Please let us have a pause mode that actually freezes time

Official Microsoft Flight Simulator Wishlist
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Currently, none of the pause mode (active pause, pause on/off, menu pause) freezes time. It just keep your aircraft in position but time ticks on.

I’m thinking ahead to a point when we will be flying long haul on airliner addons and when we will be using the useful “pause at top of descent” feature many such addons provide.

I would like to be able to come back a few hours later and still land the plane at it’s intended arrival time. With the current implementation of pauses, however, time will tick on while it is paused and I will be grossly late when I resume the flight and start the descent.

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Yes, I think active pause is kind of dumb. If I have an interruption it doesn’t mute the sound.

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Yeah, a pause mode with time freezed would be very convenient for us simmers who do long flights.

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I would need to check in game if this works, but would pressing the esc key which opens the options menu achieve this objective? Or does it also advance time?

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Just being curoius here… Wouldn’t a pause that freezes time then conflict with all the real-time stuff going on. Things live live weather, live traffic etc can’t just be paused. I could see a freeze time working only if the sim is disconnected from the rest of the world.

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I’ve checked. Time still advances.

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Those live stuff can tick on, but the sim time can still freeze. Notice you do not need to set real time to use live weather?

In any case, I use ActiveSky historical weather (locked to sim time) when doing airline flying in FSX, and will probably do the same when such addons are available.

Having to wake up at 5am in the morning on a Sunday to land an overnight flight would ■■■■. But it would be a reality if the pauses doesn’t freeze sim time.

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Fair enough… I could see somehting like Active Sky working in that scenario.

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And if the Autopilot is active the plane appears to slow down and stall. Let’s just PAUSE the sim.

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It’s there, but not assigned:

- Search for SET PAUSE OFF and SET PAUSE ON. I assigned P to PAUSE ON and control-P to PAUSE OFF (yes, you need two keys) but you can assign anything you want, of course.

1 Like
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Time still advances under that mode. I’ve tried all three pause types (pause on/off, active pause, and menu pause). All of them don’t stop the time.

Pause on/off do, however, freeze the plane’s simulation so you won’t stall or overspeed while paused.

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So, if you have choice realTime (mode), I think its normal (time is changing -> weather -> other aircrafts positions etc.) I that case your plane is freezed, but world are still live.

Maybe you mean:

  • Flight Timmer?
  • Achievement counter?

Its anothers good question:

  • How ATC will handle it in realmode, hmm.
  • Crash accident vs Frozen aircraft.
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Please please, can we have a toggle pause binding. There is a toggle active pause binding but active pause is dreadful. I want a proper pause where the whole game stops, but still want to be able to look around. It’s annoying and wasteful to have to have a separate button for pause on and pause off. Easy to implement, surely.

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I have my Button 14 on my T.16000M Thrustmaster Flightstick programmed for this.

Under Options, Controls:
Change “Filter” to “ALL”.
In the “Search” box, type “pause”.

Under “MENU”, I have Button 14 assigned to “Toggle Active Pause”.
The description says "Time is frozen but you can still interact with the plane. Flight is frozen. I can look around in the Cockpit or External.
This is what you want.
My keyboard "Pause ’ key is also set to this.

The other “Pause” does not freeze time. My keyboard “ESC” key is set to this (Toggle Pause). It displays the “Options” Menu and options across the bottom of the screen. It had no Freelook functions on the mouse.

Are you saying that this does not freeze “Time”?

I see that the “UTC” clock on the PFD keeps running with either “Pause” or “Active Pause”.

Is the issue stopping “Time” or being able to look around.

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Use Set Pause. I assigned it to one of my joystick buttons so I minimize keyboard interface. Set Pause is better than Active Pause, it truly stops flight progression of your own plane, although weather, other traffic will still go on their merry way.

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Hi.

I’m looking at my flight stick and keyboard profiles.

If you want to use “set pause” you also need to use two buttons.
set pause on
set pause off

There is no “Toggle”" for pause.

What I wrote above in the previous post is exactly what is in
my Profile for flight stick and keyboard.

I don’t understand why we are different.

Edit:
“There is no “Toggle” for pause.”
Correction:
“There is a “Toggle” for pause.”
My Keyboard has this on the ESC Key.

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I had my message in draft and then I walked away from the PC to do other things before your reply came up. So I hit Reply after you but yours hadn’t shown up on my phone feed yet. Simply crossed posts is all.

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I can not see what is dreadful.

I just started a flight to check it.

My FS Button 14 is "Toggle Active Pause”.
I click it. Flight Stops (freezes).
I can Freelook all around the Cockpit.
I can Freelook all around in External View.
Click it again to leave Active Pause.
Flight starts again where it was stopped.

What is dreadful?

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Active pause does not fully pause the game. For instance, the plane’s speed will continue to change. And hitting escape pulls up the menus thus obscurring the screen.

Pause is proper pause, like any other game. But it’s daft to need two keys for this (on and off). That’s why I want a toggle pause option.

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There is currently no full pause in the sim:

edit: the ‘pause on’ and ‘pause off’ is actually ‘active pause on’ and ‘active pause off’. Just like you have many other options to choose between two bindings for on/off, or a toggle binding.