I basically rage-quit Flight Simulator last year after stumbling upon some massive bugs last year in the span of a few days and took a very long time away from it because I just couldn’t bring myself to putting myself through the possible misery of winning the bug lottery every time my plane left the ground. Now…before you say “You’re overreacting!!”, here’s what led me to dropping FS2020 altogether (And remember, most of these took place over a few weeks):
The Citation Longitude didn’t have enough fuel capacity to go anywhere (I know this is fixed now, but this plane still doesn’t work…see below)
ATC sent me to the wrong departure runway despite specifically choosing a departure method based on the wind at my “home” airport. This issue was posted here: ATC sending me to wrong runway
ATC requested a WW2 Dive-bomber style descent in the 787, I missed the approach (due to pilot error!) and then ATC put me into a go-around pattern only to never clear me below 8000 feet once on the localizer and glideslope. This issue was also posted here: Missed Approach leads to near-desk-flip
On the second leg of a round-the-world series of flights I’ve wanted to do for quite a while, I was unable to pushback and taxi with the 787 because a) the turn left/right functions didn’t work, nor did nosewheel steering, and b) the front landing gear bounced up and down like a conestoga wagon when I finally did brute-force the plane onto a taxiway using only the engine thrust.
On this same flight (which went from LAX to Tokyo), the flight plan did a complete 180° at the International Dateline and was going to take the plane to Tokyo flying east instead of west. This same problem happened to a friend of mine in the A320, but he flew through the dateline and found an airport on one of the islands in the Pacific.
Since this flight was 10 hours or so, I decided to save the flight four hours in and pick it up the next day. Upon re-loading the flight, I discovered the 787 had basically deleted the flight plan from the computer, and ATC would not acknowledge any radio traffic. Even when I flew off the flight plan and towards Alaska to see if I was simply in a dead spot over the ocean, nobody answered. The plane had no flight plan and ATC didn’t acknowledge that I was in the air…or existed at all.
The last one was what caused me to take a hiatus because at that point it was turning into a situation where every time a plane left the ground something incredibly stupid happened. However, just a few minutes ago I tried to load the Citation Longitude to begin the same round-the-world trip by flying across the USA, but was met with a brand new bug where the starters don’t work. Needless to say, I never got out of the parking space. I also posted this issue: Citation Longitude starter not functioning
So now I’m at a point again where I want to spend an excessive amount of time in FS2020, but I honestly have no idea what the state of this game is. I work for a company that produces simulation software, so I know all too well that correcting bugs and issues is a never-ending uphill battle, but I stopped playing this for about 7 months and came back to find that the starters on one of the planes don’t work. My question for everyone is this: Are any of the above things I’ve listed fixed yet? Are we at a point where anyone can load up and fly somewhere without the worry that something silly is going to crash the sim or cause the plane to lawn-dart itself for no reason?
Why so much stress? It isn’t a perfect platform. None of the flight simulators are. But the more you stick with it, the more things you may find to enjoy. It sounds like you already have the sim? If so, get the latest version and go fly.
If ATC was one of the major issues last time around, why not just fly without it? It’s not a perfect system and not necessary to enjoy the platform. Just go fly!
I have a slightly different experience and although I had my (many) moments of anger, I found the sim “soft spot” that allows me to enjoy flying without stress. My two pence of wisdom:
Try to fly local, maybe avoiding big cities/airports if your system cannot bear the load and fps drop too much
Use a modded airplane (the great FBW A320) or a good add on (I love the PA28 by JustFlight)
Forget the in game infame ATC and try VATSIM or IVAO (what you like most, it’s your choice), or just fly VFR without ATC.
It works for me, while they fix the rest of the game I try to stick and enjoy the parts of it that work, hoping that the next update won’t thrash them too…
I only fly the FBW A32NX mod, and use the in-game ATC. It’s not perfect and it has its own issues, but I can live with it. I don’t want to use VATSIM or IVAO since that’s too serious for my taste.
And I livestream my flights all the time to my YouTube Channel and I’m enjoying it. I’m not saying it’s without issues, but I’ve managed to live with the issues and able to mitigate anything that it throws at me.
I’d recommend the Working Title CJ4. These guys are geniuses and if you like the Longitude this should give you a very good experience. I just ignore ATC. Sometimes you can get a good ATC experience but a lot of the time it’s just going to be awful. Been that way since the beginning of time, or ummm beginning of flight sim. Or like others above have suggested use Vatsim or similar but before using those I’d go through the numerous tutorials so you don’t look like a fool on your first flight . That’s the reason I still haven’t even tried it even though I’m sure I’d be fine on there.
I’d avoid vatsim. It’s only a matter of time before you have some psychopathic 12 yr old yelling at you because you can’t slow your A320 to 100 kts at 15000 ft and he ordered it so.
Is this based on experience, or purely hypothetical? Because I’m pretty sure you have to go through a process to be a controller on VATSIM; it’s not something anyone can just jump into and start yelling at people.
Multiplayer is a core feature of the sim but the “Known issues” page currently says to turn it off to avoid performance issues that occur if other users are flying aircraft or liveries you don’t have (including if you have rh Standard edition of the sim and others have the Premium Deluxe with extra Asobo aircraft!).
That’s pretty indicative of the entire piece of software at this point. Get a feature 25% or 50% of the way there and “ship it” to get PR with the social media hype masters. Then stare blankly and ignore questions in the Dev Q&As when we ask about th numerous issues. VR is the one big sim feature they have added since launch and it’s a half baked mess.
I happen to be a VATSIM controller and yes, it does require training and a process to officially control virtual air traffic. In so many cases, it is not different from real-world ATC, given the limitations of the simulation environment. Yes, I’ve heard stories of impatient controllers but most are here to provide an enjoyable experience for pilots of all experience levels. Using online ATC is a two-way contract - Pilots need at least a basic understanding of ATC procedures and controllers need to know the regulations and procedures, and, a level of patience and understanding to keep everything working efficiently - no different than the real world.
Current status of MSFS 2020: A 100 percent scenery/world simulator that no other app in the world can currently beat. Please check back in a year or two for proper, actual flight simulation, although I personally can’t guarantee it. Meanwhile you can use it now for taking fantastic and unbelievably realistic screenshots of the world.
A good aircraft: Working Title CJ4. Flight model and systems might not be study-level, PMDG-like, and it has no failures, wear and tear etc, but it’s way better than any default or 3rd party payware aircraft developed for MSFS so far. Fully IFR and VATSIM/IVAO/PilotEdge ready. Has a lot of custom-coded things going for it.
I enjoy MSFS and while I’m pretty much done investing into P3D and XP it’s very, very hard to simply give them up in favor for MSFS, I have way too many addons that make the experience incredible. I have Active Sky for P3D and XP and the lack of this in MSFS can make flying on VATSIM frustrating.
Asking others about the current state of the sim is not going to get any reliable answers that are guaranteed to apply to your own experience.
For some people, it’s running flawlessly. The caveat here is are these people using the same features / systems or not. Others can’t even start it up without crashing. And there’s a mix of experience in between those 2 extremes. The only way to get your answer is to fire it up and try it for yourself.
That said
most of the Longitude issues have been fixed.
ATC is still retarded, but not quite as terrible
pushback is still terrible. It’s best to use external utilities (like the free Pushback Helper)
I believe the dateline problem is solved
Saving your flight is hit or miss. It’s best to set up shorter legs and fly those instead of a long round-the-world flight.
. That’s the reason I still haven’t even tried it even though I’m sure I’d be fine on there.