I wish we had ANY of the features we had in FSX

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Opening doors, hatches and sometimes windows.
An in-flight map that showed Navaids, frequencies, airspace.
A Navlog that showed legs of routes, VOR Frequencies, etc.
A Fuel Burn calculator (okay, this one not in FSX but i’m not asking for much here).
Ability to easily switch planes or jump to a different airport.
Instant Replay.
Further VC zoom.
Remove a cloud layer.
Inject fog with a specific base layer altitude for approaches to minimums.
A Pause that PAUSED.
A more classic style menu that uses the ALT key for quickly accessing the menu.
The ability to change your flight plan without having to exit your flight!
Correct Taxiway names.
Taxiway lights that are on the edge of the taxiway rather than the middle of it.
An interface that remembered my filters and settings.

Seriously… all things FSX has - you know, the simulator that MSFS was supposed to be the ‘continuation of’ in the MS Flight Sim series- yet somehow carried over none of the features…

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Hello,
I have moved your topic to General Discussion.
In the Wishlist section, only one item is allowed per topic, as documented on the Wishlist page:

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Those things I really miss. The rest however are either not that important IMO, or can actually still be done, just in a different way than in FSX.

For example, you can effectively remove a cloud layer by setting the min and max altitudes as close together as possible and zeroing out everything else. You can also simulate fog by setting clouds to be at ground level or just above for your desired affect of “breaking out” just above minimums. You can also pause the sim for real by using the escape key by default.

And using the developer mode, you can teleport and change your aircraft.

I can understand why you would be annoyed though, and you’re certainly not the only one. It sucks to have to use dev mode in order to access those features. At least you can turn dev mode on/off on the fly without restarting…

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Since we are talking regressions:

Seasons
ATC vectoring
A GPS flight plan without bogus USER waypoints and curved legs

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If you’re playing offline with AI traffic you can pause everything. If you’re playing online with real-time traffic, you’re basically out “in the world” shared by every other player, you can’t pause that.

Opening doors and hatches already works. The functionality is there. Carenado have done it with all 3 of their planes. You just can’t do it on the stock planes. However, that’s on the dev road map.

In the last Q&A it was mentioned that charts are planned as well. They just don’t quite have it worked out yet. No timeframe was given.

Replay is another one coming within the next couple of updates. They said in the Q&A that the functionality was already there, it just wasn’t “customer facing” yet as they still had to develop that interface.

I can’t say for the other stuff specifically, but I’m sure we’ll see more functionality added as the sim matures.

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Amen. I’d put seasons 3rd out of that list, but really would like all 3…

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Most of what the OP wants in map and display is already met by the fabulous Little Nav Map, and you can even run it on another machine to offload compute work. Respectfully, it would be a waste of work for Devs to recreate that wheel.

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A lot of that stuff as OP has stated is already in game as others pointed out or are scheduled to be implemented. FS 2020 was just presented literally months ago. FSX and P3D have been around for how long?

Trust me, once the bugs and glitches are worked out (and yes, they’re getting there) and they have succeeded in having systems totally implemented such as the Garmin units, that’s gonna be when the “fun” starts for certain dev teams at Asobo while the coding team continues to work its magic. Contrails, touchdown smoke dependent on undercarriage arrangement and touchdown profile, night lighting that is dependent on environmental factors such as fog - all of this let alone what 3rd party dev teams will spill out over the years - it’ll all be there in time especially given FS 2020 isn’t operating on a decades old code engine. I won’t even touch how far VR is progressing since it’s inception. What a literal game changer it is.

The sky will be the limit. Screw what the wallet can afford. At my age I can’t afford to wait around another 10 years to see what comes around the corner next. That’s what credit cards are for…cough…cough…

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They have never said that Replay was coming “in the next couple of updates” or that “it only needed an interface”.

They said that had a system they use for development that requires an entire 2nd PC to work. Hardly something that “just needs an interface”. To make a feature we can use will require a totally different approach.

It’s pegged to “2021” which could be January, or December of 2021.

I’d add to the 'list of things from FSX I’d like to have":

  • Comprehensive documentation of how the simulator works, and how the aircraft are intended to work (what is implemented, what is not implemented, what might be a bug) so new people can refer to that to get up to speed.

  • Missions beyond just landing or trips

  • Supersonic flight (not currently supported by the sim engine)

  • Ability to have a ‘pop up in a window’ hand-held GPS unit to use with steam gauge only aircraft, if we choose to do so.

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Scheduled to be implemented? Really?

Respectfully, it’s a pretty mild excuse from Asobo. The OP was being very kind. All of the features mentioned were available in FS2000, released 21 years ago…

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Yes, really. You’ll have to take this up with Sebastian then. I’m merely the messenger.

The OP was asking for “ANY of the features that we had in FSX”. There are features currently present that were in FSX, as others in this thread have stated. Opening doors and such is available in the current SDK. The pause feature is available and will pause as suggest by the OP when not flying in real time. You can move to another airport and you can remove a cloud layer.

There’s nothing wrong with the OP’s statement. Myself I agree with a couple of them. But there seems to be undertones in your post that suggest since things were implemented in the sim 21 years ago why aren’t they now is just insensible.

Microsoft pushed out half-baked FSX just as it did the Me OS. Then they decided to give the axe to the ACES studio. So since Microsoft pushed out FSX and FS2020 was pushed out being half-baked as well (in my opinion) shouldn’t we give this team the same chance for improvements as FSX had? At least now we are getting a 10 year commitment which is more than Microsoft gave ACES. Asobo is giving us regular major updates and actually is listening to end user feedback. We’ve got the major players giving us live Q&A at regular intervals. The roadmap is available and updated for us to see. The feedback snapshot shows player votes and where they are headed on the list as well. This is far, far more than we had with ANY previous title.

I really do honestly believe that if all these wonderful things could be done as you say 21 years ago, that they are VERY capable of doing them now. It’s simply a matter of priorities - and the end users by using the voting system to provide feedback and raise an uproar here on the forums are the ones who dictate those priorities. Not Microsoft.

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I don’t disagree with what your saying. Just that many found it disappointing that so many features considered ‘standard’ for the last 15-20 years, were no longer considered a priority.

Relying on the voting system to improve MSFS doesn’t fill me with confidence either. After all, votes for superfluous things like Trains and Live Sea Traffic get more traction than basic functions like those listed here.

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I would like to believe all that. And to some extent it I am sure it is true.

But you know what bothers me the most? Monetization. If MSFS2020 was released as a subscription I would have no doubt we would see continuous updates for as long as people wanted to pay, in order to keep us paying, easily 10 years. But how are Microsoft planning on getting paid for implementing improvements? Paid feature packs? Bundling other improvements with DLC for major features like helicopters? It would be tough to charge us again for things we thought we already bought, so they would have to come up with something else. They definitely will not spend 10 years working for no profit.

Maybe they have a plan for that, and I hope it is a good one.

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Okay…fair enough. I can see where you and the OP are coming from. In otherwords, and correct me if I’m wrong, why weren’t these items such as replay and fly-by modes for example carried over to the new sim?

Yeah, I guess when I look at it that way I indeed found myself wondering where they stashed things such as these in the game menu somewheres.

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Now keep in mind I have no inside track as to how their marketing department thinks, but judging from - for example - the upcoming CRJ from Aerosoft may provide a clue.

The reason they said (Aerosoft) the price point was lower than what most expected it to be was due to sheer numbers. By getting the price point lower they propose to gain more by reaching a wider audience. I think this is the game plan perhaps with Microsoft branding FS2020 once again but having Asobo’s studios produce it with the projected units to be sold not only to the PC side, but gaining a much wider audience through the Xbox release.

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One thing which I really want is the ability to properly save a flight.

So I land, shutdown, save, and quit the sim.

Next day, I load the same flight plane situtation/settings/fuel level etc, but with the choice to choose another time/day. so I can continue a mission, such as flying around the world in legs, over many days or weeks.

I know you can sort of save a .flt file currently, but it’s very broken and doesn’t deliver you back to the state you were in yesterdaywhenever.

This really needs sorting.

And add to that the ability to change planes at an airport without having to reload the entire flight.

So you can fly in to your airstrip in your twin and then just straight in to your bush plane to continue your journey into the hills.

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Yes… but once you’ve had the big PC release and sales, and the big XBox release and sales , how then do you keep it going ?

The add ons market is not a lock in like Apple’s say, otherwise the community A320 would not exist. Locking it off later will cause outrage. You could charge for ‘advertising’ on the marketplace. There will be some upgrades - helicopters and the like. Without some sort of subscription I don’t see where the money comes from.

And Microsoft have a bad record in just abandoning people when it suits.

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There is no doubt MS changed their approach for this, their latest flight simulator.

Rather than bulid on previous versions, they decided this one will go for the visuals. From the very first announcements and trailers, this was being emphasised. To achieve this, they went to a firm with the necessary experience, who then to a large extent built the simulator from scratch. And to a large extent, they have supplied what they promised - the most visually realistic flying experience (if not always the most accurate).

But, because of this choice, many of the things present in the previous versions were omitted, as the OP and others have pointed out. From documentation of the basic sim (leaving everyone to work out how to do things either by trial and error, or by word of mouth), to main aircraft types (I loved gliders in FSX), a full variety of missions, seasons, replays etc. These were present (and for the most part working) in the FSX at launch.

They sort of acknowledged the limitations in the basic sim when they said they would support and improve FS2020 over the next 10 years, but I don’t think users realised at the time how much work there was still to do. In FSX I often got a pleasant surprise when I found something extra it could do. In FS2020, it has been the reverse, expecting it to do something, and then finding it can’t, or finding a “known bug” not even scheduled to be fixed yet.

In retrospect, I think they made a mistake concentrating so much on the scenery, at the expense of a true flying experience. At the current rate of progress, I don’t believe they will ever get all the problems fixed, and it seems they don’t even intend trying to replicate all the good features of previous sims now missing in FS2020.

But I may be proved wrong, if I wait long enough.

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Please explain to me how to pause the game when I’m on offline traffic and weather. Earlier it was suggested to fully pause the sim using the ‘pause on’ and ‘pause off’ bindings. This is false, the sim continues. You see clouds moving, traffic moving and the time continues.

and even if there is a full pause in the sim, which there is not, I feel like the full pause should be the standard pause instead of the ‘active pause’.

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You can get the list of navlogs whilst flying just go to the top of the screen if you click on the settings bit where you choose what items you want displayed there is a navlog icon