Virtual Aerobatics Website Launched

Will miss flying in it this week! It's been a lot of fun :pilotfly:

Will miss flying in it this week! It's been a lot of fun :pilotfly:

Ditto. :thumbup:

Hope it's back up soon.

Thanks for the kind words guys

Work on the re-cabling of the servers network and the installation of the SDSL line / router is progressing well. When the server returns, we will have a brand new map and race course for you all to enjoy!

Well, the race course might take a little longer to get going. In the mean time, would love some feedback on the types of racing that people would be interested in. Do you like the somewhat short race that Batumi is, just a few minutes to complete or do you prefer a longer race? Canyon run or laps around a set course? Open to ideas as I am hashing out the code for multi-aircraft tracking.

Here comes my wishlist 2013 for the server ;)

Firstly, when this grows a little, there's no harm in making a race film and sending the link to Red Bull and asking if their marketing department wish to sponsor your server. Well maybe there is, but in the spirit of partnership and business i'm sure legal can be ironed out... ;)

Batumi was good, slightly confusing to learn when you reuse it backwards and have loops, so something more "linear" would be nice. A vertical element would be good for the future - not just the tight loops in Batumi, but perhaps use of mountain sides etc.

The concept of "laps" is tricky to figure out a way to use it. Any course where the start isn't the finish has the advantage of enforced departure from the course. But its workable if the code for multiple tracked aircraft timings works. Where I (personally) might prefer a traditional lap based circuit woudl be a warm up course for simple aerobatics just for a direction to fly in as a focal point, without it being an official "race track". that way it coudl gather some folk on it to chase each other without being serious. needs slaloms though ;)

Between airfields it might be nice to have some coastal cross country longer courses or similar. The Fast Jet course might be suited here?

Ideally 3 optimised course types, Helicopter, slow and fast. Chopper course could be very exciting viewing, but to be optimised it needs to be more twisty than Batumi currently is. Could be evil indeed ;) The A10 and Mustang course needs to be of a certain limit for Mustangs - I can't help feeling my engine will pop at any minute on the current Batumi course but something longer might be frustrating to learn :) The Fast Jet course could have way less limitations than Batumi currently has and an opportunity to get to ridiculous speed would be appreciated.

Incorporate natural obstacles more - who cares about Health & Safety?! So what we might like is to really rip up the streets of Batumi, dodging apartment buildings, through a canyon, under pylons. That type of thing. The sea has its place and always will.

The impossible gate: I liked the idea of the loops set in a way that they can be done in different ways. So for example, the route through the gate was never the line straight from the previous one, the apex was somewhere before or you have to do a vertical loop or even approach from a wildly different angle to be optimal. Take for example a steep slope you run down and a gate at the bottom....typically if you ran straight at it down the slope you would never pull up, but if you slalomed slightly you get a better angle....you get the point.

Leaderboard. A daily fastest is great, but doesn't everyone like to race against the fastest, so how about an export script on the server that posts the time, aircraft, playername timestamp and course to a webpage for display? I understand this is tricky to implement but some successful games outside of this one have been built on the "worldwide scoring" that is posted on the internet and the resulting competition will attract a lot of attention, especially on an entry point SU25 in DCS World.

Multiple users. So if multiple users on the track becomes possible then are teams possible? So like going in pairs and adding the two course times. Could be funky to have that even if we did some manual adding. I'd certainly like to shadow someone and it would make a great film for youtube to showcase the server.

Documents and jazz for the course. A PDF/Youtube commentary post that goes through each corner in detail. Lets give the corners names like Immelman Yo-yo and Scissors. Send the script to Murray Walker :P ...etc, theres so many ways this can be made from good to great.

For ED I wonder can we get a model for a natural gate rather than the green magic ring? Hot air balloon carrying a hoop or something? The oil rigs were a stroke of genius but I'd like some land next time around.

Generally for the server theres one suggestion I'd offer which is to list the starting aircraft points in a nice logical way so you know which base you start in.

Perhaps some hot ramp start points would be good next time, the A10 is still 3 minute airborne with a 3 minute switch fest once up which is a bit of a passion killer. Although there may be a fair reason for cold start slots.

Thats all i have right now.

Here comes my wishlist 2013 for the server ;)

 

Firstly, when this grows a little, there's no harm in making a race film and sending the link to Red Bull and asking if their marketing department wish to sponsor your server. Well maybe there is, but in the spirit of partnership and business i'm sure legal can be ironed out... ;)

 

Batumi was good, slightly confusing to learn when you reuse it backwards and have loops, so something more "linear" would be nice. A vertical element would be good for the future - not just the tight loops in Batumi, but perhaps use of mountain sides etc.

 

The concept of "laps" is tricky to figure out a way to use it. Any course where the start isn't the finish has the advantage of enforced departure from the course. But its workable if the code for multiple tracked aircraft timings works. Where I (personally) might prefer a traditional lap based circuit woudl be a warm up course for simple aerobatics just for a direction to fly in as a focal point, without it being an official "race track". that way it coudl gather some folk on it to chase each other without being serious. needs slaloms though ;)

 

Between airfields it might be nice to have some coastal cross country longer courses or similar. The Fast Jet course might be suited here?

 

Ideally 3 optimised course types, Helicopter, slow and fast. Chopper course could be very exciting viewing, but to be optimised it needs to be more twisty than Batumi currently is. Could be evil indeed ;) The A10 and Mustang course needs to be of a certain limit for Mustangs - I can't help feeling my engine will pop at any minute on the current Batumi course but something longer might be frustrating to learn :) The Fast Jet course could have way less limitations than Batumi currently has and an opportunity to get to ridiculous speed would be appreciated.

 

Incorporate natural obstacles more - who cares about Health & Safety?! So what we might like is to really rip up the streets of Batumi, dodging apartment buildings, through a canyon, under pylons. That type of thing. The sea has its place and always will.

 

The impossible gate: I liked the idea of the loops set in a way that they can be done in different ways. So for example, the route through the gate was never the line straight from the previous one, the apex was somewhere before or you have to do a vertical loop or even approach from a wildly different angle to be optimal. Take for example a steep slope you run down and a gate at the bottom....typically if you ran straight at it down the slope you would never pull up, but if you slalomed slightly you get a better angle....you get the point.

 

Leaderboard. A daily fastest is great, but doesn't everyone like to race against the fastest, so how about an export script on the server that posts the time, aircraft, playername timestamp and course to a webpage for display? I understand this is tricky to implement but some successful games outside of this one have been built on the "worldwide scoring" that is posted on the internet and the resulting competition will attract a lot of attention, especially on an entry point SU25 in DCS World.

 

Multiple users. So if multiple users on the track becomes possible then are teams possible? So like going in pairs and adding the two course times. Could be funky to have that even if we did some manual adding. I'd certainly like to shadow someone and it would make a great film for youtube to showcase the server.

 

Documents and jazz for the course. A PDF/Youtube commentary post that goes through each corner in detail. Lets give the corners names like Immelman Yo-yo and Scissors. Send the script to Murray Walker :P ...etc, theres so many ways this can be made from good to great.

 

For ED I wonder can we get a model for a natural gate rather than the green magic ring? Hot air balloon carrying a hoop or something? The oil rigs were a stroke of genius but I'd like some land next time around.

 

Generally for the server theres one suggestion I'd offer which is to list the starting aircraft points in a nice logical way so you know which base you start in.

Perhaps some hot ramp start points would be good next time, the A10 is still 3 minute airborne with a 3 minute switch fest once up which is a bit of a passion killer. Although there may be a fair reason for cold start slots.

 

Thats all i have right now.

Hi Pikey,

Its great that you have put so much thought into the server, I should be able to answer some of your points, some of which I Shahdoh will need to elaborate on a little.

We have sponsorship deals in the works for the server however due to commercial discussions I cant go any further with that for the moment.

One of the problems that we have is multiple aircraft tracking and we have had 3 people working on it on and off for a few weeks, we think progress has been made so that multiple aircraft can be tracked at once are viable.

The new course is likely to be a land based one with special consideration given to a vertical element, this was something Shahdoh and I had already discussed. I dont want to give too much away ;)

We are limiting the server to only running one course at a time, Our server is primarily aimed at formation aerobatics and although we are very pleased to have a permanent race track on the missions we cant have more then one at a time.

Regarding exporting the results, it a little more complicated then that as the server resets every 6 hours so that the mission is always running during day light hours, when we first set the server up we had it on never ending which just meant that people ended up trying to fly at night! As I said above when our primary focus is formation work flying at night isnt helpful :p

I dont think the times for the course are logged anywhere, I will look into it but I cant make any promises

A Document about the course is a good idea and I will look into it :)

As for the models of the gates etc, if there are any modellers who would like to help out with that then by all means contact me and we can talk :) All help in that department is welcomed :D

In the previous map all the aircraft had a prefix --- SO for Sochi, Ga for Gudata, Team for Race track etc... We will be doing the same for the new mission although the location has changed ;)

We talked about hot starts briefly last time we gathered the admins together, we decided that although we are not strict with things like ATC we want to keep it so that people have to start the aircraft themselves, I would argue that having to actually start your plane actually deepens the immersion for our pilots rather then a ready to fly aircraft. The obvious exception will be the Airstart aircraft for the race.

Hope that helps

Pman

Pikey, what great feedback! Thank you for taking the time to go into so much detail - that really will help us.

Whilst there are a lot of cool features listed there, air racing is not the primary focus of the server so, unfortunately, we will not be having 3 separate tracks on the same mission. We will try and renew the track on the server every few months to keep things fresh, but with the current track, there are already a lot of messages popping up on users screens with times etc that can be quite off putting when you're trying to fly formation. Shahdoh is currently designing a new track for the server which all aircraft will have to fly on.

With regards to the start ups, the cold starts will remain as many people use the server to learn how to manage new aircraft and we would like to support that. There doesn't really seem much point in having a high fidelity aircraft if we're going to short cut thins later on.

Wow Pikey,

A lot of great ideas there, fair number of them have been on my "To do" list as I learn the Lua code better and better. My intention with the courses all along has been to provide a variety of tracks to keep things interesting. As has been mentioned though, we will not be able to run multiple tracks on the VA server at the same time, at least till we learn to clean up the code so it does not bog down the server with all the tracking of aircraft. I have put tons of thought into this, and always open to suggestions and of course help with the Lua code to make these things a reality.

So, for right now, was just wondering if folks are interested in another short Red Bull style air race, longer multi lap circuit race or a canyon run.

Thanks for your interest.

Shahdoh

Here comes my wishlist 2013 for the server ;)

 

Firstly, when this grows a little, there's no harm in making a race film and sending the link to Red Bull and asking if their marketing department wish to sponsor your server. Well maybe there is, but in the spirit of partnership and business i'm sure legal can be ironed out... ;)

 

Pikey great idea for the " Redbull " I had tried contacting them when I ran my competition site and had a set up for Redbull races thru FSX..got no answer right away but shortly the replied with the answer " Thanks for the interest, but " Redbull " is a trade mark name and we only wish to contribute to our ongoing events.. "

but won't hurt to try again

Thought I would give you a small update.

Last night myself and Shahdoh managed to complete a small live test of the server on the new line and networking and it worked well. We have some things to do including working on our new location on the map. We finished this at 2am UK time last night and it will be another late one tonight!

The race track wont be ready for the re-launch however as I am sure you are as keen as I am to get flying again we will launch the server without the new track and update the server when its ready

Till then

Pman

Oh by the way, any Pilots from our server going to the May show at Duxford in 10 days?

Pman

Can't wait to have it back only it's like everyone has split off instead of jumping on another free fight server the enjoyment is not there. Without the server :thumbup:

In just over a weeks time (Sunday 26th May), Myself & Pman will be at Duxford's May airshow. If you see us around, come over, say hi and claim your free Virtual-Aerobatics.Com T-shirt!

Can't wait to have it back only it's like everyone has split off instead of jumping on another free fight server the enjoyment is not there. Without the server :thumbup:

Have no fear mate, in a couple of days it will be back online and I look forward to welcoming people back to the server.

Few details about the new mission:

• Carriers now have a route, so land on them if you can but it will be a moving target this time
  
• 10+ New P51 skins we have not had on the server before
  
• 2 New Huey skins
  
• We have doubled the amount of Huey's available!
  
• A New race course is on the way
  

Plus a few other things that I have changed and mixed up abit :D I can confirm that every airbase we have aircraft at now was previously un-inhabited and vice versa.

Something new for all of our pilots to enjoy!

Pman

hey guys,

as much as i thank the team for this server and spending their time running it, i have to thank for the downtime actualy :D

almost all flights i do are on the server, with the server down i started the huey camaign, and its quite nice.

anyway, looking forward to come back on the server when its there, always nice to be there!

thanks VA-Team!

regards,

RR

I'm sure many players are waiting for the return of the server!

And for increase of interest to the server I wanna share some screenshots with speed-race record. ;)

Enjoy!!! And welcome to the jungle baby... :)

What's the new airframe skins??

I'm sure many players are waiting for the return of the server!

 

And for increase of interest to the server I wanna share some screenshots with speed-race record. ;)

Enjoy!!! And welcome to the jungle baby... :)

Thats an insane time Dell, I need to watch you for tips!

What's the new airframe skins??

We have one you know about ;)

Plus some P51 skins that we havent used on the server before as well as a Huey skin being worked on by one our own pilots :)

Just to mix things up abit :D

Pman

Thats an insane time Dell

Yeah! And I like it! )))

I need to watch you for tips!

What do you mean about tips? :)

Yeah! And I like it! )))

 

 

 

What do you mean about tips? :)

I mean I will be watching you like a hawk to pinch your secrets ;)

We had the server up for a time last night for the public to test it and all bar 1 issue it looks like we are almost done and on course for the server to be back online for the weekend!

Pman

I mean I will be watching you like a hawk to pinch your secrets ;)

The main secret only in knowledge of aerodynamics of the plane.

That can give to pilot construct very optimal way of balance between time of maneuver and speed.

I have ideas about 116 seconds. :)

We had the server up for a time last night for the public to test it and all bar 1 issue it looks like we are almost done and on course for the server to be back online for the weekend!

Great!!! We're waiting!!! :thumbup:

Good News Guys,

I have put the server back up :D

I have put the first edition of the new map on there as well, I am aware there are a couple of things that need changing and fixing but its the first edition so bear with me :D

The server will go down very shortly tomorrow as we move the server machine back into the right corner of the office, but it shouldnt be more then half hour

Thanks for your patience during our down time, We are thankful that it all appears to have gone well and look forward to flying with you guys again soon!

Pman

Great news! Am off for tonight but will look forward to being on the server Saturday night!

My personal best time 116,87. Shahdoh, please, set correct fuel load for race Su-27s. 3800kg too much. I had to make circles till 1700kg left, before i entered race course.

http://forums.eagle.ru/attachment.php?attachmentid=82108&stc=1&d=1369031431

Great, just great record! Well done =[:)]=MI1T!

Now I'll take the improvement in record time on the track. :thumbup: