Wow is all I can say after that documentary. I knew this was something special from the day I actually got to fire it up. I didn’t understand the scale of everything they have done to make this game work. It’s mind-blowing in scope.
I truly hope they win awards or recognition for this. I feel what they’ve done just with cloud and streaming of the computed and scoped content is industry changing in relation to gaming. It takes a herculean project to change how things are planned and done in the future.
What if a new RPG came out with an ever-changing world, streamed as part of gameplay and modified with weather, seasons, time passing, etc, and the scope of the map was at least as big as earth?
Holy crap. I found the TBM quite onerous to pay off (though I did it quickly) and I was thinking the King Air repayments must be hanging over you. Amazing that you paid it off so quickly.
Looks like a beautiful place to live! I can’t believe I’m saying that about a game :P
Well it does have basically double the capacity. And if you’re able to just do urgent jobs, that’s $10k+ a pop. I’m not sure my DA62 was a great investment, given we have “free” planes available in the group. But it’s nice to have a plane to call my own.
I wish it was always 10K a pop runs, but the money is better up to around 150 nautical miles or so. As such I’ve found a few hubs that I can do nearly all the runs for to make good money. Branching off of KATL there is Montgomery (KMGM,) Birmingham (KBHM,) and Augusta (KAGS.) All three of them appear to be owned by Sovereign Airlines, who tends to stack a lot of passengers from their hubs to their spokes. Given about a week or so, all of those will refill and it’s a money pinata waiting for someone to go fly them.
Even on little hops back and forth to a hub with less than 1/2 capacity, it adds up. The key here is speed. The King Air can cover nearly twice the ground in the same amount of time as some of the smaller planes.
One of the meta games that give more purpose to the base game. There are three I know of.
FSEconomy, which these screens are from. It’s a passenger and cargo metagame: https://www.fseconomy.net/
OnAir, which is quite a bit more in depth than FSE and also gets in to a full airline type of sim:
NeoFly, which is a bush pilot rescue meta game:
All of them use a connector program that varies based on which one you’re playing. That connector passes data to/from the meta game servers as you fly within MSFS 2020. So as an example to above, I’m literally renting an aircraft on FSE’s site (with pretend FSE game currency,) then loading up MSFS and flying a Beechcraft King Air from Montgomery to Decatur, loaded up with passengers, then coming back. In FSE I make money, and I use that to do things like buy a plane so I don’t have to rent one, or buy a passenger terminal, etc.
There are also meta non-games which add realism, like…
VATSIM - to use real person controlled ATC and communication within the game:
PilotEdge - Which allows simmed student flights with real ATC.
If you browse and are interested in any, let us know, several of us play them or have dabbled in them and can steer you in the right direction. You do NOT need to know how to fly well to play them. The ones I’ve tried have been forgiving, I haven’t loaded up NeoFly yet.
I feel the same way. It’s not a super profitable plane - especially when it costs about $40k per month between the financing, fees, and maintenance. But it’s a pretty plane that is fun to fly.
I have been trying to learn to fly IFR. Is that working as intended? ATC seems a little bit confused. Earlier, on a flight from Scottsdale to… I don’t remember, it took me on a path that would have flown me into a mountain. And frequently, it sends me to 7100 feet, then 8600 feet, then 7100 feet, then 8400 feet, etc. Is this a known issue? Or intended?
Also, possibly a dumb question, can you use APR mode without ILS ? Or otherwise at a smaller airport? Or do you pretty much have to land by hand.
So ah… I’m getting “connection lost” about one third through the download. The machine is very much online. The error window gives zero additional information to aid in troubleshooting. God I love PC gaming.
Jeff, I have played at least a little bit of all 3. This weekend I have been playing more Onair, as it’s got a 7-day trial period, which is running out. It seems to be the most complete, but also fairly finicky about correct procedure.
FSEconomy has gotten a little tedious. There isn’t much of a progression. But I’ve bought a plane, and I feel compelled to pay it off, even though it’s not real money. Or a real plane. Let me know if you want to borrow it. It’s in Phoenix.
I’ve played the least of Neofly, which seems like it might be the most fun. You start out in a Cessna 152, with analog gauges and stuff. Flying short hops around my local geography is lots of fun. Especially since it sometimes asks you to do a rescue mission, which involves landing on a road, or otherwise off runway.
FSEconomu and Neofly are free, so definitely check them out.
welp, guess they can’t handle me wanting to play their game :/ It fucking SUCKS that they don’t give any information about that server. I mean connection lost, is the problem on my end or theirs? Apparently theirs, so I need to be patient. It would have been nice, mr microsoft, if I didn’t have to sleuth multiple forums to find that fucking fact!
Can you tell I am frustrated? because I am. And pissed about how the error is presented.
I’m getting the same as the others. Mostly over the last two days, “connection lost.” Once playing, that’s less of a major incident, but I can assure you, this is mostly new. I don’t normally get connection lost nor failed downloads. Not since launch anyway.
