Hi everyone.

I just wanted to start a discussion about the recently released, early access, Flight Sim World for steam, by Dovetail Games, the team responsible for bringing us FSX-SE.

Who else, besides myself, has bought Flight Sim World?

Those who have, what do you think?

My view is that it looks very good, and runs well on my computer (so far), and it just might be able to step up and replace FSX/FSX-SE. I would like to see more content than is currently in the game, like airliners.

Do you think that Captain Sim should update their current products for it, once it goes live (the release version)?

Hello Mark,

I just had a look at the Flight Sim World site and I must say it looks very nice in my 4K monitor. I really liked the rain on the windshield.

I was never a fan of Steam, but I may have to reconsider.

It still has a bunch of FSX glitches like approach lights that float but they say they are going to address these holdovers.

Please keep us in the loop on things you discover.

And Yes, I hope CS will be making airliners for this product.

Lou

The Flight Sim World concept reminds me MS Flight...

LOU wrote on May 23^rd, 2017 at 3:05pm:

I just had a look at the Flight Sim World site and I must say it looks very nice in my 4K monitor. I really liked the rain on the windshield. I was never a fan of Steam, but I may have to reconsider. It still has a bunch of FSX glitches like approach lights that float but they say they are going to address these holdovers. Please keep us in the loop on things you discover. And Yes, I hope CS will be making airliners for this product.

Rain on the windscreen is a sorely missed effect from FS9. I still don't understand why they left it out.

Steam isn't so bad. Quite a few of the other games I like have moved over to Steam, and I have gotten used to it. I like that games are automatically updated every time an update is released for them, FSX-SE included.

At this time, I'm not seeing the landing lights lighting up the ground, and sometimes I don't even see the nav lights working when I go to the exterior view (Spot/Locked Spot).

Being an 'early release', it's like an open beta, so hopefully the bug reports will allow these things to be fixed before the game is released as a 'finished' product!

The main problem I have, at the moment, is that the rudder is too sensitive, and I can't adjust it in the control menu. Like some things in FSX, they might be able to be changed in an XML file in the AppData folder. I need to figure that one out.

I think that the scenery could be a bit better, but it's certainly a lot better than the FSX default scenery!


Captain Sim wrote on May 27^th, 2017 at 1:23am:

The Flight Sim World concept reminds me MS Flight...

About the only way that I can see shades of MS Flight in FSW, is the way 3rd addons might need to be added. They might have to be bought on steam, and added as a DLC. I'm really hoping this is not the case, or like MS Flight, I might just give it up. :(

EDIT: I fixed the problem with the sensitive rudder. I had forgotten to look in the right section of the controller settings. Doh! :o

It seems to be that it has a 64-Bit Engine, correct? That makes it very interesting, but I think P3D v4 should be the better choice.

Mustang1977 wrote on May 28^th, 2017 at 4:56pm:

It seems to be that it has a 64-Bit Engine, correct? That makes it very interesting, but I think P3D v4 should be the better choice.

I'm liking a lot of what I'm seeing in FSW, but I would like to get them to change some things, which is the advantage of having Early Access. If I can help iron out any bugs, I think it's a good thing. And discussing things with other flight simmers, and the devs, we might be able to get them to make changes to suit what we like. It certainly seems like Dovetail Games want to give the flight simmers a really good reliable next version of Flight Simulator, following along the lines of where MS just dumped it on us.

Time will tell as to whether it gets there. Or not. ;D

Does anyone know if current FSX addon aircraft can be ported to the new sim? 

David Paul wrote on May 29^th, 2017 at 10:31am:

Does anyone know if current FSX addon aircraft can be ported to the new sim?

I haven't tried yet. The reason is that at the moment, the only aircraft available to fly in FSW, are single  engined, and twin engined, propeller aircraft, and I don't know what would happen if I tried adding a multi-engined jet from Captain Sim.

Hopefully, as FSW is updated, more aircraft, including jet airliners will become available, and then I will try adding a Captain Sim airliner (probably the 727, or 737).

Edited [timestamp=1496119357]: The folder structure of FSW is the same as FSX, so it might be easier than I originally thought to add a Captain Sim aircraft! I will try it once I get Windows 10 up to speed (I had to reinstall it last night after it messed up my compter, and denied me access to Windows 7). :(

I was having a look through the FSW installation folder, and I must admit that it does look possible to add other 3rd party addon aircraft. Because the game is different, I'm sure there could be some interesting/strange results.

I have just finished getting Windows 10 reinstalled, and working properly, on my computer, so I'll take a look at adding a simple 3rd party addon, before I try a Captain Sim aircraft (if at all).

This is interesting for a number of reasons. Both P3D and FSW are 64 bit architecture which means the capacity to work with current and future hardware. The interesting point for me is there are now basically three choices for the future of flight simulation, P3D, FSX and XP11. The first two fundamentally the same, the last significantly different in its underlying architecture.

From a computing perspective my preference lies with XP11 for the simple reason it is a genuine open source based product with the capacity to run on systems such as Linux or Macs. It is also not a computer resource hog (within limits) which means you can manage with a lot less sophisticated hardware. Again it is easier to design and make models for and from what I have seen it is very good in the graphics area as well. That said I do not have it but I yet may.

As for P3D well I am sure it is good and will get better but its hardware demands require me to buy a completely new system to run it and that is not on my agenda, apart from flight simulation my current 64 bit system with Win 7 is more than adequate and the other point is I am the only desktop user left in my close circle everybody else has gone to IPhones, IPads or Androids for obvious reasons. From what I have seen the same probably applies to FSW so they are head to head now or maybe not.

The critical issue for me as a bonafides simulator user is all my addons. I will start by saying I have tweaked and changed etc to the point where I can see nothing wrong with FSX-A as I have it set up it performs well, I have great detailed scenery and weather addons and I am not that inclined to spend months getting new stuff just so I can run P3D or FSW.  But more importantly for me is this very neglected point, I have a lot of older models that are essentially FS9 some ported, some converted to native FSX. I have sufficient computing skills and knowledge to know without trying that they will not work in a 64 bit simulator environment and I also know that they will not be reproduced again for either FSW or P3D because the designers have exited the simulation world altogether. The majority of these aircraft are historical relics but that is why I use them, it caters for my interest in the period of flight from the 1920's through to the 1950's. But I also know I can probably convert these into XP11 and if I am prepared to do the work develop VC for them and that is a very significant attraction. I am not interested in glass cockpit aeroplanes, I flew them for a living before retiring and while as I pilot I can appreciate the safety and reliability of a modern turbine I am a piston engine nut and that is what fascinates me. Again at this point in time some of the models released for FSX over the past 12 months or so are simply superb and there are a few more to come in that area as well. I have also noted some design and payware houses have started to make XP11 versions, such as Carenado and another company.

I guess my view is as for FSX, probably not, as for P3D maybe and as for XP11 it is the most interesting and exicting of all. But and here is the but I cannot be bothered at this time replacing a perfectly serviceable PC just to get something more whizbang so to speak. I kept Win98 going for 14 years on a 1MB CPU, so I think I can do ok with the 8GB and 2 TB system I have now. I think there a lot of people in this category, what we have works, everybody else has gone to hand held mini's and I do not use the PC for work anymore, so why buy a new machine except as a self indulgent hobby.

I got FSW by punching DTG Flight School. I like the way FSW looks and handles. Up untill the 64bit barrier was broken FSX/FSX:SE and P3Dv1-3 was more or less the same. The price tag on P3D keep me away until recently. But when X-Plane came out with v11 64 bit I bought it and began to transition to it before I saw the P3DV4 was also 64 bit compatible and I got the academic license but P3DV4 went to the self because the scenery seem stuck in 2004. At first and for a while it looked like FSW would become my go to sim. In my opinion FSW flight models competed with X-Planes very well, and FSW with ORBX scenery place FSW on top of the list of 64bit flight sims. After a friend in WestWind Airlines show me how to get ORBX Scenery to work in P3DV4 and that some FSX aircraft work in P3dv4, P3DV4 now has a slight edge over all.
I am still using FSW for GA flights and for now will transition some of my commercial flights to P3D.

The one thing I really don't like about FSW, is the mernu, and once a flight is started, no changes can be made. This leaves FSX/FSX-SE and P3Dv4 in a better position than FSW. Until that horrid menu is changed, FSW is shelved.  :(

I saw that a new update to FSW came out the other day, and just happened to peruse the release notes.  One of the things they mentioned is that they are working on getting the new SDK ready for the next release.  This will make it possible for third-party developers to develop add-ons to FSW.

I mainly bought FSW because I was able to get it cheap while Steam was running a sale.  I figured it was a win-win either way: if FSW ever does eventually catch on, then I got it for a bargain.  Otherwise, I'm not out a whole lot of money.

Hello, dear developers.

While ago Dovetail Games released full FSW SDK kit. Would you please to re-convert L-1011 to FSX (it may be even product without official support for FSX-version owners etc.)

Will be very interesting to run the Tristar on Win10-native 64-bit sim with the future.

And i'd like to say a word to FSW menu haters. Are you fly from main menu or from the cockpit? Is any difference where to click to select a plane and airport?

Regards
Alex.

and FSW is at the end... who would have seen that coming... oh yea, everyone.

Michael Backes wrote on May 1^st, 2018 at 8:57pm:

and FSW is at the end... who would have seen that coming... oh yea, everyone.

The writing was on the wall. I hated the way the menu worked, regardless of what Alex Kuzmin said above, about the fact that you don't fly it from the menu, the menu is the starting point of the sim, and if I don't like it, it makes it harder for me to push forward to the flying part of the sim. Then there were the limited options available once you started flying, and this made the flying part less enjoyable, as virtually nothing could be changed once the flight was started. :(

Mathis Koch, of another company, had this to say:

"They should have done exactly what Lockheed did. (Licenced to DTG for use in ‘entertainment’ products, the MSFS engine is Lockheed Martin’s to use in the ‘serious’ training sim sector)

Step 1. Fix some of the nasty bugs that were in FSX for many, many years and release that version.

Step 2. Repeat Step 1 twice. This will get customers used to the new sim and make it bloody good.

Step 3. Make it 64-bit after the customers are hooked on the new platform"

And I think he was spot on. I guess we can hope that DTG still might do that, but I think that their being bitten by the failure of FSW, it is less likely to happen now, and that's really sad, because FSX still has a lot going for it, and it's still my preferred flight sim.

Michael Backes wrote on May 1^st, 2018 at 8:57pm:

and FSW is at the end... who would have seen that coming... oh yea, everyone.

Yeah basically that. Everyone except them knew it was bound to die.