Except for the built-in models you can fly in the sim, Flight Simulator is still missing a library of other airplane models for AI traffic, though again, I would assume that’s in the works, too. Given some of Microsoft’s own videos, more are coming soon. In the beta, you won’t really see the liveries of any real airlines yet - at least for the most part - I spotted the occasional United plane in the latest builds. Live traffic works well, but none of the general aviation traffic around my local airports seems to show up, even though Microsoft partner FlightAware shows it.Īs for the real/AI traffic in general, the sim does a pretty good job managing that. I wouldn’t recommend playing with a mouse and keyboard, but your mileage may vary. I only played with a HOTAS-style joystick and rudder setup. Rudder controls feel a bit overly sensitive by default, but that’s relatively easy to adjust. Best I can tell, at least the single-engine Cessnas that I’m familiar with mostly handle in the same way I would expect them to in reality.
It’s always hard to compare the plane models and how they react to the real thing. Microsoft partnered with NavBlue for airspace data, though the built-in maps don’t do much with this data and don’t even show you the vertical boundaries of the airspace you are in. That’s not really how flight planning works (at the very least you would want to take the local weather into account), so it would be nice if you could customize your route a bit more. You can’t really adjust any of these, just accept what the simulator gives you. For IFR flights, you choose low or high-altitude airways. For visual flights, you can go direct or VOR to VOR, and that’s it. If a town doesn’t have photogrammetry data, it will not appear on the map.Īs of now, the flight planning features are pretty basic. As you zoom into the map, you can see airports and landmarks (where the landmarks are either real sights like Germany’s Neuschwanstein Castle or cities that have photogrammetry data). That makes it easy to start flying over a city, for example. What’s nice here is that you can pick any spot on your map, not just airports. To actually start playing, you’ll head for the world map and choose where you want to start your flight. All of the planes are beautifully detailed inside and out and except for a few bugs, everything works as expected.
I’ll spend some more time with those before the official launch. I mostly spent my time flying the small general aviation planes in the sim, but if you prefer a Boeing 747 or Airbus 320neo, you get that option, too, as well as some turboprops and business jets.
Most take fewer than 10 minutes and you’ll get a bit of a de-brief after, but I’m not sure it’s enough to keep a novice from getting frustrated quickly (while more advanced players will just skip this section altogether anyway). That training section walks you through eight activities that will help you get the basics of flying a Cessna 152. Cities like Barcelona, Berlin, San Francisco, Seattle, New York and others that are rendered using Microsoft’s photogrammetry method look great - including and maybe especially at night. When the system works well, it’s absolutely amazing. There are taxiway lights in the middle of runways, giant hangars and crew buses at small private fields, cars randomly driving across airports, giant trees growing everywhere (while palms often look like giant sticks), bridges that are either under water or big blocks of black over a river - and there are a lot of sunken boats, too. Because Microsoft and Asobo Studios, which was responsible for the development of the simulator, are using Microsoft’s AI tech in Azure to automatically generate much of the scenery based on Microsoft’s Bing Maps data, you’ll find a lot of weirdness in the world. It’s officially still in beta, so there’s still time to fix at least some of the issues I list below. You can’t start it up and not fawn over the graphics.īut the new Flight Simulator is also still very much a work in progress, too, even just a few weeks before the scheduled launch date on August 18. Weather effects, day and night cycles, plane models - it all looks amazing. Without a doubt, it’s the most beautiful flight simulator yet, and it’ll make you want to fly low and slow over your favorite cities because - if you pick the right one - every street and house will be there in more detail than you’ve ever seen in a game. For the last two weeks, I’ve been flying around the world in a preview of Microsoft’s new Flight Simulator.
0 kommentar(er)
