Stay on Topic folks. Thanks.
Just to be clear, AI is visible as an issue and they are working on it.
AI systems are “under investigation” @ #07, #13, & “planned” @ #22.
ATC is also undergoing an extensive rework via the WT team atm, and as that forms the foundation any AI will need to interface with then that dependancy needs to be finished first.
4 Likes
My wife loves to say that when asking me to do something that I know is a minimum of several hours. 
5 Likes
One thing that I just thought about regarding all the issues mentioned in various threads throughout these forums:
- Many of these issues are absolutely valid and reasonable requests.
And!
- When confronted with issues that should have never seen the light of day and seem to be either low priority or zero priority fixes. . .
It is reasonable for people’s “angst meter” to get just a tiny bit elevated.
However. . . . To put all of this in perspective:
IMHO the “root problem” with MSFS is the actual quality of the sim itself.
Viz.:
“Small” defects are more obvious in anything of higher quality and detail than in something of lesser achievement.
- A defect in a very fine, jewelry quality diamond is easier to see, and more annoying than one in a lesser gem.
- Defects in ride, fit, and finish are more obvious in a expensive luxury car than in a cheaper one.
So it is here.
Microsoft/Asobo/Blackshark’s efforts here are nothing less than jaw-dropping. Small defects in modeling or glitches in the AI are all the more obvious when we’re comparing a sim to reality than another sim.
Reality is a very high standard of comparison and it’s easy to get caught up in the glitches and ignore the amazing state of the sim.
I have a friend who has been a die-hard X-Plane fan since forever and who recently upgraded to XP-12. Based on his recommendation an encouragement, I also purchased both versions of XP and got back into flight simming after over a decade away from it.
I have been sharing things with him about MSFS and he, (a staunch and confirmed Mac user), saw what was available in MSFS. He was so impressed that he has just planked down over $2k for a PC system to run MSFS on! (Weather report from Hell: A violent winter storm and white-out blizzard conditions!)
It can be annoying, but just remember to appreciate what we do have. Nothing I’ve seen anywhere else, (aside from things like the Department Of Defense!), comes even close.
3 Likes
I sometimes think that might be the worst thing to do. Cus then you see the flaws even more readily in both sims. You play MSFS annoyed at what it can’t do that XP does well, and then you play XP annoyed that it can’t match some things that MSFS does haha.
Also, just reflecting on this topic title. Does having no GA traffic really completely ruin a flight sim to the point that you can’t play it?? Seems melodramatic to me.
3 Likes
+1
Totally agree with you.
With RealTraffic and PSXT no issues with GA and airlines . All represented in the sim including some GOV and military. As long transponder is ON traffic will be on your sim.
I use ADS-B Exchange to check the live traffic and works pretty well.
The only thing is a payware (RealTraffic). PSXT is freeware.
Material needed : aircraft models and textures. That’s it.
1 Like
Depends what you play the sim for I suppose.
If you like to fly around and look at the pretty scenery, then no, having no other GA traffic probably won’t bother you at all.
If on the other hand you are wanting to simulate a semi-realistic GA flight in an environment containing functional ATC and other GA traffic to bring a sense of life to the sim, then there not even being any other traffic at all would be pretty game breaking.
It seems obvious to me that different people are going to want different things, and that shouldn’t be a problem, nor should it be considered unreasonable.
1 Like
My traffic is still invisible. I see the lights at night but no plane in day time. And most are still flying 500ft above sea level. I have seen one actual plane in the last few months. This is not real traffic as that seems to be just jets and my system does not like it anyway.
3 Likes
Same here .. (Good to hear it’s not just me – I guess)
I hear ATC warning me to follow the plane on final, but see no plane.
I hear ATC telling me to go around – plane on runway, but there is no plane visible
(even if I am Bad and Land, and taxi the full length of the runway – for Debugging purpose, of course !!)
3 Likes
I see them but often distances are too large and they’re hardly visible, higher resolutions or zooming in can help.
1 Like
My take on that is “you do you”.
Some people want the realism that a populated world provides, and that’s cool by me.
Me? I don’t miss GA traffic as I don’t need the distractions, which is why I don’t fly multiplayer.
I wish there was more traffic, but I can work around the limitation. My local GA airport is so busy on any given day that you’ll get a finger wagging for taking up too much radio airtime if you use standard phraseology; everything said needs to be short and to the point. But I can live with it the way it is in the game. I fly on PilotEdge and that gives me a bit of a real world feel.
2 Likes
I play on Xbox but I also gave it a play on my laptop (Asus ROG m16 with 3070ti and lots of goodies). Everything has always worked for me. Sure I’ve gotten a handful of crashes but maybe I dunno, 10 over prolly 2 years owning it.
I see people complain over a lot of things. On gamepass the game is free for me up I bought the deluxe after a year since I played so much. It was worth it.
Also some people complain about this or that.. I have too.. but they’ve constantly updated the game and fixed a lot of the stuff I asked for. Recently the update getting wasm to Xbox so we can have some great planes.. but I’ve had fun with a lot of.planes anyways.. military jets and mostly airliners. A318/319/embraer 175/195 and so on).
Some people say ATC is bad. I’m not a pilot but, the only complaint I have about atc for me that’s broken is it giving you clearance to land then asking you to wave off and go around. I just land anyways. Everything else from taxi to take off I ask and they reply and it works. Sure it could be better but I fly out of KSEA Seattle Tacoma and it’s always packed and sometimes insanely so so I can see why atc.is just overloaded. Not atc Operator in the world could handle that amount of planes. Nope. So many planes it looks like a black fog from all the nameplates.from the planes.. like black clouds and a black fog is covering the airport. You can’t even read the name tags there’s so many. Nuts
But I’ll be getting close to the airport I filed a plan to go to, ask for clearance to land, boom got it. Got my vector, victor and initially it would even show like brackets in the sky showing the path to take. The rest was on me to bring her down safely. Then taxiing, refueling, baggage, food, jetway connection, and the. Off again or change to maybe a jet and go break some sound barriers.
But all in all, and I have t played vr yet but I can imagine it’s a treat after playing gran Turismo in VR. If it’s like for planes what that is for cars, wow. And someday soon I will. Maybe Xmas.
But all in all it’s given me msfs again. Beautiful vistas. Great plane experiences, and when I was a kid I wanted to fly so much.
If this is as close as I get to it, well… It quenches that thirst. I can fly anywhere. Anytime. On anything In my hangar. Concorde? Let’s go to Heathrow or Italy for pizza. Even eat some pizza after I land and decide where to go next to immerse me in the experience.
Woozy off the Pinot I decide it’s time to get some traps off key west in my f14. I feel the need…
And it’s been great fun and each time they update it gets better.
If I were you maybe take a step back and look at what you want out of a sim. Maybe xplane is for you. If you want msfs.. maybe try Xbox. It’s actually a lot of fun on the series x and just my turtle beach velocityone flight stick. Maybe down the road build a new PC instead of tinkering with the one you own or look around for a build list for what you want outta the game and build to that list.
All I know is it’s worth not giving up on. And once you play it day in and day out, I’m not gonna promise perfection but I rarely get crashes. I can’t remember the last one. I do remember them tho and I’d say maybe 5 or 10 the last year and I play daily.
Troubleshooting sucks on a PC too. It could be something dumb like a bad ram stick or your hard drive is going bad or it’s a software issue on your computer that is causing it like anti virus or even a virus. Or background stuff or who knows. That’s why troubleshooting sucks.
Sadly I played it on my laptop through my Xbox app, installed it since I had gamepass, and it played fine right Away it also looked amazing. Like really good. Better than Xbox. But Xbox ain’t a slouch and I still love playing on my series x.
Don’t give it up. And if you do.m maybe someday down the road.. give it another shot from a different angle. Don’t try the same things you did or you’ll get the same things you got.
The sky will always be calling. Wether or not you choose to answer is up to you.
I wish you success on your journey and the payoff is worth it.
The juice really is worth the squeeze in msfs.
4 Likes
Agreed, AI GA traffic is quite “Broken”, but yes, its really up to you to choose if you want to conclude that it makes MSFS not worth playing.
Rather than just give up, contribute, and maybe report to Zendesk what you consider are the failing, and hopefully, Asobo will improve AI GA traffic for everyone.
3 Likes
I would always advocate logging a ticket. A bit like calling the emergency services. Better to have multiple calls for the same issue, rather thank thinking someone else will do it. More tickets on the same issue may bump it up the triage list a bit, too.
3 Likes
Agreed, 100%. I’ve owned many of the MSFS series since the 1980’s when they released it for the Atari 8-bit (the 130-XE), and each release has gotten better and better. None of them are perfect, not even this one, but they have been getting better and better each time.
It’s also important to remember that - within the commercial, especially the commercial game technology space - the kind of scenery realism and what AI there is, is at the dripping edge of the “bleeding edge” in this technology’s application. If you want better, join a major research lab, get a bottomless budget from the Department of Defense, (or maybe the Department of Homeland Security?), get a monster supercomputer, and go at it.
Have you tried turning down the AI objects in your settings? You can have as many, or as few, AI objects as you wish. Or, if you’re flying Multiplayer, try single player mode.
Absolutely!
I absolutely agree with the sentiment of this posting - and I wish I could give it a hundred likes!
It really is a “is the cup half empty or is it half full” type of thing. As for me, (aside from the occasional quirk), the cup is overflowing and I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface!
Fly on, brother, fly on. . . .
2 Likes
I read both of your MSFS articles and I have to say I’m impressed! A top flight effort, no matter how successful it might be, and I am tempted to try both.
As a long standing QA person, (and a wannabe dev), I understand the magnitude and scope of the effort you had to put into a project of this magnitude, and it’s nothing short of impressive.
Thanks!
Thanks. I learned a lot, and that was the initial goal. We’d always like more sales though, helps pay the bills!
Please try the freebies, that’s what they’re there for, no obligation to upgrade.
As a long standing QA person, (and a wannabe dev), I understand the magnitude and scope of the effort you had to put into a project of this magnitude, and it’s nothing short of impressive.
Don’t be a wannabe dev, QA is extremely important and often not given the full respect and visibility it should be. Witness some of the ball drops in the recent WU13, which had some good bits but some cracker misses too (Pearl Harbour white water, Bora Bora mountain hole). Likely these were not QA’s fault though (I hope not!), I suspect more business driven “brickwall is here, just release it” which while I can understand I also don’t always agree with.
A little extra polish can go a long way, though you have to know when to stop as well. Nothing is ever going to be perfect, it’s knowing when it’s “good enough” is the trick. That’s not easy sometimes, either.
The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time.
—Tom Cargill, Bell Labs
If more devs knew how to test their isht better then QA might even be a little easier! (speaking across all development there, not specific to MSFS, unit/functional testing has always been an issue).
As indy devs, however, we get the joy of doing it all😂
That said, bugs will always slip by due to the nature of complex systems, so fixing them asap (within reason) is key as well.
2 Likes
As a SQA analyst/engineer for dacades, I always wanted to do some dev work on whatever the latest development fad was. With at least some knowledge of how the code goes together, (like a diamond cutter knowing where the cleavage planes are), I have a better insight on how to break it.
Nowadays, I’m learning how to program Pi powered robots - and no, it’s not as easy as the ads say it is!
The engineers there love me testing their pre-release code as I find interesting ways to make it do “interesting” things - before it gets into the hands of a bunch of school children!
3 Likes
This should prove an enlightening read ..
To date, I have not heard anyone talking about Software Test Specifications for MSFS.
2 Likes