Hello everyone ! This is a message that I already sent to support but wanted to share with the community.
i wanted to talk about simple and basic things that are just clear to be seen in real life when we observe the world, that some people in the community already observe and which seems to go the wrong way.
First, the night lightning life, and this post will detail you nicely what it means :
The way light glows, how cities or streets look from high altitude, how hard it is to spot an airport at night before catching the airport beacon or runway lights and as we approach the airport, the taxiways lights shows up smoothly and subtly with the runway guard lights showing up more and more, city lights glowing more than them while airport ramp lights (the ones which light up whole parking ramps from poles for example) are glowing as much as the city ones but often are the same color so we confuse them.
The post shows pictures and videos to better see what i mean with that description. It’s simple but change completely the night immersion and increase drastically the realistic part of the sim.
Also, a really big mistake is the night mask sepia that we see more and more as we go to higher altitudes at cities and even small towns which destroy completely the immersion and ruin the really good work you did with city lights. This may explain why clouds reflects too much city lights at night. More explained in the post.
Then, to stay in the night lights subject, we can talk about the plane lights. Let’s be honest, when we go outside or on an airport spot and watch the planes at night, we are definitely far from what is shown in the sim. It seems that traffic light (traffic on ground lights and traffic in the air lights) and the user plane lights are different.
However, It should respect the same behaviour by default. Lights being visible nicely from the blob source to the glowing/spike then the effect in the air (rain, fog, etc) and on ground.
For now, it’s even worse than FS2020, some nav lights not existing only having the light on the ground without the source on the wing tip glowing and the bulb red or green. Same thing with the beacon light bulb not existing at all (i.e. inibuilds A330) or with strobe lights, wings lights. The landing lights are the only ones which looks quite real but depends on the aircraft.
The traffic lights are almost the same, we see a bit better the lights bulbs lit and glowing a bit however the landing and taxi lights which should be the most glowing ones are not existing, only the ground being lit up. In the air, it’s only when it’s very close that we see the traffic lights.
Where are the landing lights lighting up the skies almost like stars, then as they get closer, we notice the strobes then even closer the nav lights until the plane is very close and we see each light source of the plane. Where are the taxi lights glowing when plane is facing us on ground with the beacon clearly glowing with showing it’s moving and the nav lights making us see the plane size with each of the bulbs glowing or spiking when lightning strongly.
And in the daytime, we should barely but surely see them especially when under cloud shadow each of the light bulbs lit even from far (not that far though) but still and more for the landing lights or strobes. FS2020 were already on a really good way with all that.
We could even add the road/cars/boats/etc other than planes lights, in FS2024 cars seems to lit up road but the headlight/redlight bulbs are not glowing like when we look at a road with a traffic jam and seeing whole line with white lights and other line red lights. Even though it could hit performance, at least make it as an option.
Moreover, in daytime, it seems that when on the ground, we don’t see the sun globe at all. It’s clearly glowing but it’s only glowing without knowing from where when looking at the center of the glow, there no globe and on sunrise and sunset it’s too subtle, we should be able to see it much clearly especially at these time, the same way FS2020 does which were perfect. Also, depending on the time of the day, the vegetation tends to be too green, like a “toy” green more than a “natural vegetation” green.
Adding to this, landscape quicly turning blurry when they a bit far giving underdone rendering of mountains for example.
Finally, and this should be the hardest part, it’s the traffic behaviour. I recall a FSX or even FS2004 with flightplan capabilities allowing people to make very very rich traffic that we could be spotting in the sim, waiting it as a flight gonna depart and seeing it pushback until takeoff or hearing the traffic controller about an approach and seeing the light of the traffic approaching until landing and park and which behaves minimum like a plane and not appearing disappearing everytime, having specific parking spots depending on their size and airline and taxiing normally without going in the grass or parking weirdly. Of course, we could add more of it, but let’s be honest, the minimum should be there and is not met in FS2024. Planes take off and land weirdly, flaring weirdly, descending very fast almost like falling not even following the glideslope. The issue is not the variety of the planes, but at least, first and most importantly how they fly/behave on ground and in the air. They exit the runway fast sliding or weirdly braking fast just to reach a specific taxiway regardless the plane type. They overpass the airport or runways as if was jet fighters passing over. They take off/land on the same runway from the same taxiway, just depends on wind direction however it should be possible to choose which runways are active for take off (with the different possible taxiways insertion points and for particular airport with turnarounds) and whiche ones for landing.
As for an example, on CDG planes take off from 26R/27L or 08L/09R and lands on 26L/27R or 08R/09L (unless there almost 0 traffic like a 2-3AM traffic). At Orly airport, take off 07 or 24 and landing 06 or 25.
Those example are not to be taken just for these airports but just to show that it should be possible for an airport designer to select which ones for what.
I really hope that you will take this into consideration as it completely changes the immersion and the sim ecosystem.
The sim has so much potential and there are so many improvements but in the same time some too noticeable loss and would be really sad for such simple points (maybe traffic the more complex) to be missed when it’s obvious.
Thank you for your dedication and your work, it’s really an enjoyment to fly in the sim and the career mode is a wonderful surprise.
Best regards,
Sasap