Flight Sim Mega thread: You had me at "longest shaft in the market"

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Flight Sim Mega thread: You had me at "longest shaft in the market"

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Combat Pretzel: Jun 23, 2004; No, seriously... what kurds?!

Considering how APIs for third party developers continuously break, I can't imagine that two parallel versions won't diverge rather quickly.

# ? Jun 12, 2023 15:57

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# ? May 27, 2024 03:28

Zero One: Dec 30, 2004; HAIL TO THE VICTORS!

PT6A posted:

Will we, I wonder, be able to simply set the loving cloud ceilings and visibility?

They still haven't been able to fix haze bubbles around METAR stations.

# ? Jun 12, 2023 16:06

CBJSprague24: Dec 5, 2010; another game at nationwide arena. everybody keeps asking me if they can fuck the cannon. buddy, they don't even let me fuck it

I finally figured out how to make the thrust reversers work on the PMDG 737-900 on my CH yoke.

You can't pull the throttle to full Idle as that, for some reason, isn't actually full idle. It needs to be just above idle to be truly idle and to pop the reversers using F2. Then, you have to apply throttle to get reverse thrust.

The good A320Neo and the ATR, by comparison, are "push button makes airplane slow down".

# ? Jun 12, 2023 16:19

Fuzzie Dunlop: Apr 14, 2013

MrYenko posted:

That said, I�d imagine that the lions share of work to be done to update existing addons to work with the new sim will be borne by the third party studios, which is going to be the real drama. If memory serves, PMDG for example has never supported an add-on through a sim change for free, despite some of those titles being pretty trivially different on the backend.

I think quite a few developers are going to get an ugly introduction to what their customers expect from them in the modern world.

Yeah agree this seems to be where the real problem will lie, MS/Asobo can promise "compatibility" all day long, but more importantly, it seems like you'd need every third party developer to get on board with the idea that buying a product for MSFS2020 gets you the same product for MSFS2024. That hasn't historically been the case and I don't see a mechanism by which MS/Asobo can have any control over that.

Other than that my gut reaction here is that MSFS2020 still has some pretty big features missing. Despite the 3 years of updates to this point, things like ATC and AI traffic are somehow worse than FSX. Comparisons to how long FSX was updated don't feel appropriate here either because MSFS2020 was pretty clearly released in an intentionally feature-incomplete state. That's just the way games releases tend to go these days, and I think the community tolerates it as long as progress is being made, but (for me as a very casual player) it just feels very premature to move onto the next thing when there's clearly more work to be done, and no matter how much they promise continued updates and compatibility, pretty much everyone's past experience would suggest there's going to be problems here.

# ? Jun 12, 2023 19:13

Theris: Oct 9, 2007

You can assign the "decrease throttle" control to something to make a "hold button make plane slow down" control if you want. That's how I've got the reverser levers on my honeycomb bravo mapped and it works on the PMDG.

# ? Jun 12, 2023 19:25

Bedurndurn: Dec 4, 2008

slidebite posted:

Considering they are saying it is powered by the "significantly evolved Asobo engine" I wouldn't be so sure.

People say a lot of things.

# ? Jun 12, 2023 19:51

azflyboy: Nov 9, 2005

Fuzzie Dunlop posted:

That hasn't historically been the case and I don't see a mechanism by which MS/Asobo can have any control over that.

The MS Marketplace might be their mechanism, since there could be something in the terms and conditions for FS24 where Asobo could prohibit charging for add-ons already purchased for MSFS unless certain conditions are met.

Obviously, this is 100% speculation, and developers could just refuse to use the marketplace in response, but my understanding is that the marketplace accounts for a massive percentage of sales, so it Asobo would have some leverage.

# ? Jun 12, 2023 20:00

Lord Stimperor: Jun 13, 2018; I'm a lovable meme.

I want better weather. Likey for instance real weather fronts, where one half of the sky is completely clear and around the other half, a massive, ominous wall of cloud arcs

# ? Jun 12, 2023 23:27

Vahakyla: May 3, 2013

While they better stick to their 10 year promise of supporting MSFS2020, I do also think it is generally not healthy for games to be demanded to live for a near decade with only the initial cost of the sim. DCS World suffers significantly from having a free base game, and I think four years between paying 60 bux for a sim update is a very fair deal as long as Asobo delivers a quality product.

# ? Jun 12, 2023 23:35

mllaneza: Apr 28, 2007; Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1993-1952

slidebite posted:

Considering they are saying it is powered by the "significantly evolved Asobo engine" I wouldn't be so sure.

I personally haven't bought payware add-ons, so my investment in 2020 is basically the cost of the game plus hardware controllers which will almost certainly work fine with the new game.

If it becomes a cool water-bomber sim, and maybe some sort of quasi economy for other flight modes, hell I'm all in.

The water bombing part will be a ton of fun I'm sure. Hell, more things to do in a flight sim are always welcome. I do suspect that the "significantly evolved Asobo engine" is just all the updates FS202 has had since launch. I don't see them forking the engine and having developers spend years on a new branch for FS2024 while having others work on FS2020. If the code is modular enough, they might fork some components though.

Vahakyla posted:

I think four years between paying 60 bux for a sim update is a very fair deal as long as Asobo delivers a quality product.

Given the amount of content shown for FS2024, another $60 seems reasonable to me.

# ? Jun 12, 2023 23:40

skooma512: Feb 8, 2012; You couldn't grok my race car, but you dug the roadside blur.

Yeah and to be fair, I could see how interacting with NPCs and ground assets along with a mission structure isn't exactly something you can bolt on to an existing branch, especially not for free, and I certainly get enough value out of this sim to kick them some extra money. Those features are a nice upgrade and worth at least as much as an extra plane.

# ? Jun 12, 2023 23:42

0toShifty: Aug 21, 2005; 0 to Stiffy?

I'll pay $60 again if they just fixed the ATC lol

But this has long been the way. I first bought Flight Simulator 5.1 for DOS, then for Windows 95, then 98, then 2000. This is nothing. Flight Simulator had "DLC" decades before the term was coined, and even back in the DOS days, it worked across multiple versions. It's one advantage of working on an immense legacy code base full of ancient gremlins. It's just the Microsoft way of doing things!

# ? Jun 13, 2023 00:28

skooma512: Feb 8, 2012; You couldn't grok my race car, but you dug the roadside blur.

I still remember in the mid-2000s basically an entire aisle at Fry's being nothing but Flight Simulator addons.

# ? Jun 13, 2023 00:44

MrYenko: Jun 18, 2012; #2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

Vahakyla posted:

�I think four years between paying 60 bux for a sim update is a very fair deal as long as Asobo delivers a quality product.

I absolutely agree. If the content and fixes keep coming at the rate they have since release, I have no problem with a 4 year release cycle.

As a comparison, FSX got a single expansion pack and two service packs that didn�t even fix the giant memory leaks.

# ? Jun 13, 2023 00:47

Carth Dookie: Jan 28, 2013

Vahakyla posted:

While they better stick to their 10 year promise of supporting MSFS2020, I do also think it is generally not healthy for games to be demanded to live for a near decade with only the initial cost of the sim. DCS World suffers significantly from having a free base game, and I think four years between paying 60 bux for a sim update is a very fair deal as long as Asobo delivers a quality product.

There's a lot of things I'll criticize DCS about (my recent adventure in trying to get it to run in VR in the DCS specific thread makes my feelings about DCS and Eagle Dynamics pretty clear) but free access to a small part of it isn't one of them. If anything their free access to the basic package, and new free trial of purchaseable modules is one of the more community friendly things they've done that should be encouraged.

An update to the training missions for the frogfoot to get new players off the ground and clear instructions to go find a multiplayer server wouldn't go amiss. I also wouldn't hate it if they also pointed people at the A-4 module as a "and if you want a free clicky cockpit go here and if you like that here's a bunch of ones you can pay for"

Also just pay Chucks guides to run and keep the documentation up to date. ED does rely too much on fans, modders and the community to work around, cover over, or add on to their product to make it approachable and fun.

If only they could make it not be such a resource intensive, tetchy piece of poo poo otherwise. :v:

Carth Dookie fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Jun 13, 2023

# ? Jun 13, 2023 00:52

Shine: Feb 26, 2007; No Muscles For The Majority

Carth Dookie posted:

ED does rely too much on fans, modders and the community to work around, cover over, or add on to their product to make it approachable and fun.

The "ED" could also stand for Elite Dangerous.

# ? Jun 13, 2023 01:01

skooma512: Feb 8, 2012; You couldn't grok my race car, but you dug the roadside blur.

DCS's gameplay is really dire and prevents me from getting too far into it. Air to air game is you vs. UFO AI that just goes from ceiling altitude to the ground and back in a loop. Air to ground is pointless because every dipshit T-55 will snipe you with their machine gun from max range as soon as you go over a hill, and you have to get perfect direct hit for a kill. So all there is to do is push buttons and flip switches.

# ? Jun 13, 2023 01:09

Carth Dookie: Jan 28, 2013

skooma512 posted:

DCS's gameplay is really dire and prevents me from getting too far into it. Air to air game is you vs. UFO AI that just goes from ceiling altitude to the ground and back in a loop. Air to ground is pointless because every dipshit T-55 will snipe you with their machine gun from max range as soon as you go over a hill, and you have to get perfect direct hit for a kill. So all there is to do is push buttons and flip switches.

Yeah single player content is basically nothing.

If you're game, I'd suggest giving it a try again under the following very narrow criteria:

Download the latest beta and the a-4 free mod. Once you're up and around, go online to the Enigma cold war server next time it's on the caucuses map rotation (cuz that's the free map).

The planes are relatively old so the air combat is only against other players and the weapons allowed mean it's almost all within visual range combat.

The ground AI is also relatively nerfed to older style AA. It's dangerous to old planes but still manageable.

That's probably the best way to experience DCS for $0.

# ? Jun 13, 2023 01:52

Vahakyla: May 3, 2013

Carth Dookie posted:

There's a lot of things I'll criticize DCS about (my recent adventure in trying to get it to run in VR in the DCS specific thread makes my feelings about DCS and Eagle Dynamics pretty clear) but free access to a small part of it isn't one of them. If anything their free access to the basic package, and new free trial of purchaseable modules is one of the more community friendly things they've done that should be encouraged.

The base game being free dis-incentivises creation of free upgrades such as ATC, graphical upgrades, Caucasus-map updates, et cetera. Now, the best way for the developer to raise cash is to push out a new module. Pushing out a revamped ATC or updating Caucaus will get them exactly zero dollars.

# ? Jun 13, 2023 03:40

CBJSprague24: Dec 5, 2010; another game at nationwide arena. everybody keeps asking me if they can fuck the cannon. buddy, they don't even let me fuck it

0toShifty posted:

I'll pay $60 again if they just fixed the ATC lol

But this has long been the way. I first bought Flight Simulator 5.1 for DOS, then for Windows 95, then 98, then 2000. This is nothing. Flight Simulator had "DLC" decades before the term was coined, and even back in the DOS days, it worked across multiple versions. It's one advantage of working on an immense legacy code base full of ancient gremlins. It's just the Microsoft way of doing things!

Trying to remember what freeware I downloaded for 2004-
CRJ-200
ERJ-135/145
EMB-170
727-200
737-800
757-200
767-300
777-200
DC-9s of various flavors
A319
A330-300
MD-90 (and maybe an -88)
Dornier 328

...plus soundpacks, liveries, and panels.

Around that time, there was an F-22 game that came out, which, among other things, had an AWACS mode. I'd love to find it if it's on an emulator somewhere.

# ? Jun 13, 2023 04:06

skooma512: Feb 8, 2012; You couldn't grok my race car, but you dug the roadside blur.

CBJSprague24 posted:

Around that time, there was an F-22 game that came out, which, among other things, had an AWACS mode. I'd love to find it if it's on an emulator somewhere.

https://www.mobygames.com/game/28185/f22-air-dominance-fighter/

Is this the one?

# ? Jun 13, 2023 04:16

Carth Dookie: Jan 28, 2013

Vahakyla posted:

The base game being free dis-incentivises creation of free upgrades such as ATC, graphical upgrades, Caucasus-map updates, et cetera. Now, the best way for the developer to raise cash is to push out a new module. Pushing out a revamped ATC or updating Caucaus will get them exactly zero dollars.

A fair point. I wonder if those kinds of things could be implemented as a paid module like the super carrier.

# ? Jun 13, 2023 04:29

CBJSprague24: Dec 5, 2010; another game at nationwide arena. everybody keeps asking me if they can fuck the cannon. buddy, they don't even let me fuck it

skooma512 posted:

https://www.mobygames.com/game/28185/f22-air-dominance-fighter/

Is this the one?

That's the one. It even had a sandbox mode where you could free fly across Saudi Arabia.

# ? Jun 13, 2023 05:05

Porfiriato: Jan 4, 2016

0toShifty posted:

Flight Simulator had "DLC" decades before the term was coined, and even back in the DOS days, it worked across multiple versions.

Released in 1986, but at least we get the ~~scenery disks~~ "World Updates" for free these days.

# ? Jun 13, 2023 05:57

Wolfy: Jul 13, 2009

I am fully expect there to be a decent amount of work to port planes to the new sim, PMDG to take a year to do it and then try to charge me $70. I fully expect scenery to transfer over seamlessly, and devs like JustFlight and Fenix to handle this well.

It's just those assholes.

# ? Jun 13, 2023 06:36

lobsterminator: Oct 16, 2012

You notice you are old when four years seems like a blink of an eye. I guess it's a sensible gap between paid releases, but to me it seems like we just got the last one. And it was a very rare release purchase for me. Usually I wait four years before even considering buying a game.

Knowing Asobo, they are slowly getting MS2020 cleaned from the biggest bugs and now they mess it up and start all over again.

# ? Jun 13, 2023 09:04

slidebite: Nov 6, 2005; Good egg

MrYenko posted:

I absolutely agree. If the content and fixes keep coming at the rate they have since release, I have no problem with a 4 year release cycle.

As a comparison, FSX got a single expansion pack and two service packs that didn�t even fix the giant memory leaks.

If they can fix the ATC (HAHAHA) and give some decent career modes, it would be fantastic.

# ? Jun 13, 2023 15:11

Teeter: Jul 21, 2005; Hey guys! I'm having a good time, what about you?

Carth Dookie posted:

Yeah single player content is basically nothing.

If you're game, I'd suggest giving it a try again under the following very narrow criteria:

Download the latest beta and the a-4 free mod. Once you're up and around, go online to the Enigma cold war server next time it's on the caucuses map rotation (cuz that's the free map).

The planes are relatively old so the air combat is only against other players and the weapons allowed mean it's almost all within visual range combat.

The ground AI is also relatively nerfed to older style AA. It's dangerous to old planes but still manageable.

That's probably the best way to experience DCS for $0.

This sadly won't quite work. Many DCS servers (Enigma's included) do not allow trial accounts, meaning you must have made at least some purchase previously.

I completely agree with your advice about flying the A-4 for fun but unfortunately it's limited to a few training servers or single player content.

# ? Jun 13, 2023 16:53

Carth Dookie: Jan 28, 2013

Teeter posted:

This sadly won't quite work. Many DCS servers (Enigma's included) do not allow trial accounts, meaning you must have made at least some purchase previously.

I completely agree with your advice about flying the A-4 for fun but unfortunately it's limited to a few training servers or single player content.

A pity. Under those circumstances I'd suggest waiting until flaming cliffs is on sale and grabbing that. That would get you into most servers With the F15, SU27 and Mig 29, and give you additional A10 A and SU 25 (non T) as additional planes to try on Enigmas.

# ? Jun 14, 2023 04:11