I have started my journey back to flight sim around 2009 after ordering X-Plane 9 and my first Hotas: Saitek 52pro.
X-Plane 10 arrived ~2-3 years afterwards and it added not just graphical enhancements but also plausible "world" that was based on "Open street map". The plausible was mainly house placement, but earth layering was a little off, in my opinion. According to Ben, the earth layer is green instead of brown, which I believe received lots of criticism since, lets face it, the sand and stones are mainly brownish colors and the green is from the vegetation, but Austin think differently and we can't argue with his/LR logic.
I think that the aircraft I loved the most was Carenado Cessna Caravan 208B which did not transition very well to X-Plane 11.
Overall, Laminar Research had a great 10 years, were I think they pretty much lead in this field both in terms of add-ons, planes and scenery development.
Before doing some more comparisons, lets look at the Flight Simulation that were available in the past 10 years. We had:
- X-Plane
- Prepare 3D (Lockheed Martin).
- FlightGear (Free)
- Microsoft Flight Simulator - X
- Digital Combat Simulaton
- Dovetail Flight Simulation.
- Aerofly FS2
- FlyInside flight simulator
- VTOL VR
I admit I tried them all, but I stuck with X-Plane due to the fact that they built their simulation to be "add-on" friendly which allowed me to write Mission-X plugin and which I still maintain until this writing. But, not all is roses and unicorns, Laminar has one huge drawback, and it has proven over the years, they have a small staff of enthusiasts, that can't scale the simulator as fast as their followers would have liked and in many cases the boss, Austin, defines the roadmap of the simulator. I know you can't always provide all your fans wishes, but you can't ignore them either. You can't also work only on one big feature every year unless you have small staff and can't scale up. In my humble opinion this is where Laminar Research are at, they were the king of the hill for 10 years (my opinion), they were sure of their capabilities and roadmap, until Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 was announced, and then they were more humble and calculated in their reactions. They seem less confidence than 1 year back, they are no longer defining the future of flight sim, everyone is turning their heads to Microsoft.
Before I'll dive into this, lets have a short review of the other flight simulations out there and then talk on a product that is covered mainly by You Tubers and already crowned as the new king of the hill, before it was even published.
The last 10 years
Prepare 3D
Flying in Prepare3D was nice and it looked promising. My main issue with it was the lack of compatibility between upgrades and upgrades never looked simple, to me, I always had to check if 3rd party tool supported this specific build, I also had to re-download the whole sim from scratch and install it just to make sure it works as expected. That kind of interaction really put me down and I went back to X-Plane since, for me, managing versions and 3rd party airplanes and plugins is no brainier in X-Plane.
FlightGear
Although it has huge potential, I think it lacks good roadmap or someone that will steer the "boat" in the right direction.
As of this writing the stable version that you can download from its web page, is from March 14, 2019. Either something big is brewing, or the sim has reached a phase were it really needs a dedicated team to push it to its next level.
Again, I found myself returning to X-Plane since it was a stable and evolving platform that I could be dependent upon.
Digital Combat Simulator (DCS)
I mainly tried DCS as a VR experience, and I must admit it was quite good, the level of detail in the A10 was grate but the VR handling was so so, I mean, if you have the HOTAS to manage most of the switches and buttons, then no problem, but when I fly VR I want to use my VR controllers to do most if not all activities. DCS is still not there but I read that they are working on future models that would have better textures and VR compatibility.
One can only hope that this is true, and they will release their updated planes and mechanics to better support VR, and so I hop back to X-Plane for casual VR flying between locations.
Dovetail Flight Sim World
And so, I went back to X-Plane.
Fly Inside FlightSimulator
The company was known for writing add-ons to flight simulators, like FSX and X-Plane that converted the simulator to VR HMDs.
The same company decided to write their own flight simulator mainly for VR, and I was happy to jump into this bandwagon after receiving my first VR headset: Pimax 5K+. This was the first VR simulator I fired to test my headset, not X-Plane or "VTOL VR", and I'm not sorry I did this, I think their texture handling and the cockpit feel was very good in "VR space", I had that first vertigo feeling when I took off, or make the first turn. Looking outside of the cockpit and seeing the wing/flap position just brought a smile of joy to my face.
When FlyInside was upgraded to version 0.6 many things in the world rendering fell apart. They moved from local textures to streamed textured from Bing (as far as I know) and although that was a leap at the right directions, many drawn layers were not drawn correctly and so, The overall immersion of the sim was broken somewhat. That said, this does not mean that in a future build they won't fix these issues, it is just that few weeks before Microsoft announced FS2020 until few months back you could not receive any comment from them nor update or forum reply. The last time I used this simulator was July 2019.
At least I was able to find a new Beta build comment in the forum, from Jan 2020, which is a good sign, and seem that development is still on its way (but still in Beta). I think I'll re-install it and check how it flies.
And so I go back to X-Plane.
VTOL VR
This is another simulator, although focused one, that was build purely for VR and that let you fly few picked planes that are fully manageable using only your VR controllers. Any button/switch will react to your hand movements, and that is pure joy, even if it fill simplistic sometimes.
I still hop into and out of this simulator, since it is very approachable, and I would like to learn it some more.
Part of the simulator strength is its mission editor, so you can build or fly missions which is kind of DCS but in simplistic mode.
Aerofly FS2
This Flight seem to boast two rendering engines: OpenGL and Vulkan which is impressive. It also supports VR HMDs and full VR controller manipulations, although not the best in my opinion.
AeroFly FS2 uses region textures that layered with 3D Objects like buildings and trees, and the overall look and feel is quite good while flying. I'm still learning this simulator, and so I can't give any verdicts regarding its flying dynamics, and I don't think I want or entitle to do so, but I can say that some of its feature do let me easily hop in and out of this sim and I wish more simulators like X-Plane would have do the same.
Some point I liked:
- Easy flight planing, although only used the built in maps. Not sure if can do the same using external flight plans.
- Flight plan was automatically loaded into the FMS of the plane I used.
- The world seem to share same strategic as FSX, but the textures looked better and overall flight scene was satisfactory.
- VR support is quite good, I was able to click/turn on any button I needed, but it lacked visual feedback (more on this later).
- Performance in VR is very good and I almost did not had any stutters during flight. FPS was around 40+ on my Pimax 5K+.
- You can always resume from your last location you flew (air or ground).
Things that need more work:
- The world is currently limited to regions you bought. If you pick location outside these regions, you will probably see a blurry texture as your ground, but you still retain the locations database (meaning, city names will be displayed if you choose too).
- Weather settings is quite basic.
- SDK is free, but I was not able to put my hand on it, at the time of this writing, the download link was disabled even when I logged in to the site. Strange.
- In VR there does not seem to be latch support to the Yoke of the plane. Meaning, I would like to see more option that make handling yokes/sticks easier in VR for longer flights, something like the ergonomic mode in X-Plane.
- No water representation. I think that waters are just textures of the real thing (probably help boost performance).
- Clouds are not volumetric. Yes I know most flight sim do not support this, but I hope one day they will do.
- Most of the airports are not supported yet. Probably only those in regions you buy.
Some rant on VR handling in AeroFly FS2:
Due to the lack of button proximity highlight, it was sometime frustrating to interact with the planes controllers. For example, when I tried to move a dual throttle or mixture up or down a notch I failed many times to move both throttles, instead I moved only one lever or none. I know that some will say that proximity helpers will break immersion, I think that failing to do the correct action during flight can break the plane, and so I prefer to have the option to toggle VR controller highlight for easier and more precise handling of the plane.
I would like to also see better Yoke/Stick handling in VR. We need latch mechanism like in X-Plane or FlyInside, were we continuously grab and hold the Yoke once we press it and only when we press again we leave it. That should make continues or long flight handling easier.
I'll continue to go back and visit AeroFly FS2, since its current features and overall experience is quite good and fun, and help me understand, in some cases, how to handle jets, which I do not do very well in X-Plane.
So were does it leave us
- The world: Laminar can't just use simple textures + Open Street data to draw a plausible world. They need to step up. I think that someone in ORBX said that aligning 3D Objects on textures needs simulator support, and X-Plane do not support this. This is just an example where LR could make the difference.
Water domes and underwater representations, just like any mountains, so the sea should have better water data and representation. This should help fix the water colors in X-Plane (I'm not asking for submarine simulator capabilities, but who knows).
Any visual representation of our nature, should have some representations in the sim. Waterfalls are classic examples. Better tree representation.
Better handling of coast lines.
Define a DFS mesh patch standard. Allow 3rd parties define a DFS patch to fix specific areas of the land mesh instead of publishing the whole DFS. This is only LR responsibility. - Weather: It is time for Laminar to update the weather engine and give it much more love. Maybe transition to volumetric clouds, or at least have them as an option at the expense of performance.
Rain on windshields makes your flight much more real. Just see what FS2020 has done in this area, and start working on your own solution. - SDK/UI: Provide better support for window management in 2D and VR. we need updated UI widgets and fonts handling.
Suggestion: Maybe a student can kick start this during google summer of code. - ATC: This is probably one of the more requested areas were Laminar can invest today and implement it without sim overhaul.
- VR: Continue and strengthen VR support, don't give us the 5% user base excuse. Make VR even better, support more HMDs natively (like Pimax), make more tutorials (include videos) to better explain plane makers how to support VR fully. This is one of your strengths right now. Not investing in your strong parts is another way to lose more fan base.
See facebook and mobile. They missed the mobile bandwagon, and they do not want to miss the VR one.
In late 2019 and early 2020 X-Plane is no longer the pioneer in flight simulators, they had 10 years to try and build something special, and although they succeed in some aspects, they failed measurably in others due to the strategy to keep the team lean and mean. The continues excuse that the most important aspect of flight sim is its dynamics is no longer valid, a pilot need to handle his/her plane in harsh conditions like rain and fog, to know how to handle the plane controls and interact with ATC and probably much more.
Laminar Research needs to build their sim on its strengths and these experiences. Unfortunately, the new king of the hill is FS2020, a pre-alpha version of a simulator that will probably go live around 2020 holidays (Q4 ?) and already defines what should be in a flight sim (isn't that ironic?).
My grandfather (may he rest in peace) used to say: "If you think like a poor man you will be a poor man". Laminar need to do some shifts in thought and execution since they have limited time to implement anything complex, and when they do that it should be a good implementation.
That was quite a long rant, but I hope Laminar will hear their user base suggestions and scale their sim accordingly.I wish them luck and at the same time I will support FS2020 as I support other flight sim, and since I fly mainly in VR, 2D just don't cut it for me, even if there are nice clouds and drop of waters, so I'll probably continue and reach out to simulators that do support VR.
Until next time.
Blue skies
Saar