33 minutes ago, rick celik said:

Do I really need to explain the short comings of the sim years after release?

As I previously stated, I've been vocal about the shortcomings. But I do not dwell on them.

34 minutes ago, rick celik said:

you're a realist you say, so be real and admit that a flight sim should have better weather depiction, better AI code of other aircraft around you, the planes literally levitate off the runway not rotate.

Yes, a flight sim should have these things, and I never said they shouldn't. But I don't agree these shortcomings should be Asobo's priority, and it seems they don't think so either. I think the clouds look good enough and I don't particularly pay attention to what the AI aircraft are doing. My top wishes are career mode improvements and ATC improvements, but I'm not going to demand those improvements every chance I get.

43 minutes ago, rick celik said:

Do you fly in real life? Or are you just going based off how the plane feels and calling it the "iRacing" of flightsim

I no longer fly, but I do have my PPL. I have been the passenger of a Pitts S-2C during an airshow and was lucky enough to get a minute of stick time to do my own loop and snap roll. I'll be the first to admit MSFS (and every other modern sim) sucks at the fringe edges of the flight envelope. My iRacing comment comes from this video... if a real acrobatic pilot is impressed with how the planes handle the Red Bull courses, I will take his word for it.

Edited September 12Sep 12 by Funky D
Added timestamp to video so it goes to the section where he talks about the flight model

10 hours ago, jarmstro said:

You can pay more for X-Plane if you like, and I understand the appeal of a small amateur project, but except for those whose only requirement is an easy flight model there is no comparison.

🤦‍♂️

You had me UNTIL here.

If you want to consider XP to be a “small amateur project”, I’d ask for your answers to two questions:

1. Which sim is so good that it’s been in continuous production for the last twenty five YEARS, AND is still a peer level competitor…?

2. How many gov certified flight sims are running MSFS…?

Oh, and p.s., you’ve got it backwards: the “easy flight model” belongs to MSFS.

15 minutes ago, Funky D said:

Yes, a flight sim should have these things, and I never said they shouldn't. But I don't agree these shortcomings should be Asobo's priority, and it seems they don't think so either. I think the clouds look good enough and I don't particularly pay attention to what the AI aircraft are doing. My top wishes are career mode improvements and ATC improvements, but I'm not going to demand those improvements every chance I get.

Why not? Why not be vocal about what you want changed? You paid for the product and the devs have said multiple times that the more noise a feature or bug gets, the more that theyre inclined to look into it.

8 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

How many gov certified flight sims are running MSFS…?

I'll have to disagree with you here... certified for flight training means nothing for "realism". Plenty of folks have mentioned the shortcomings of even Level D simulators. They are meant to accurately simulate procedures. MSFS will likely never be certified for flight training because it is in a constant state of change.

As for flight dynamics, I won't open that can of worms, but MSFS was the first flight sim since Flight Unlimited that made me feel like I was actually flying a plane. But I'm a GA guy 🙂

4 minutes ago, rick celik said:

Why not? Why not be vocal about what you want changed? You paid for the product and the devs have said multiple times that the more noise a feature or bug gets, the more that theyre inclined to look into it.

I upvote bugs/features in the MSFS forums and add my comments when I can contribute additional information. Anything beyond that is just wasted hot air (...hot keypresses?) IMHO...

8 hours ago, Matchstick said:

Asobo don't understand flight sims or flight simmers.

Let me see if I’ve got this right:

MS/Asobo have delivered a flight sim that single-handedly destroyed the previous Serious Simmers flight sim in a matter of months.

The global scenery is so good that the 800lb gorilla Orbx has devolved from a massively successful,dominant content creator to a third party dev publishing aggregator.

Oh, and while we’re taking about scenery, do you remember all those perfectly flat runways in P3D?

The default flight/physics modeling is light years beyond P3D/FSX, and is nearly as good as anything ever put out by A2A, MilViz or most of the addons in X-Plane.

And how about helicopters a previously the bane of the flight simmers choice of flight sims?

They delivered a streaming platform that practically obviates the need to order a new hard drive every quarter

We’ve got built in realtime weather instead of having to buy 2 or 3 Active Sky modules

They’ve eliminated the need to endlessly fiddle with most addons and the sim itself and delivered stability on-par with X-Plane and the most mature P3D releases

And, at the end of the day, they’ve managed to “fail” so badly at flight sim development that MSFS is the undisputed heavyweight champion of all time even when it comes to Serious Simmers such as the ever increasing number of those who participate in the annual Navigraph Survey.

All while managing to integrate game mechanics that have attracted what’s likely an order of magnitude more flight simmers than ever before.

Did I get all that right…? Yes, I did.

Kinda makes me wonder which one of you “doesn’t understand flights sims or flight simmers” 🤣

2 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

I have just joined the official Microsoft Flight Simulator forum. How on Earth do I start a new topic? I cannot see anything ☹️

I can’t quite remember, but you need to participate with votes and comments for awhile before you’ll be able to create topics.

Back when I joined, I don’t remember being walled off from viewing anything.

1 hour ago, SKEWR said:

For my part, I find it strange that a flight simulator does not have an emphasis on weather. Weather, IRL, determines if a flight even goes or not. I get it, it's just a "game", but what are we doing if weather is not even the biggest concern. IMO, I'm not sure they need to have something so intrinsic to the activity of flying need a ton of upvotes.

P3D, for all its years in production, never even had live weather, nor good looking skies, etc.

having to buy Active Sky just to get the current weatherin a literally Enterprise-grade flight sim was the biggest “record scratch” of my journey with that sim.

1 hour ago, rick celik said:

Do you fly in real life? Or are you just going based off how the plane feels and calling it the "iRacing" of flightsim

Yep, I do. (Well, I did, but I can’t any more…).

Maybe that’s why most of the “game breaking” bugs don’t bother me all that much…?

Despite the fact that all the flight sims available are by far the best and most realistic ever, not a single one ever even comes close to what I see at any airport or out any window, whether airborne or on terra firma, etc.

In fact, what I see in the sim on the daily is more realistic by far than most of the high production budget tv shows and movies.

Should it get better? Yeah. But it’s still better than it’s ever been. 🤙

36 minutes ago, Funky D said:

I'll have to disagree with you here... certified for flight training means nothing for "realism". Plenty of folks have mentioned the shortcomings of even Level D simulators. They are meant to accurately simulate procedures. MSFS will likely never be certified for flight training because it is in a constant state of change.

As for flight dynamics, I won't open that can of worms, but MSFS was the first flight sim since Flight Unlimited that made me feel like I was actually flying a plane. But I'm a GA guy 🙂

Yep - am aware and you’re objectively correct right.

However, I’m pushing back on his belittling one of the best flight sims ever as an “amateur project”.

If it’s good enough for IRL training, it’s good.

And FWIW, don’t count MSFS out of pro training and other areas where it strengths play well. MS is quite demonstrably capable of sandboxing their cloud platforms to conform to the strictest requirements. 🤙

ETA: insofar as the physics debate, I’d say you might look into flying some Of the top tier XP GA addons. Just like in FS24, there are bad, good, and excellent addons.

Edited September 12Sep 12 by UrgentSiesta

17 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

If it’s good enough for IRL training, it’s good.

And FWIW, don’t count MSFS out of pro training and other areas where it strengths play well.

Agreed, but some folks like to think that certification is the end all/be all for a flight sim. Microsoft already sold their IP in the form of P3D... doing it again for the current MSFS would probably take a pretty big carrot, but I've been surprised plenty of times in this hobby!

21 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

ETA: insofar as the physics debate, I’d say you might look into flying some Of the top tier XP GA addons. Just like in FS24, there are bad, good, and excellent addons.

My main issue with XP was the lack of turbulence when flying small aircraft, and the "on rails" feeling was still a common complaint the last time I checked. In MSFS, I've gotten the same thermal updraft when flying over a parking lot during short final at my old home airport that I used to get IRL. I'm sure the location of that thermal was just a coincidence (realllly doubt MSFS is taking ground color into account for generating thermals), but it's that "lively" feeling when flying GA that I love most about MSFS, even though it is at times overdone.

35 minutes ago, Funky D said:

Agreed, but some folks like to think that certification is the end all/be all for a flight sim. Microsoft already sold their IP in the form of P3D... doing it again for the current MSFS would probably take a pretty big carrot, but I've been surprised plenty of times in this hobby!

My main issue with XP was the lack of turbulence when flying small aircraft, and the "on rails" feeling was still a common complaint the last time I checked. In MSFS, I've gotten the same thermal updraft when flying over a parking lot during short final at my old home airport that I used to get IRL. I'm sure the location of that thermal was just a coincidence (realllly doubt MSFS is taking ground color into account for generating thermals), but it's that "lively" feeling when flying GA that I love most about MSFS, even though it is at times overdone.

There's a plugin called X-Pro Turb and it takes the atmosphere to the next level in XP! This coupled with AutoHaze and the newest Beta release (fixed precipitation now!) and XP is looking and feeling really good these days! Clouds are improving, sometimes mehh but the big difference is they are trying to improve the weather. Asobo all but dropped any graphic improvements to their clouds, they are a 3.9 versus XP 5.0 outta 10 rating IMO. They are reeling it in!

Edited September 12Sep 12 by KERNEL32

15 minutes ago, KERNEL32 said:

There's a plugin called X-Pro Turb and it takes the atmosphere to the next level in XP! This coupled with AutoHaze and the newest Beta release (fixed precipitation now!) and XP is looking and feeling really good these days!

I guess this is my other problem with XP... Back in the FSX days I used to run ActiveSky, custom landclass and meshes, downloaded satellite data, all the goodies. But I just don't want to deal with any of that these days. I run an empty community folder and get all my addons from the marketplace so I don't need to deal with downloads and updates and running external programs. I've been putting off buying JetCard even though it would basically remove all my VIP charter frustrations in career mode because I'm reluctant having to deal with an additional program. For this same reason I don't deal with BATC or other commonly recommended external apps.

In the end I am probably missing out, but MSFS and a few addon planes and airports is "good enough" for me, frustrations and all.

2 hours ago, Funky D said:

I upvote bugs/features in the MSFS forums and add my comments when I can contribute additional information. Anything beyond that is just wasted hot air (...hot keypresses?) IMHO...

2 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

I’M a “hard core [PC] simmer ” and I can hardly wait for the improved air racing aspect.

there’s a LOT more to flight sim than big fat airliners flying themselves.

Yeah, but you’re not the average simmer here complaining about not seeing landing gear. 😆 I didn’t mean to imply that just because you sim, you might not enjoy the racing. It was rather to amplify where MS is focused which is on drawing in new players, not on adding in new features the traditional simmer is clamoring for. I for one will also enjoy it.

And please don’t assume I mainly fly airliners. They are my least flown plane. I own over 100 payware aircraft (Helicopters, bush, GA, biz jets, warbirds, airliners, etc.) and over 500 other add-ons (airports, bush strips, world enhancements, utilities, etc.) I am pretty sure I’ve explored EVERY aspect MSFS can provide and rotate between the different categories of aircraft frequently.

Lastly, I have been one of the staunchest supporters of MSFS 2024. I’m not bothered by what a lot of simmers here view as important items to be fixed. My entire post was not to be critical of the sim, but rather to tell everyone that they should probably adjust their expectations on getting a lot of new features in this iteration of MSFS.

Edited September 13Sep 13 by Gulf76