to be dead, which is what we had. In the following years, however, server population declined even more, to the point where I would really consider it to be dead. I'd love to be proven wrong though, but that was what I percieved. If you really wanted to ride the wave, I'd tell you to get yourself a time machine and go all the way back to 2005, 2006 or 2007. Servers were ablaze with squadrons (~groups of people having their own paint schemes on certain aircraft, playing air-to-ground missions and air-to-air missions against other squadrons...) fighting and calling each other names. It wasn't pretty, but according to what I was told, passion wasn't exactly in short supply. Fun fact: the game looks like that because it has no textures. Instead, every polygon is colored individually. Through a recent update did give the terrain textures. Aircraft still don't have them.

ehnto 5y ago
> I have a bit of a thing for "dead" games, I feel your pain. Unique and interesting games are rarely the most popular. I have come to realize that you need to grab a multiplayer game by the horns and jump right in when it's popular, because every game has a "golden era", before which it dies. These communities are all moments in time.
- sslayer 5y ago
  I've come to learn that anything online is impermanent. Websites/communities/gaming/business/programming languages - it will all eventually be deprecated for something newer/faster/better - Honestly, the only thing that is mostly untouched are the underlying protocols - and there are plans to change those as well. The absolute worst part about it is the loss of history, however even the physical world can't escape that - like tears in the rain.
  - 5y ago

ziggus 5y ago

This looks interesting, but the coolest part of this site is the forums. I had no idea that phpBB was still in active development/maintenance. It's surprising how ridiculously fast it is, and how much information is packed into each page. The topic pages are full of images and complex layouts, but it still renders completely in less than a second. Granted, Cloudflare and caching are a big help, but it goes to show what years and years of continued development and optimization can do.

lpcvoid 5y ago
This was pretty much always the case with these old school forums. They where always pretty fast if run on decent hardware. Unlike modern web things.
- app4soft 5y ago
  > Unlike modern web things. I'm fully agree on it phpBB-based sites awesome in performance and, as for me, it is exactly "classic" forum engine, which also used by RCGroups[0] and FlightGear[1]. [0] https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/index.php https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/index.php [1] https://forum.flightgear.org/ https://forum.flightgear.org/
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
> It's surprising how ridiculously fast it is This is why server-side rendering is making a comeback; for over a decade, ever since Chrome and V8 came out, the focus has been on making JS faster, but in the meantime rendering plain old HTML and CSS (especially without animations or other complexer calculations) hasn't stopped. Especially newer versions of rendering engines, employing 3D acceleration and tile-based rendering will make these things really fast. Years ago we decided that vBulletin 3 was getting too old (it had been superseded by the slower 4 and 5 by then; slower because they did more 'tidy' coding in the back-end (object-oriented PHP) and tried to build a more JS-heavy front-end.). We first tried Discourse - we tried it for days, trying to migrate posts, but it was just so heavyweight, it seemed aimed at enterprise companies with a free-to-spend credit card linked to AWS, not some random fansite out on the internet. I gave up eventually. Instead we went to Xenforo, which was built by the same people behind vBulletin up until v3, after which that company was bought out and the people left. They built Xenforo with similar goals as vB 3, just with a fresh start, and the result was an old-fashioned but fast forum software, suitable for mobile, some JS sprinkled here and there for e.g. instant posting without a full page reload, but other than that a pretty vanilla piece of software.

superfunny 5y ago

MalwareBytes flags this site as potentially containing malware

app4soft 5y ago
Don't use MalwareBytes[0], even MS Windows at all. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malwarebytes_Anti-Malware#Security_vulnerabilities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malwarebytes_Anti-Malware#Secu...
LinuxBender 5y ago
This and another highly upvoted site submitted yesterday were flagged by MWB. Giving it the benefit of doubt could be that user submitted content for the game may be the culprit but I am just guessing. Worst case there could be an active campaign to infect people in the tech industry just prior to a military engagement. I will assume and prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

mosfets 5y ago

Intersting to see a flight sim post would make to the front page of HN lol. I'm also working on a free flight simulator lately, but focusing on drones/quadcopters/FPV and stick feel. It's browser based but can be played with gamepads or radio controllers. Give it a try if you are interested and let me know what you think, located here: https://dronesitter.com/sim https://dronesitter.com/sim

app4soft 5y ago
> I'm also working on a free flight simulator lately, but focusing on drones/quadcopters/FPV and stick feel. Guess, it would be better post it in "Show HN" section[0], beacuse your flight sim is online/WebGL-based — it is probably has nothing to compare with YSFlight. As side note, it is not good to launch WebGL-app immediately after user just visits your site — my PC near stuck with full CPU/GPU load; it would be much better give a user button "Launch now" instead to launch WebGL without permission by user/site visitor. N.B. YSFlight could be used with RC-transmitters connected to PC as joysticks, and even more, there are already a lot of drones "aircraft" addons for YSFlight too — so you may combining it with something like Oculus or Google VR Cardoard to use YSFlight for playing in FPV-mode. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/show https://news.ycombinator.com/show
- mosfets 5y ago
  Thanks for the advice! This is due to a recently added feature that maximizes FPS, I should have considered wider ranges of devices.
- cshimmin 5y ago
  Yeah, clicking this link on my 2016 MPB caused all of Chrome to completely hang for about 3mins until I could close it... yikes.
meheleventyone 5y ago
I found the calibration hard to use and it didn't give me much feedback to say if I was doing what it wanted or not. The end result seemed to get the axis extents correct but the mapping all over the place.

marcodiego 5y ago

Don't forget Linux Air Combat: https://askmisterwizard.com/2019/LinuxAirCombat/LinuxAirCombat.htm https://askmisterwizard.com/2019/LinuxAirCombat/LinuxAirComb...

app4soft 5y ago
Yep, LAC[0] (fork of GL-117) even has a thread on YSFHQ forum.[1] BTW, I think YSFlight is more related to ACM[2] & Vertigo[3] flight simulators, instead of GL-117/LAC. As for more advanced open-source flight simulator than LAC, take a look on Marek Cel's[4] Mscsim and FightersFS.[5] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27073052 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27073052 [1] https://forum.ysfhq.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=8496 https://forum.ysfhq.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=8496 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22549969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22549969 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27598269 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27598269 [4] https://github.com/marek-cel?tab=repositories https://github.com/marek-cel?tab=repositories [5] https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=github.com/marek-cel https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=github.com/marek-cel

fortyseven 5y ago

It can bring back my dead wife?!

rei_ayanami 5y ago
Only if you want it to.

scionthefly 5y ago

Is it sponsored by Zombo?

WFHRenaissance 5y ago

Wow, I've been flying in YSF for what feels like over a decade. Up until recently it was just a game I installed on my parent's computer and would play when I went home. One thing I love about the game is that they nailed the F-22's thrust vectoring and supermanueverability. I play the game with a keyboard and a mouse (as opposed to a HOTAS setup), and after all these years flying the F-22 I'm proud to say I can execute stalls, a Pugachev's Cobra, and more maneuvers. I'm not your typical gamer (I don't own a console, and I own 2 games on Steam that I never play), but YSFlight has been my "Come To Jesus" moment for recreational simulation. If you're on the fence about downloading it, I encourage you to do it. You will not be disappointed.

bitwize 5y ago

LGR recently did a Blerb about a floppy disk found in a computer from Lockheed Martin, that had a screen saver based on an old version of YSFlight on it. The screen saver would stage flybys of YSFlight's distinctive, untextured models of fighter jets.

app4soft 5y ago
> LGR recently did a Blerb about a floppy disk found in a computer from Lockheed Martin Here is already comment[0] on this with links to related HN thread. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30299850#30301403 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30299850#30301403

squidhunter 5y ago

YSFlight sim used to be my jam! Back in high school (~2004), a few of my friends and I all had YSFlight sim loaded on some zip disks. Then throughout the week, our schedules would occasionally align so that we were all in separate classrooms but each had access to a computer and we could play the multiplayer combat mode over the schools network. YSFlight sim was also my first introduction to modding. I was able to take the F-22, give it unbelievable amounts of thrust (millions of lbf), zero mass, and virtually unlimited ammunition. It was great, I could fly across the entire map in a second, then loiter like a helicopter. I dominated for like a week until I gave the secret away...

dang 5y ago

Just a little bit of previous discussion: YSFlight RIAT 2021 – The Marine's Rally: A Tribute to Gunny [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28845160 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28845160 - Oct 2021 (1 comment) Announcing YS Flight (2003) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27047041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27047041 - May 2021 (1 comment) YS Flight Simulator 20th Anniversary - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20303825 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20303825 - June 2019 (1 comment)

jker 5y ago
Thanks dang for always being such a great steward of this community!

tomxor 5y ago

It's still alive! Yes. For Linux users who don't want to run the .py install script... The Linux binaries are hiding inside the MacOS .app dir, you can run them in-place without installation, e.g after unzipping, the 64bit GL2 one can be run with: ./ysflight64_gl2.app/Contents/Resources/ysflight64_gl2

5ESS 5y ago

If the graphics quality increases I might play it one day.

3z 5y ago

I'm happy to see a flight simulator that isn't locked down with annoying rules. What's the point of playing digital games if you can't go crazy?

nyolfen 5y ago

if you're into this you should check out Tiny Combat Arena: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1347550/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1347550/ spiritually similar, but single-player and cuter graphics. the release is in two weeks, but i've been following the dev for a year because the clips are so fun to watch.

pmarreck 5y ago

Is there something like this but in the browser?

rideontime 5y ago

The author brought several Fujitsu computers to Demosplash and wrote some fun demos. Much appreciated.

MrBra 5y ago

I just tried it and I'm not impressed at all. There are many better, yet still free alternatives, so not sure I understand why this got on front page...