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Aerofly FS 2: the good, the bad and the ugly

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Ok. So I finally had the time to do a proper flight in AFS2. Let me share with you the good, the bad and the ugly.

 

I decided to fly the route that Mitch suggested, Phoenix to Vegas. And there the first problem arose: there is no search function on the Navigation map, not for ICAO codes but also not for cities or airport names. So I had to Google for the places and also for what specific airport I should be looking at and after a while I found the proper airports. Not too good, in fact I found this a bit bad. What I did like was the ease with which you could select your runway and if it was the departure or destination. I do find it a bit odd (and slightly confusing at first) that you have two maps, one for Location and one for Navigation. I don't understand why they aren't combined. That would make the feature quite strong. And although the planning isn't too good the actual map and how you can use it to select a location, direction, altitude, etc. is pretty good. Anyway, the map shows VORs but you can't add them to your plan and when you select the destination runway it simply adds a FAF to the plan. Very simple but well, it does work. It's better than no getting no FAF at all and only a Direct to the airport.

 

So I set the time.Turns out it is UTC only... Bad. I find this very odd for a sim like this. Had to change the time again.

 

I decided to fly the Airbus because that is my favorite airliner and I know it from FSX/P3D so I know how to handle it. Started the flight and was greeted by mono sound. Yes, I am not kidding. MONO. Bad. (Maybe even ugly but well...) Truly amazing to hear mono sounds in such a new 'next gen' sim. I also quickly found out clicking on knobs etc. didn't give any sound. Odd.

 

Oh, almost forgot: loading times are TOTALLY AWESOME!!! GOOD! Very good! One of the best AFS2 features. I have to add the VC looked pretty nice too. I won't mind calling it good.

 

Well, I won't dive to deep into the systems because we all know everything is very basic. Still, I'd like to share some oddities. (Yes, 'odd' is a word that came to my mind often!) Like: you can turn off almost all buttons on the ELEC and FUEL overhead (the rest is inop apart from the lights) but... it doesn't have any effect: you can still fly! Odd. It would be better to not enable those buttons then.

 

Ok, take off. Some options could be set before take off, like Autobrakes (surprise!) and Ground spoilers (surprise!) and of course flaps. Even T.O. config worked! Surprise again! However, the throttle had no detents (didn't really surprise me). What I did find a bit odd but not surprising was that the throttle stayed in TOGA all the flight, at least after enabling A/THR. The latter only could be engaged after take off btw. All in all a bit of a mixed bag... Some good, some bad.

 

After take off I enabled the AP (and A/THR) but the plane wouldn't follow the flightplan. Odd. What did work, surprise, were managed and manual modes (forgot the right wording): pulling and pushing the knobs works and that's quite nice for such a basic plane. But well, as I said, pushing the HDG knob had no effect so I used the manual HDG option. However, after a few minutes the managed mode suddenly kicked in and the plane followed the flightplan. (Which you do not have to load btw: you set it up and it is automatically loaded in any plane you use. Easy.)

 

The MCDU showed a Take off page all the time: nothing you can do about that one. The choice is a bit odd though because it showed empty brackets for Vref etc. and you would never take off with a page in that state... I'd rather see a more generic page like navadate info: would also be fake but would make more sense. I won't call all this bad because we know AFS2 isn't a systems sim.

 

And now comes my first ugly... The weather system. Or lack of it. Apart from it being EXTREMELY basic (and by that I mean EXTREMELYYYYYYY basic) it looks like **** because it only shows cumulus in a VERY VERY VERY small circle around your plane. Everywhere around you you see blue skies up to the horizon and only a little group of cloud is flying along with your aircraft. I seriously cannot understand that those who do love AFS2 are NOT utterly annoyed by this. The circle is SO SMALL that when I reached my FL of 320 I couldn't even see clouds in front of me!!! And I had everything set to the max!!! Ridiculous. Again, ugly. I said elsewhere that I would be happy already if Orbx would release a photoreal region with 3D stuff everywhere but I take that back: I cannot be really happy with AFS2 until it gives me clouds up to the horizon (or where visibility ends) and a weather system (not necessarily real weather) is really needed too. The current system is UGLY.

 

Having said that: the view on the scenery was pretty nice... This is where photoreal shines. Well, at FL320 anyway. (More on that later.) Good! The white horizon and the odd blue of the sky were less stellar though but still, it was enjoyable! I can imagine people liking this a lot. Surely beats seeing repeated generic textures down there!

 

The system behaved a but erratic during the flight: sometimes I got overspeed while still using autothrottle but all in all it went pretty well. Of course there was no TOD so I had to manually activate descent. That went quite okay, the plane even slowed down before reaching FL100. the LOC button didn't do anything (although the mouse went red over it) but APPR did work and quite fine too. I even let the plane fly on AP until the GS was intercepted. After turning the AP off I could keep on using A/THR which worked a bit but not completely so I turned that one off before touchdown. Flaps and gear I had to take care off on my own. Well, again, a mixed bag but that was to be expected.

 

O, one more bad. Vegas. It took me a while before I noticed I was almost near Vegas. It looked like nothing, really. From a distance it looked like some sort of greenish field in the desert. Only when I was almost there I noticed the ground textures showed buildings. There were no autogen buildings at all. What were there were trees. In the most odd places. I can't help it but this is not just bad, it is ugly. Not only should there be buildings but the trees should be properly positioned. There were everywhere, on (flat) houses, streets... very bad. No, very ugly. The heart of the city did show 3D buildings but frankly, having buildings only there makes the difference even bigger: those buildings stick out too much from a distance.

 

Anyway, when I had almost landed I could see buildings on the airport and parked planes: that was quite nice.

 

Another thing that was okay, let's call it good for now, was the lighting and shadows. No cloud shadows though, as far as I could see, but I disabled the clouds after a while because that circle of cumulus was absolutely horrendous... If you see a good looking AFS2 screenshot with clouds they simply did a good job on taking the shot with the clouds in the proper position and angle...

 

Final conclusion: even when I accept that this is not a sim with deep systems, which is fine with me, a few things that should be the selling point of AFS2 aren't quite there yet. I really hope that Orbx can do wonders in that regard (not so much with airports but with the photoreal regions JV talked about): that would really save AFS2. But it won't be enough: specially the weather needs serious attention, from iPacs or another developer. AI and ATC, which iPacs is thinking about, may be nice and all, but please, work on the weather first... And if you can't handle it, at least make the circle of clouds larger, preferably up to the horizon (in other words: get rid of that circle).

 

I can see myself doing occasional quick flights with the Airbus: it's quick, it's easy, it's fun. I can't see myself really enjoying GA that much because of the lack of 3D buildings and oddly placed trees. Flying low just doesn't cut it. It looks too bad. The circle of clouds doesn't help here either. However, in area's where there aren't much buildings, like the Grand canyon, it might work out okay so all is not lost.

 

AFS2 is nice for a quick flying fix. It is sorely missing key features which it should have out of the box but I am hopeful things will improve over time. It has some nice things going for it and well, it wasn't money spend extremely well but I also do not really regret the purchase. Mainly thanks to Orbx looking into things... It's an odd sim, that's for sure.

 

P.S. or Disclaimer: this is by no means a complete review. It is based on very short flights during the past few weeks in which I didn't have much time to try things and mainly on ONE >200nm flight I did this evening. But given the simplicity of the sim and the little amount of options etc. I think it is possible to give a good and honest review after using it not for too long. If I come up with other opinions during the coming days and weeks I will post them here. (Yes, I am indeed planning on flying in AFS2 more often.)

 

Addendum

Totally forgot one good: the performance. Although... it was good but 1. without vsync, so with tearing: vsync made things choppy, and 2. I mainly flew above empty photoreal.... But for now performance seems good (i7 4790K@4.5, GTX780, 16 GB RAM, 1920x1080 res) with everything completely maxed out.

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Nice review. I was just thinking about giving FS2 a try once I have the new system ready. How about those GA flying experiences over their detailed scenery like switzland and NYC?

 

I flew the old Aerosoft version years ago and found its photoscenery although nice but not having a long lasting appeal to me. I quickly got bored with photosscenery without properly placed 3D objects.


7950X3D / 32GB / RTX4090 / HP Reverb G2 / Win11

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Thanks Jeroen for trying to sort things out. Not seeing that the type of flying that AFS2 encourages is for me but ESPECIALLY if weather engine is not real world.

 

Again, appreciate your attempts to balance the positive and otherwise.

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The place where this would be of the most use is probably the Aerofly/Ipacs forum. In fact it's probably the most likely place for constructive criticism to have its maximum positive affect.


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Nice review. I was just thinking about giving FS2 a try once I have the new system ready. How about those GA flying experiences over their detailed scenery like switzland and NYC?

 

I flew the old Aerosoft version years ago and found its photoscenery although nice but not having a long lasting appeal to me. I quickly got bored with photosscenery without properly placed 3D objects.

Let me start by saying I do like photoscenery but ONLY with autogen, buildings etc. on it. I simply rather see what is (or was) actually down there then generic textures repeated all over the place. I hated photoreal in FSX and also P3D because the available photoreal addons were without 3D on it and that just looks odd to me. Some people love it, though. But I can't stand it. I never get the idea I am flying over a city when it is flat. Mountains etc. can look awesome though.

 

Now, Aerofly FS 2 sits a bit in between. It is an attempt to create a sim that is fully photoreal but also has 3D things on it. However, as you have read, the 3D stuff is lacking right now. This means that low and slow GA is a no go for me because when you go low and slow you really see the missing autogen, only flat buildings there, and how badly the trees are placed. At FL320 you won't notice that. Unfortunately this also goes (IMHO) for the detailed DLC. It simply isn't detailed enough. Switzerland is sort of the same as the default scenery: most places are without 3D. And New York has a detailed inner city around Manhattan but 1. there still are a lot of missing buildings, 2. trees are still randomly placed and 3. the biggest part of the DLC, so outside of Manhattan, has no 3D buildings at all and just randomly placed trees. I have seen entire suburbs being covered with trees.

 

So GA in the detailed DLC's can be nice around Swiss mountains (no buildings there) but that's about it. I really do not enjoy NY: not suited for GA nor airliners. Only Manhattan is okay but that's not enough for me.

 

Obviously this is my personal opinion.

The place where this would be of the most use is probably the Aerofly/Ipacs forum. In fact it's probably the most likely place for constructive criticism to have its maximum positive affect.

Good one. I just registered over there and will post this there too once I have access.

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eh, the quality of NY DLC seems quite disappointing as you said. The inner city does look very good base on the videos made by Rob and other's. 

 

It seems so far Ortho4XP + XP11 is the best solution for photoscenery + 3D autogens. I'm actually reconfiguring my computers and severs at home for the purpose build a pipeline that I will be able to make and enjoy TBs of Ortho4XP tiles in the coming months.. 

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eh, the quality of NY DLC seems quite disappointing as you said. The inner city does look very good base on the videos made by Rob and other's.

 

It seems so far Ortho4XP + XP11 is the best solution for photoscenery + 3D autogens. I'm actually reconfiguring my computers and severs at home for the purpose build a pipeline that I will be able to make and enjoy TBs of Ortho4XP tiles in the coming months..

 

Yes, the inner city does look good, but what you buy is a large area with quite a few airports: the inner city is just a few percent of the entire area (maybe even some 3% or so?). The rest of the area is nothing but flat photoreal textures with trees placed on it at random (well, apart from the airports). And they sell it as a detailed AREA, not just Manhattan. I took of from an airport in the north thinking it was in the middle of a forest: while climbing I noticed the textures around me showed buildings but they were covered by trees. So yes, the inner city looks good (though still lacking buildings and showing odd trees) but the DLC as a whole, the entire area, looks bad. Ask Rob to create a video of the DLC area outside of the inner city. ;)

 

XP and ortho is indeed a good way to go but 1. it takes time and effort (I like an out of the box solution, 2. you have to be lucky finding a proper source, 3. even a proper source need work to (color etc.), 4. AFS2 performance compared to XP is very good (but that may change), 5. AFS2 only takes second to load... well, AFS2 simply has some nice things going for it but, truth be told, I won't defend it over XP because XP is still my main sim right now. ;)

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I have to agree with Jeroen's review... For some reason AEFS2 and XP11 are out of my disk for a while, awaiting better days...

 

I do have hope on both, but I still find FSX, for instance, much more complete / plausible in so many aspects, although I no longer use it either, that, actually hope is my only feeling for those sims right now....

 

AEFS2 lacks in systems, weather, AI what XP11 lacks in consistente flight Dynamics. AEFS2 lacks even more in at least having the right hooks for developing complex systems right now...

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J van E, thank your for your review!!! 

 

I'll be honest here - Aerofly is not a flight simulator (at its current stage) but simply a GAME! The truth hurts but c'est la vie... With more than 10 years in FSX, and another 10 years in sim before FSX, I'll just quote one of the FS gurus who I do support in his particular definition of a game vs. simulator:

 

 

"A game has a predefined scenery area map and does not alter render elements based on real world. While a simulator in many ways is loading up the entire world when you boot it and what you see on the screen will change in identical flights even with identical weather, traffic and scenery settings. As such a game can be benchmarked, Microsoft Flight Simulator can not."

 

Again, it's not that I dislike eye-candy in FS (being a low-flyer myself) but as far as I understand, Aerofly has a huuuuuge mileage to cover before being qualified as a standalone flight simulator. With all due respect to Orbx, it's not about Orbx but Aerofly which must comply to certain simulation standards before Orbx steps in.

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Regards,


Victor Quebec

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That definition is pure nonesense. A simulator is still a simulator, even if it just has a small predefined scenery area map. You could in fact probably make a much more realistic flight simulator if you restricted the graphics to a small predefined scenery area map and put more focus on the physics of flight, systems and weather.

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Simmerhead - Making the virtual skies unsafe since 1987! 

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You CAN add VORs to the flightplan, just click on it and it ask if you want to add it to the flightplan. It's not perfect, but you CAN add them and waypoints and ndb's as well.

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Jorn Lundtoft

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Thanks J van E,

 

I was on the nit of purchasing this 'simulator'...

 

However based on your observations and review here - I won't - or at least hold off! Based on the weather (or missing weather implementation) and quirkiness of the aircrafts, I'll pass on this one... at least for now and foreseeable future. 

 

Interesting review and observations, though.


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J van E, thank your for your review!!! 

 

I'll be honest here - Aerofly is not a flight simulator (at its current stage) but simply a GAME! The truth hurts but c'est la vie... With more than 10 years in FSX, and another 10 years in sim before FSX, I'll just quote one of the FS gurus who I do support in his particular definition of a game vs. simulator:

 

 

 

Again, it's not that I dislike eye-candy in FS (being a low-flyer myself) but as far as I understand, Aerofly has a huuuuuge mileage to cover before being qualified as a standalone flight simulator. With all due respect to Orbx, it's not about Orbx but Aerofly which must comply to certain simulation standards before Orbx steps in.

 

 

You are welcome. But, I'll also be honest here,  :wink: I also don't agree with that definition of a sim. As simmerhead said, having the entire world modeled doesn't make something a sim, and secondly I am not sure what is meant with 'will change in identical flights even with identical weather, traffic and scenery settings'... Does FSX or P3D do that...? Anyway, AFS2 certainly simulate certain aspects of flying so to me it is a sim. 

 

BTW I didn't mean to start yet another sim vs game discussion btw so maybe we should leave it at this as far as this is concerned: call it what you want but let's not get into it again.  :wink:

 

 

You CAN add VORs to the flightplan, just click on it and it ask if you want to add it to the flightplan. It's not perfect, but you CAN add them and waypoints and ndb's as well.

 

 

Ah, cool to know! Thanks! I suppose it simply adds it to the plan in a logical spot? I will give this a try this evening.

 

 

 

at least for now and foreseeable future.

 

Yes, although I expected that some people might hold of a purchase based on my findings, I do hope that those who do AT LEAST keep a close eye on it because I do think AFS2 can become interesting! To some it already is: it just depends on what you like or want in a sim. But let me make it clear once more than I am not putting ASF2 down: I will keep on using it for specific purposes and I do hope and kind of expect it will become a better sim in various ways in the future.

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P.S. or Disclaimer: this is by no means a complete review. It is based on very short flights during the past few weeks in which I didn't have much time to try things and mainly on ONE >200nm flight I did this evening.

 

Yes. An important reminder: This review shows signs of limited experience using Aerofly FS2.

 

 

That definition is pure nonesense

 

Agree.

oxforddictionaries, quote: "Flight simulator: A machine designed to resemble an aircraft's cockpit, with computer-generated images that mimic the pilot's view and the aircraft's motion, used for training pilots."

 

 

What does this pilot do in this video, that you can not do in Aerofly FS2?

 

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Thanx Jeroen, your review saved me some euro. We'll see in future, right now it looks like a slower development team even compared with slow XP development time.

If AFS2 only strong point is FPS I have little envy with my current XP10 around 30-40 with great photoreal and detailed OSM buildoings.

Who knows in six months, although I'm a no VR guy, easy prone to nausea so no way to enjoy VR in the future anf this looks the best AFS2 perspective.

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