[Feature Request] complete(!) offline cloud mode

[guenseli 1,588]

Seems a crazy idea, but I have had now more than one situation where I'd like to see such a feature.

 

I think about a complete offline mode. Complete in that way, that the sim itself is NOT running!

Take as example a flight over the ocean where I do not have time to sit there for 8 hours or more. Of course there's time acceleration, but even then, you sit there for several hours and even you are not in front of the PCs, the machine have to be running.

 

So, imagine a "offline cloud mode OCM™"  😋 where you start and calculate a flight and then, once at FL, you could switch off the PC. The flight itself is calculated then in the cloud and of course paused at T/D. And you get back then from shopping, start your PC and your flightsim and could resume the flight. Or play other games on this PC whilst your plane follows the boring part.

And then also combined with an IPhone or Android app where you could have access to your flight data whilst you are somewhere else would be wonderful!

 

Come on, ASOBO, this is the future! 😉

[guenseli 1,588]

This feature could be expanded also in a way, that other players could take over such a flight. Similar to real flights, where the crew (better said one pilot) changes.

[Noooch 1,084]

Great idea ! The option to pause at top of descent is already widely available, it would encourage many of us in doing long hauls ! 

I personnaly don't like doing long hauls precisely because I have to let the sim and the PC running but I would like to do it more often. Besides that, the preparation of such a flight is more much interesting in my opinion (with crossing oceans procedures etc...)

@guenseli Add it to the "what we want" thread 😉

[andyjohnston.net 617]

So many things wrong with this idea.  For one, you suggested an iPhone/Android app, which would mean working with Apple and/or Google, which Microsoft would never do.

[dtrjones 356]

1 hour ago, andyjohnston.net said:

So many things wrong with this idea.  For one, you suggested an iPhone/Android app, which would mean working with Apple and/or Google, which Microsoft would never do.

But a thrid party could with the SDK. I like the idea. This is what cloud computing can give you. It all ties into persistence and accesibility so I think this is something that could happen.

[guenseli 1,588]

1 hour ago, andyjohnston.net said:

So many things wrong with this idea.  For one, you suggested an iPhone/Android app, which would mean working with Apple and/or Google, which Microsoft would never do.

 

Should I count for you, how many Microsoft apps I have running on my Samsung mobile? And on the Ipad from my wife? 

 

Further:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2019/5/6/18527550/microsoft-chromium-edge-google-history-collaboration

 

So, seems not impossible instead of "wrong" 

[Nuno Pinto 1,397]

I just don't see the point. Either simulate or don't. If you don't have the time, fly to a closer airport.

My brain instantly formulated a "why" after reading the OP.

2 hours ago, guenseli said:

This feature could be expanded also in a way, that other players could take over such a flight. Similar to real flights, where the crew (better said one pilot) changes.

This part is interesting though.

[Dominique_K 10,138]

Isn’t the Jump Ahead feature I read about, for the QW 787, another solution to skip the long boring portion of the flight ?

[Tuskin38 6,481]

1 hour ago, andyjohnston.net said:

which would mean working with Apple and/or Google, which Microsoft would never do.

Uh, they have done so, several times, and still are.

[Noooch 1,084]

54 minutes ago, Nuno Pinto said:

My brain instantly formulated a "why" after reading the OP.

It is just more simple, it can be done, and I find it much more realistic than time acceleration which exists in every "sim".

At least with this feature you can feel the long time passing by doing other things without using your PC like pilots when they are going asleep while in cruise.

This is a feature, an option, which means nobody will force anyone to use it 🙂

Edited November 2, 2019 by Noooch

[guenseli 1,588]

31 minutes ago, domkle said:

Isn’t the Jump Ahead feature I read about, for the QW 787, another solution to skip the long boring portion of the flight ?

 

Maybe a kind of that, but with OCM™ 😉 you could enter the flight at any stage.

Imagine starting a flight with 3 hours duration, go shopping after one hour for 45 minutes or whatever and resume then.

 

47 minutes ago, Nuno Pinto said:

Either simulate or don't. If you don't have the time, fly to a closer airport.

 

But I also want to calculate for destinations farther away. Loading more fuel, let calculate for this heavier GW the Takeoff performance and so on. SImple at it is: I avoid long flights, because I do not have the time, or, if so: I don't want to let the PC run for 10 hours (and can't use it for nearly nothing else during that time) while just staring at it during a boring atlantik crossing. Whats the point of simulating this?

 

[Nuno Pinto 1,397]

22 minutes ago, Noooch said:

 

This is a feature, an option, which means nobody will force anyone to use it 🙂

Yeah fair enough i guess. And i wouldn't use time acceleration either.

 

21 minutes ago, guenseli said:

Whats the point of simulating this?

I don't know, i would just have the feeling of not having done it if i just jumped 10 hours ahead like mentioned above and possible with the QW787.

I do fly long hours (i have made several 19-20h flights) and i always let the PC do its thing. I sometimes minimize the simulator (almost no CPU/GPU usage) and go on using it while the simulator does its job. Somehow i feel more realized than if i just skipped the whole process and not enduring the actual time it takes to fly 9500nm. Part of the feeling i guess.

Anyway, this will depend on each user's needs and opinion, this is just mine.

[cepact 517]

I had that idea before, not for MSFS but for an FSX/P3D addon. I thought about an addon that would calculate the flight once you exit the sim, and when you come back based on estimations it would generate a save file of where you would be after leaving for X hours. This could be simple to do on default airplanes but it would require much more effort for complex addons like PMDG, where you would have to elaborate the save file for the FMC and all the other complex things that would change over time

Edited November 2, 2019 by cepact

[Superdelphinus 718]

I think it’s an interesting idea. Many of us simply don’t have the time for massively long flights but might still be interested in doing them somehow and something like this would help. 

[suncoastflyer 685]

7 hours ago, Nuno Pinto said:

I sometimes minimize the simulator (almost no CPU/GPU usage) and go on using it while the simulator does its job.

Take a quick tangent here, my P3D does not do that. CPU usage stays high when minimised as if nothing changed at all. What's your actual usage? If it drops by more than 20% I'll be impressed (for you) and angry (at mine) that my sim doesn't "work".