ptisinge

I enjoyed Air Hauler a lot for some its aspects (I bought it when it was released), but I must say that this precise aspect of how you have to handle your company was what did put me off. The fact is that sometimes I would accept a job, prepare to fly it, and then real life would come in the way and prevent me from doing the flight - I would then fail with this job, and possibly fail more jobs if I had accepted some for my AI pilots but had to cut short my session before I assigned the jobs to AI pilots... If you want to do simply do a job when you want, I suggest FsPassengersX, which is still what I'm using most of the time, it's awesome, and possibly FsCaptain, which seems to be a bit of the successor of FsPx, although more oriented towards the pilot career than the company boss aspects (which is more what I'm into). FsPassengersX is great with the big number of failures that can happen randomly, from minor to major ones, once in while you get a stuck landing gear, or instruments failing etc, and therefore I'm always rather alert when flying with FsPx which adds to the immersion.

I don't expect it to be the end of civilian flight sims, but I do expect it to be the end of MS involvement in it for many years. Maybe in 10 years or so...

I wouldn't call it a rumour anymore now that Kotaku has confirmed that Microsoft replied directly to them and confirmed it. It's sad but there were worrying signs, Alaska felt unfinished and rushed, and I kept thinking about this potential outcome in the last couple of weeks. I still don't put much hope in the Prepar3D thing, LM is experimenting with that and they could pull the plug at anytime when they re evaluate their projects. If the 2.0 version comes out it will probably sound better. X-Plane is promising in some ways, but it hasn't caught up with FSX and Flight in a number of ways although I reckon it could get there in a couple of years if the current wave of addons continues and expand to high quality sceneries, weather and traffic/ATC, but we'll end up with a complex setup composed of a multitude of addons just like FSX, so Flight was really covering a particular niche, the one where you can launch a flight very quickly, enjoy it for a bit and leave it anytime you like - we won't see something user friendly and simple like that for a long while I reckon. I'm already a user of DCS, but I'm sure it will remain focused mostly on combat, and I won't be flying a Beaver in Alaska in DCS World anytime soon, so I don't put my hopes there. I wish someone could apply to good concepts of Take On Helicopters (but I don't trust BIS to be able to make the leap towards good plane flight models, Arma2 isn't better than say BF3 for that) and make a plane version of that.

But the KA50 from DCS is very worth the price. I own it and absolutely love it. I often fly it just in free flight mode. By the way, for FSX I've recently discovered the HTC addon (freeware) at hovercontrol (just google it): it adds a lot of the missing physics to helicopters (including the default ones) and the result feels quite close to what Xplane achieves, a huge improvement. I'd be curious to see how an helicopter model would turn out in Flight, but only if they would really upgrade the model a lot in comparison to vanilla FSX.

That was a nice surprise, and just as I had decided to go for Xplane instead. Now with this discount I got all of the Flight content, and I'll still give a go at X-Plane. FSX will remain my main platform in terms of diversity as well as complex addons, X-Plane for the helicopters and Flight for some quick sessions of GA.

To copy and paste something said before (in another order) 1: Airport buildings, procedurally generated if necessary. I'd like to be able to tour the country side of a region without having to go and download airports one by one. 2: Better ATC, with some mechanism facilitating the interactions with it during flight (Radar Contact for FSX is a great example) 3: Better Ai so that we can end up with a nice scheduled traffic. 4: Seasons

I hear what you're saying, but personally I know that a smaller area like the Tongass would have worked well for a long time for me - that's the way it was with FSX, I spent a long time in this area and didn't mind it given the amount of details to be found. It's a pity that we can't go in this scenery, edit it and fix it ourselves as well. The community would have the ability to add the details wherever they are missing. Anyway, I don't mind, I'll start with the Hawaii DLC which I don't have yet - that is if I pick Flight versus X-Plane 10 (geez it's hard to choose, it's no money driving the choice, it's really down to time available to play... maybe Flight will win over such a criterion).

I'd vote for a twin too. Twin Otter, Catalina, DC-3. This all sounds good. Dash 8 would be great, but a plane of this complexity seems very far from the focus of Flight currently, I can't see this happening anytime soon. Anyway with the hints of the Carbon Cub VC, Flight is back on track for me - at least it's back into a fight against X-Plane 10... I can't decide which, although the fact that Flight is so simple and quick to setup and launch makes it a better real alternative to X-Plane (while XP 10 might be the alternative to FSX in a couple of years if all goes well...).

This is an interesting comparison. It leaves me with the feeling that Flight should have concentrated on a much smaller area. The Alaska DLC looks like it is less detailled than Hawaii was, which is really a pity. I like some aspects of Flight, and I thought that I would wait for the Alaska release to make it my "home" scenery, but in fact I now think that I'm better off flying around the Hawaii DLC in Flight until I'm bored of it, and keep using my OrbX + Tongass scenery in FSX for that part of the world (not to mention the NZ tour I haven't finished).

I don't know if it's a make or break from the player side of the experience, but I must say that I'm wondering about the dev team and the future. Alaska was released with zero PR, seriously, apart from a dozen of screenshots, there was absolutely no promotion for it... It seems there was just no budget at all for ads, yet we're talking about a developer team part of a giant corporation, and with the absence for any side DLC (such as a Deluxe aircraft), I'm wondering whether we're now witnessing the closure of this studio. In any case, it proves that Microsoft doesn't seem to care so much about the revival of flight siming, and it almost seems like a miracle to me that Flight is even out there- for that, I have to say kudos to the dev team, this doesn't sound like a great environment to work in and they are probably more passionate about their baby than some people seem to think. In short, for me Alaska is not make or break (I'm still somewhat hopeful, but I really want more planes with VC...), but I hope it's not past the make or break point already for the developers... Time will tell, and pardon me for this bit of speculation.

It would be strange to release so much new scenery content without at least one more plane (well, not really one more for me since I really want a VC). I'm also still rather hopeful that they'll announce a deluxe plane, but not 100% confident any more. Let's hope that if I'm wrong, we will at least not have to wait a whole month (but I'll just delay any purchase until we know when the next VC plane comes anyway).

I only go away from my computer for one day, and that's what I get to discover when I come back... For me, it's pretty simple: either MS releases an aircraft with VC (a paid DLC on the side, fine) or I guess I'll have to wait again, which is starting to remind me of the constant disappointment that IL2 Cliffs of Dover has been in this regard. Anyway, as someone else said before in this topic, it's amazing how this PR strategy has managed to sink all the new enthusiasm created by the trackIR update and the Alaska DLC getting closer. I could clearly see it in other forums, and I had finally convinced my friends to give Flight a go, but now all of this is compromised. MS clearly needs to make a PR effort there. All they need is something as simple as "Flight users need not worry, we will release more Deluxe aircrafts in the future", because they haven't yet provided a simple reassuring statement as this one even though they show signs of being aware of the growing discontent with the "basic" warbirds. I had my hopes high, but I was hoping one Deluxe plane with Alaska, and who knows, a deluxe helicopter as DLC on the side, but I can't see a helo coming anytime soon now... I guess I might invest in X-Plane 10 instead of Flight in the end..

I use TrackIR 4 + TrackClipPro and find it pretty much flawless. It's also very reliable as I invested in the trackIR 4 around its release (early 2006 I think) and it's still running without any problem ever. In short, if you're on a budget, go for a trackIR 4. I can't compare it to trackIR 5 as I've never tried it, but the version 4 does the job perfectly well. In any case, go for it, trackIR is an amazing addition to your simulations, I couldn't play without it! In addition to your civilian sim, I recommend trying dogfighting in a sim like Rise of Flight, where looking all around in a natural way while engaging in a wild and deadly aerial ballet will shine in all its glory!

27th or later, it's looking great! And with trackIR finally supported, I feel I can finally fully invest in Flight (I've kept away from the Hawaii dlc to potentially enjoy it with trackIR later, so now I'll have all of this content to enjoy at once!)

I'm really disappointed that Microsoft didn't take the chance to communicate a bit at E3 and advertise Flight using the Alaska DLC there. There was not a single word about it. It tells us how high Flight ranks in their priorities... I'm still hoping that it's only a communication malfunction while the real good stuff is getting ready, but I wouldn't hold my breath, there seem to be a lot of anticipation for something coming up this week or the next (or the one after the next), but it might lead to big disappointment (what if the red tail was this month DLC indeed?...). So I'll say "nothing to come for at least a couple of weeks", this way if I'm wrong I can only be happy about it, better than feeling upset in two weeks if we still haven't heard anything...

The difficulties linked to visibility in tail draggers can easily be solved: trackIR support ;)

I'm really looking forward to Alaska. I like the location, its significance for bush flying and if people are guessing rightly, I like the fact that it might come with improved weather. I hope we soon hear about the planes involved and the release date. The cherry on the cake would be an announcement about trackIR support too.

I hope they are going to show us a lot more at the E3. It's a shame that Flight is not a flagship for Microsoft anymore. MS Flight Simulator used to be something they were proud of, but now it's just something on the side that did not make it to their E3 press conference, while a bunch of unoriginal games occupy the front stage... It's sad. I hope that they have a demo and more footage to show at their booth at least...

To get back to the topic, I had drifted away from Flight news knowing that we wouldn't hear any more about Alaska before the corsair release (and meanwhile I must say I enjoyed quite a bit of FSX flying and some beta warbird combat flying, with beautiful cockpits, but I can't talk about it...) , but here I am again, I really look forward to hearing and seeing more about Alaska. Maybe something at E3, it's just about to start, so we could see things really soon.

And I still think Flight would be wise to do as Railworks 3 (open itself to 3rd party, allow players to tinker/create) in this regard in the future.

To go back to the Alaska DLC topic, I guess our next hope to hear more about it will be at E3, 2 weeks from now.

That's encouraging. If Railworks Train Sim started with a slow DLC schedule and managed to climb where they are (a) year(s) later, there's no reason why Flight couldn't do that as well. We're seeing it from the impatient point of view of existing users, but if it's designed to last, newcomers will join next year, and the year after - this type of user would face a rich palette of DLC, like Railworks is able to now, and would experience none of the frustration/impatience sometime seen here now. I really wish Flight to follow the steps of Railworks. Being on Steam will help a lot to follow these steps I think. Time will tell.

Indeed, it's not in the top 100 for Steam today neither. I was curious and checked for other popular flight simulations sold on Steam, but none of them (IL2, both new and old, Wing of Prey, DSC A10 and Black Shark, Take On Helicopters...) are present (but none of them are very recent, and people who buy DCS on Steam often migrate away from it due to patches being available earlier without Steam). In fact, the simulation that is there in top 100 is Railworks. Quite surprising as I always thought that rail sim were more of a niche than flight sims, but I did hear that Railworks is quite a success and DLC is selling well on Steam (and this should be encouraging for the survival of Flight, but it still needs to climb a bit the ladder and get up there with Railworks). One thing that might have helped Railworks is the sheer amount of DLC: during a while, whenever I was checking new releases on Steam, there was always a Railworks DLC - this means that the game is getting constant exposure, which is something Flight is not able to do right now. Are Railworks DLC first or third party content?

H001 40 A001 35 E001 5 E002 5 E006 5 E004 3 M001 3 M002 2 P002 2 So many things I'd like to vote. It will be easier to put more weight on exciting feature once hopefully the urgent ones for me are dealt with (TrackIR and more VC planes). And thanks for doing that!

On the other hand, it's hard to interpret this type of data since most of the games listed here can be played without logging into live at all (you can use a "offline" profile, which will then never log in Live). In other words, whenever there is a single player game in this list, the stats is most likely underestimating the number of active players. This is even true for the number Flight users: some might have used it without ever logging into Live to get the Stearman (but then I guess they're not continuing users). In any case, it's still good news to see it somewhere towards the top! At the very least it must means it has not been a disaster in terms of exposure, and it also means Microsoft can see their product up there when they assess what are the important assets which make Live live :)