Hi. I’m new, I’m about to download Flight Simulator and I’m looking for advice on what I’m going to need.
I would say at least get a simple/cheap joystick (around 20/30 dollars). It’s always better than a keyboard or game controller.
Don’t overspend early on. See if you enjoy it first. You can spend hundreds/thousands on simming hardware.
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Thank you. Silly question, is it addictive?
Depends.
it’s a sandbox (the entire world). If you’re able to create your own content (plan flights / scenarios) there’s potentially thousands of hours of gameplay available.
If you prefer a more scripted sort of experience, you’re likely going to be done with it rather soon (after maybe doing the landing challenges / bush trips).
So can’t answer that question, since it all depends on the content you prefer and your imagination.
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Looks and sounds exciting, can’t wait to get started. See you up there.
Really depends what you are into… If you are into planes, aviation, learning new skills/systems, etc. it can be quiet the fun rabbit hole. If you watch videos on YouTube about flights sim procedures and fall asleep it may not be for you. Keep in mind by default there is no mission or goals, so you will need to set them for yourself. But an early goal would just be starting a plane and taking off, successfully landing, understanding the planes operation, etc. You will need to rely on YT for a lot of the training. Little to no documentation exists. But there are a ton of videos for MSFS2020 and FSX that will help. FSX videos are still useful for principles and best practices…
To get the most of it make sure you have a decent system, and not the minimum spec they claim. You will also want to invest in some sort of flight control stick. Ideally, a yoke, throttle quadrant, and pedals. CH makes really good ones, that were fairly priced. Not so sure about that now, everything is REALLY expensive these days. Honeycomb is also a really good one, but hard to get these days. Without the flight controls it’s kinda wonky, like the worst experience playing a racing game with a keyboard. Might have better luck on ebay with people getting bored and selling their hardware.
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Thank you,
I do have an interest in aviation but never really looked into or done anything about it.
I don’t generally like computer games with a win/kill goal, I like interests I can bury my mind in.
I’m with the understanding that I’m not going to fly a 747 from MAN to MCO for a long time, but I’m excited to think that that can happen.
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that’s the correct attitude to have.
Just have fun with it. I’ve visited some places in the sim I’ve never seen before, and already found some new holiday locations for when this covid situation finally blows over.
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Be careful, it is highly addictive 
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I like the thought of that, can you anywhere in the world, or are some locations not yet within the simulator?
The entire world is in your grasp.
Some areas can be a bit less detailed, depending on available information (satellite imagery quality / clouds on the photo, and/or availability of photogrammetry data). But basically everything is there.
99.9% of the world is filled with buildings/trees etc based on that satellite imagery (interpreted and processed by AI). So your house might look a bit different than in reality, but it should still be there.
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Wow, amazing
What are your personal highlights?
pff, there’s been so many. Western Canada is amazing.
Recently did some flying in rainy Scotland, and it was amazing as well.
Alaska had some great sights
Landing almost on top of a volcano during a group flight
Coming in for a landing in rather dodgy weather in the USA (dropped through the top clouds and was happy to be able to see the ground:
Flying through some weather over Chile where I had no business being:
The options are limitless… well… until you run out of planet 
edit: yes… I take tons of screenshots
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Rainy Scotland, it does rain a lot, I’m not too far away from there.
Weather is another question I have. Can you choose what weather to fly in?
Nice tip on screenshot, I can imagine I’ll be shooting loads
Yep, you can set it to ‘live weather’ (with varying results depending who you ask. For me it provides a realistic / believable weather system, even if it doesn’t 100% match up with current METAR reports all the time), or you can select from a list of pre-sets (from clear skies to thunderstorms and snow), that you can edit later on. You can also completely create your own settings.
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A Logitech Extreme 3D Pro Precision Fightstick will be about $30-40 used on eBay.
This will give you the basic controls (power, pitch, roll,yaw) as well as other regularly used aircraft controls and simulator views.
If you get hooked you can upgrade from there. The Honeycomb Alpha & Bravo are IMHO the best $500 you can spend for flight sim controls.
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Live weather! Wow
Just checked out the Logitech Extreme 3D Pro Precision Fightstick on Amazon, £89, not bad to start with 