There are number of aircraft addons now that feature all, or some of these things. I wondered how important these things are to people when choosing an aircraft addon?
Personally I like to vary up my flights a lot, so persistent wear & tear, failures, and state saving just aren’t that important to me. I do love good systems depth though, especially when it comes to engine management.
What about you?
I’m not hardcore enough to want more problems than I already have, so wear and tear and failures are very low down on my priority list. However, state saving is something I’m very interested in because I like to do long multi-day or even multi-month trips and it’s that little bit nicer to come back to the plane and find everything the way I left it. I don’t necessarily need every switch in the same place, but fuel state is quite important to me.
I wouldn’t mind either if the sim could remember where I parked and load me back in at the same place, that would be just fantastic.
State saving is perhaps my number one priority for the reasons mentioned above. It gives you a reason to go through the checklists more thoroughly too. I really don’t like or understand the very partial state saving of the analog Bonanza.
I think Just Flight (amongst others) strike a good balance, providing options for various aircraft states in their onboard tablet.
I love the persistent wear/tear and state saving on the Blackbird C310R. Makes me care about flying it by the numbers, doing the checklists and keeping an eye on those gauges. I’m doing a big round the continent trip in it. Makes it so much more enjoyable and keeps me involved in the plane.
For planes I occasionally hop into I don’t care as much.
I agree with that - in and of itself wear and tear and ‘state saving’ to me feels disconnected to the general use of flight sim and the ‘free flight’ mode.
But those features would be well suited to a ‘career mode’ or similar.
For me all those features do is highlight the fact that MSFS doesn’t offer that aspect.
Would love a career mode similar to what ‘Flight’ offered or American Truck Simulator is built around.
Having a base airfield, a hanger, a flying service, a livery, ability to acquire new equipment, hire pilots and ground crew, expand area of operations and so on would make ‘state saving’ and aircraft maintenance not only appreciated but required.
As it is those things are more a nuisance than a feature. In ‘free flight’ and with MSFS in general I just want to pick a plane and a location and fly without interruption.
I would love a bona fide built in career mode to select in MSFS though - have some continuity and sense of purpose in the sim.
When you load ATS and see the accumulated wealth or bank balance, check the map and see where all your company garages are, go through all the trucks and trailers to check maintenance and make sure they’re all painted in the company colors, check the driver records and current contracts and jobs progress you feel more connected to the experience. Not just picking a truck at random and driving from A - B wash rinse repeat. You’re running a show. As a former ‘shot-caller’ when I was a working man, that aspect of any ‘world sim’ like MSFS is the most compelling for me.
I love state saving aspects of planes that have it.
I follow checklists from start to finish (always cold and dark to cold and dark) so leaving the plane how I left it is a bonus.
I never leave the sim between take offs and landings, so the plane stays as is / where is during the days flying which is nice but if I do have to shut down I enjoy it being where I left off.
For flying Airliners for the VA, I would like a randomization (somewhat realistic switch positions) where the previous flight crew would have left the plane at the gate before I got into it.
As for failures, I don’t use them but have had them occur do to glitches. That gets fun as I fly on VATSIM and twice now have had to call in emergency’s and get diverted.
Once in the CRJ when I lost all electronics. And just the other day in the 414 when I lost the right engine.
I don’t mind depth, but the planes I fly aren’t very deep anyway. I welcome a detailed startup sequence, but the last thing I want is to spend time programming a virtual FMC before I even start the engines. If I have a glass cockpit, then I can just set a -D> course and fly that. But even better, my latest favorite is the Stage 2 Turbo Porter. In that one, I’m rediscovering the fun of radio navigation. I’m really hoping the upcoming Dash 7 has the option to fly without an FMC.
Yes please.
The more the better. Be that state saving randomised failures or the need to consider maintenance. It would be really amazing if a Dev were to to the the length of making a walk round necessary.
Why? Well these are all things that embed good habits that are integral to the safety culture that is such a big part of aviation. You might go through the motions of monitoring your engine dials if the engine is never going to get an oil leak or blocked line, but you WILL if it can happen.
I find the absence of random failures a particularly puzzling absence from the core sim, as there is a pretty good failure engine there already. And how many people use the ‘wear and tear’ sliders right there in customisation?
There are no shortage of aircraft to fly in the sim from the very simple through to the full on jetliner. I don’t think seeing more complexity at the top end is going to shut anyone out.
What I would love to see is the increased fidelity coming from greater depth on smaller GA aircraft rather than the breadth of systems demanded by an airliner. The BB 310R and WB 172 are very strong contenders for the crown of realism right now.
totally depends on my mood. Sometimes I relly love that attention to detail and realism. And sometimes I just like to zoom around a little no regard to safety, rules or regulations.
I agree that a real integrated career mode (from flight student to airline captain incl. simulated economy with free career choices) would be great and would make those aircraft features more immersive
Having recently purchased my first aircraft, the Milviz 310R on Xbox with state saving and wear/tear features, going forward I will look out for these things on any of my future purchases.
I wouldn’t say they are a must, but I certainly think they good, love the state saving on the Milviz, great for those that do world tours, makes the aircraft feel a little more “owned” by you and to take care of it, with the added wear and tear.
If I did world tours or tours of significant length, then I would definitely see a benefit to state saving and persistent wear. But I like to change it up so frequently, that I pretty much use a different plane for every flight.
When it comes to systems depth in MSFS, my personal preference is for addons that provide highly accurate and detailed simulations of the various aircraft systems. This includes everything from the fuel system to the hydraulic system, electrical system, and engine management.
For example, in a typical airliner addon, I expect to have access to detailed information about the various engine parameters such as the thrust, EGT, N1, N2, and fuel flow. I also want to be able to control the engine thrust reversers and accurately simulate the startup, taxi, and shutdown procedures.
In terms of the fuel system, I want to be able to accurately manage the fuel load and balance, and also to have access to detailed information about the fuel pumps, valves, and filters. Additionally, I want to be able to simulate the various fuel system failures that can occur in real-world aircraft.
For the hydraulic system, I expect to be able to simulate the various hydraulic pumps, valves, and actuators, and to have access to detailed information about the hydraulic system pressure and flow rates.
In terms of the electrical system, I want to be able to accurately simulate the various electrical generators, batteries, and bus bars, and to have access to detailed information about the electrical system load and power distribution.
Overall, my preference for highly accurate and detailed systems simulations is driven by my desire to fully understand and control every aspect of the aircraft, and to be able to simulate real-world airline operations as accurately as possible.
So far, The Fenix A320 has pumped up my energy to the roof.
There are times it’s fun to do startup-to-shutdown. But sometimes I just want to start on the runway and simulate flight. A lot of folks on this forum like to play “Microsoft Systems Simulator.” Generally if I don’t have a ton of time. I’m fine to start “ready to take off” and just enjoy the action.
It’s nice to have all of the system there for navigation, etc. I’ve never wished a fuse would work in a plane where that isn’t simulated.
I want a plane that lets me:
#3 is fun, and what I think a lot of the prolific posters here want. For me, it’s something to dabble in very occasionally when the weather’s really terrible in the real world and I have time to kill.
Mostly I want #1, or maybe #1 with a cold-and-dark start if I’m learning a new plane. I want to fly the plane. Sure, it’s very cool I can learn to use VNAV and autoland and stuff – I like learning about real aviation. But for my weekday evening fun, I’d rather fly the dang plane. Give me a Norseman or DC-3 or F-15 and let me fly from place to place; that experience is what’s exciting.
My favorite planes are the ones that offer lots of system depth, but also have tablets to simplify the parts you’re not interested in messing with right now, or that you’d have a copilot to help with IRL. Those can make everyone happy.
But if someone wants to do a simpler version of a niche plane, what I don’t appreciate are the folks who are hardcore into systems simulations coming down on them. I have a lot more time in my DC Designs fighters than I do my DCS fighters, because I can hop in and fly the former and the latter require some serious learning (and stupid levels of HOTAS setup). There’s accomplishment from learning the latter, but it shouldn’t be mandatory.
@BriL0ve and I look for completely different things in our simming, for instance. I don’t have the Concorde because I don’t want to deal with fuel management. It’s super-important to @BriL0ve, and that’s awesome. The best designs would accommodate both of us.
I never actually read into state saving much. I know what it is from X-Plane and previous P3D. Does MSFS 2020 actually support state saving. If so then I guess it is the 3rd party developers who are being lazy on not utilizing it. I doubt this is the case however because if it was not supported at the time being so far, then it would make sense why aircraft are not state saving at least the ones I use.
Not sure exactly if it’s officially supported, but it certainly is a feature on a number of 3rd party aircraft, and even some freeware. So it can be done.
Not a big fan of state saving. Unless I’m doing a cross country trip I rarely start at the same spot that I parked in the previous flight.
Well, I like it when aircraft have a large system depth and, above all, function. It happens to me quite often that I don’t know if I’m making the mistake or if it’s a bug. At the moment I am angry e.g. about the Beechcraft 18 and its autopilot error. It took me a while to figure out that you have to turn off the landing lights for the AP to work properly (actually when will this be fixed?). Maybe developers should also be obligated to fix bugs promptly, otherwise the plane will fly out of the store again. Alternatively, introduce a two-week return option.
Actually, all aircraft in the marketplace should go through quality assurance before they are sold there. In that regard, X-Plane was better. I had few planes there, but they all worked and it was more fun… except for the scenery 
I don’t use Failures at all because I only fly in VR. In the event of a failure, you have to react more or less quickly. Unfortunately, I spend most of my time in VR trying to find the mouse clickspot for switches and buttons and react much too slowly as a result.
Well before we go off topic and start another discussion about marketplace quality control (which doesn’t exist and likely never will):
Maybe this will help you with the D18 
I like to start a new flight cold and dark from the previous destination, so state saving really adds to the atmosphere. System depth is very important to me I find it rather frustrating when an aeroplanes engine can be thrashed for hours without catching fire, fuel flow is wildly inaccurate, flaps don’t break etc. Equally if failure happens it should be random and realistic in terms of cause and frequency.
Some I can appreciate have no wish to deal with all this extra hassle, so it’s a good thing to have the option of selecting a “No Failures” model.