Microsoft Flight Sim 2020

[AndyJWest]

World tour continues. I fly across New Zealand's North Island, and get a good look at the local scenery. In the foreground is Mount Tongariro, a compound volcano. In the background is Mount Raupehu.

 

The highest part of Tongariro is Ngauruhoe, a classic cone-shaped stratovolcano, which last erupted in 1977. More recent activity seems to be concentrated around the lower peaks to the north.

 

Raupehu also has things going on inside: earth tremors were being reported only a couple of weeks ago.

 

My original intention was to land at Wanganui, off to the right here, on the coast next to the river. That clearly wasn't going to work, as cloud right down to the deck (possibly sea mist?) made the runway invisible.

 

I diverted to Palmerston North airport, 35 nm to the southeast. Or southeastish, anyway - compasses around here get rather confusing as the eastward magnetic declination gets more and more pronounced. It's about 22° here and over 25° by the time you get to the southern tip of South Island.

 

 

[9./JG27golani79]

Are there any good 3rd party full fidelity planes yet for FS2020?

 

 

[AndyJWest]

15 minutes ago, 9./JG27golani79 said:

Are there any good 3rd party full fidelity planes yet for FS2020?

 

 

Depends what you are looking for, and probably on what you consider 'full fidelity'. There are a few GA aircraft, along with some other oddballs (Aermacchi MB-339, Blériot XI) but nothing for the tubeliner crowd yet - the SDK is unfinished, making it difficult to model some of the complex systems required.

 

 

Edited January 16, 2021 by AndyJWest

[9./JG27golani79]

30 minutes ago, AndyJWest said:

 

Depends what you are looking for, and probably on what you consider 'full fidelity'. There are a few GA aircraft, along with some other oddballs (Aermacchi MB-339, Blériot XI) but nothing for the tubeliner crowd yet - the SDK is unfinished, making it difficult to model some of the complex systems required.

 

 

 

Something in the direction of the Accu-sim Comanche 250 from A2A or twin props .. but as the SDK is  unfinished I guess it will still take some time until we´ll see some fully fleshed out modules.

 

Gonna hold off with buying the FS2020 for the moment then I think.

 

Thanks for the input!

[Enceladus828]

1 hour ago, AndyJWest said:

World tour continues. I fly across New Zealand's North Island, and get a good look at the local scenery. In the foreground is Mount Tongariro, a compound volcano. In the background is Mount Raupehu.

 

The highest part of Tongariro is Ngauruhoe, a classic cone-shaped stratovolcano, which last erupted in 1977. More recent activity seems to be concentrated around the lower peaks to the north.

 

Raupehu also has things going on inside: earth tremors were being reported only a couple of weeks ago.

 

My original intention was to land at Wanganui, off to the right here, on the coast next to the river. That clearly wasn't going to work, as cloud right down to the deck (possibly sea mist?) made the runway invisible.

 

I diverted to Palmerston North airport, 35 nm to the southeast. Or southeastish, anyway - compasses around here get rather confusing as the eastward magnetic declination gets more and more pronounced. It's about 22° here and over 25° by the time you get to the southern tip of South Island.

 

 

[Wolf8312]

Had to do a full reinstall. Something wrong with the planes. I couldn't take off without losing power. I had it on easy with all assists and the plane would just gradually die couldn't figure it out it was visibly full throttle and had never had a problem before. Something also seemed erratic with performance so I think its best this way. Problems started after that new patch or update. If anyone can shed any light on this take off thing (I could just be an idiot) please let me know. This game is driving me mad! But install speeds now seem to be improved!

[unlikely_spider]

30 minutes ago, Wolf8312 said:

Had to do a full reinstall. Something wrong with the planes. I couldn't take off without losing power. I had it on easy with all assists and the plane would just gradually die couldn't figure it out it was visibly full throttle and had never had a problem before. Something also seemed erratic with performance so I think its best this way. Problems started after that new patch or update. If anyone can shed any light on this take off thing (I could just be an idiot) please let me know. This game is driving me mad! But install speeds now seem to be improved!

Have you checked your mixture? I've noticed that the planes need less fuel mixture than you'd expect. I don't think it's realistic currently, but still easy to hold brakes before takeoff, increase throttle a bit, then adjust mixture for best RPM.

[Wolf8312]

3 minutes ago, unlikely_spider said:

Have you checked your mixture? I've noticed that the planes need less fuel mixture than you'd expect. I don't think it's realistic currently, but still easy to hold brakes before takeoff, increase throttle a bit, then adjust mixture for best RPM.

 

Do you think I need to warm the engines up a bit first? But actually I have/had it set to auto mixture (on the easiest assist setting) just to see if it would work (I'm really just testing performance) so I'm not sure thats it. It was fine one minute, and the next I had props suddenly cutting off on start up. Then they would work, but the plane would lose power and have no speed as I was just getting airborne. I haven't even started trying to learn any modules yet so they should really be flying themselves. Before I had them on medium settings and take off and landing was fine, now with the easiest settings possible I just can't get it to work. Maybe it is a setting but I tried remapping everything so now I'm assuming its a bug (there are similar reports of bugs about throttles suddenly not working on the official forums but they sound a bit different to my situation). Just seemed to start having prop problems after the update, and I'm wondering if it was because I had that prop mod (VR) installed and it may have messed things up.

[unlikely_spider]

@Wolf8312

I don't think planes in MSFS need to warm up. Have you tried removing everything from the Community folder then trying? Also see if there are any bindings double-mapped.

[Wolf8312]

1 hour ago, unlikely_spider said:

@Wolf8312

I don't think planes in MSFS need to warm up. Have you tried removing everything from the Community folder then trying? Also see if there are any bindings double-mapped.

 

Yeah thanks that was the last thing I tried before reinstallation. It is possible that some control input got corrupted but I can't think what that could be. Just praying this will fix it!

Edited January 19, 2021 by Wolf8312

[Wolf8312]

8 hours ago, unlikely_spider said:

@Wolf8312

I don't think planes in MSFS need to warm up. Have you tried removing everything from the Community folder then trying? Also see if there are any bindings double-mapped.

 

Is there an easier way to check if controls are double mapped? I find the control scheme to be rather annoying in that respect as I haven't been able to find a page where it shows what each and every input is mapped to. If I do have a double mapped bind for example MSFS simply tells me "you have mapped this to another device" without telling me what this device is! So I would have to check every controller individually until I find it, when it could be my mouse or steering wheel for all I know!

[DD_Arthur]

Silly question but have you got fuel switched on?

[Wolf8312]

59 minutes ago, DD_Arthur said:

Silly question but have you got fuel switched on?

I'm thinking maybe one of my axes was double set for mixture. But then mixture and other engine settings should have been automated anyway so... But as I'm doing a reinstall (going on 12 hours now) anyway I guess I'll have to wait and see now!

Edited January 19, 2021 by Wolf8312

[unlikely_spider]

1 hour ago, Wolf8312 said:

 

Is there an easier way to check if controls are double mapped? I find the control scheme to be rather annoying in that respect as I haven't been able to find a page where it shows what each and every input is mapped to. If I do have a double mapped bind for example MSFS simply tells me "you have mapped this to another device" without telling me what this device is! So I would have to check every controller individually until I find it, when it could be my mouse or steering wheel for all I know!

Sorry, I'm not sure that there is. You can at least change the view to "Assigned" to just see all of the assignments for each peripheral. Then clear out anything that you don't want.

[Wolf8312]

Does anyone know what the city/landmark packs would include. I'd like to get the London one but only if it has a significant portion of the city and will save me from painting terrain myself for hours on end! And the airports? Do they include a significant portion of the surrounding areas of the airports? Would kind of make sense, as once you get up high and away from the airport the quality of the data need not be as high. So how about these packs, worth it or not?

 

Edited January 19, 2021 by Wolf8312

[Hoots]

56 minutes ago, Wolf8312 said:

Does anyone know what the city/landmark packs would include. I'd like to get the London one but only if it has a significant portion of the city and will save me from painting terrain myself for hours on end! And the airports? Do they include a significant portion of the surrounding areas of the airports? Would kind of make sense, as once you get up high and away from the airport the quality of the data need not be as high. So how about these packs, worth it or not?

 

Stock London looks pretty good to me, going into London city is pretty impressive. As to what the terrain has, look at bing maps and then make the buildings 3D, that’s what you get. It’s very, very well done. 

Edited January 19, 2021 by Hoots

[DD_Arthur]

I wouldn’t buy any UK scenery just yet as we’re getting a big UK update near the end of the month.

 

Really looking forward to this!

[Trooper117]

1 hour ago, DD_Arthur said:

I wouldn’t buy any UK scenery just yet as we’re getting a big UK update near the end of the month.

 

Really looking forward to this!

 

Happy Days!

[CanadaOne]

4 hours ago, Wolf8312 said:

Does anyone know what the city/landmark packs would include. I'd like to get the London one but only if it has a significant portion of the city and will save me from painting terrain myself for hours on end! And the airports? Do they include a significant portion of the surrounding areas of the airports? Would kind of make sense, as once you get up high and away from the airport the quality of the data need not be as high. So how about these packs, worth it or not?

 

 

I bought the ORBX Sidney scenery just to see what the "premium" stuff looked like in FS2020. It's pretty nice, but unless you have an attachment to a particular area, I'd skip it. I go back to Sidney just to see the scenery and then I leave ten-minutes later an that's that. It's the only scenery I've bought. 

 

The default scenery is so nice I don't see any point to buying the payware stuff unless, as mentioned, it holds a specific interest to you.

[AndyJWest]

The next New Zealand legs of my world tour are on hold for a day or two. ☹️

 

Crossing the Cook Strait/Te Moana-o-Raukawa (between the North and South islands) in a 50 kt crosswind wasn't really much of an issue beyond adding to the time taken, but flying in that sort of wind over the mountains is likely to be distinctly bumpy. I've seen reports that enough turbulence can actually break an MSFS plane. It looks like it will be raining hard too. I thought it was supposed to be summer there...

 

 

 

[SAS_Storebror]

13 hours ago, Wolf8312 said:

Does anyone know what the city/landmark packs would include.

I do have the City Landmarks plus the City and Southend Airports.

Hard to tell what exactly is in or not, as you can't switch it on/off in realtime and I'm rather not constantly installing/uninstalling the addon to spot a difference.

But if you've got something specific in mind, I could give it a go at the weekend and post some screenies of it, so you can compare what I see with the addons to what you see without.

 

Mike

[ZachariasX]

8 hours ago, AndyJWest said:

I thought it was supposed to be summer there...

Yeah, there's a bit of a difference between flying places and having to fly specific places at a specific time. But If you fly low, you at least wouldn't need the de-ice that you don't have on the Cub.

 

But even if the weather may be bad, other hings are better. At least setting rpm has now effect on fuel flow in the Baron. I hope they finish the SDK soon.

[Hoots]

1 hour ago, ZachariasX said:

 

 

But even if the weather may be bad, other hings are better. At least setting rpm has now effect on fuel flow in the Baron. I hope they finish the SDK soon.

This is good news, I’ve been waiting for something to improve on that front. Although flying has taken a hit as the new dog arrived on Sunday and she’s a complete time absorber. 

[DD_Arthur]

London with added scenery 

 

[Wolf8312]

3 hours ago, SAS_Storebror said:

I do have the City Landmarks plus the City and Southend Airports.

Hard to tell what exactly is in or not, as you can't switch it on/off in realtime and I'm rather not constantly installing/uninstalling the addon to spot a difference.

But if you've got something specific in mind, I could give it a go at the weekend and post some screenies of it, so you can compare what I see with the addons to what you see without.

 

Mike

Thanks for the offer, but don't worry about it. As a northerner I'm not that familiar with London anyway so am not really in any hurry yet!

 

Really I think the addons would be worth it if it means they will download a significant portion of a terrain/city scape without me having to do it by hand (which is a pain). But if it's just a bunch of landmarks then I'm not so sure. As you say one trouble is detemining exactly what you have downloaded yourself and which is paid content! I think I really need to get a real map out and start learning navigation as I never know where I actually am.

 

Thanks for the kind offer though! ?

 

[SAS_Storebror]

49 minutes ago, Wolf8312 said:

As a northerner I'm not that familiar with London anyway

What can I say as a Kraut?

 

I think there have been a few addons for the north as well.

General speaking, the landmarks usually consist of handcrafted buildings rather than large map areas.

Besides the effort required to handcraft buildings in large scale, there's also the drawbacks that come with it: The more such objects you have in sight, the more textures need to be loaded simultaneously, eventually leading to a certain amount of stutter if it just gets too much.

For instance I've once had an addon installed which added some 20GB of scenery data to Manchester and the sorroundings.

It looked just beautiful.

And was unplayable.

Add to that, all the Gigs added to the game eventually leave their mark on the loading time as well.

 

Mike

[Wolf8312]

2 hours ago, SAS_Storebror said:

What can I say as a Kraut?

 

I think there have been a few addons for the north as well.

General speaking, the landmarks usually consist of handcrafted buildings rather than large map areas.

Besides the effort required to handcraft buildings in large scale, there's also the drawbacks that come with it: The more such objects you have in sight, the more textures need to be loaded simultaneously, eventually leading to a certain amount of stutter if it just gets too much.

For instance I've once had an addon installed which added some 20GB of scenery data to Manchester and the sorroundings.

It looked just beautiful.

And was unplayable.

Add to that, all the Gigs added to the game eventually leave their mark on the loading time as well.

 

Mike

 

 

It's painful somtimes to crank up the graphics and see how incredible the sim looks  but find that the performance means it could just never be!

[ZachariasX]

6 hours ago, DD_Arthur said:

London with added scenery 

ORBX scenery at more than 5 FPS is surreal.

[AndyJWest]

8 hours ago, ZachariasX said:

Yeah, there's a bit of a difference between flying places and having to fly specific places at a specific time. But If you fly low, you at least wouldn't need the de-ice that you don't have on the Cub.

 

But even if the weather may be bad, other hings are better. At least setting rpm has now effect on fuel flow in the Baron. I hope they finish the SDK soon.

 

A bit difficult to fly low over South Island, ZachariasX. Or at least, difficult if you want to see the interesting bits. I last landed in Nelson, on the north of the island, and my next leg was going to be to Hokitika, on the west coast, so I supposed I could go the long way round, and follow the coast, avoiding the high ground. Even without the turbulence, conditions are going to be poor though. And the next leg was going to take me over Mt Cook, which is 12,218 ft high. I'll sit it out.

 

As for icing, I've not actually encountered it in the XCub. For some reason, the (modded) Garmin flashes a 'pitot heat' warning briefly sometimes, though there don't seem to be any consequences, and it seems to be doing it at about 7°C OAT, which doesn't make sense anyway. And if there's a pitot heat switch in the cockpit, I've not found it.

 

 

Edited January 20, 2021 by AndyJWest

[ZachariasX]

7 minutes ago, AndyJWest said:

For some reason, the (modded) Garmin flashes a 'pitot heat' warning briefly sometimes, though there don't seem to be any consequences, and it seems to be doing it at about 7°C OAT, which doesn't make sense anyway. And if there's a pitot heat switch in the cockpit, I've not found it.

The Baron has pitot icing, indicated speed drops to zero then. There is also the warning on the Garmin until you activate pitot heat.

 

Icing is almost guarateed if you have near 0°C and fly in clouds, the top layer being coldest is most notorious for icing. I tried once to fly around Jan Mayen in the Robin, but the crate froze over despite weather being clear. I got up to about 300 m AGL, then I got into said problems. Flying characreristics detoriated such that a forced landing was consequence.

 

This sim has so much potential.

[AndyJWest]

Yeah, I've seen icing in other aircraft, just not the XCub. Though so far I've mostly been flying in conditions where ice isn't going to be an issue. I left England at the end of August, and have been in the tropics or thereabouts most of the time since, and only occasionally venture above 10,000 ft. The XCub has a 14,000 ft rated ceiling, and would go quite a bit higher I suspect, but flying at that height requires an imaginary oxygen cylinder so I don't do it for long.

[ZachariasX]

I took the Baron up to almost FL260... there it really ends. Moral fiber, moral fiber... hanging on just by that.

[Wolf8312]

Anyone any idea why I can't get this prop mod working? I've tried installing it to both community folders (not at the same time) and it refuses to work.

I've tried it every which way. I've followed videos and I've used Mod tools and it just won't work. Is there possibly another community folder...

 

F:\MSFS\Community

 

C:\Users\name\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\Packages\Community

 

 

[ZachariasX]

Some liveries don‘t work anymore either.

[Wolf8312]

8 hours ago, ZachariasX said:

Some liveries don‘t work anymore either.

 

Ah so other people are experiencing this? To be honest though couldn't get it working before the new update! Got this new terrain mod I paid 15 pounds for and embarrassed to say I don't even know if it's working! That too goes in the community folder!

[DBFlyguy]

 

 

[Wolf8312]

My third re-installation (each take 12 hours)! Started getting long loading times and black screens. Might avoid mods in future but this is really just a consequence of not being on steam and not having (verify gaming cache) the luxury of repairing files quickly nor being able to download the game itself in a similarly rapid manner. Good thing about the other sim in this regard is the skatezillar application (although downloads are still painfully slow)  that enables one to quickly repair corrupted files. Still I've never known that sim to behave in the way MSFS does. Ridiculously unstable for me, and it seems like for many others as well judging by reviews. Will probably give it one more try now, and try to resist using mods (My mods were set up correctly though I think) but if I have any more problems I'm just going to wait till stability improves. Performance will probably be better by then too. Fantastic game and VR experience but its got a lot of issues for me. The loading times were like waiting for a ZX spectrum to fire up a game!

Might be tempted to buy a physical copy.

[SAS_Storebror]

1 hour ago, Wolf8312 said:

Ridiculously unstable for me, and it seems like for many others as well judging by reviews.

Argumentum ad populum.

The only time I ever had to reinstall FS 2020 was when I started modding it without using MSFS Addons Linker, i.e. I've copied mods manually straight into the game's folders, including a couple of (weather related) mods that didn't go to the Community folder, but to the other game folder(s) instead.

That got the game to kill itself on the next best official update.

Solely my fault.

 

I agree though that some kind of game integrity check would be beneficial as the amount of files to download on a complete reinstall is gigantic.

 

Mike

[Wolf8312]

3 hours ago, SAS_Storebror said:

Argumentum ad populum.

 

Yes but to paraphrase Trainspottings Mark Renton: It's easy to be philosophical when it's some other poor cu*t who has been downloading the same game for over 48 hours inside of one week! ?

[ZachariasX]

Well, one has to be careful with addons in FS20. I never did anything beyond copying files to the Community-Folder. The non-working liveries in my case seem outdated and the new ones work. Older ones are missing textures and the first ones I installed show a white template aircraft. FS20 seems to be delicate what concerns messing around with its files.