Would you purchase a flight sim...

...if you thought it was the perfect sim (aircraft, theater, gameplay) except that you were limited to staying in the cockpit with no external views?

Just thinking out loud while doing a little reminiscing...
New combat jet simulators preferences poll

I'm not sure I have ever played a sim where we couldn't use external views. Even Gunship from 1986 had a tower cam, I think...

I know Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer did, as did the original Microsoft Flight Sim, of some sorts.

I would not for the simple reason that real pilots in real planes have much better visibility than any flight simmer has while staring at a computer monitor even with the aid of Track IR or VR. Prohibiting the use of any external views would just be adding an artificial difficulty to the sim.

MicroProse's Project: Stealth Fighter for the C64, I think.

Imagine how much excruciating detail would never have to be modeled with having no external views (time, resources, etc.), all out-of-canopy graphics limited only to what the pilot can see.

Fair point. Sometimes we cheat with external views to make up for what we lack behind a screen.

...but the aircraft still needs targets though - so "externals" of other aircraft will need to be done regardless (including wingmen). That being the case, then there is no point in excluding externals for the player craft as it will ultimately need to be done anyway.

Yes indeed. This is the way I already play. Elite, BMS, Silent Hunter. I don't use externals.

Another good point, Redwolf. Plus, any military pilot is going to have excellent vision.

I had played a Flight Sim without external views granted no combat Flight sim. Back when Flight Sims were New and Pc's sims were young. It was a walk in with a Flight prep Operations room. A darken hallway led to individual Flight cockpits {,no seats had to stand up ) Tower and GCA operator's Big Screen projections. The flight prep included Flight plan, maps, different freq's when talking in air and air to ground a nice fantasy for an hour or so complete with flight overalls and helmet ( one side fits all ) Radio talk was exact Ready for departure, on the roll, number in take off Ect, All the real Airplane talk.
I only went one time because when suiting up a off duty police man was there to fly wearing his gun, Someone asked why the gun and he said in case he crashed while over enemy areas.

I don't either, but I can see now where a developer would still have to create such detailed graphics regardless. I'm just stuck in my old habit of staying in the pit (going back to F-117 where you had to keep heads down in the MFD screens to survive).

Wow, carrick58!

I bet some of you civilian sim diehards remember, many years back, a guy had developed a long-time successful 747(?) flight sim for PC (DOS) with no outside graphics at all! It lasted long enough to get a Windows port, but that's the last I heard of it. It was featured in one of my PC Pilot magazines, if I find it later I'll mention it.

I'm not sure I could give up external views but if the gameplay was solid enough I'd still like to see a Falklands conflict based sim.

As an aside,I don't use external views for E:D or SC but I have no problem flying in external views in all my flight sims.

I wouldn’t mind no external views while flying the sim if some sort of replay track does allow for externals

Cheers,
Slug

Only if it had the kind of advanced VR interface that probably won't be available to hobbyists for many years.

Now I'm reminded of my second sim (and the reason I found SimHQ), Graphsim's 'Hornet Korea'. Their F-18 sim had the most useful and lightweight recorder/playback system. It was always on, never seemed to bog down resources, and created a very small 'tape' file if you chose at the end of a mission to save it. The playback was full screen/full resolution with no VCR button clutter, the replay looking exactly as when you flew the mission, except that you could change to any view that was supported in normal play. You could even do the opposite and stay in the pit during playback if you used external views during the mission. So fast, smooth and convenient (since you never had to hit record). Just an excellent system, IMO.

To just fly the sim, absolutely in pit only.

However to write/test SP missions/campaigns, external views/ability to jump to other aircraft is almost essential (particularly if you want to do anything more than a very basic mission.

There is also the skinners, screenshot artists, video makers to consider- and these can be an important part of a sims success.

These 'community' aspects can be very important to the life of a sim these days

Yes, IF it had VR support for an as of yet unknown VR headset with 4-8k resolution AND it had record/playback ability where I could access an external view.

I never...NEVER...do any serious "flying" in an external view. That said, I do occasionally like to get that kind of out-of-body-experience feeling if I'm just tooling around. I wouldn't say that not having external views available would be a deal-breaker, but it would diminish my fun a bit and I'd miss it at those times in a flight.

Assuming a good sim a lack of external views probably wouldn't be a dealbreaker for me.

However if the option of photorealistic scenery exists I would sorely miss it.

I always fly in the cockpit when flying missions... I only use an external view if I intend to take screenshots.
If a decent sim was on the market with only cockpit view and nothing else I'd still buy it...

The oldest 'real' flight sim I played (and still look at from time to time for nostalgia reasons) was cockpit only (plus a navigation map).
Free flight, practice interception, in-flight refuelling, practice dogfights, interception mission. All done with an analogue control input mapped from keyboard controls (twin throttles, rudder, elevators and ailerons, flaps, landing gear, airbrakes, drogue chute etc (or apparently a digital joystick, but I didn't own one back in 1988)). Had a nice 'gun camera' which auto recorded any tracking of a target within weapons parameters, or on pressing the camera key. G load limits (with varied with fuel load), stall - around a dozen recognisable aircraft as targets or support aircraft - Victor, Valiant, Vulcan, SR71, Backfire ~ Lightning, F4, F16, F104, Tornado, Mirage (III?), MiG 23. A dogfight AI which was fairly competent, but didn't obviously cheat or suffer unreasonable (not platform appropriate) performance penalties compared to the player aircraft (aside from unlimited fuel?)... which made stretching the low fuel supply a major part of any successful session. Afterburners chew through the fuel supply rapidly, and acceleration on unloading was brisk to the point of being a common problem resulting in controlled flight into terrain.

Lightning Simulator ~ and all for the low-low price of £1.99 on initial release on cassette.

I have vastly preferred to play from within the cockpit whenever look controls are sufficiently adequate (anything worse than a game from 1988 is fairly inexcusable though, even one as well coded as this was).

Yep. Flying, pit only. Mission building, skinning, modding etc, externals are a must.

I guess I would (buy this imaginary flight sim). I use external most usually for marveling at whatever I'm flying, this is especially nice in DCS when there's a lot of sitting waiting to get somewhere and the models & rendering & lighting is so good. But I never do any actual "work" from external, that's always cockpit only, pretty much enforced in DCS by how lovely the cockpits are and all the functionality that's tied to them.

I guess this imaginary FS could have the feature that it is strictly 1st person, and allow you to walk around outside the plane on the pan & get the kicks that way?

Lots of things I hadn't thought of in these responses, thanks.