2 hours ago, Noel said:

Firstly, get it out of you brain that you *need* to buy anything--this is legacy behavior coming from the other sims that demand much better than default.  You don't need a weather engine the existing one beats anything there is and continues to improve.

I certainly agree no addons are needed to enjoy MSFS.  I'll agree another weather engine is not required and I'll agree the default weather will improve.  What I can't agree with is that the existing weather engine beats anything there is.  Rex WeatherForce depicts most weather situations far better than the default weather engine - it has its own faults we all know about of course, but its depiction of cloud types and cloud layers is more often than not better than default - this also leads to amazing lighting affected by those layers that can be better than default.

I can be happy using MSFS default weather, but the times I look out the cockpit and am amazed with what I see are far fewer than at launch.  Mostly its just another sky filled with different sizes of cumulous clouds and many of those are leaden with ash!.  I am currently on a two hour flight using RexWeatherForce.  every single change in the weather sees various layers and lighting that DOES get me muttering its amazing.  The transitions are less smooth than default, but more than made up with the sky depiction IMHO.

Is MSFS amazing - of course it is, but it still can be improved with addons and that is part of the fun.

 

5 hours ago, Fatback said:

It can’t be that easy lol. Can it?

Yes, it can be that easy. You don’t need to buy an extra hard drive just to store ortho.  You don’t need to buy additional 3rd party add-ons just to make your sim look good.  MSFS will save you hundreds to a thousand dollars (US) from this alone.

The value you get from the $60 standard version of MSFS is immense. I would say, for $60, it’s a “steal.” The competitors to MSFS cannot provide the same amount of value at that price point, it’s not even a competition.

Edited March 29, 20224 yr by abrams_tank

You'll benefit from a little patience. 

The sim is awesome, but needs more attention in some key areas (these are continually being worked on and the process is an evolutionary one).

I made the switch from P3D, 2 weeks after MSFS was released, and haven't looked back.

I'm now eagerly awaiting PMDG to release their hangars into the MSFS foray. (And the 737 is not far away from release now).

I need a few of my favorite airports by 3rd party devs to be produced for MSFS.....and I'll be "kicking the tyres, and lighting the fires".

6 hours ago, Noel said:

I'm a 30y vet of FSX/P3D

30 years?

FSX didn’t arrive until Oct 2006.

It does feel like it was 30 years ago though 😂

After my initial month or 2 in MSFS I have to say you don;t need a whole stack of stuff any more out of the box. You can get the FBW A320 yes and for now that's a great airliner to use. Other than that there's heaps of freeware that's very good and the weather system is great. Everything you needed to update FSX for is noe default here. It blew my mind. For example, rain on windscreens - how long did that one take to solve ten years ago in FSX !!!

The thing I found is the scene is not moving at a great pace, rather it's slowly taking shape in the new sim platform. You can sense that by the speed the forums go at, which is quite a lot slower than I have seen before.

Plus you can become a marketplace addict like me. They make buying airports so easy now. I need to go to rehab.

8 hours ago, Fatback said:

There are some good aircraft otw so I’m getting ready to move over. Guess I’ll need to buy a weather engine and some airports. How about mesh and other scenery addons? 

As others say, literally you don't need to buy any third party stuff, out of box MSFS is super good. Plus MSFS has plenty of good freeware on flightsim.to that will keep you busy. Besides the famous freeware add-ones like FBW (download experimental, is with the vnav), CJ4 and WT Garmin add-ons.

7 hours ago, DAD said:

Also I recommend to add the no handlebar mod (available for free at fs.to) to get rid of the „far cry“ style menu bar

Delete mod, it now does it as standard. Don’t know when, don’t know how. I noticed last flight.

https://flightsim.to/file/8614/airports-lights
 

this mod is a must for night flying, adds night lighting to almost 1000 airports 

8 hours ago, Fatback said:

Thx everyone. This will be much easier, and cheaper, than I thought. 

but above all you need a ton of patience.

The most important thing you will need, is a chair, because you'd better be sat down when you notice how well MSFS runs with all the sliders over to the right if you've been used to needing a supercomputer to get the P3D FPS into double figures. 🤣 Stand by to be shocked and pleasantly surprised by that and the fact that you won't need to throw much payware at the sim to have it be impressive.

Edited March 29, 20224 yr by Chock

7 hours ago, Noel said:

Yep, only not nearly as long as it will take you to download and install P3D + Orbx Regionals & Global + Vector + ActiveSky + all of your aircraft and all of your airports.  And if you're a TrueEarther, well then all the more.

I save my downloads to a NAS box. FSGlobal and half a dozen ORBX airports being the exception. I don’t have any TE products.

7 hours ago, Noel said:

Very broadband is very widespread now at least in the US and probably better in Europe and 1st world Asia.

I assume you mean ultra-fast broadband. Available? Yes, in many areas but not all in the UK. Affordable? Not for all especially with inflation pushing prices up.

I’m not sure why you’re making a comparison with P3D. The number of FORCED updates for MSFS makes these downloads mandatory. All those products you listed for P3D are optional.

That’s me done here.

 

I am still amazed that even a year later I still have not bought a single addon for MSFS but fly it pretty much everyday. It is a beautiful sim straight out of the box with some quality freeware aircraft. 

14 hours ago, Cognita said:

Download and install it and then take some time to fly and explore it for a while. As has been said, MSFS has very good worldwide mesh and good quality lighting, shading and scenery. And, it is updated regularly. Once you have a sense of the sim, there are a lot of scenery add-ons that you can purchase but MSFS does not require the same kind of expenditure and managing of multiple third party add-ons as other sims. There are already some really good quality add-on aircraft available and as you said a good number more on the way.

 

I disagree concerning the mesh, many mountainous areas are suffering in this regard and MS/Asobo is aware of this. Otherwise i agree in every point. One may also add that the MSFS ai engine is far away from my expactation to provide a "realistc"  ai traffic.

4 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

’m not sure why you’re making a comparison with P3D.

Ray--this is where the OP is coming from so of course I'm going to compare to what he is familiar with.  Plus, I'm real familiar w/ P3D having used it for 10y and recall all the hours and attention it takes to update and install every addon of every kind.  This is one of the very pleasant changes in MSFS where you hardly need pay attention to anything for a complete reinstall which is hardly the case w/ P3D/FSX.

3 hours ago, rocketlaunch said:

I am still amazed that even a year later I still have not bought a single addon for MSFS but fly it pretty much everyday. It is a beautiful sim straight out of the box with some quality freeware aircraft. 

Yup, this is the brilliance of MSFS.  Everyone has saved so much money on 3rd party add-ons that enhance the graphics of the simulator.  And MSFS users also don't have to buy an extra hard drive to store ortho.  That's a lot of money saved there.