Really disappointed to have to create this topic and hoping we can have a healthy conversation about some of my concerns.
I feel quite a few aspects of the core sim have changed so much or have been completely abandoned to other updates, that it has become detrimental to the overall enjoyment of the simulator. I understand we have had significant and positive updates and we can appreciate the work that has gone into creating a good experience. However, some of the following need desperately addressing in the short-term:
The world map has lost functionality and ease, since the simulator was released. This has become more complicated with the Working Title involvement as the World Map/VFR map do not always play nicely and it is a huge step-back from when the simulator launched. Things like automatic ILS frequencies, missing flight-legs in the map, sometimes strange behaviours between the two. None of that was there at launch. A lot of the ease of functionality has gone and whilst WT have done great work, the core functionality is no longer there.
The planes updated by Working Title have issues with navigation when using the in-sim world map. No longer does the automatic landing procedure work, with correct frequencies tuned. Often planes will circle near to their destination in a holding pattern, despite activating the landing button(s). That’s a big problem because again it wasn’t there when the sim launched and now requires manual input - that is actually fine, but that alone does not resolve the problem.
The AI assistance functionality is still in desperate need of a big rework/update.
It seems to me the simulator has been well supported by 3rd party, beyond the means of what’s reasonable - that is great and we should welcome it. However, the core sim is poor and nothing in the years has addressed my concerns. I really don’t know what the future of this sim holds, but I’m almost certain the user engagement will begin to drop if the sim does not fix its own house, before getting others to help or enhance the experience.
Whilst I encourage anyone wanting to reply, to-do so. May I remind you this is addressing core sim functionality - not 3rd party or anything else. This is the vanilla sim requiring massive improvement. Cheers.
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I can assure you that, as a very early user myself, the core game has never been that great, apart from some pretty good scenery here and there (horizon line, water physics, clouds and lighting notwithstanding).
We can only wonder if 2024 is any better. I’ve got 50-50 on “yes” at the moment.
VFR map is useless. Get Littlenavmap and you will get a map with all navaids, jetways, airport info and procedures.
There are issues and they appear over and over again. Last week I faced the holding issue on A320Neo. The navigation does not switch to the next waypoint and autopilot therefore keeps turning around the current one. Just check which is the active waypoint and either set a “direct to” next waypoint or simply delete the one where nav got stuck on. This issue appears randomly, not only during approach. I couldn´t find a clear reason for it at least. I can´t remember when during the past years A320Neo navigation and autopilot worked well. There are always issues with them.
I just use AI for radio comms so I can´t judge the other assists but radio is a mess and has been a mess since game was published. No single correction has been made to it. It has the same problems it had in 2020.
It is a matter of perspective and expectations. Initially flight planning did not work correctly (realistically) but did not seem to be “broken” as it made flight planning easy. Many of the updates especially those from WT made flight planning more realistic but more somewhat more difficult. These updates seem to have broken the original flight planner implementation. Several examples include flight plans that now have holds, discontinuities, VECTORS, and missed approaches. Flight plans now match what is in published charts. Many of these features were implemented along with ATC fixes and improvements. I don’t recall being able to fly correctly missed approaches or VECTORS when MSFS was released.
Regarding the AI Pilot/Copilot feature, it seems to me that it only works best (but not perfectly) on stock Asobo aircraft. For many 3rd party developed aircraft that I have purchased, this feature doesn’t work correctly part or all of the time. I assume those developers don’t support or test this feature. Some developers deliberately remove MSFS features using their own customizations.
MSFS has removed features that make it less realistic or enjoyable. For me, removing GA aircraft from Live Traffic is puzzling. While flying low and slow I only see airliners climbing to their cruise altitude or descending.
Yes, agreed. The A320 also does not have any Indication on the flight screen for when to arm the ILS - it is mostly vacant - this hasn’t always been there.
I think there’s so many issues with the core sim from functionality, world map to planes - that has essentially been abandoned over many years. If it had not been for the 3rd parties, this sim would have struggled big time. A real shame and the future for the vanilla sim looks bleak, the updates are not fixing or tackling the issues which they should be. Updates are massive window dressing for all the other problems that have built up.
MSFS flight planner and ATC can only handle flight plans based on waypoints. That´s it basically. The system is very primitive. If you have one based on airways for instance you need to convert it to a equivalent plan based on waypoints or enter the plan manually at GPS or FMC/CDU, which will convert it to one based on waypoints as well. Don´t expect from ATC anything else that a go around 10 seconds before landing.
Despite the errors WT made things as they have to be, forcing you to deal with discontinuities and having to manually remove them for instance. Asobo included those avionics updates forgetting the most important thing: update the sim in accordance to support them. That was a brilliant move, as usual. Now we have more advanced avionics but the same stupid ATC. Lucky us that they were the most relevant updates for this year…
GAs are not removed. You can still see some even at the smaller airfields. However not all GAs are reported to FlightAware. Without that they won´t appear on live traffic.
I only use the world map because I have to. The sim simply doesn’t give an alternative way to start.
In FS9 and FSX I had a single “last flight” file.
This is how I started every sim session, being automatically placed back at the same gate and aircraft I had used in the last flight sim session. Before exiting I simply saved that situation again under the same name.
You can do the same in that other sim with the X as well.
But MSFS forces you to this world map and will only let you flight plan from there. But you can plan with external programs like LNM or Simbrief and then load that as a saved flight. But you still have to use the stupid map to set a starting gate.
Other than that, I really do not see or understand the complaints of the OP. Basically if I could just have that old “ last flight” functionality back I would be perfectly happy.
At least with that part of the sim. There are certainly things that I do think need improvement. But they were not mentioned by the OP.
Are you using a mod that breaks ATC? I don’t understand what you mean by “only handle flight plans based on waypoints”. I create flight plans all the time using SIDs, STARs, and approaches. ATC clears me for a specific approach. They don’t give me a list of waypoints to fly an approach.
Airways and jetways are similar because they are a list of waypoints with an entrance and an exit. If the beginning and exit waypoints are entered manually into the flight plan, the airway flight path will be inserted into the plan with its waypoints. These waypoints are the same that are displayed in the FMC.
ATC has been updated along with the flight planner providing climb/descent instructions. In addition, ATC has been updated to upload and use FMC updates for some aircraft. Currently, the FMC changes are not shown in the NAVLOG, although I don’t know how much the NAVLOG feature is used outside of bush trips.
That´s not a plan based on airways. Those are procedures (departures, arrivals and approaches) and yes they are already supported in MSFS since the early stages of game.
This is one example of a plan that uses airways and waypoints:
P600 is the airway and BLACA the airway waypoint end. DTC MAGEE is a direct to waypoint MAGEE. MAGEE is understood by engine, as well as the SID waypoints. MSFS flight plans and ATC only understand waypoints. But you can´t use the P600 BLACA leg in your flight plans because it´s not understood by game engine, so it needs to be converted. Airways can be manually entered by you on the navigation systems and they will be converted into waypoints in that case. Navigation systems understand the airways but flight plans (and therefore the game planner) will be still using the equivalent waypoints, not the airways.
This flight plan doesn’t work in MSFS. Also, Navigraph has a problem with this flight plan unless it is edited. (Since Navigraph runs SimBrief, there shouldn’t be any issues.)
To enter this flight plan into MSFS, only the entry and exit waypoints need to be specified:
EGPH/06 GOSA1D GOSAM BLACA DCT MAGEE DCT EGAC/04
The reason why MSFS, Navigraph, and the FMC unpack this airway into individual waypoints is because this airway section has 6 waypoints and 5 segments. And even though these segments are on one airway, they have different altitude restrictions. The same flight path will be flown whether this flight plan uses P600 or the individual waypoints.
I know some pilots prefer to manually enter the flight plan into the FMC. I always have my co-pilot do the manual entries. I understand that having a flight plan using airways can save some time when entering a large number of waypoints.
I create all my flight plans “manually” using Skyvector and their waypoints and airways etc. I then export that as a .FPL file and then convert the .FPL file into a .PLN file with a program I wrote that also injects my desired cruising altitude (because MSFS can’t read the FPL files) and then load it into MSFS.
Works great. MSFS understands all waypoints and the airways from Skyvector. I then add my sids, stars and approaches in MSFS and define my starting gate, save it again, click “fly” and I’m off. It took me a while to figure out this workflow but it works fine every time.
Maybe you didn´t understand the point or I didn´t explain it properly. What I posted is a Simbrief plan indeed. MSFS is not handling plans with airways IDs because of the different altitude restrictions but because the airway ID concept does not exist in the game planner nor in game ATC. It only exists on the avionics modules and in the navigation database. You can create a plan in MSFS based on navaids or airways, yes, but game still handles that as a collection of waypoints with coordinates. Indeed if you create that plan (or a similar one using P600) at world map and save it you will see the following entry for GOSAM waypoint in that file:
<ATCAirway>P600</ATCAirway>
However in the SDK documentation you can find the following info about that variable:
This is the name of the airway that the waypoint belongs to. This element has no effect on the flight plan and can be omitted or any string.
So airway is detected and used during the plan generation, but it´s just omitted. Therfore plan will still look like this:
That list, together with waypoint given altitudes is what ATC will process and monitor after clearance. Indeed you can request altitude changes later on and ATC will accept them, even if there´s a restriction.
It´s exactly the same problem that happens with holds. You can create or see holds in your navigation modules in game but ATC won´t instruct a hold either. It´s only able to order a go around when it detects two aircraft landing at a shorter interval than the time needed to clear the runway basically. That´s because the traffic system is very simple, even if it´s fed by real online data where holds happen and landing intervals are much shorter. This happens because AI can only be queued by ATC on ground and they taxi the whole runway lenght at low speed after touchdown, which results in the go arounds.
If you go into world map and enter P600 or any airway in the search box they won´t appear. Only waypoints appear there. However game still has a navigation database, which is the one that the navigation modules use, and there airways exist. That´s why you can enter the airways in FMC and FMC is also able to detect the airway one waypoint belongs to if you entered the airway waypoint instead of the airway name at FMC.
In plain words we have an advanced navigation system, a frequently updated navigation database as well but on the game core side still basically the same primitive flight planner, ATC and traffic system as the game had upon release.
