Raver50032 Posted July 16, 2020 Share Posted July 16, 2020 So, I've been watching the development of the latest in a 40-year series of flight simulators from the Microsoft stable and the next iteration, Flight Simulator 2020 is due to launch on 18th August 2020. The YouTube pre-launch trailer looks stunning, showcasing some of the wonderful weather effects, landscaping and aircraft on offer. What marks this simulator differently from previous iterations and other Sim producers, the world is modelled in it's entirety, hosted on remote servers. You should technically be able to fly nice and low over your own home and certainly well known landmarks will be wonderfully rendered across the world. You can set your own weather parameters, or even choose to fly with 'real world weather' where the simulator runs the current weather as it is at the time you fly. We have actually seen that element before in Flight Simulator X, but the new graphical rendering of the weather is on a completely different scale and visual-orgy. Multi-player and group flight will be possible and there is fully functioning air traffic control, and real world live traffic should you choose to fly real time. So, you can fire up your Airbus A320 on a spare gate at Heathrow and be surrounded by all the live traffic jostling for position with you in real time for a take off slot. Pre-order has commenced - it's a 150Gb download, though in Europe, there's a hard pack available with between 6 and 10 discs in it if you prefer a 'disc in hand' approach. No VR support right now, but likely to follow. There are three tiers of purchase, standard, deluxe and premium. Standard is $59.99 and premium is about $119. Sounds expensive, but simulators like this have so much re-playability and co-op play. If you do 100, 1 hour flights, and imagine that you charge yourself a pound per flight, it's actually pretty good value. Unlike something you play through once for example. Standard edition gives you 20 aeroplanes right off the bat, including the Airbus A320 airliner, the Beech King Air twin turbo-prop business plane, the Cessna Citation light biz-jet, the Boeing 747-800 intercontinental airliner and a host of light aircraft, some of which are aerobatic. Standard also includes 30 fully rendered and fine detailed airports. That's not to say that there are only 30 airports in the simulator. There are many, many thousands all around the world, but they are rendered a little more generically. Premium (which I have pre-ordered) gives you 30 aeroplanes, with a larger version of the Cessna Citation Biz-jet and the amazing Boeing 787 Dreamliner intercontinental jet. If you want the fully detailed London Heathrow Airport, you'll need to purchase the Premium version. The simulator will welcome third party developers to create airports and aircraft and these will be hosted initially in the server marketplace - though Microsoft don't oppose separately hosted developers if they choose not to partner. There has been much unrest about the lack of Boeing 737 at launch, so there will be a push for a third part iteration of that I would think. I'm left handed, so I have had to choose my flight stick wisely. I've opted for the Thrustmaster T16000. And I've treated myself to a new PC set up to run it all on. You can play it on reasonable specs, but of course, with all stuff like this, if you want the best details and the enhanced immersion in the experience, you may need to upgrade your PC. The game will also go live at some point on the X-box console... It is anticipated that there will be an element of 'missions' to perform that may appeal to gamers, if not the simmers in the community. If you want to hook up and fly, it would be great to fly with other Villa Fans, even if we don't always have the same opinions elsewhere on the site. Stay safe everyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dodgyknees Posted July 16, 2020 Share Posted July 16, 2020 I’m more of a Train Sim man, but maybe one day I’ll join the mile high club 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raver50032 Posted July 16, 2020 Author Share Posted July 16, 2020 54 minutes ago, avfcDJ said: I’m more of a Train Sim man, but maybe one day I’ll join the mile high club No worries about that... I always enjoy a bit of Train Sim action... Class 50 diesels along the Dawlish Sea wall rekindling holidays of long ago... Happy days indeed. That said, I also enjoy Standard steam on the Carlisle to Dumfries area too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dodgyknees Posted July 16, 2020 Share Posted July 16, 2020 7 minutes ago, Raver50032 said: No worries about that... I always enjoy a bit of Train Sim action... Class 50 diesels along the Dawlish Sea wall rekindling holidays of long ago... Happy days indeed. That said, I also enjoy Standard steam on the Carlisle to Dumfries area too. Pretty much the same line I do Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PieFacE Posted July 16, 2020 VT Supporter Share Posted July 16, 2020 The first thing i'm going to do is find my house and then crash into it. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dante_Lockhart Posted July 16, 2020 Share Posted July 16, 2020 36 minutes ago, PieFacE said: The first thing i'm going to do is find my house and then crash into it. Make sure the missus is out first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hogso Posted July 16, 2020 Share Posted July 16, 2020 (edited) Would kind of love to have a desktop PC to play this on. Although the idea of having the potential to take a plane and embark on an 8+ hour flight to wherever doesn't strike me as fun, simply the concept of being able to do that in an environment and world that is nicely rendered is just **** great isn't it? Edited July 16, 2020 by hogso Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raver50032 Posted July 16, 2020 Author Share Posted July 16, 2020 Yep, it's pretty pointless if you're doing long haul for 8 hours at 40,000 feet. You can do that in the Sim of course, but there are plenty of smaller aircraft to enable you to stay nice and low to explore all the ground level eye candy. The pyramids looks really nice at Giza - just a short hop out of Cairo airport of course. You can fly nice and low over Villa Park too I guess, but keep the trailing banners out of it!! There's so much more to it than mile high stuff. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juju Posted July 26, 2020 Share Posted July 26, 2020 On 16/07/2020 at 11:35, Raver50032 said: No worries about that... I always enjoy a bit of Train Sim action... Class 50 diesels along the Dawlish Sea wall rekindling holidays of long ago... Happy days indeed. That said, I also enjoy Standard steam on the Carlisle to Dumfries area too. First thing I did was recreate my commute with the London to Brighton Pack to pull out of Redhill into East Croydon. I can't believe I spent so much time cursing the railway, just to then spend my free time doing the same bloody thing... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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