Cognita

The systems and the flight model on the Sovereign were indeed quite good, very convincing and I enjoyed the dozen or so flights I made in it earlier in the summer but the visuals kind of put me off the plane. It just does not look convincing as a business jet! And then I went and looked in the aft baggage compartment and if you look up you can see outside the plane, the model has a hole in it and that kind of thing really bothers me. It has been hangered since. But I really, really hope they redo the model. I would even pay an upgrade fee for it. I picked up the Hawker and it is a great plane -- I did not know about the poor single engine flight model, someone said on one engine it flies sideways -- but I for some reason I have struggled to come to terms with its systems and proper start up and shut down sequences so something always does not work properly. I need more time with it for sure.

Yea, this was my experience too, I just cannot get into it, the motivation to learn it is not there.

There are limitations about what we can really know but I assume Microsoft reduced the quality of the streamed data. They lowered the density of the terrain tiles, photogrammetry detail and the distance at which LOD tiles are sent. So even if you are on a PC the (amount of) data you receive -- its depth and quality -- was reduced server side. So technically your PC can resolve higher quality tiles and higher LOD but you are not receiving the data to do so. Now why they did this we do not know. It could be bandwidth cost because reducing the tile size would reduce server calls per user and bandwidth usage. But I think it is more likely cross-platform stability as less data sent reduces CPU stress and spikes that can cause stutters and maybe more importantly it reduces memory pressure on consoles and mid-range PCs. It was a move toward stability across all platforms. It is unfortunate, but it is understandable so I just get on with flying.

Same with me. Unfortunately TLOD does have an impact and I just decided to keep mine low.

Yea, I would appreciate it more if they simply said this is what they have done, why, and whether or not they plan to do anything that could improve it further or if this is what we hare going to have going forward. But I also can emphasize that it is a hard place to be in for them, they have had to dial things back and may very likely never be able to go back to what they had. I suspect they are not happy with that. I did notice that they did kind of close off some things in that last live stream, like ATC and weather.

Well, maybe I am mistaken, but I tend to assume that on the balance of probabilities Asobo did not make a plan that said " let's introduce this sim with a high quality of visual fidelity and then after a year or so we will regress it and make it worse so we can sit back and watch everyone get upset and complain." What seems much more probable to me is that they built the sim capable of a certain level of fidelity, whether ground textures, LOD distances, etc., but as they rolled it out on X-Box, and more likely when they began testing on PlayStation in advance of its release, those consoles could not handle it and because it is server dependent it was not possible to allow pc's or stronger systems to have higher settings; it had to be that way for everyone. And likely any change would require the investment of development resources that could not be financially justified in their corporate environment. Given that their continued operations are tied to expanding the title across consoles, drawing more people and maintaining certain levels of engagement, they opted to downgrade the sim. Under those circumstances -- which I admit I am assuming, but they seem reasonable -- I agree with their decision and have no problem accepting it. In the end, it is still far, far, far better than the P3D world I was using in 2019.

I do not approach this with a doom-and-gloom attitude, I do enjoy 2024 the way I use it. That said, I do not anticipate, nor do I think it is reasonable to expect, any further breakthrough development. I think the way the sim is now is pretty much how it will remain. I certainly expect no more advances in things like weather or LOD levels and any performance gains I reason could only be achieved by further drops in visual fidelity. Whether it is technical limitations, earlier architectural decisions that have determined what can be done, financial pressures to ensure ongoing growth across platforms and/or to limit further development costs, or they have just run out of motivation to improve further I cannot say. But there are hard realities in this world and while I can dream and envision better things it does not mean I can have them. I personally have come to accept what is there -- could it be better, sure; has it had regressions to expand across consoles in order to remain financially and corporately viable, almost certainly. So I just kind of accept the situation as it is because no amount of drawing attention to the issues is going to get them addressed. And if I step back and look this year at the fewer development streams, the absence of photogrammetry updates (apparently to focus on color correction), the toned down announcements about how many staff and companies are working on the project, and the responses from the team to many questions, that basically said, "no we have not plans to address ATC, we have no immediate plans to improve weather" etc., I think my conclusion is at present sound. The kind of enthusiasm and engagement has definitely faded, likely under the harsh realities of organizational capacity, financial realities and corporate expectations. Also, I noted a week or so ago there was an in-game invitation to complete a survey about 2024, the structure of which made me think they are indeed thinking about the next version, whether 2027 or 2028 or 2029 or whatever it may be. So maybe they are just moving on now to focus on the next iteration. 2024 was announced in June 2023, and had clearly been under development for quite some time at that point, so likely it was green-lit in early 2022, so this would be time frame they would be considering whether they commit to another version and what that would be But all this said, for me, this is entertainment and if I go down the road of trying to make it some super-realistic, important and serious simulation the joy starts to blead out of my hobby, so I stopped doing that quite some time ago. Taking some time to think about a flight, plan it out, and carry it out even in the limitations of the sim, is something I just enjoy, that relaxes me and gives my mind something to think about besides the pressures of work, and often helps refocus and be productive.

I am sure it is, I just do not have that kind of time. The plane is very good, as I said earlier one of the best aircraft I have purchased.

I saw this, it is over 3 hours long and in the first 10 minutes I learned really nothing: a minute panning around the aircraft, a discussion of what study-level means, comparisons to other mid-sized jets, after 9 minutes and 50 seconds. I think what people are asking for is a proper, focused tutorial flight.

This plane is very well done in its systems depth. I am learning a lot but I have only completed one full flight in the Hawker in the past two weeks since I got it. Partly as I have been flying some other aircraft but partly as there is a lot to learn and if you don't do it the aircraft just does not work. I am very impressed with the way they did the persistence. I finally got all the flows down to prepare from cold and dark to flight I arrived shut down and when I came back I have a warning tone that I cannot shut off and have not figured out why yet. Something I did not shut down right. This is the first aircraft in a long time I have had to really study to understand and learn to fly. Just great. But could not agree more I would have been saved a lot of time with a more complete demonstration through a tutorial flight.

I picked this up a little over a week ago and I would unequivocally say it is the best and most comprehensive business jet we have. I really waited over a decade for such an business jet in the sim, P3D never really had one. Really impressed by FlightFX.

I was going to skip this but have been watching the videos and learning more and I have to say this may be the most in-depth and complex business jet in the sim, really quite impressed with what they have done. I do not have time now to learn a new aircraft but next month when things slow down a little I am going to get this and looking forward to it.

You will be fine. I have a 4070 paired to a 14900 and can run the sim smoothly with settings on a mix of high and ultra. I have what amounts to a 40 mbps connection and have no issue with the download at all.

Yea, I thought it looked nice too and agree at least from the description it seems they have taken the systems depth a step further, which is nice to see. Still no failures from what I can tell. I will wait a little and see, it is on my maybe list right now. I am enjoying business jets but my Sovereign has been grounded due to the hole in the fuselage in the baggage compartment so this would be a pretty direct replacement. It is old though and I need to research the real plane and its avionics and avionics upgrades. The problem is there are just so many high quality, high fidelity planes now that it is becoming overwhelming. There are days when I just cannot decide what to fly! And we have the 757, 797, the Fenix A321neo, the Praetor 600, a Global, the A2A Legacy, all likely in the next quarter or two -- at some point buying more planes that I have no time to fly....

I have that exact card and run at full 2K but 4K was always pushing the limits, it was just better to output at 2K.

This is what will keep me from purchasing it until the 2024 version is ready.

I am in now, all launched normally.

Same here, eastern Canada. Interestingly, the x-box status page shows everything green but Down Detector is showing a spike in outage reports starting around 8:00 a.m.

It depends what you are looking for and what is meant by hi-fidelity. I believe only the Phenom has failures or any form of maintenance. In my opinion it is a very complete, high-fidelity aircraft with a great flight model that takes practice to learn. System wise, the others focus on completely normal operations. My impression is the systems are modeled by far the deepest on the Sovereign, the only one with circuit level simulation of the electrical system, very complete G5000 synoptics etc., likely followed by the C750 and the Longitude. I feel the Honda Jet is well behind all of these, a simplified, mid-fidelity jet with simulated, isolated systems. So it depends on what level of fidelity you are looking for. I was really enjoying the Sovereign, its systems are excellent but then I discovered in the rear baggage area a gaping hole where you can see outside the plane, and just knowing it is there drives me crazy and keeps me away from the aircraft, surely unreasonable I know but I sure wish Skyward would fix the model there.

If you click the coat hanger in the cockpit, it initiates the Shift-C and places you in the plane. I also like this feature on the FENIX and it is another reason why it is by far my preferred airliner.

I remember those days, things were so much simpler! :) But really, we have so many high-fidelity aircraft now it is an embarrassment of riches. I did not fly yesterday or today because I spent so much time thinking about what aircraft I wanted to fly!

I just ran a speed test on my system and I am getting 38.28 down and 7.58 up, so pretty close to your speed. I have a solid mid-range system, i4900K paired to a 4070 Super and 32 GB ram. I pretty much only fly third-part aircraft -- PMDG, Fenix, Black Square -- into third party airports and I discern no issues with performance at all. Now, i keep my settings on high, very little on ultra, and I do not try to run with a very high TLOD, but with these caveats I do not think you need to be too concerned with performance, in regard to internet speed. Also, I should say that I do not fly any iniBuilds aircrafts but I understand the are higher on performance than others so I cannot advise about that.

This discussion is very much making me want to pick this up and break my commitment not to buy any addons this month. I am so impressed Nick figured out the engine start procedure after it was said it was impossible in MSFS!

I am not an expert. However, there are whole modern systems on an A350 that simply do not exist, period, on an B737NG. Brake to vacate is one of those, as an example. Now in the sim, the developer could just not include that system, but if they try to get close to the real world counterpart, they would model it and the underlying logic. That takes more development effort and time. That is all I was getting at.

I was only trying to say that the complexity of an A350 or A220 in real life is significantly higher than the NG series of aircraft, and iniBuilds has tried to simulate some of those advances. I did not mean it as an excuse, just a recognition of the reality of the situation -- but I could have said it better.