Why MSFS must be XBox like or die

[wyman_hd 232]

15 minutes ago, Franz007 said:

Perhaps going back to the initial discussion I had with Noel would help you getting the point. It was about which benefits sims brings for real flying. And we agreed that for a newbie in a sim, it doesn‘t matter that much how accurate the FM is, since he will quickly learn how to fly the real thing. But I added that for an already experienced pilot, the acuracy of the FM does matter when training with it. Not sure why you had to create a huge text that btw. missed the core-point of the discussion.

You're assuming that MSFS is even used in the context of pilot training. I don't think many real world airline or GA pilots takes MSFS seriously to the point where they need to meticulously pick apart extremely minute details in the sim. Most people (that includes pilots) understand that it is going to have faults, and you're conflating the issue. 

Real full motion simulators don't even feel as good as flying the real thing, so how do you expect MSFS to do that with a 2d screen and an office chair? How can you even expect anybody to describe the process and feeling of flying in words? There isn't enough words in the entire repository of the English language to describe in 100% full detail the dynamics of airflow. It is going to be approximated, and it's already being approximated to a pretty word not allowed good level. Is it lacking in some small, esoteric way? Sure it is, but if everything was judged in this extremely pedantic way then you would hate every other simulator within this hobby.

[Lonesome Cowboy Burt 168]

12 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

. sure for an already experienced pilot the accuracy of the FM does matter, and they can get that with properly implemented aircraft in MSFS currently.

 

Get what?, an accurate flight model?, that's a big maybe.

I think this is what causes much of the to and fro in here, its great that you enjoy the sim/game, we all do or wouldnt be here but the above is just your opinion, its no more a fact than  the opinion of the guy you just criticised for doing what you just did

[lwt1971 7,446]

53 minutes ago, Lonesome Cowboy Burt said:

Get what?, an accurate flight model?, that's a big maybe.

I think this is what causes much of the to and fro in here, its great that you enjoy the sim/game, we all do or wouldnt be here but the above is just your opinion, its no more a fact than  the opinion of the guy you just criticised for doing what you just did

Precisely what most of us are saying, these are opinions. Those who keep saying MSFS doesn't provide for good flight models are also stating opinions, despite trying to peddle statements like "MSFS is clearly lacking" as facts 🙂 

And yes, as stated upteen times how the flight model all comes down to how the aircraft developer implements their particular aircraft, accurate flight models can indeed be experienced in certain expertly developed aircraft available for MSFS. And this in the opinion of various IRL pilots who're also experienced simmers, users like those who took the navigraph survey where they chose flight dynamics as the #1 factor in a sim who *also* chose MSFS as their primary sim by a wide margin, non-IRL-pilot users, etc.. so to all these folks, it's far from "a big maybe".

Edited April 8 by lwt1971

[UrgentSiesta 936]

On 4/6/2024 at 1:53 AM, eslader said:

I should hope so. I imagine the ire in these forums would be fairly extreme if MSFS 2020 cost 7 figures and required you to upgrade your electrical service. 😉

I've been lucky enough to fool around in some Level-D sims. MSFS beats them, hands down, in graphics (though I'm sure they're better now than the last time I was in one). But the flight realism was something I'd not expect a $60 or even a $600 desktop sim to match. And, of course, no desktop sim is going to have the motion fidelity of a level-D sim even with all the home motion rigs coming out now.

I don't think anyone with a relatively healthy sense of reality thinks flying in MSFS should count for training time. I also disagree with the poster you responded to over the idea that we have the ability to make MSFS as realistic as the commercial sims. For one thing, casting aside the simulation accuracy for a moment, no D-sim I ever messed with stuttered. Ever. They're run by computers that vastly outstrip anything we can reasonably get our hands on at home. Those irritating little pauses and glitches we get when flying into somewhere busy like O'Hare simply didn't happen in any of the pro sims I was in.

 

But I also think it's silly to worry about all this. Of course we aren't doing real flight training. Some of the stuff we're doing can help - I know at least one pro on this forum is using PMDG to work on flows - but I'd be very happy if people would stop making post after post arguing over whether it's a sim or a game. Who cares? Almost every one of us is doing this for fun. Go virtually fly.

 

Whenever this comes up, i.e., "no desktop sim can compare to Level-D, or the real thing, so we can't count it for training time...", I like to drop this in for perspective:

The USAF & USN have extensively tested training IRL .mil pilots using a setup that's very little more than a desktop flight sim, VR goggles and a commercial HOTAS.

No fully enclosed model cockpit, no wrap around screens, no ButtKicker, no 6DoF movement, and not even full flight gear( 😉 ).

They've performed multiple control tests on live classes and find that there is very little proficiency difference between the mostly desktop sim students and the ones who go thru the traditional-only-real airplane course.

Aaaaannnnnndddddd...Guess what simulator they use? Nope, not some proprietary FSim OS, Nope, not MSFS. Nope, not X-Plane...

It's Prepar3D!!! With MilViz addons! (maybe A2A for the Texan II...)

Oh, The Horror!!!

In sum, the realism and effectiveness of desktop simulators has a LOT more to do with the training SCHOOL you're attending than it does with the sim setup you're using.

[Krakin 5,810]

The biggest benefit these desktop sims offer for learning from the newbie to the 1000 hr veteran is instrumentation and procedural flows since they can be far more accurate than any of their flight models could ever hope to be.

[UrgentSiesta 936]

8 hours ago, Franz007 said:

It almost sounds like some get very easily triggered by statements contradicting their bias. And those suspects you mention are actually some professional pilots (like BB711) who got involved with addon-developpers (Fenix etc) and explained how the devs struggled with MSFS‘s flightmodel, that still has issues. It‘s not a big surprise that PMDG themselves complained pubicly about MSFS inacurate atmosphere-modelling (impacting the flight behaviour). The fact that the PMDG has a pretty decent flightmodel is because of hacks they had to do, to compensate for the bad base FM. Don‘t you wonder why Fenix needed 1+ year to have an accurate engine-model?

So in a nutshell: MSFS2024 should be better in that. MSFS2020 is clearly lacking, even if it‘s hard to swallow for some die-hard fans.

There are "hacks" in EVERY flight model in EVERY simulator.

Just one example would be all the work LR put into improving the FDE of XP 12 vs 11. Improvements across the board.

So any XP dev up thru v11 would've had to "hack" the XP FDE to get their aircraft flying right, especially if they were looking to get their addon to less than 5% deviation.

There are certainly areas where MSFS needs to improve. And like LWT said, it's been talked about to death. The reality is simply that Asobo is working on it, and they're making progress. And the 3rd Party Devs are making their own progress (some more than others...).

But even as a fan of and continuing user of Prepar3D, I can't imagine a scenario where I'd choose an median addon in P3D over a median addon in v2020. I.e., MSFS has brought the baseline quality of "Flight Model" up to a startling degree. Faster, in fact, than most devs can keep up.

It's a great time to by flying just about any flight sim - they're all much better than they used to be.

EtA: And all this is coming from a long time X-Plane user. And DCS World. And Prepar3D. And even MSFS, tho it's still kinda wet behind the ears ;)

Edited April 8 by UrgentSiesta
adding.

[Krakin 5,810]

2 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

MSFS has brought the baseline quality of "Flight Model" up to a startling degree. Faster, in fact, than most devs can keep up.

And this is precisely why I have to laugh and shake my head every time I see some people say things like "MSFS is for the arcade crowd" or 'Asobo isn't interested in making the sim realistic, they just want it to be game-like" etc etc etc

[Lonesome Cowboy Burt 168]

52 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

Precisely what most of us are saying, these are opinions. Those who keep saying MSFS doesn't provide for good flight models are also stating opinions, despite trying to peddle statements like "MSFS is clearly lacking" as facts 🙂 

And yes, as stated upteen times how the flight model all comes down to how the aircraft developer implements their particular aircraft, accurate flight models can indeed be experienced in certain expertly developed aircraft available for MSFS. And this in the opinion of various IRL pilots who're also experienced simmers, users like those who took the navigraph survey where they chose flight dynamics as the #1 factor in a sim who *also* chose MSFS as their primary sim by a wide margin, non-IRL-pilot users, etc.. so to all these folks, it's far from "a big maybe".

Lost cause you are matey

[bofhlusr 465]

52 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

Whenever this comes up, i.e., "no desktop sim can compare to Level-D, or the real thing, so we can't count it for training time...", I like to drop this in for perspective:

The USAF & USN have extensively tested training IRL .mil pilots using a setup that's very little more than a desktop flight sim, VR goggles and a commercial HOTAS.

No fully enclosed model cockpit, no wrap around screens, no ButtKicker, no 6DoF movement, and not even full flight gear( 😉 ).

They've performed multiple control tests on live classes and find that there is very little proficiency difference between the mostly desktop sim students and the ones who go thru the traditional-only-real airplane course.

Aaaaannnnnndddddd...Guess what simulator they use? Nope, not some proprietary FSim OS, Nope, not MSFS. Nope, not X-Plane...

It's Prepar3D!!! With MilViz addons! (maybe A2A for the Texan II...)

Oh, The Horror!!!

In sum, the realism and effectiveness of desktop simulators has a LOT more to do with the training SCHOOL you're attending than it does with the sim setup you're using.

Thank you for this. I'm learning a lot from following this message thread.

I also learned and was very pleasantly surprised to see someone also post here that MSFS apparently runs on a tablet too. 

[lwt1971 7,446]

5 minutes ago, Lonesome Cowboy Burt said:

Lost cause you are matey

Speak for yourself matey.

[eslader 1,806]

3 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

Whenever this comes up, i.e., "no desktop sim can compare to Level-D, or the real thing, so we can't count it for training time...", I like to drop this in for perspective

Yep. And I know at least one airline used FSX to train its DC3 pilots because, well, there aren't a whole lot of level-D DC3 sims out there. 😉 (Buffalo, if you were curious).

 

All that said, whether it's Buffalo or the Air Force, the desktop sim training is supplemented by getting in a better sim in the case of the Air Force, or getting in a DC3 and having Joe yell at you for a while in the case of Buffalo. I understand why real pilots scoff at simmers who sit in Economy fantasizing about the pilots both dying and they heroically land the plane; It's simply not realistic. I've been doing this since the 80s and maybe, if I was very lucky and had a really good controller helping me, I could get the 737 set up for a Cat III autoland and convince the passengers I'm a genius. If I had to land it manually, we might possibly survive, but I wouldn't place any bets on being able to use the plane afterward. 😉

But I don't understand the real pilots who scoff at simmers for saying "I'm doing this for fun and to learn more about aviation," and the response is "well strap on a real airplane then, loser."

In short, there's stupid on both sides. The simmers who think their obsession with PMDG/Fenix/Leonardo makes them undiscovered Sully Sullenbergers are foolish, and the pilots who think we're all just playing a video game and that's somehow an unworthy pursuit are also foolish.

Thinking of sims from the approach that they have to be "more than a video game" is bad thinking. There's an almost uniquely American approach to life that most of what we do needs to be "real" or lead to something real. NASCAR workers scoff at sim racers. "You'll never drive a real race car just from sim racing" (yes, one actually told me that once).  Erm. OK. That's cool and everything, but you'll never become a lawyer by racing real cars. The goal isn't to "become" something, the goal is to have fun and maybe enjoy a learning curve.

Do you enjoy simming? Then it's a worthwhile pursuit whether you "get something real out of it" or not.

 

 

 

[Franz007 505]

12 hours ago, lwt1971 said:

No you keep missing what everyone is saying and keep talking besides the point.. sure for an already experienced pilot the accuracy of the FM does matter, and they can get that with properly implemented aircraft in MSFS currently. Read what the actual experts have to say above, and you might just clue in.
 

The actual expert I mentionned above (who has also worked as a test-pilot for addons) contradicts that. And he hopes that MSFS2024 will get (much) better related to that point and sometimes doubt it. If it was so great, explain us why the default B787 or the iniBuilds don‘t even simulate correctly the difference of inertia? You can check that by yourself: fly empty and full weight and tell me which difference you feel in the air.

 

 

 

[Franz007 505]

11 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

The reality is simply that Asobo is working on it, and they're making progress. And the 3rd Party Devs are making their own progress (some more than others...).

We agree on that point. They are working on it for a simple reason, because many pointed out to it and complained. And certainly not because it already offers everything a dev needs (as wrongly stated by lwt).

[Franz007 505]

12 hours ago, arwasairl said:

You're assuming that MSFS is even used in the context of pilot training. I don't think many real world airline or GA pilots takes MSFS seriously to the point where they need to meticulously pick apart extremely minute details in the sim. Most people (that includes pilots) understand that it is going to have faults, and you're conflating the issue. 

Well I am doing that. And V1-pilot (a real Airbus-pilot) trains with it as well, before passing his checkrides. And even if a desktop-sim (or a level-D sim) will never recreate 100% realism of real-flying, a flight behaviour closer to the real thing is still better than any other one. Otherwise, why even bother improving the FM?

[HiFlyer 9,367]

1 hour ago, Franz007 said:

You can check that by yourself: fly empty and full weight and tell me which difference you feel in the air.

I.... Kind of find it a bit scary if a professional is waiting around impatiently for a game studio title to help provide him training for his real job....

Isn't that what level D's are for?

Beyond all of that, couldn't the "hacks" you mentioned provide at least a partial facsimile, and couldn't a developer implement that from their side?

In the meanwhile, I now I have a mental image of professional pilots in huddles in front of their computers trying to get million dollar training on the cheap....