I finally found peace

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64

I think this thread provides a bit of perspective.

When MS withdrew from the Flight sim market, the mass of people who basically used sims for casual flight and fun left and what remained was a very focussed group of people using aftermarket study level aircraft, often in home built sim pits, to simulate procedures and IFR and ATC operations in big airliners. With things like Airhauler and virtual economies and live ATC like Vatsim it has become possible to simulate most aspects of the airline industry.

However, whilst I have lots of respect for people with that sort of commitment I personally found airliner procedure simulation and long IFR flights on autopilot something akin to watching grass growing. Like a lot of other people, with sims moved into study level complex aircraft and airline simulation and away from GA, I simply gave up on civilian sims altogether.

If anything the pre-MSFS trend to complex study level aircraft and the creation of what are basically IFR and procedure simulators created a barrier to entry where even younger friends and relatives with an interest in flying generally stuck with the military simulators like IL2.

Basically MSFS with its emphasis on VFR and bush flights and the huge selection of light GA aircraft each one slightly different and the amazing scenery has brought me and many other people back and introduced flight simming to myriads of people that had no interest in complex aircraft and real world airline procedures. It has brought the fun back.

Now aside from threads like this, that is not reflected in these forums because casual people enjoying trying to fly a Cub Ultra inverted under the Eiffel Tower are not generally coming here. You are more likely to see threads from the minority of users unhappy with the fact we do not have models of every airbus ever made, modelled accurately down to the point that a light bulb blowing in the seat belt warning sign will effect the electrical load.

Should complex aircraft and procedures be eventually modelled better? Of course they should. Should they be the MAIN focus of development just because the procedures people complain a lot? Definitely not.

For me personally the sim is great, I have literally never loaded anything bigger than the king air, even once to look at the cockpit, and I am having a total rort doing stupid stuff like this:

66

I loved your post, gave it a ‘like’ too and I’m enjoying MSFS as much as you do, but it shouldn’t stop us from talking about and reporting bugs. It shouldn’t distract us from continuing to keep requesting the sim developers to keep working on and improving the SDK and helping the study-level third party developers so that we can get study-level aircraft from the likes of A2A, PMDG, FSLabs, Leonardo, Majestic, Aerosoft soon.

67

Of course, this thread is not there to try and close the chapter of MSFS development LOL. It was just a personal reflection about what’s already there and how great that is for me personally (and gladly for a lot of other people too). I wanted to thank the team for that achievement.

Well, I like that MSFS has a focus on VFR and dead reckoning FIRST. That doesn’t mean I don’t want it to grow into a fully fledged IFR simulation in the upcoming time too. I really liked flying the PMDG 737 close to how real pilots operate it too, but that is and was already perfectly doable for a very long time.

For the first time I really like VFR flying over IFR flying and that’s because they designed this sim with that in mind FIRST. The level at which we are able to do this has never been so accessible and rewarding.

Instead of starting as an airliner sim and working toward the details necessary for rewarding VFR flying they turned it around and started there. That actually brings us back to the time of the early flight sims that only allowed us to pilot a small GA aircraft.

But they clearly show that they want that to happen, that’s why they put all those airliners in. There’s also plenty of highly detailed large airports with working jet ways, push back trucks and even marshallers.

Yes, I understand your disappointment for the release not including a more correct IFR implementation but this has been the other way around for decades for pilots who love VFR and bush flying. My over joyousness comes greatly from the fact that we can now simulate that real flight we’ve done around our local airport and the fact that we can go almost anywhere in the world and have a great VFR experience out of the box. And the fact how much the experience resembles the one from in real life.

This could be, but I’m fairly certain these things will also be improved upon somewhere down the line. And there’s nothing wrong with being vocal about that, did you make wish list items about the things you want to be better? Or did you upvote existing ones? Because that’s the best way to get things noticed by the team.

68

That’s exactly what people tell me whenever I’m frustrated about customers only complaining about the work we do. Keep in mind that this work involves a lot of creativity and passion, it’s not just cutting things out with a cookie shape. Money is not the most important incentive for a lot of people in this work field. It’s more about pride of accomplishment, bringing something other people can enjoy and just making something they can enjoy themselves too.

So you’re saying that it is sufficient to compliment them once for an ongoing process? The implementation of VR has been a major new function that changed the way I enjoy using the sim in a major way. It actually made the sim feel complete in a certain way for me. So that’s what I wanted to share and that’s what I wanted to thank them for.

About 99.9% of the forum is about that. Are you afraid that my little topic is standing in the way of that? Don’t you think that feedback on what people actually like can be just as important for a development team? I’ve encountered situations where I removed a feature from a software product because it was expensive to maintain and I thought nobody liked it because no one ever mentioned it. You should’ve seen the uproar it caused when I did so. It is just as important to know what people like and enjoy as it is to know what they don’t like and what they think is missing.

69

Nice perspective and hey, seems like we don’t need helicopters at all LOL

  • Starts running from the angry helicopter mob
70

No it shouldn’t and it isn’t intended to. But I don’t think they see people being happy with the sim as a sign to stop putting anymore effort in it :slight_smile:

Personally that would only motivate me to kick into a higher gear and to produce something even better.

71

My first one too, I’m there in 1982!

72

@WardoMon52, well, put me on the list of those who want study level stuff, but not for everything ever built (as I can only remember how to fly so many planes), though I expect they’re going to take time, and I’m willing to pay big money (within reason) for big planes. Meaning a 747 with 98% fidelity to the real thing is going to cost more than a 182, even with the same fidelity level. Though I’d happily buy both, and spend well over $100 for the 747.

And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with flying however you like. Most of my flying is IFR point-A to point-B in anything from a 172 all the way up to the WT CJ4. And I’ll add airliners to the list when they arrive. I also have been known to fly in between buildings in Manhattan, or trying to fly about 6" above the CO river at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Fly however you want.

But one thing I ask is that you be careful using multiplayer. (And not you personally, you anybody.)

For example, it’s just downright rude to spawn on a runway that someone might just be on short final to land on, and there’s far too many people who do it either without realizing what they’re doing, or without giving a hoot. I had one guy on this very board accuse me of thinking I was “better than him” for simply requesting that he not spawn on a runway if he was in multiplayer, because he didn’t have the time (or skills?) to start in a parking spot and go from there. Same thing for spawning at a place like JFK where people may be trying to do serious airline simming, and to fly all over the airport doing aerobatics.

That’s why I think there should be different “tiers” of multiplayer. On the one end you have “completely realistic”. You’ve gotta spawn at a gate or parking spot, with the engine off, and are expected to follow all FAA regs with your flying. On the other is “anything goes”. And you can have in-between tiers, too. And obviously single player is by it’s nature anything goes.

But other than multiplayer issues like I outlined, there’s no such thing as “doing it right”.

As far as censoring posts go, I don’t like that joe-blow users have the authority to do that (though it does at least take an absurdly small handful of complaints to make it happen), as it should be something only a moderator has the authority to do, but apparently the people who own and run this forum are happy with it as is.

But back to the OP’s point, I too am very satisfied with the sim as it exists. That doesn’t mean it’s done, or doesn’t need fixes, it does, but I have faith that they’re coming. And I’m ESPECIALLY loving VR. I’ll never sim-fly without it again. Even though it, too, still needs tweaks and fixes before it can be called “done”, if indeed it can ever get all the way there.

73

Last I heard (and that was probably a month and a half or two months ago), they had sold 2,000,000 copies of the sim so far. And I suspect that does NOT include those who were on the $1/month XBox games deal, whatever it’s called. And as silly as I personally think it is to use this app on an XBox, when it does come out on that platform, they’re going to sell an absolute boatload of licenses for it, and will continue to over time. Same with the PC version.

That’s going to create a lot of funds to pay for a lot of developers to continue working on this thing for a very, very long time, which is good for all of us.

74

Please don’t forget to vote and support these!

Help solving arcade and simmers players sharing the airspace with the help of a simple nudge
Multiplayer: display other players actual aircraft 3D models and liveries around you

and the SDK features to be able to integrate and use the Reality XP GTN and Reality XP GNS in these aircraft too!

75

There are 3 things we can do to prevent spawning on a runway in front of incoming traffic; turn off all live traffic, watch the in game map and wait for a break, or don’t fly. My choice is none of the above. I know that hitting another plane does no damage so a plane on the runway means nothing to me. It’s a game. On multi-flights we fly “through” each other all, the, time. It’s the nature of the beast. It would be no fun if we had to endure a five minute restart and a “slew chase” because we bumped wings. If there was plane-to-plane in-game collision, only hard-core simmers would play.

One of my best friends, and the only friend I’ve ever flown flight sims with, died almost 30 years ago. We flew subLogic on C64’s. I’ve spent years chasing ever more “realistic” flight simulation only to find the friendship and camaraderie of a group far outweighs whether a particular switch on the panel operates perfectly correctly. He would agree.

76

I may offer a different perspective. It is offering APPRECIATION for what the development team have created, and, appreciating what is available to enjoy right now. Worrying about sales numbers has nothing to do with how people who have purchased MSFS2020 feel about it - whether it was $1M or $100M in sales. we don’t judge OUR satisfaction of the product by its sales numbers. That’s for the finance people affiliated with the title.

Perhaps another point made was the paradigm shift in the experience as a user - Not having to spend endless hours tweaking the simulator platform to work on their P.C., getting scenery and a world that is amazing to explore out of the box. That experience is not something any other comparable platform has delivered until now.

Are there improvements to be made? Absolutely. And improvements are being made. It isn’t perfect, but regardless of the platform, MSFS2020, P3D, X-Plane, there’s nothing wrong with taking a step back and stating “yes, I appreciate and enjoy what I have”. Something for the “what’s next” insatiable crowd to consider once in a while.

77

I am also happy that I have see this before my dusty end. To me this game/sim is pure epiphany. And pure freedom.

I am still on my americas tour, now back from colombia to the central americas, and I have seen so much more of this countrys than I ever could imagine.

And, well, I see a lot of imperfections in every flight but only when i focus on them. With a very little generosity you can easy ignore them and have just fun (Ok, some like the poor Arecibo telescope should be fixed, at least in the sim :sweat_smile:).

78

I’m attempting to touch wheels to every country reasonably accessible in an XCub.

It’s been 2 1/2 months since I started. 52 countries, 59 legs, 107 hours, 11,724 miles. There’s a long road ahead. A long, beautiful road. I never thought I’d say this, but “Thanks, MicroSoft”.

79

Nice, I would like to do something similar, maybe in a faster plane though because I’m a bit limited in time. The Aermacchi will probably do as it is both fast, has enough range and the view from the plane is good enough for sight seeing. Still haven’t decided the full route I want to take, but I’ll probably go from The Netherlands to the UK, Scotland, Iceland, Greenland, hop over to Canada and do a tour of the United States. That will keep me busy for a while :slight_smile:

I’m waiting for the UK update to land though, as this is a great opportunity to check it out.

80

I’d completely forgotten that - thanks for reminding me to add it to my list of must see places in FS2020.

81

Water crossings are the worst. I’m in the middle of the US. My original plan was to go west, then up across the Bering Straight. After seeing what the prevailing winds are like at northern latitudes, I planned my trip going east. I also started out flying +3 hour legs, but have cut it back to 2 hours. It’s easier to find time. I’m going shorter distances, more often.

Give a wing waggle as you fly over Minnesota.

82

That is actually a fair point and I admit that I had not considered that angle all that much. VFR minded people kind of drew the short straw for many years. Granted, that may have been a technology problem, but VFR is pretty sweet with the new terrain system and I am happy for those people. I also like to fly VFR, but Northern Central Europe is my gig and weather is often IMC right now. So no VFR for me. :stuck_out_tongue:

But they clearly show that they want that to happen, that’s why they put all those airliners in. There’s also plenty of highly detailed large airports with working jet ways, push back trucks and even marshallers.

There are not many airliners in the sim. But I am more of a quality over quantity guy anyway. I would have preferred just 1-2 airliners with more depth. I am still not fully convinced, but I guess we need to be patient.

This could be, but I’m fairly certain these things will also be improved upon somewhere down the line. And there’s nothing wrong with being vocal about that, did you make wish list items about the things you want to be better? Or did you upvote existing ones? Because that’s the best way to get things noticed by the team.

I did and still do. Have been here since launch and around 150 hours logged, despite my griping, hehe.

83

Visiting every country is an ambitious project in an Xcub.

Note that the Bush League freeware Xcub performance mod has an option by editing the config to enable the auxiliary fuel tank.

NOTE: If you wish to add the long range AUX tank, simply open the flight_model.cfg file. Search for LeftAux. You will see the code required to activate the AUX tank. once changed simply save the file and you’re good to go.

https://www.bushleaguelegends.com/addons/msfs/msfs-mods

84

Go for VATSIM. It is rather frightening at first, but there are lots of good video and other tutorials. If you do, enroll in Navigraph as well. It is essential for taxiing and dealing with ATC directed arrivals and departures that you did expect when planning your flights.