Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020

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Discussion

Muddle238

3,871 posts

112 months

Tuesday 14th July 2020
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I'm really interested to see how the majority of airports and airfields look. One of my main gripes with FSX was that my local airfield which is reality is quite a large airfield, was depicted in FSX as a generic runway sitting in the middle of a rectangular grassy texture amongst the autogen. It had only one runway modelled, not the other two, nor any taxiways/buildings/airfield perimeter road and so on. I'm hoping that FS2020 will put an end to these generic grass textured rectangles with a single, lone runway slapped into the countryside.

The other thing I'm very interested to see is how the "VFR is possible, everywhere" claim stacks up. They mention you can follow roads, rivers, cities etc., but to some degree this was true in FSX. Major roads and rivers were generally depicted as grey lines. I'd be interested to see whether the new sim compares on a rural setting, for example will the Bing map coverage extend to rural Britain or will there be large pockets of "generic autogen" between the major towns and cities. I'd love to see my home in the sim for example, then land in the field behind the house.

Likewise following the local fields over to the local town, and whether the technology accurately places trees and buildings where they should be in real life.

kowalski655

14,599 posts

142 months

Tuesday 14th July 2020
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[redacted]

kowalski655

14,599 posts

142 months

Tuesday 14th July 2020
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LimaDelta said:
I travel a lot and use DCS/XP11 on my laptop with a Rift S. I have a full TM HOTAS at home but obviously don't take it with me. When I'm away I use a Xbox 360 controller and in VR it is actually very effective. Even the little sticks on the controller are good enough for AAR or heli flying in DCS with a little practice.

One of the big advantages of VR you do not need a huge number of button bindings, you essentially just look at the switch/control you want to interact with and using a button on the pad either push/pull wind CW/CCW etc. With DCS you need to map some additional HOTAS functions but I don't feel I am limited necessarily with the controller compared with the Warthog (especially when using a couple of buttons as modifiers, which effectively double or triple the number of buttons on the controller). With civvy flying it is not an issue at all, and I feel a more realistic interface when compared with a huge list of keyboard bindings. When I'm flying an XP11 Pa-28 I am using the same movements and scans as I would in a real Pa-28 (apart from the physical manipulation of the flying controls of course).
Have you seen the flight sim by FlyInside? A bit basic,early access,at the moment but designed to be pure VR,no need for a joystick, just use the CR handsets to grip the stick and throttle, switch knobs etc.

red_slr

17,122 posts

188 months

Tuesday 14th July 2020
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kowalski655 said:
LimaDelta said:
I travel a lot and use DCS/XP11 on my laptop with a Rift S. I have a full TM HOTAS at home but obviously don't take it with me. When I'm away I use a Xbox 360 controller and in VR it is actually very effective. Even the little sticks on the controller are good enough for AAR or heli flying in DCS with a little practice.

One of the big advantages of VR you do not need a huge number of button bindings, you essentially just look at the switch/control you want to interact with and using a button on the pad either push/pull wind CW/CCW etc. With DCS you need to map some additional HOTAS functions but I don't feel I am limited necessarily with the controller compared with the Warthog (especially when using a couple of buttons as modifiers, which effectively double or triple the number of buttons on the controller). With civvy flying it is not an issue at all, and I feel a more realistic interface when compared with a huge list of keyboard bindings. When I'm flying an XP11 Pa-28 I am using the same movements and scans as I would in a real Pa-28 (apart from the physical manipulation of the flying controls of course).
Have you seen the flight sim by FlyInside? A bit basic,early access,at the moment but designed to be pure VR,no need for a joystick, just use the CR handsets to grip the stick and throttle, switch knobs etc.
Didnt know they were doing their own. I useded Flyinside for P3D before LM offered native support and it was pretty good.

LimaDelta

6,507 posts

217 months

Tuesday 14th July 2020
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kowalski655 said:
LimaDelta said:
I travel a lot and use DCS/XP11 on my laptop with a Rift S. I have a full TM HOTAS at home but obviously don't take it with me. When I'm away I use a Xbox 360 controller and in VR it is actually very effective. Even the little sticks on the controller are good enough for AAR or heli flying in DCS with a little practice.

One of the big advantages of VR you do not need a huge number of button bindings, you essentially just look at the switch/control you want to interact with and using a button on the pad either push/pull wind CW/CCW etc. With DCS you need to map some additional HOTAS functions but I don't feel I am limited necessarily with the controller compared with the Warthog (especially when using a couple of buttons as modifiers, which effectively double or triple the number of buttons on the controller). With civvy flying it is not an issue at all, and I feel a more realistic interface when compared with a huge list of keyboard bindings. When I'm flying an XP11 Pa-28 I am using the same movements and scans as I would in a real Pa-28 (apart from the physical manipulation of the flying controls of course).
Have you seen the flight sim by FlyInside? A bit basic,early access,at the moment but designed to be pure VR,no need for a joystick, just use the CR handsets to grip the stick and throttle, switch knobs etc.
XPlane does the same - in that you can fly using only the Rift controllers. It works quite well actually, but can be tiring after a while holding up your arm without a physical yoke or stick to hold. The biggest drawback of the VR controller is the lack of an option for rudder/brake interaction, i.e. you will still need to map buttons/axes for this.

kowalski655

14,599 posts

142 months

Tuesday 14th July 2020
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red_slr said:
Didnt know they were doing their own. I useded Flyinside for P3D before LM offered native support and it was pretty good.
It's not too bad, about FS9 level,Milviz do some planes, no HOTAS needed is the main selling point
A fair way to go to get to P3D or XP11 levels of details though

BobSaunders

3,027 posts

154 months

Tuesday 14th July 2020
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[redacted]

BobSaunders

3,027 posts

154 months

Tuesday 14th July 2020
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I need a joystick and throttle quadrant in my life. Can anyone recommend?

Waiting to see the specs on multi-monitor setup - and realistically if it can cope.

red_slr

17,122 posts

188 months

Tuesday 14th July 2020
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BobSaunders said:
I need a joystick and throttle quadrant in my life. Can anyone recommend?
Budget end T Flight Hotas One (I have this its fine for what it is quite smooth fine for with VR and allows for rudder control too)
Medium budget X52 Hotas (out of production now I think but you can still get on ebay)
High end X56 Hotas (ohhh yeah twin throttles)
Higher than high end Thrustmaster Warthog (FTW, GG, OMG he on X games, dude are you an actual figher pilot)

Note if you ever go VR then its not worth geting an expensive HOTAS in my opinion.

If you wanted to go full geek you could spend £500+ on a saitek pro set up with some instruments etc..... but then you realise actually it would be fun to build a full rig and then you end up like this guy...

https://youtu.be/k7oAUOR1dJ0?t=592


kowalski655

14,599 posts

142 months

Tuesday 14th July 2020
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I would disagree slightly on the need for a decent HOTAS in VR, because you can't see the keyboard you at least need one with a decent amount of buttons you can assign to switches. Although Voice Attack is a cheap option too.
Also a yoke can be considered if you want more GA flying.
https://youtu.be/31HNR42Kp14
Oh,and if you really splurge on the Warthog,you will need to buy pedals too

Edited by kowalski655 on Tuesday 14th July 23:52

J4CKO

41,279 posts

199 months

Wednesday 15th July 2020
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Quite keen on giving this a go, but not sure if its going to need a whole new setup, (not very) current spec is,

Asus Z170-K - Intel Core i5 6600K @ 4.20GHz
GeForce GTX 1060 Dual 6144MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
16 GB Ram
Various motley assortment of hard drives, couple of SSD's and a normal one,

Worth a try as is, upgrade or start again ?

Still seems plenty fast enough for most stuff at 1080p

red_slr

17,122 posts

188 months

Wednesday 15th July 2020
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Just to clarify what I said about HOTAS and VR.

I mean, if you intend to fly a lot in VR then pretty much any HOTAS with a lot of buttons will do. No point in spending £200-400 on a stick you cant see. A £70-£100 item will do a very similar job whilst you are not bothered so much about lights and 100 extra buttons you cant actually easily find.

I am not saying you dont need a HOTAS, you do.

IMHO!



red_slr

17,122 posts

188 months

Wednesday 15th July 2020
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biggrin

LimaDelta

6,507 posts

217 months

Wednesday 15th July 2020
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[redacted]

anonymous-user

53 months

Wednesday 15th July 2020
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LimaDelta said:
IMHO you don't. For all my civvy flying and half my DCS combat stuff I can use an xbox controller. I still have a TM HOTAS at home, and while it makes some things easier (i.e.I don't need to remember which xbox button I mapped to TMS Right, I just press TMS Right) it is far from essential. I can still map the DMS/TMS/CMS stuff to the xbox, plus throttle, brakes etc. I certainly don't feel it is a disadvantage for the most part.

Just think how many 'HOTAS' controls your typical GA aircraft has - PTT, maybe trim, maybe A/P Disconnect.
I think it’s about what does or doesn’t suspend the reality of the flying experience.

Planes I fly only have trim interphone/transmit and autopilot disconnect plus some basic HUD functionality. So whether you have to go to an Xbox controller or a HOTAS joystick to say lower the flap makes little difference. In the real aircraft most controls and buttons involve looking away from the window momentarily or some head down FMC/FMGC entry. The big difference is that there’s usually two of you in a more complex civil aircraft. So one is still looking out and monitoring whilst the other is pressing buttons. In flight sims you’re obviously single pilot all the time which is in itself often unrealistic anyway.

To me it’s more that the movement in the joystick is much more than the movement in the thumb stick and you can control it with one hand so it seems more like operating a real aircraft either with joystick or yoke. The Xbox controller needs both hands close together and only your thumb moves, which feels more different and a bit more disconnected to me.

In a real aircraft you’d often have one hand on the controls and one on the thrust lever/switches/throttle. Which is much easier to replicate with a joystick and separate throttle control compared to a Xbox controller.

Sorry if I’ve missed your point though, I think you might just be talking about the functions of the buttons. hehe

LimaDelta

6,507 posts

217 months

Wednesday 15th July 2020
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El stovey said:
LimaDelta said:
IMHO you don't. For all my civvy flying and half my DCS combat stuff I can use an xbox controller. I still have a TM HOTAS at home, and while it makes some things easier (i.e.I don't need to remember which xbox button I mapped to TMS Right, I just press TMS Right) it is far from essential. I can still map the DMS/TMS/CMS stuff to the xbox, plus throttle, brakes etc. I certainly don't feel it is a disadvantage for the most part.

Just think how many 'HOTAS' controls your typical GA aircraft has - PTT, maybe trim, maybe A/P Disconnect.
I think it’s about what does or doesn’t suspend the reality of the flying experience.

Planes I fly only have trim interphone/transmit and autopilot disconnect plus some basic HUD functionality. So whether you have to go to an Xbox controller or a HOTAS joystick to say lower the flap makes little difference. In the real aircraft most controls and buttons involve looking away from the window momentarily or some head down FMC/FMGC entry. The big difference is that there’s usually two of you in a more complex civil aircraft. So one is still looking out and monitoring whilst the other is pressing buttons. In flight sims you’re obviously single pilot all the time which is in itself often unrealistic anyway.

To me it’s more that the movement in the joystick is much more than the movement in the thumb stick and you can control it with one hand so it seems more like operating a real aircraft either with joystick or yoke. The Xbox controller needs both hands close together and only your thumb moves, which feels more different and a bit more disconnected to me.

In a real aircraft you’d often have one hand on the controls and one on the thrust lever/switches/throttle. Which is much easier to replicate with a joystick and separate throttle control compared to a Xbox controller.

Sorry if I’ve missed your point though, I think you might just be talking about the functions of the buttons. hehe
Not at all. I'm, not going to argue that a HOTAS/stick & throttle or even full room replica cockpit isn't better than a cheap xbox controller, but just that in terms of enjoyment and the practicality of flying the simulator it can offer 90% of the functionaility for little or no cost (and actually, when I'm flying VR my brain is tricked into forgetting that I'm using the controller at all).

Oh, and single pilot going eyes-down for extended periods in the sim doesn't carry the same risks as it does in real flying(!).

Ikemi

8,438 posts

204 months

Wednesday 15th July 2020
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For the less serious sim gamers who are equally excited for this release, does anyone have any information with regards to crash damage?

anonymous-user

53 months

Wednesday 15th July 2020
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Ikemi said:
For the less serious sim gamers who are equally excited for this release, does anyone have any information with regards to crash damage?
I doubt there’ll be crash damage at all. I think the gear might collapse though if you really plant it.

It’s perhaps to do with licensing, like you see on many driving games.

Interesting thread here about it.

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/569663-msfs-202...

Someone asks about crash damage and people get all angry and think he wants to do 9/11 style reenactments.

DIW35

4,145 posts

199 months

Wednesday 15th July 2020
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Razer Tartarus Programmable Keypad might be of interest to anyone who wants to fly VR.

red_slr

17,122 posts

188 months

Wednesday 15th July 2020
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Ikemi said:
For the less serious sim gamers who are equally excited for this release, does anyone have any information with regards to crash damage?
You want DCS for damage.

Its quite realistic and you can lose part of wings or stabs, even individual control surfaces or trim tabs on some models.

You can leak fuel etc.

You can also bend the gear, rip the gear off, fly without canopy etc etc.

Only really military jets though no civil aviation.