FS 2020 - one geezer's perspective

[chicagorandy]

The language is VERY-VERY "adult", but the comic Louis C.K.'s monologue on youtube about how things are amazing but no one is happy -titled Cell Phones and Flying - is worth a listen IF you seek it out (I'm not gonna post the link due to adult language content).

[stumpwiz]

Chicagorandy, I'm a VN-era vet with four years on you. Just to prove it, I played "Zork" when it was "dungeo," on a PDP-11. I'm with you. I'll be occupied with MSFS for quite some time.

[jfitler]

I'm a long time simmer, dating back to MSFS's genesis - Bruce Artwick's Sublogic A2FS1 in 1977 on an Apple II, so I've got to get in my two cents worth.

 

I have spent the last week getting familiarized with MSFS and I am becoming concerned that, while unquestionably an impressive eye candy masterpiece, the sim has come at the cost of some serious functionality and feature issues and oversights. No doubt driven by an immovable release date set by the product managers and bean counters.

 

I know no product launch is without bugs, I would just think that some of these would be so obvious... After all, it's FLIGHT simulator, not a SCENERY simulator.

 

So here's my gripe list to-date... (and I apologize in advance for any of these that may in fact be oversights or misunderstandings on my part)

 

 

 

NAV/GPS operation w/autopilot never seems to work the same way twice. It seems to be anybody's guess if the AP will track in NAV mode with an IFR flight plan. Same plane, same settings and setup - sometimes it will, sometimes not. Really frustrating. Additionally, I have never been able to even get the AP to engage on the TBM turboprop.

 

"Saved" flights seemed to be stripped of all navigation/AP settings when reloaded.

 

Disengaging AP in flight kicks a/c into an out of control spin about half the time.

 

Exiting the "active pause" feature puts the A/C into an out of control spin (even in autopilot), or, at the very least, a very unstable state for a period of time.

 

Much development time (and money) was obviously saved in going with text-to-speech ATC (as opposed to Voicepacks), but it is a step backwards in terms of realism, clarity and accuracy.

 

When using the pushback tug on the A320, the plane's parking brakes cannot be released.

 

The idiotically large mouse-over pop-ups (which cannot be turned off, as far as I can tell) are distracting and obscure way too much of the panel when trying to click tiny panel controls, such as those on the autopilot (and lots of fun in turbulence). And this is with the "smallest" font setting available (18pt).

 

Of less importance but an additional annoyance nonetheless... I cannot find a way to change the pilot name assigned by MS when the program was purchased, downloaded and installed. I didn't have an option at anytime to create or select my own. The only help that I can find on-line usually begins with "... Hey, just go into your X-Box account and..."

 

I do NOT have an X-Box account, an X-Box or anything at all to do with X-Box.

 

Again, just my two cents...

[compyelc4]

Fair Enough BUT NOTHING WORKS CORRECTLY

 

Profound statement.