Good to see some honest reviews from people with real world experience 

It's truly an insult to aviation to call FS2020 "next gen". Simulators should go beyond eye candy, otherwise it's just another game. 

 

Edited August 19, 20205 yr by maniamcool

1 hour ago, Sabretooth78 said:

Also, is it just me, or is there a complete lack of navigational hazards, particularly radio towers?  

I do not have the sim, however I predicted this. Masts, powerlines and wind farms are hard to see from satellites, so the AI has nothing to work with. I've seen some windfarms, but they are probably hand-placed (because they were animated).

At least in this regard, ORBX et al will not be out of work.

1 minute ago, MDFlier said:

I had to turn the joystick sensitivities WAY down to make MSFS fly "normal". I put the sliders almost all the way to the left. Felt wrong doing it but I flew the alpha that way for several months.

Yep. Me to. Biggest flaw in the flight modeling IMO. Adjusting sensitivity is normal, but to this extreme is something that needs fixing. What was their reference I wonder? And before people say it, it’s just as twitchy with a controller. 

Uhm.. don't want to hammer anybody specific, but seeing how opinions about flight model / dynamics from experts / real word pilots differs I can somehow understand why Asobo han't addressed all those that could have been sent to them in alpha / beta...

1 hour ago, mtr75 said:

I actually considered that possibility. No joke. But I will say also that the level of detail in the terrain is astounding. I can see the dolphin pen on the coast of Anguilla. I can pick out individual buildings that I know. The color of the water, particularly of the salt ponds on the island, is uncannily correct. But then the runway seems like it’s on a mesa. And the island is plum flat.

Uff, well. I am not saying MSFS isnt an amazing piece of work in some aspects. But what always riddles me is what people were doing during beta testing. TNCM is one of the most popular airports among avgeeks. One of the first things half of us will do is load up TNCM to see how it looks now. So someone really thought "this is fine"?

Edited August 19, 20205 yr by Soulflight

 

1 hour ago, robert young said:

Luckily you can reduce the pfactor slider, though I've yet to test whether it works.

Only if you choose the "legacy" over the modern flight model, which I assume reverts it to the FSX flight model without the multiple aero points.

24 minutes ago, bonchie said:

Also, boats are not underwater. What that is is the masking of the ortho and the piers and boats show up. The AI can not yet place objects there.

Yeah, but the visual effect is that of sunken boats. There's a cruise ship that appears to be under water over near Pelican Peak on St. Maarten. Whatever the cause, the impression in the sim is that it sank.

 

3 minutes ago, maniamcool said:

It's truly an insult to aviation to call FS2020 "next gen".

Good lord, the hyperbole and hysteria on this site...

2 minutes ago, dilore said:

I do not have the sim, however I predicted this. Masts, powerlines and wind farms are hard to see from satellites, so the AI has nothing to work with. I've seen some windfarms, but they are probably hand-placed (because they were animated).

At least in this regard, ORBX et al will not be out of work.

Wind farms are everywhere, and given the lack of hand placement of radio towers, I think it’s being done by AI. Maybe the width of the blades makes it easier.

They said they are hand placing radio towers as part of the world update via referencing VFR charts.

Just now, bonchie said:

Yep. Me to. Biggest flaw in the flight modeling IMO. Adjusting sensitivity is normal, but to this extreme is something that needs fixing. What was their reference I wonder? And before people say it, it’s just as twitchy with a controller. 

My guess is that somewhere out there is a controller that has a large range of motion and low sensitivity, and that MS/Asobo made a wide adjustment range in the sensitivities to accommodate that.

There is nothing at all wrong with having to set them much lower than what "feels" right when looking at the sliders. If I set them all to zero and flying is okay like that, then so be it.

6 minutes ago, eslader said:

Yeah, but the visual effect is that of sunken boats. There's a cruise ship that appears to be under water over near Pelican Peak on St. Maarten. Whatever the cause, the impression in the sim is that it sank.

 

Again, technology has limits. You either get extended masks in the water for shoreline detail and see the “sunken boats” or you get no shoreline detail. 

The OP made it sound like ASOBO just being lazy. That’s not the case.

If people want all the other limitations of land class based sims, two good ones already exist.

Edited August 19, 20205 yr by bonchie

1 hour ago, mtr75 said:

Yeah, I tried to argue that having pilots instead of gamers in the alpha and beta was a good idea. I was poo-poo’d for that suggestion. 

It wouldn't have mattered.  Numerous pilots like myself (and lots with far more rw flight experience) hammered away at Asobo with bug reports.

Microsoft decided to release this early...not Asobo.

Even with all the warts, this sim is incredible...better than any default/vanilla sim to date.

2 minutes ago, MDFlier said:

My guess is that somewhere out there is a controller that has a large range of motion and low sensitivity, and that MS/Asobo made a wide adjustment range in the sensitivities to accommodate that.

There is nothing at all wrong with having to set them much lower than what "feels" right when looking at the sliders. If I set them all to zero and flying is okay like that, then so be it.

As long as there's no controller left out on the far low end, I think I agree with you. It just feels weird to put it on -80. Of course, I'm pretty sure I had to do something similar in XP11. FSX was the only sim I've had to make much lesser changes.

7 minutes ago, Soulflight said:

But what always riddles me is what people were doing during beta testing. 

Going over my same old tired list of broken stuff and noting "not fixed." What do you think we were doing?

2 minutes ago, KenG said:

Going over my same old tired list of broken stuff and noting "not fixed." What do you think we were doing?

Having weird priorities.

1 minute ago, bonchie said:

Again, so what?

So you were (correctly) insisting on p-factor vs torque accuracy, and should therefore be accurate yourself. The boats are underwater. Some of us get why that's happening, but that doesn't mean it's not happening.