On 5/8/2021 at 7:23 AM, ryanbatcund said:

IFR is fine....except for RNAV(GPS).  You can fly airways, VORs, NDB's etc just fine.  That's basic IFR.  But for the guys who are used to flying the airliners in XP11 and P3D, the "IFR" procedures are lacking in MSFS.... and for the RNAV(GPS) portion that us GA flyers are used to - same problem.

There is of course the CJ4 which does most of what hard core users would want... the FBW Airbus seems it will be there too pretty soon.

Fine but how about considering hat there are now very few VORs in Australia now as a world decision has been made to eliminate them as RNAV is now the main form of navigation. Europe has reduced many and the USA has reduced some and theoreticly is to reduce the rest except for a small safety network by I think it is 2025.  VORs have gone the way of Inertial navigation and RNAV is now the default.

18 hours ago, Cristi_Neagu said:

We had PMDG. We had A2A. We had ORBX. We had so, so many talented and passionate developers supporting and enhancing FSX, both in its original form and as P3D. Do we want to go back? Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows? Depends on the future. But one thing I know for certain: I definitely don't want to lose them and what they stand for.

Hi Cristi you are right regarding add-ons. My point referred to the simulator core product itself.  

@wlix261 While it may be true that FSX sat pretty much abandoned by developers for quite a long while, the role of third party developers cannot be overlooked. People still use FSX to this day. But they don't use it because Microsoft released a simulator so outstanding, it had decades of playability in it. No. The sole reason why FSX was used for longer than a year by anyone is because of third party developers. They have created this hobby that we call flight simulation. Microsoft didn't create it. Microsoft just gave them the tools they needed and a space to build it all.

As such, i think it's unfair to leave developers out of it. Doing so completely buries their achievement. We had years upon years of enjoyment out of FSX because of developers like HiFi Simulation Technologies giving us incredible real time weather. Developers like PMDG and A2A giving us amazingly detailed and realistic aircraft, some of the only ones worthy of the term "study level" which is so easily thrown around these days. Developers like REX and ORBX giving us much better graphics than the developers ever envisioned. And developers like Reality-XP, who are for avionics what PMDG is to airliners. And there are so many more other developers who have built this entire hobby from the ground up.

I don't know if without the work of all those developers there would have been an FS2020 today. Maybe, maybe not. If there's anyone that can create a community out of nothing, it's probably Microsoft. But i know for sure there would be no P3D, at least not for consumers. There would be no X-Plane either. Over 2 decades of flight simulation, all because of the vast choice we've had of scenery, of aircraft, of avionics. Now that FS2020 is just starting out on its journey, unsure of which path to take, it is more important than ever to recognize and remember that it wasn't Microsoft, or Aces, or Dovetail that kept FSX alive for so long. It was third party developers.

Edited May 13, 20215 yr by Cristi_Neagu