21 minutes ago, fppilot said:

Also using the new GA model icing related mod,

What is this mod? 

23 minutes ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

What is this mod? 

This one is for windshield icing.  There is another one there for the Carenado Mooney.  And there is a topic here floating around about assigning a keystroke to MSFS function(s) to control icing on the airframe(s).
https://flightsim.to/file/5779/jd-no-windshield-icing-effect-default-aircrafts

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/593819-a-couple-of-little-tweaks-i-found-useful/

Edited January 18, 20215 yr by fppilot

There are lots of disappointments about MSFS.  To me it's made even more disappointing by the fact that it's like 80% of the way to being great.

No documentation provided with the simulator about what is supposed to work and how it is supposed to work.  Is this Garmin function broken (ZenDesk reportable), modeled differently from the real world, or working as Asobo intends?  No way to tell.  Under what conditions is the AP expected to work when engaged?  No way to tell.  I can go watch some YouTube videos of other people who also didn't get any documentation trying to muddle through it, but that is not authoritative. 

Basic aspects of stick and rudder flying like adverse yaw, or crosswind takeoffs/landings are totally wrong in how they behave.

The most basic performance characteristics of aircraft - "How far can I fly, and how fast will I get there?" - are way off for stock aircraft, and don't even match the provided in-sim range circles.  Regardless of how the aircraft handle, or how the systems are modeled, these 2 most basic parameters should be within a reasonable tolerance and should be consistent with the in-sim range circle.  We have had 2 Sim Updates including one where they "went through all the aircraft" and this is still the case for several aircraft like the DA40NG.  It's pretty quick to check these by collecting realtime fuel flow data.

Vastly reduced options for cameras, camera angles, and camera flexibility like being able to open an external view in a sub-window and drag it over to another screen, having tower views, etc.

Known bugs in things like mixture modeling and turboprop logic carried forward into the new sim from ancient FSX (and earlier) code.

New bugs like engine static thrust changing when engines are moved off the centerline for twin aircraft, which is why twins are really messed up right now.

Compatibility issues with expensive peripherals which were used to promote the sim with "influences" before release.

Icing is way overdone and many of the GA aircraft have no icing protection which makes using Live Weather difficult in a lot of cases.

Data ingestion issues with the Live Weather data and 'above ground level' vs 'above sea level', as well as double-counting OAT corrections, which cause the observed weather to be off in areas with high terrain elevation and at high altitudes (but reasonable good at low altitudes and in areas with low terrain elevations).

Confusing options in the Settings with Legacy vs Modern flight model which causes numerous people to choose an option which significantly degrades their sim experience, causes many false bug reports which are just "noise", and generally produces a lot of posts on multiple forums with angry/annoyed people that could be avoided with a better UI or by moving this option to the aircraft .cfg files.

Massive time delays in approving patches for Marketplace content, and multiple API-breaking updates which have left buyers of add-on aircraft with broken aircraft for months.

Avionics that discard much of the data in the NavBlue database, yielding "use Navigraph" (a paid addon, great) as the response - when in reality the data is there and they are just ignoring it.

Basic radio navaids like localizers are locked to runway headings instead of having their correct real world headings, making in impossible to follow real world approach plates for a multitude of airports with slightly offset ILS approaches and anything with an LDA approach.

No QA/unit testing of the SimConnect APIs, which has allowed CTD-generating cases to creep into those APIs which are used by tons of 3rd party utilities that try to fix many of the issues above.

3 hours ago, fppilot said:

Interrupted flights will get me right back to SE.  No question about that.

Haven't had a one after 154h now, interrupted flights, no frozen avionics.  MS Store, no mods, TBM & Citation Long is about flown so far.  G3000 works fine for RNAV, ILS & VOR DME approachess.   Not sure why some have troubles and others don't, but it's true.

20 minutes ago, Noel said:

Not sure why some have troubles and others don't, but it's true.

Happens usually when making changes in the flight plan during the flight. I do not normally put an approach into the flight plan before flying.  I am accustomed to assessing the destination weather when well enroute, anticipating the approach to use, and then adding the approach.  I do not activate the approach until it is time to do so under SOP.  I am also using Navigraph nav data (beta) as a number of airports I fly to only have one published approach in the default navdata.

4 hours ago, marsman2020 said:

There are lots of disappointments about MSFS. 

My greatest disappointment is that improvements seem to be on a schedule put together during the development process, mostly before release, and that the missing elements and needed improvements that end users are clamoring for are being squeezed in only when/if there is a small window to do so.  And then those "squeeze plays" are at times creating new issues.  Very frustrating.

Edited January 18, 20215 yr by fppilot

17 hours ago, Isaiah53six said:

i think expectations have been set too high so early on as it's only been a few months since release.  Visually speaking,  straight out of the box this game is far superior to anything we've had before.

Absolutely, that is the simple truth. As an example, the amount of detail in the landscape and in hundreds of default airports for $60 is unprecedented thanks to the new technology. Many of the extras that various people desire or miss in other platforms will be available in due time.

I remain unconvinced based on what we have seen in the last 5 months that the basic items will ever be addressed, for several reasons.

Firstly - unless there is a big management/leadership shakeup, past performance is the best indicator of what to expect in the future, and Microsoft/Asobo has shown time and again that they are happy with things 1/2 done or 3/4 done so they can claim they did an awesome job and move on to the next thing (to do 1/2 or 3/4 of the job).   They rushed to meet a VR deadline and added a ton of terrain issues in December and now per interviews about XBox they are "all hands on deck" for the XBox version and rushing to meet that deadline.  Sometimes they are willing to just outright lie to us about things, like the situation with the water maps. 

Secondly - many of these basic items, if fixed, would invalidate the work that Asobo has done to tune 30 aircraft and that all of the third party developers have done to tune their aircraft.  Looking at it from a "cost to make the change" perspective - the longer the sim is out, the less likely there will be any substantial changes to things like crosswind takeoff/landing behavior, messed up twin engine thrust, mixture modeling, turboprop modeling, etc - it would just introduce too many gobacks in too many other areas. 

Thirdly - they are basing a lot of what gets changed (not even fixed, but changed, as we have seen with things like night lighting) on voting by the community, and even though many of these items are pretty basic they don't get enough votes from the masses to bubble up on the lists to get them actually addressed.

Worst of all is that the constant changes mean that there is not a stable base for 3rd parties to address/fix things.  FSX had a couple of service packs and that was it, so at least it was a stable base to build on.  It had a working stock autopilot, decently tunable flight model, SimConnect APIs that worked without CTDs, etc.  MSFS is missing things that were present at the start in FSX and also a moving target with the constant changes.

Edited January 19, 20215 yr by marsman2020

37 minutes ago, marsman2020 said:

  Sometimes they are willing to just outright lie to us about things,

That isn't new.  Remember the claim that FSX was designed to take advantage of future technology, and that was why it ran poorly on PCs of the time.  It took several years for them to admit that the program was the issue.  LM were even able to fix that for P3D.

It is very frustrating that simple physics engine items are broken in the MSFS engine. But if you take it as a VFR sim for GA aircraft it is breathtakingly good.

Over the weekend I took the C152 mod for a VATSIM flight. I took off from a coastal airfield, flew along to a motorway, followed that north to London via a zone transit enroute. Once at London I orbited until I got my second zone crossing clearance. I flew over my house, I saw my office and familiar landmarks and areas of the city. I got north of London via a reservoir VRP and tracked to my destination airfield, a place I used to frequently cycle past years ago. I picked it out from the scenery because the landscape was familiar to me. In a computer game.

Sure, the stock aircraft are crummy if you're a realism freak like me and the sim physics are dodgy, especially on takeoff and landing. The unmodded avionics are questionable and sometimes the weather doesnt load. But when it works, it's beautiful and immersive. It's convincing. I can tell myself that for 90 minutes I was airborne over Southern England navigating complex airspace by looking for motorways and railway lines and hills I've known for decades.

It needs polishing, I'm 100% on that, but MSFS2020 is one helluva rough diamond.

38 minutes ago, lambourne said:

It is very frustrating that simple physics engine items are broken in the MSFS engine. But if you take it as a VFR sim for GA aircraft it is breathtakingly good.

Yep .. I have been having an absolute rort in the YMF-5 now that I have a work around to actually get it off the ground.

The ground handling is atrocious and I am quite sure that in the air it handles absolutely nothing like a real one (aside from maybe matching a few basic parameters like stall speed if it even does that)  but it is so much FUN ...  😄 

I am sure the people who see simming as a serious business and not a game will look down on that but do you see me caring  😄

Sometimes this community reminds me of an anecdote a friend of mine recounted about touring Scotland in his younger days and having a quiet drink in a Scot pub in the highlands. He tried to strike up a conversation with the only other person in the bar at the time, an old dour Scotsman, saying "are we having fun yet" and got the stern reply " we are not here to have fun laddie, we are here to drink".

 

Edited January 19, 20215 yr by Glenn Fitzpatrick

36 minutes ago, lambourne said:

It is very frustrating that simple physics engine items are broken in the MSFS engine. But if you take it as a VFR sim for GA aircraft it is breathtakingly good.

 

agreed. It's great for us who just like to look at the scenery but I do wonder if it will live up to expectations for being a realistic flight sim without addons.

3 hours ago, fppilot said:

Happens usually when making changes in the flight plan during the flight. I do not normally put an approach into the flight plan before flying.  I am accustomed to assessing the destination weather when well enroute, anticipating the approach to use, and then adding the approach.  I do not activate the approach until it is time to do so under SOP.  I am also using Navigraph nav data (beta) as a number of airports I fly to only have one published approach in the default navdata.

I also don't enter an approach before departure and usually wait until ATC directs me, or if their direction jive w/ destination airport weather.  At that point, wherever I am in the flight plan, I learned it's best to first change to Direct To my dest airport.  Then I can choose an approach and haven't had any troubles w/ ILS, RNAV and VOR DME approaches, since adopting this practice.

Edited January 19, 20215 yr by Noel

6 hours ago, Isaiah53six said:

agreed. It's great for us who just like to look at the scenery but I do wonder if it will live up to expectations for being a realistic flight sim without addons.

But what sim ever did provide a realistic flight sim without addons!

The community will probably do a better job than Asobo anyway so Asobo's focus should be enabling an easy path and solid base for the community to develop mods/content to bring this game up to a level that a player want's it to be; which will be different for every player!

Eg Asobo don't waste time making a study level airliner; spend the time making the graphics engine more efficient and provide better tools for the 3rd party developers

I do keep it short:

For more serious VFR purposes........works great already

For less serious flying around and explore the world.........just amazing good

For IFR purposes incl. proper use of instruments.......no way

I am a IFR-flyer.......so no MSFS for me (at the moment).

So of course the OP is not alone. No one is alone. It all depends on your requirements and usecases (Flying around - VFR - IFR)

Marcus

Edited January 19, 20215 yr by mpo910