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.
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?
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.
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.
- 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.
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.
On the TBM-930 (did not test with others), the timer still running when I’m on “Pause” with the “pause” button or by pressing escape. What is very annoying if you need to pause for a while. The time you spent for your flight is then totally wrong.3
When on active pause, I think the aircraft systems are still flying even though the graphics/position is not changing. It therefore makes sense that the timer continues to operate along with the other systems. This has been a complaint since at lease Alpha 4.
There is a ‘half’ workaround for this listed here reference another mappable key command for a more traditional (but not quite) pause option:
The reason it’s called “Active Pause” is entirely that - everything remains active except for your aircraft position, and I presume it allows you to adjust your avionics etc. which can be useful for learning & practising during a busy approach etc.
I also see the value of a true pause, but I wonder if they took this approach to avoid trouble with some of the multiplayer aspects. For example, if you use “Live” mode I believe you’re locked to using real world time. This is the option that says it gives the most authentic experience. How then should the game respond if you pause it mid-flight? Your in-game time will start to fall behind everyone else’s; maybe that has implications which we aren’t aware of yet. These are my thoughts as a new user anyway. I don’t have the experience of the Alpha/Beta testers.
I hope we will see a simpler/clearer approach to the pause options in future, even if it somehow differs by the ‘online’ mode selected, but I’m sure there are some reasons for their design choices.
Active pause is probably nice to take some videos and watch the nice weather evolve. From a practical flying POV I find it rather annoying though.
If you’re in a climb you might end up in a stall. If you’re descending, prepare to find yourself in an overspeed situation. If you are away for a while, better watch out for a nearby field as you might have run out of fuel.
The actual „pause“ feature (Esc) always brings the menu up.
In all earlier versions we could just pause, hence halt the sim. Still being able to manipulate controls and use all cameras.
