Microsoft Flight Sim 2020

[Tektolnes]

26 minutes ago, unlikely_spider said:

I am actually surprised to see how many small props, like acrobatic planes and light sport craft, are on the list.

 

Think it makes sense based on what MS are trying to do. They want to attract a wide crowd and those planes will just be easier to pick up and fly around. They can make them pretty realistic as they're not massively complex planes overall. They've priced it at 69.99 starters for the casual player which is the right price point for that market. Also they want to make sure that their 3rd party developers like PDMG, etc. have plenty of high fidelity complex planes to develop which will cover the hardcore fans requirements. So although they're providing the 747, 787 & A320 I'd assume the fidelity of those will be considerably lower than 3rd party developer offerings which is fine for the average player MS want to get into the game. 

[CanadaOne]

4 minutes ago, simfan2015 said:

About fs2020... Indeed, being able to really fly around the globe with true realistic scenery has never been done before Afaik. In that respect it is already a winner and will assure interest for a very long time if only because of this!!? 

 

If it models the world accurately, it's an irresistible program to have. And if you're a fan of geography or history or cultures even, it's worth twice the price just be able to interact with the environment on that level.

[Stoopy]

3 hours ago, CanadaOne said:

 

As a big fan of the planet, I see FS2020 as a form of education and entertainment. If it's geographically accurate, then for me it's invaluable as a way to see what different parts of the world look like. And if ORBX or someone else offer a package to make it even more accurate, I'll buy it for sure.

 

An interactive 3D model of the planet. It's fantastic!

 

Yup and it can be a base for their next Train Simulator, Ship Simulator, etc., all sharing position data so you can buzz your friends in their racing sloops or freight trains...

[dbzero]

Microsoft did venture into combat flight sims in the 90's. Both were pretty good. I preferred the Pacific Theater one more and played it quite a bit.  Don't expect them to venture into that territory this time around, but if this does work out, it could open the doors and give other devs ideas. CMO uses satellite data...

 

Interesting times we live in and someone mentioned Microprose which has been reborn. I'm very interested in their Pacific Theater project.

 

What's next? Janes?

[SeaW0lf]

Some stock / standard airports... I already got a 500GB SSD to install it.

 

[Lusekofte]

3 hours ago, DD_fruitbat said:

I am really very interested in the look of this, but have never owned a non combat flight sim.

 

I know literally nothing about any of the planes on the lists of the various versions in the different bundles.

 

Somebody sell  me some thing about some of those planes, otherwise I'm going to have to do a lot of googling!!!!

 

Any ideas what the quickest plane in those listed for release is (I'm, thinking low level mountains in my head)?

Well surley tou heard about the cub and Caravan. In the beginning this will be my planes of choice. 
I will buy sny vintage planes like the Dakota and B 17 that I am sure will come 

I think by the look of this that one can do all the bush flying available in earth. 
For the commercial flights I am far From convinced I will use at all. It is a button pushing longhaul I really not care for. But people love it. They have their own community and tower 

Edited July 16, 2020 by 216th_LuseKofte

[CanadaOne]

Just checked the ORBX site and they're selling one piece of X-Plane scenery for the same price as FS2020 Standard. I don't see how that business model can stand. Who would pay $70 for one add-on region when for about the same price you get the whole world and dozens of planes?

 

I wonder if the sellers will be stubborn and just stick to their prices and they don't sell any at all, they'll just chew on it.

[RedKestrel]

4 hours ago, simfan2015 said:

About spotting... I hope they have even put in some... UFOs that we can try to encounter!? 

No, I don't think they will model 109K-4s or Tempests.

4 hours ago, Stoopy said:

 

Yup and it can be a base for their next Train Simulator, Ship Simulator, etc., all sharing position data so you can buzz your friends in their racing sloops or freight trains...

Among the Train Simmers and the Ship SImmers, finally, finally, flight sim nerds will be the cool people in the room!

 

[Feathered_IV]

Looks very realistic but I don’t have any detectable enthusiasm for modern aircraft or landscapes.  Flying a Dragon-Rapide out of Croydon in 1938 would be more my speed.  

[Blooddawn1942]

9 hours ago, simfan2015 said:

About spotting... I hope they have even put in some... UFOs that we can try to encounter!? 

There was a mission in FSX were you had to get stuff from Las Vegas to groom Lake. Not long before the landing approach an UFO appears in front of your 737.

[scram77]

10 hours ago, CanadaOne said:

 

Bush and mountain flights in a Cub are the best. 

 

And it's probably the quickest plane for anyone who wants to fly under 100mph.

This. I’m going to be spending plenty of time pottering about in a Cub over the Alps, or around Canada, or even flying across the outback in Oz. Can’t wait 

[BB5000]

I’ve used FSX along with addons like FSPassengers and (recently) Air Hauler 2 , they add some economics and generate missions with a purpose. I really hope that FS2020 will support addons like this..

Edited July 17, 2020 by BB5000

[fiddlinjim]

Placed my Pre-Order for MS Flight Sim 2020.   Looking forward to the mid August release but will have to crank up my Track IR5

because there's no VR to start.

[scram77]

11 minutes ago, fiddlinjim said:

Placed my Pre-Order for MS Flight Sim 2020.   Looking forward to the mid August release but will have to crank up my Track IR5

because there's no VR to start.

TrackIR isn't supported yet either apparently

[Stoopy]

17 minutes ago, TP_Scram said:

TrackIR isn't supported yet either apparently

 

(Record scratch)  Wait, what??? 

 

Hmmmm.  How can that be overlooked in this day and age?

 

[fiddlinjim]

28 minutes ago, TP_Scram said:

TrackIR isn't supported yet either apparently

You are correct but hopefully they will support it shortly.

[RedKestrel]

5 minutes ago, Stoopy said:

 

(Record scratch)  Wait, what??? 

 

Hmmmm.  How can that be overlooked in this day and age?

 

They haven't made a new flight sim in forever, so they just forgot? Or they just figured that its only for combat games, and sim pilots woulnd't need it.

Frankly if my headtracking broke I probably wouldn't play until I could get my hands on a new one. No way would I play a flight sim now without one, even though previously I did it for years.

[SAS_Storebror]

It wasn't supported in the Beta test yet.

Nobody really knows whether it'll be supported on release.

MS got in touch with the Naturalpoint guys, that's all we know right now.

Sit back and relax.

 

Mike

[RedKestrel]

Just now, fiddlinjim said:

You are correct but hopefully they will support it shortly.

With Microsoft money you would hope it wouldn't be too hard to do. Probably more an oversight than a deliberate decision.

[dburne]

1 hour ago, fiddlinjim said:

Placed my Pre-Order for MS Flight Sim 2020.   Looking forward to the mid August release but will have to crank up my Track IR5

because there's no VR to start.

 

You are a better man than me, I just can not do it without VR support. If they provide it, then yeah I will be all over it.

Has been a long time since I messed with FSX.

 

[fiddlinjim]

1 hour ago, dburne said:

 

You are a better man than me, I just can not do it without VR support. If they provide it, then yeah I will be all over it.

Has been a long time since I messed with FSX.

 

I love VR as much as you but this has to be future of terrain views in flight simming and for $60.00 I'll give it a shot with hopes for the future that it will incorporate

panning views and VR.   I feel we have to support these new advances like we did when we bought the first Oculus products, Dk1 just didn't work

for me but I still jumped at the CV1.

 

Edited July 17, 2020 by fiddlinjim
left out info

[Stoopy]

3 hours ago, SAS_Storebror said:

It wasn't supported in the Beta test yet.

Nobody really knows whether it'll be supported on release.

MS got in touch with the Naturalpoint guys, that's all we know right now.

Sit back and relax.

 

Mike

 

Yep guess we'll just see what we see.  

 

It just hasn't been MS' normal practice to add any significant features to their flight sim versions after initial release.  There were post-release updates to FS9 and FSX for a few bug fixes, that was about it.  IL2 has us spoiled.

 

So I'd guess we may see support for TIR or VR to be part of another addon DLC package. Super Premium Deluxe Pro with fries, or something. Apparently there will be an in-game marketplace.

 

Hopefully what's being released will at least include a pan view...

 

Edited July 17, 2020 by Stoopy

[Trooper117]

I'll get it eventually when it's working with all it's bells and whistles!

It will be cheap as chips in a couple of years...

[Swing]

For most of us, so used to military simulations, the hardest part will be not Check our six permanently......

[SeaW0lf]

The Customer Support Engineer from Naturalpoint said in April: "We have now been in contact with the game producer to get support for TrackIR".

 

It might be at release, it might come later. The way the market is reacting, and I bet Microsoft will get a portion of addon sales, we might see development for a few years to come. Either the sim has some serious flaws, and this is not what I'm hearing, just the opposite, they might stay for the long haul. There would be no reason to abandon the development. On the contrary. 

 

And the product seems to already be in a great shape, so I imagine they will have a lot of work to do with bug fixes, but hell, the sim appears to be amazing the way it is. I'm also seeing people say it works great with current hardware, something that was always a hassle over the decades. I'm not sure how it will pan out with TrackIR, don't know how TrackIR works, but the feedback from alpha testers looks promising.

[CUJO_1970]

My wife is not going to understand this.

 

Its going to be awesome.

[Tycoon]

https://www.engadget.com/2020-03-27-microsoft-flight-simulator-multiplayer.html

 

Just saw this article from some months ago, they claim that the multiplayer will span the whole in game globe and potentially support hundreds of thousands of players at the same time.

 

 

[SAS_Storebror]

11 hours ago, SeaW0lf said:

The way the market is reacting, and I bet Microsoft will get a portion of addon sales, we might see development for a few years to come. Either the sim has some serious flaws, and this is not what I'm hearing, just the opposite, they might stay for the long haul. There would be no reason to abandon the development. On the contrary.

 

Same feeling here.

I've been assisting in testing Microsoft Flight (short-lived unfortunately, hasn't been that bad IMHO), Dovetail's Flight Sim World (ill-fated somehow, failed for many reasons) and this one from day one.

From my bums feeling, Microsoft learned a lot from their previous mistakes.

The whole approach to revamping MSFS feels much better this time.

 

Mike

[Lusekofte]

10 hours ago, SAS_Storebror said:

 

Same feeling here.

I've been assisting in testing Microsoft Flight (short-lived unfortunately, hasn't been that bad IMHO), Dovetail's Flight Sim World (ill-fated somehow, failed for many reasons) and this one from day one.

From my bums feeling, Microsoft learned a lot from their previous mistakes.

The whole approach to revamping MSFS feels much better this time.

 

Mike

Frogglesim was totally convinced he hated the idea of MS coming back. But boy did he change his mind. 
This is a lot of money. They wont easily abandon it. They are rich,I get that, but there are a reason for it. Within a year or two I believe I am fully rigged to go all in on this sim. 
I read the new gpu 3080 ti probably cannot be easily put in todays rigs, so I am guessing I will not upgrade pc for next 5 years. I wont abandon the one I have so I rather go for flight sim hardware

Edited July 18, 2020 by 216th_LuseKofte

[SAS_Storebror]

1 hour ago, 216th_LuseKofte said:

I read the new gpu 3080 ti probably cannot be easily put in todays rigs

 

I don't really get the uproar about that new 12-pin connector.

I wager we shall see suitable adaptors for less than 5 bucks in no time.

 

Mike

[Lusekofte]

1 hour ago, SAS_Storebror said:

 

I don't really get the uproar about that new 12-pin connector.

I wager we shall see suitable adaptors for less than 5 bucks in no time.

 

Mike

Make me happy reading that. I find it bad economy upgrading to next level gpu and probably to the  one after that too. 
I will see hiw 2020 do act in current system. I knew latest was a short moment when buying my rig

Edited July 18, 2020 by 216th_LuseKofte

[dburne]

6 hours ago, SAS_Storebror said:

 

I don't really get the uproar about that new 12-pin connector.

I wager we shall see suitable adaptors for less than 5 bucks in no time.

 

Mike

 

New connector? Interesting, had not heard about that.

[DetCord12B]

On 7/16/2020 at 8:02 PM, CanadaOne said:

Just checked the ORBX site and they're selling one piece of X-Plane scenery for the same price as FS2020 Standard. I don't see how that business model can stand. Who would pay $70 for one add-on region when for about the same price you get the whole world and dozens of planes?

 

I wonder if the sellers will be stubborn and just stick to their prices and they don't sell any at all, they'll just chew on it.

 

That comparison is apples to oranges. The default scenery in FSX, P3D, and XP is highly lacking. Like big time. Which is why there's a fairly large market for third-party addons. I probably have $1.5K worth of addons (aircraft, airports, terrain/scenery, weather, clouds, effects etc) for P3D/FSX, and I'm not even that into it like the majority of the of the community. As for the aircraft included in MSFS 2020, they're not study level, obviously. People in this genre want study level aircraft. They want PMDG, A2A, Majestic, FSLabs, and the others out there. There is a market for it. 

 

Example:

Spoiler

 

 

 

As for the terrain in MSFS 2020 it looks great, up high. When you get down around the a neighborhood outside of EHAM or KDEN etc, where there aren't any custom skyscrapers or airport buildings, the houses and other structures blob out or shoot up. This is because there are very few actual 3D world objects and the terrain data is drawn from Bing Maps, their elevation API and photogrammetry. That means not only terrain features (hills, mountains, valleys, canyons) but everything, including buildings of all shapes and sizes.

 

Edited July 19, 2020 by DetCord12B

[Uufflakke]

@Detcord12B,

 

I noticed the strangely shaped 'column trees' along the coastline of Naples.

It is still WIP and they might find a fix for it. But what does it look beautiful all together.

 

 

 

[LLv34_Flanker]

S!

 

MS FS2020 sure sets the bar high graphically, there is no contest. I might buy it to just do some bush piloting. And seems the flight physics are there too when looking at those landing approaches.

[CanadaOne]

 

7 hours ago, DetCord12B said:

 

That comparison is apples to oranges. The default scenery in FSX, P3D, and XP is highly lacking. Like big time. Which is why there's a fairly large market for third-party addons. I probably have $1.5K worth of addons (aircraft, airports, terrain/scenery, weather, clouds, effects etc) for P3D/FSX, and I'm not even that into it like the majority of the of the community. As for the aircraft included in MSFS 2020, they're not study level, obviously. People in this genre want study level aircraft. They want PMDG, A2A, Majestic, FSLabs, and the others out there. There is a market for it. 

 

 

 

 

 

Not apples to oranges, but red apples to green apples.

 

You said: " The default scenery in FSX, P3D, and XP is highly lacking. Like big time." That's my point. If you get really high quality scenery everywhere, or even mostly everywhere, or even just in a lot of places, for $70 in FS2020 (not to mention the planes), how does that not put the major screws to companies charging that much just for one region or just one airport?

 

And yes, people want better planes than what comes stock. I never said otherwise. I bought lots of planes for FS9 & FSX. A2A and CaptainSim mostly. But then who will want to pay $50 - $70 for a study level plane and fly it in P3D or XP when they can get the same study level plane and fly it in the FS2020 world, given the radical enhancements of the FS2020 world? Paying top dollar for any P3D or XP add-on, even if a comparable product is a year away in FS2020, will fast become a "why would I do that?" question. There's no future proofing when paying money for destined obsolescence.  

 

To my point; will the scenery companies lower prices permanently and perhaps drastically, or will they still want $70 to do what FS2020 does comparatively for $0.70? I'm curious if some will stubbornly stick to their guns and watch sales fall rather than lower prices.

[DD_Arthur]

6 minutes ago, CanadaOne said:

for $70 in FS2020

 

Uh uh.  Sixty bucks.

 

The more I see of this the more I agree with Seawolf ;  this is going to be the Dreadnought of flight-simming.  Overnight everything else is going to become obsolete - including Google Earth!

[CanadaOne]

26 minutes ago, DD_Arthur said:

 

Uh uh.  Sixty bucks.

 

The more I see of this the more I agree with Seawolf ;  this is going to be the Dreadnought of flight-simming.  Overnight everything else is going to become obsolete - including Google Earth!

 

$80Cdn. We have the weak tea of money.

 

Agreed, P3D and XP are toast. But I understand the pain of someone who has $1000+ invested in one of the older sims and is about to see it all rendered "yesterday's news". If FS2020 released a WWII module or a "Modern Fighters" add-on, "beeg badabooms!" included, I can't say I wouldn't pass a thought to the $1000 I've spent on IL2 and DCS and how those sims would not gather virtual cobwebs.

 

But for us that's a ways off. For P3D and XP, it may be less than a month.

[Uufflakke]

It is as if a dream comes true. The entire world available in a flight sim in high resolution, densily populated and highly detailed.

 

Flying over the Amazonas at tree top level, landing your plane on the Kim-Il-Sung Square in Pyongyang, aerobatics in the Grand Canyon, sightseeing over Venice at sunrise, following the meandering Chnese Wall, try to find your own house.

 

The planes in their plane list are unfamiliar to me. I hope the list contains a waterplane.

Would be nice to take of from Lake Ontario and heading to the Niagara Falls. I have no clue if waterfalls are animated anyway...

 

23 minutes ago, CanadaOne said:

 

$80Cdn. We have the weak tea of money.

 

Agreed, P3D and XP are toast. But I understand the pain of someone who has $1000+ invested in one of the older sims and is about to see it all rendered "yesterday's news". If FS2020 released a WWII module or a "Modern Fighters" add-on, "beeg badabooms!" included, I can't say I wouldn't pass a thought to the $1000 I've spent on IL2 and DCS and how those sims would not gather virtual cobwebs.

 

But for us that's a ways off. For P3D and XP, it may be less than a month.

 

I think that after having played FS2020 and going back to IL2 BOX for some boom 'n' zoom, strafing, bombing or dogfighting the difference wiill be huge.

From a fully populated Europe to the green emptiness of BOBP is quite a transition. Despite the fun of rocketing everything to smithereens.

Edited July 19, 2020 by Uufflakke

[CanadaOne]

18 minutes ago, Uufflakke said:

 

I think that after having played FS2020 and going back to IL2 BOX for some boom 'n' zoom, strafing, bombing or dogfighting the difference wiill be huge.

From a fully populated Europe to the green emptiness of BOBP is quite a transition. Despite the fun of rocketing everything to smithereens.

 

I think you're right. Your Dreadnought analogy was right on.

 

Took a look at the ORBX site and a lot of stuff is on sale for about 25% off. And it's not a "summer sale" or anything, I think it's a "please buy it at 25% off and don't wait for the 75% off" sale. Don't get me wrong, ORBX makes gorgeous stuff, but if it's yesterday's stuff, then that's that.

 

IL2 and DCS will definitely be taking a back seat for a while after August 18th. I might spend two-weeks just flying across Canada. One thing I used to do in FSX and will definitely do in FS2020 is listen to lectures while flying. I love doing that. Take off for a nice flight, and have a history or philosophy lecture playing on the headphones, just audible over the engine. (I'm a wild party animal so I can handle that level of fun.) 

 

And if there's a a shot of whiskey on the table as well, so be it.