Just a pair of ideas for having a more real world.
Moving Trains. The real world (and the MSFS world) is plenty of empty railways. Where are the trains?
Living Volcanoes (I don’t say EVERY volcano on the earth at the same time). I know it’s a special notation in METARS, VA, that designs restrictions about Volcanic Ash on the air, I don’t know if it’s already implemented in MSFS2020. But I’d like Asobo to go further: render the magnificent glory of those active volcanoes in real time. I know you have the tools. Please!
They said at the FSExpo keynote that they overhaul the traffic system (cars, ships), maybe this include trains also?
And yes volcanoes would be cool. I think this mainly comes down on data availability. The METAR alone would not do the trick here since this gives no information about the source - so in areas where multiple volcanoes are, which one exactly erupted and how it erupted.
However, I can’t see volcanoes being depicted. There simple isn’t THE volcano eruption, so it’s extremely difficult to simulate. Eruptions vary a lot in size and the way they look and affect the surroundings. Also they are very unpredictable, change during the eruption and sometimes also don’t last very long.
Some volcanoes mainly spew gas and stones into the upper atmosphere with a little lava creeping out of the crater.
Others (like Tajogaite on La Palma) mainly has very slow moving lava with material actually being thrown into the air only temporarily. Those are sometimes spectacular but comparatively harmless to human life due to the slow nature of the eruption.
Then again Plinian eruptions (like Mount Saint Helens) where large parts of the mountain simply explode followed by massive floods of superheated pyroclastic material (and in this case melted snow turned into mud, called lahars) which simply inundate everything in their path… Those eruptions often only last minutes or a few hours but are by far the most dangerous.
Of course some eruptions can have multiple characteristics and phases. When Mount Vesuvius destroyed most settlements around the Bay of Naples it started with mainly pumice and ash being thrown into the air and falling back to bombard the ground below. Then the top of the mountain exploded and pyroclastic flows scorched everything in it’s path and the sheer amounts of ash and stone completely burried all buildings within hours.
A similar burial happened to the town of Plymouth on the Caribbean island of Montserrat
The angle at which the eruptions happens also varies much. Some volcano eruptions don’t happen vertically (the crater of Teneguia on La Palma is a good example. The crater wall is broken to the south). Mount St. Helens exploded on a flank in conjunction with a landslide, thus the main force of the eruption was directed sideways.
I agree. Volcanoes are a very complex thing to simulate. But it’s a pity to overfly all those dead mountains, knowing they’re not.
Perhaps, they should have to find a compromise in between the real thing and a decent visual presentation (eg. smoke, fire particles, etc). Something. Not dead volcanoes, which is what we have right now.
This third party train add-on was recently released for the current sim. It needs some improvements to increase train frequency, but the developer has been responsive and already has an update to try fixing that ready for the next marketplace update cycle.
For trains - It does not matter much to me, Won’t do much other then visual reference point on ground. If one flies low level VFR then yes having moving trains will improve overall experience. For those who prefer to fly high altitude jets/turboprops - it is pointless to be honest as 90% of time you won’t see it from high altitude.
For Volcanoes - Yes absolutely! Having active volcanoes would be very cool. One can fly site seeing flights in light aircraft or when flying jets it would be immersive to take this into consideration when flight planning to remain clear of ash clouds. Again really depends on how deep developers go in terms of simulating volcanism in the sim. Although it would be a very challenging to create them in first place.
honestly this was a post from over a year ago where it wasn’t so clear that trains are not coming for 2024. The “not planned” was true for 2020 longer than that, and since this is still meant for 2020, there can be (ok it is a very slim chance, but …) a chance that we get trains in 2024 (maybe not a launch I think) …
There was a time they’ve tagged it as Under investigation, then they’ve changed to Not planned. At some point they might bring it back to the table, but for now I wouldn’t expect trains being implemented.
Yes I also think that it will not happen for launch of MSFS 2024 as I said above, but later, why not. Perhaps they play the same card as with We Love VFR and pull the developer of the recent trains addon in - who knows … anyway, we will learn more over the coming month what MSFS 2024 brings at launch and how the roadmap for the future will look like …
… anyway, we will learn more over the coming month what MSFS 2024 brings at launch and how the roadmap for the future will look like …