GWJ FBO: Flight Simulation Catch-all

Thrustmaster posted a teaser image today about what looks to be some new flight hardware reveal this Thursday the 18th, presumably in anticipation of MSFS 2020.

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Very interesting and I'm certainly curious. Right now, I'm all in on Honeycomb's hardware as the yoke is an amazing piece of hardware for a reasonable price, and I'm really looking forward to their Bravo throttle quadrant that was supossed to come out this year but Covid seems to have put some major delays in manufacturing.

Oooooooooooooooo, I'm already starting to think about getting an expensive new box for MS FS2020 since my current PC dates to January 2014. It honestly still runs everything well enough for me, but that won't be true about FS (or Cyberpunk likely).

My wife has actually encouraged me to get a new PC, after she heard me say I was going to buy a second internal SSD. I also want to get some better monitors (I only have a single 22" 1080p one now), and that would make me buy a new GPU...

I've also been considering replacing my Flightsim gear. I currently have all CH Products gear: I've had my Yoke & Pedals since late 2001, and my Fighterstick and Pro Throttle since 2005. They've all been solid for years, but when I got back into IL-2 Great Battles recently, I found that the toe brakes on my pedals are shot. I've started reading/watching reviews for new equipment.

I had a Thrustmaster FCS and Throttle waaaaaay back in the 1990s, which I quite liked. They were SCSI devices IIRC.

I don't think I'd heard of Honeycomb before you mentioned them. I've almost bought a throttle quadrant a couple of times. I never pulled the trigger because I never got into multi-engine flight, and the CH Products FS Yoke already had three levers for throttle/prop/mixture.

The Honeycomb yoke really is amazing. I'm sure as you research flightsim hardware you'll see that the range goes from cheapy plastic stuff in the $100 - $200 range, and if you want something better than that, goes straight to $500-$1000+. Honeycomb came right into the middle ground and I think has done pretty well.

If you're doing Flightsim flying I can't recommend it enough. It can basically roll 90 degrees left and right without a hard centering mechanism. The pitch axis is quite stiff compared to the real thing (I'm comparing to a C172), but works very well again without a super rubberbanding to the center.

My guess is whatever Thrustmaster is coming out with is going to try to address the same market.

Thanks, I'll keep that Honeycomb in mind if I find that I need (or just "need") to replace my CH Yoke.

I would be mildly surprised if TM were going to go after that same price range; I figure them for a little higher up. Then again if they think a lot of people new to sims are going to be looking for hardware when FS 2020 shows up, it might make sense.

Stormbirds had a brief blog entry about the TM tease. Man, I need a desk wide enough for four monitors like in that picture.

Hrdina wrote:

Thanks, I'll keep that Honeycomb in mind if I find that I need (or just "need") to replace my CH Yoke.

I would be mildly surprised if TM were going to go after that same price range; I figure them for a little higher up. Then again if they think a lot of people new to sims are going to be looking for hardware when FS 2020 shows up, it might make sense.

Stormbirds had a brief blog entry about the TM tease. Man, I need a desk wide enough for four monitors like in that picture.

Curious why you think that way. At least for flight hardware their Warthog appears to be their high end and that's effectively the same price as honeycomb, actually a little cheaper ($500 for honeycomb yoke + throttle vs. $450 for Warthog), and while that's great for fighter sims or elite, doesn't make much sense for flying a 737 or an airbus let alone a cessna. I guess I consider TM the high end of the cheap stuff, while Honeycomb is on the low end of the quality stuff, though maybe that's semantics.

Carlbear95 wrote:

I guess I consider TM the high end of the cheap stuff, while Honeycomb is on the low end of the quality stuff, though maybe that's semantics.

I think my mental image has those two roles reversed, although that probably reflects more on my lack of recent shopping for this stuff than on anything else.

Hrdina wrote:
Carlbear95 wrote:

I guess I consider TM the high end of the cheap stuff, while Honeycomb is on the low end of the quality stuff, though maybe that's semantics.

I think my mental image has those two roles reversed, although that probably reflects more on my lack of recent shopping for this stuff than on anything else. :)

I hear ya. I think if you want a dedicated flightsim (not combat flight/space) Honeycomb is the way to go. When you look at that hardware and go beyond CH/Saitek/Logitech, the comparison is to things like Yoko Yoke or TQ Throttle Quadrant . All of which are orders of magnitude more expensive than Honeycomb, and there are definitely parts even more expensive than those. The hardware just becomes more specialized yet more expensive. That $1000 Yoko yoke has a lot less buttons than my $250 Alpha yoke which has less buttons than my $250 Rhino full HOTAS, but you get accuracy and a much more realistic "feel".

The more I go down the Flight Sim rabbit hole, the harder it is for me to fight the urge to become "that guy" who tries to gatekeep flightsim. You read the hardcore flightsim boards and they go off on "you don't play a flightsim, you fly it" or basically dismissing anyone who uses Steam to boot xplane (ridiculous) because that makes them a "gamer" not a "simmer". As a gamer myself I'll never end up there, but I will admit part of me will die if MFS 2020 is so accessible that someone with a keyboard/mouse can get a 737 in the air and landed on the first try all the while not knowing what a SID/STAR or derated takeoff is.

Speaking about hardware my TrackIR just showed up today and I'm very disappointed in myself for not ordering one of these earlier. Its night and day particularly on VFR flights when you need to actually look out the window and the environment.

And the reveal is... an airbus setup. The throttle is interesting I suppose, the stick really is just a glorified t16000 stick. While the throttle makes sense, the fact that its literally only the throttle and starts but separate axis for the speedbrakes and flaps are additional addons is an interesting choice.

I'm still interested in the stick as I do like the t16000 but I'm going to hold out for the Bravo controls for throttle and I dont' think Honeycomb has anything to worry about.

Edit: looks like the throttle has the detents for FLEX and standard Auto Throttle. That does make it kinda cool, but wonder if they are something that can be toggled. For folks not flying an airbus, those detents are definitely something that at a minimum would be an annoyance. The official page also notes 8 buttons on the throttle though I don't see them in the pics unless they are counting the engine starts Up/Down as 4 buttons and something else as 4 other buttons.

Carlbear95 wrote:

I hear ya. I think if you want a dedicated flightsim (not combat flight/space) Honeycomb is the way to go. When you look at that hardware and go beyond CH/Saitek/Logitech, the comparison is to things like Yoko Yoke or TQ Throttle Quadrant . All of which are orders of magnitude more expensive than Honeycomb, and there are definitely parts even more expensive than those. The hardware just becomes more specialized yet more expensive. That $1000 Yoko yoke has a lot less buttons than my $250 Alpha yoke which has less buttons than my $250 Rhino full HOTAS, but you get accuracy and a much more realistic "feel".

If it turns out that I need to replace my yoke for FS 2020, I'll definitely give the Honeycomb a look. I can see spending $1K for an entire set of kit, but not for one piece! I'm not quite that deep into it (yet), and don't have any real flight experience to judge how realistic the stuff feels.

Carlbear95 wrote:

And the reveal is... an airbus setup. The throttle is interesting I suppose, the stick really is just a glorified t16000 stick. While the throttle makes sense, the fact that its literally only the throttle and starts but separate axis for the speedbrakes and flaps are additional addons is an interesting choice.

I'm still interested in the stick as I do like the t16000 but I'm going to hold out for the Bravo controls for throttle and I dont' think Honeycomb has anything to worry about.

Here's a little (sponsored) reveal/first impressions video of the new TM stick. It's not likely to be something I'll get, since I tend to prefer smaller aircraft. I guess you were right about the new stuff not being particularly expensive.

Hrdina wrote:

If it turns out that I need to replace my yoke for FS 2020, I'll definitely give the Honeycomb a look. I can see spending $1K for an entire set of kit, but not for one piece! I'm not quite that deep into it (yet), and don't have any real flight experience to judge how realistic the stuff feels.

Nice! Well something like Honeycomb Alpha + Bravo + Logitech Pedals + the Airbus Stick above will get you there with some with setups for aircraft with yokes and sticks and $$ to spare for the good payware aircraft or a radio stack. I'm strongly considering getting the Thrustmaster stick but would rather wait until I have a throttle that works on the right side. That Bravo throttle can't come soon enough.

August 18... call me shocked.

https://www.flightsimulator.com/micr...

The list of aircraft and airports is there also. I'm a little curious what exactly are the airports that are not listed going to be? If its the difference between xplane payware and "default" 3D airports then I suppose that's fine, but how many gates with jetways will be available? Will runways / ILS / Procedures all be there? Taxiways labeled and lines painted? Will the automated ATC be able to guide you into a non-listed airport? Hopefully its just level of detail and custom buildings, but it will be disappointing if every airport other than those listed looks the same with just different runway configs. Also the bundles are set up where if you only buy the standard I don't see an easy 1-hour flight between two listed airports. LFPG (Paris) to LOWI (Innsbruck) may be the only thing close, and good luck flying that if you want to stick to real procedures as Innsbruck is one of the most challenging approaches for a large aircraft in the world. KLAX-KSFO or EDDF to EGLL is only available if you buy the most expensive product.

Regarding aircraft, the most conspicuous missing aircraft is the Boeing 737, which is the most widely used commercial aircraft in the world. I've heard PMDG is working on it, but that's a $100 aircraft in P3D. Also that list while impressive kind of makes me worried. Nearly all of those aircraft are payware in the other sims. Mainly because they all perform so differently that to get them all feeling right is a task in itself. Single prop, dual prop, gliders, jets, aerobatics, turboprops, I even see a biplane on the list. Many of those aircraft are the same cost as the simulator by themselves in xplane or p3d.

So I'm still interested... looking at the list of aircraft/airports, aside from KSFO the 2nd tier (Deluxe) looks like where I'll probably land. Even though I'm in the bay area, I generally use KOAK as my base as the weather is better and it serves GA aircraft a lot better IRL and I'm doing my real life pilot license up in Novato at KDVO, so I'm hoping both of those are at least modeled with some level of accuracy. My biggest concern is that with that many aircraft, how realistic are each of them going to be? I kind of wish that list was a lot smaller as that would give me more faith that they will be close to their real-world counterparts.

I know this isn't "A Century of Flight" but lack of any historical vintage aircraft on the roster is pretty disappointing.

The pricing is also curious to me. I was lead to believe that this would be a subscription based product. Only the base level is included in game pass, or you can just pay a one-time purchase for the same thing. How do they plan on supporting the streaming and additional content? Is it going to be all a la carte after the initial purchase / gamespass? Seems opposite of what I thought they were trying to do.

Doing different editions isn't unprecedented for the franchise, FS2002 had "standard" and "pro" editions.

The last MSFS title predates the rise of premium DLC as a thing in the industry, but a huge part of the appeal of the franchise always came from the cottage industry of third-party premium add-on developers. I think Microsoft wants a much bigger piece of that pie for themselves now. They won't stop the third-party developers from releasing payware add-ons because the backlash would be enormous but they're not just going to leave all that money on the table for the mom and pop developers to take either. We're going to see a lot of first-party MS aircraft and scenery packs. The different edition tiers at launch are their way of trying to position Flight Simulator as, basically, a "normal" new AAA game release in 2020 (Assassin's Creed has a bunch of different increasingly expensive editions with bonus content, so why shouldn't we?) and get people used to the idea of paying MS, rather than a boutique third-party company, for more content.

Which is why I would think the business model be to have tiers.. but have them be monthly subscription models. ie get the basic game with gamepass, but for $10/month more (just making up a number) you get access to all these additional payware models and for an additional $10/more you get all the navdata and charts.

Plenty of people in Xplane pay around $100 annually for monthly navdata and charts updates (myself included). I would gladly pay $15-$20/month for access to high quality premium aircraft, airports, navdata and ATC as well as pay for the streaming map content. What MS does with that money (funding an internal team or paying a 3rd party) isn't my concern. This "boxed product" model basically hints that it will be ala carte going forward. That's exactly how it is today, and I'm not sure prettier graphics is enough for me to me to switch especially since xplane already has such a broad ecosystem around it.

I was expecting MS to want to move the model forward, not just make an updated version of the last FSX.

Carlbear95 wrote:

The pricing is also curious to me. I was lead to believe that this would be a subscription based product. Only the base level is included in game pass, or you can just pay a one-time purchase for the same thing. How do they plan on supporting the streaming and additional content? Is it going to be all a la carte after the initial purchase / gamespass? Seems opposite of what I thought they were trying to do.

Yeah, the fact that a subscription plan was not even mentioned was the second most surprising thing to me (after the release date, of course). All of the hype around how much data we'll need to pull down from MS servers made me think that a subscription of some kind would be necessary.

Like you, I'm very concerned/curious about the state of all the airports that are not on their list. I don't fly big iron, but do sometimes fly into big airports just for the novelty of landing my GA craft at KEWR or somewhere like that.

So, this went from an absolute purchase to just "probable".

Also, I definitely need a new PC to jump into this. However, I just finished my income taxes this weekend, so between that and between my wife being laid off then re-hired for a little less pay, I'm not sure a new PC is in the cards this year.

Given todays news that Orbx and Gaya Simulations will be creating content for MSFS 2020 confirms that at a minimum there will be an MS Store for addons. This was probably never in doubt but the Orbx news effectively confirmed it since their current mode of distribution is their own tool, and they said they will also support the MS Store. These are both high quality scenery developers which, in my mind, implies that the non-listed airports are going to be pretty generic. Orbx is also known for creating amazing overall terrain in both XPL and P3d, which is exactly what MSFS is supposed to do out of the box, so it is very curious as to what sort of content they will be doing.

I still think it makes way too much sense to offer some sort of annual pass that gives you all sorts of paid content for some sort of subscription. If I fly into KOAK 5 times a month but KPDX only every other month, I may pay $20 for KOAK standalone but not for KPDX. However I'd absolutely pay $10/month to fly into every airport and have it be a premium offering.

If they're not going to go that way then it really comes down to just Sim 1 vs. Sim 2. As an actual simulator of flight dynamics, I have been told (not by anyone under alpha NDA of course) that its not close.

One things for certain... the news has caused all of the trolls in various xplane, p3d and msfs fan sites to come out of the woodwork. For a community that loves to turn their nose at "gamers" they sure now how to act like one when the time comes.

Another prominent scenery developer UK2000 stated on Facebook that the SDK is still not final so 3rd party content can't be completed. From the post:

MSFS2020 now has a release date of mid August!. This is far sooner than we would have thought, especially considering the SDK is not complete.

Despite that they announced their full support of MSFS 2020.

Not that the SDK needs to be final for a game to ship, but at some point, certainly the hardcore users that will drive revenue for the title (especially with no sub) will need new content, and MS will need more revenue to support the title and a final SDK is going to be necessary.

The skeptic could say that MS is just releasing it because at this point because they realize its not ready for primetime, and maybe they don't see an easy path to getting there. Better to get whatever they can out of it now rather than keep dumping money into it. They wanted it to be a subscription but realized there's just not enough there for people to be excited enough to fork over a montly fee and the roadmap is so long to get there that it makes more sense to get a one-time payment out of folks today and play it by ear. Despite MS basically having unlimited money, they are still a business and will cut bait if they have to (hello Mixer, Kinect and Windows Phone just to name a few).

The optimist could say sure the game isn't done but its good enough that it will sell millions and establish the platform so it can then roll out a substantial subscription model on a very established platform in a few months. There is also this crazy opportunity where most people are still stuck at home, and even if they are not, they're certainly not getting on airplanes anymore, so lets go at that market while we can.

I think I'm leaning towards the former... this game was in closed alpha with very strict NDAs for a long time, and as far as I know still is. How you go from only high gloss curated videos to full release in 30 days is a pretty odd transition. I hope I'm wrong.

Carlbear, this video from February may shed some light. There are ATC services on a fixed frequency at all airports. Ground markings and pads, runways, taxiways, active wind socks and so forth are there for every one of the 37,000 airports. Ground vehicles and attendants are around, depending on the size of the airport and the services it provides. I could not determine whether jetways will always be present, but they are modeling the airports from satellite data and they built jetways as a modular element so it's certainly possible that they could be plopped down into a building in the appropriate locations. It would make sense.

He does say that they picked 80 airports out for special attention, but of course, only 40 are in the high-end version of the game. It's not clear whether that's 40 above and beyond, or half of the 80, with the other half coming as add-ons.

The process for setting up the airports is interesting and clearly scales. They claim every airport in the world will be able to be used with appropriate services, ATC and air and ground traffic. So at least they won't be silly patches of blurry, unusable pixels....

Good to see. The "bigger" airports they showed in that video are all on the list they included. The airports they showed that weren't on that list tended to be bush or single runway airports. What will be interesting are large airports that aren't on the list... like a Newark or a Midway or a cargo hub like Memphis or Louisville.

I guess time will tell. Prettier graphics aren't going to be enough for me and I'm curious if there will be a community supported free addons like we see in the current flight sim platforms. If the aircraft feel all feel different and relatively close to their RL counterpart then this should be good. I am very skeptical only because that's so many aircraft that they are launching with, but if they somehow pull it off, then i'm very excited to give it a whirl.

I'll definitely be there on August 18... the only question is how many will still be there on September 18.

I'm very intrigued and hopeful. Not sure where I'll put the HOTAS set; I'll need to clear off my desk lol. But the level of detail looks very intriguing.

Just from this video, which is a limited subset, it seems like they are building off of the previous game's content. I'd venture to say that the flight models should be better than they were, but by how much is the question. They have to know X-Plane is the mark to hit. How close they come to it is the question. If they follow the same approach for planes that they do for other elements of the game, they will have some kind of automated translator to create basic flight models from aircraft features, then they will manually tweak it. That would be very interesting, because it would allow them to relatively quickly produce a lot of models.

Which, to me, is like the Airport thing, a possible source of additional revenue over time. And for MS, isn't that the tradeoff?

I will note that MS has gone heavily into Agile programming techniques, which means they can do a lot of work in a short amount of time through parallelization and incremental additions. If you've watched Star Traders: Frontiers come along, you'll see what I mean. IF they are doing this with a commitment to that process, and to excellence, this could really be ground-breaking. If they try to cut corners and fake it, that will be obvious in the initial reviews after release.

I'm betting that this is going to be a cutting edge release, that they are not willing to fake up that much about the game and let it flop due to not delivering on their claims.

And here's the Feature video for aerodynamics. Couple of cool things are mentioned. You can land accurately on any flat surface, to allow for engine-out simming (or just whatever). Even a field on the side of a mountain.

The planes are no longer limited to moving forward along their center axis. They can yaw and pitch and roll and the line of motion will change accordingly. This removes the "on rails" feeling of the older versions.

Thousands of surfaces simulated on each aircraft; each one can stall. You can stall one wing but not the other. Flight models were tweaked by actual pilots for each aircraft. The overall simulation of the air is similar; you can fly with one wing in a cloud and another not, and they will both behave accordingly. Humidity, temperature, pressure are modeled for each of those thousands of surfaces (and particles in air flows), so icing is now accurate, as well as things like shear and up/downdrafts and associated turbulence. The entire world is simulated and objects as well as terrain affect airflow. Temperature also comes into play, along with humidity.

I guess we'll see on August 18. This is being developed by an independent studio, only published by MS. While I'm sure MS has significant influence and may have even provided resources beyond $$, as any developer in that relationship knows.. the game only goes as far as the publisher is willing to fund.

Everything shown in those videos looks great. That is why most are so surprised about the release date. I suppose all of these things could have been under wraps for a long time but but the anecdotal information out of the alpha (again under strict NDA) was that it was a pretty game with pretty poor aerodyanmics. How you go from sizzle real to release in less than 12 months in this day and age, layer on top the WFH challenges during COVID and that's got many scratching their heads.

Here's an article of what one flightsim news source gathered from various 3rd party developers' social media comments. It appears that it is no easy task to port any work these 3rd parties have done on other platforms.

All of this is solvable... the question is if MS is willing to work with Asobo and the FS Community to solve them and how long will that take.

Thanks for posting that. I'm still undecided how the version I should get. I'll take a look and see if I can discern anything from the article that would affect that choice.

Edit - To me, that screams of "just-in-time" development methodologies, which is actually a good sign, in my opinion. I would guess that we'll see constant, near-daily, code updates for at least months after release, if my hypothesis is correct. It will likely ship with an incomplete SDK (but not a *broken* one, there's a difference) and also there may be some elements (like perhaps terrain details) that get updated as time passes after release.

This implies that the game will still be adding parts, likely upgraded subsystems, for a long time. And we'll see 3rd parties coming on line as they get the tools they need.

As far as I can tell the difference between the 3 versions is additional content. If you already have Gamepass and are happy with whats included in the base version, then you're already set.

I'm going for the "Deluxe" version only because I'm learning to fly in a non G-1000 C172S right now IRL and so I want that aircraft. If not for that I would probably be sticking with the basic.

Austin Meyer, founder of Xplane's Laminar research is a flying junkie and actually makes an FAA certifiable version of xplane. Its main competitor P3D is made by Lockheed Martin, built on top of the original Flight Sim platform. Both of these come with far fewer aircraft and custom scenery than what MSFS is going to come out with out of the box (even the base version) and depend on 3rd party and community support and have been doing so for over a decade.

How a developer who previously made The Crew as its closest thing to a flight sim can match that type of experience on its first go will be an impressive feat if they can pull it off.

Also, just as a sidenote in Xplane, I only fly 3rd party aircraft and with only one exception (the amazing Zibo 737) all are paid. This is definitely biasing my opinions on what Asobo and MS can do and adding to my skepticism but I'm doing my best to be objective.

Oh, I definitely get it. I was seeking to fill in answers where I could, and I'm speculating about their development techniques, but there are a lot of companies switching to Agile and it yields amazing results when done well (ST:F, again, shows this well). If they actually are on that path, then the idea would be to hit a certain state of done-ness and release, but still update very frequently to continue development. That's what throws people. Agile allows you to *continuously* develop; there's no "final state" to be achieved, necessarily, the app can continue to adapt and grow over time without pause and without needing "expansions" or the like. It's an organic process and if that is what they've done, it'll absolutely be astounding what they can do within that framework - *provided* that Asobo is actually competent.

I'm hopeful. Oh, and I think that the fact that they've done two iterations of a physics-heavy open world racing game (which including flying) does indicate a certain appropriate technical ability. Plus they have all the previous gen code to start with. Although they did write a new core physics engine from scratch...

It'd be interesting to see what the individual team members have done in the past.

I really want to believe that the flight models will be good. That's what really keeps me flying DCS. It's not the missiles and the bullets, and it's certainly not the VR performance, it's just the feel. Sure the airspeed indicator in the P-51 works, but you also know when you're on a good approach speed because the flight controls develop just the right amount of "mush". Love it.

Jarpy wrote:

I really want to believe that the flight models will be good. That's what really keeps me flying DCS. It's not the missiles and the bullets, and it's certainly not the VR performance, it's just the feel. Sure the airspeed indicator in the P-51 works, but you also know when you're on a good approach speed because the flight controls develop just the right amount of "mush". Love it.

Then MSFS 2020 may be right up your alley... I've heard all of the single engine GA aircraft perform just like a P-51

If that is something you're looking for Jarpy and MSFS doesn't end up fitting the bill you should definitely check out Xplane. I can say with confidence that a good number of paid aircraft are quite accurate to their RW counterparts and even many of the free ones are pretty decent. The Zibo B738 is amazing and emulates nearly 100% of the systems and the flight dynamics are constantly being tweaked.

Well in the unexpected news today, VATSIM will be available on day 1 for MSFS 2020.

https://www.vatsim.net/news/big-day-...

Certainly good news for hardcore flightsimmers as VATSIM brings an incredible additional layer of immersion into simming. This also would give me confidence that full navdata with SIDS/STARS will be available and non-"premium" airports will be pretty close to the real thing if we are going to have VATSIM move people around airports.

One concern would be how will MSFS interface. Natively or will it require a 3rd party app. The former could prove... interesting if a bunch of people with no experience dealing with ATC feel like they can log on and participate, but who knows.

Anyways, even though I will there on day 1 either way, this is certainly fascinating news and I'm very curious how this impacts the game.