Microsoft Flight Simulator

[Stanley]

39 minutes ago, SteveH said:

Edit: sold out already. Bit odd that they allowed 2 per customer. But they have stated that they will be manufacturing more of them. 

 

The Turtle Beach Flight Stick is up for pre-order (£349.99)
https://uk.turtlebeach.com/products/velocity-one-flight

 

They are starting shipping on 14th November.

Damn! I didn’t pre-order.

[SeanR]

£350, and doesn’t have rudder pedals?

 

ah’m oot…

[iwan_canobi]

The planets aligned tonight and I got some time to mess around getting VR set up on this with the quest 2 and my HOTAS ONE. Followed a few settings tutorials and I’m getting close to happy with the performance, although there’s some kind of weird waviness going on which I need to figure out. Initially I thought it was supposed to be heat haze from the exhausts but then I realised it’s everywhere you look. Searching online looks like it might be due to some reprojection so need to play around a bit more.

 

Still though, bombing about in a Spitfire in VR is incredible! Looking out over the roundels on the wing with the channel glinting below you whilst the sun was setting was an incredible experience, and the sense of scale it brings in VR is stunning. I didn’t realise the white cliffs of Dover were so short though! 😂

[pinholestar]

I can't even begin to imagine this in VR. I find it an almost transcendent experience just on my 37" telly so to have that level of complete sensory immersion would probably elevate me somewhere close to a state of complete and total nirvana.

 

Come on Phil, get VR on Xbox and I'll gladly throw money at you.

[iwan_canobi]

9 hours ago, pinholestar said:

I can't even begin to imagine this in VR. I find it an almost transcendent experience just on my 37" telly so to have that level of complete sensory immersion would probably elevate me somewhere close to a state of complete and total nirvana.

 

Come on Phil, get VR on Xbox and I'll gladly throw money at you.

 

It is pretty amazing, there's just a few visual things at the moment that are breaking the immersion. I think once I get past the testing stage and actually do some proper planned flights rather than just randomly cruising around I'll get into that transcendent space. I've seriously got my eyes on one of these - 

 

https://shop.yawvr.com/yaw2/

 

It's a lot of money, but I've been putting money away and if I can make space for it I'm definitely going to go for it. Cheaper than getting a PPL!

[RFT]

I got a new plane last week- the Britten-Norman Islander and it's my new favourite thing.

 

A lovely little workhorse that's just the right amount of challenge to fly well, and is designed for getting in and out of tight, rough airfields.

[Boozy The Clown]

 

All coming on Thursday 18/11/21

[K]

Really looking forward to the F/A-18 - hopefully flying at mach 1 won't completely kill the performance.

 

The guy who does the voiceover on that video has the same intonation as the guy who reads out the advert for Paul's Boutique at the end of the Beastie Boys album.

[ulala]

3 hours ago, K said:

Really looking forward to the F/A-18 - hopefully flying at mach 1 won't completely kill the performance.

 

The guy who does the voiceover on that video has the same intonation as the guy who reads out the advert for Paul's Boutique at the end of the Beastie Boys album.

is that F18 free to GamePass?

[K]

Just now, ulala said:

is that F18 free to GamePass?

Free for everyone, I think. 

[SteveH]

In that Game of the Year video, what is that area that looks like natures own crazy paving?? 

 

Edit: new addition to the family  
 

[tobert]

Does anyone know how the game of the year edition will be handled? My assumption is that, if you are ok Xbox and playing via gamepass, the game will just auto update to the new version?

[footle]

3 minutes ago, tobert said:

Does anyone know how the game of the year edition will be handled? My assumption is that, if you are ok Xbox and playing via gamepass, the game will just auto update to the new version?

 

it'll just be like any other update; a small auto update that changes the name, then a five day slow load of a billion separate XML files.

[footle]

On 16/11/2021 at 09:52, SteveH said:

In that Game of the Year video, what is that area that looks like natures own crazy paving?? 

 

Edit: new addition to the family  
 

 

How is it?

[SteveH]

6 minutes ago, footle said:

 

How is it?

 Not had a chance to get it set up yet but by what I've read so far, it's very nice indeed. It does have some niggly problems though, for instance, when setting up sensitivity etc, the game doesn't save them at the moment, which is a bit of a pain in the arse. I'll report back once I've given it a try  

[Gotters]

My worry with the Reno races (and jets, anything speedy really) has always been frame rate, and this vid does look a bit suspect on that front - I'll definitely hold off to get review impressions before buying

 

 

[SteveH]

18 hours ago, footle said:

 

How is it?

 In a word....awesome  It has a really nice weight to it for a start, which I don't think I was expecting. They seem to have really spent time getting the resistance just right in the yoke as well as it feels amazing. It's so much easier following smooth turns and climbs with this compared to a controller (not much of a surprise I guess)

 It looks amazing all lit up. You can choose from 10 colours I think it is, for all the backlights, plus around 10 levels of brightness. It comes with a couple of clip on overlays for the warning lights (SIPS?) that are behind the yoke, but they have stated that the warning lights don't function yet. A rep on YouTube was talking about adding various profiles, I assume then that the goal will be to have the warning lights reflect whatever plane you are flying. 

 The buttons to the right are programmable and they give you a ton of stickers so that when you are settled on what you want them to do, you can label them if you wish. It's a bit daunting starting off and it says "press button 30 to release the parking brake" and not knowing which button that is without keeping the guide to hand. 

 Some odd quirks, you need to still use a controller for navigating the menus, at least as far as I can tell. I guess that's because you use an analog stick like a mouse to move around and this doesn't have an analog stick on it, or a d-pad. The A,B,X,Y buttons didn't work at all in the game and I thought it was broken at first, but they work fine on the Xbox dashboard so I assume it is because other buttons on the stick are replacements for them in-game. 

 So yes, expensive, but so far no regrets. Looking online, Turtle Beach seem to be being very responsive to anyone with a problem or just stuck with functionality. Very happy with it. Worth the price if anyone is in it for the long haul (no pun intended!) 

 

 Edit: oh yeah, the trim wheel is just sublime, they have nailed that for sure. It feels so good. Also, the thrusters (I have no idea if they are called that? The four accelerator thingies with the white knobs) come with some replaceable knobs that look like landing gear and flaps knobs so that if you are flying a single or twin prop (or jet) you can use the other two as landing gear, flaps etc.

 

[Meers]

Does it have force feedback as well as resistance, @SteveH? 😯

 

That looks absolutely wicked!

[SteveH]

Just now, Meers said:

Does it have force feedback as well as resistance, @SteveH? 😯

 

That looks absolutely wicked!

 Sadly not  It seems after Microsoft released the Sidewinder Flight Stick that no one else seemed to bother with FF in flight controllers. No idea why as it was so good. I've still got my Sidewinder in the cupboard here   

[Meers]

5 minutes ago, SteveH said:

 Sadly not  It seems after Microsoft released the Sidewinder Flight Stick that no one else seemed to bother with FF in flight controllers. No idea why as it was so good. I've still got my Sidewinder in the cupboard here   

 

Aww that's a shame really. Being able to feel turbulence with this thing would have been amazing.

[milko]

6 minutes ago, SteveH said:

 Sadly not  It seems after Microsoft released the Sidewinder Flight Stick that no one else seemed to bother with FF in flight controllers. No idea why as it was so good. I've still got my Sidewinder in the cupboard here   

 

It is quite strange - sim racing force feedback seems to be in a really strong place but I can only fondly remember Combat Flight Sim 2 etc with the Sidewinder, it was so cool. I've got a feeling I had some kind of Saitek Cyborg with FFB as well and using it in IL-2 maybe.

[tobert]

41 minutes ago, SteveH said:

 In a word....awesome  It has a really nice weight to it for a start, which I don't think I was expecting. They seem to have really spent time getting the resistance just right in the yoke as well as it feels amazing. It's so much easier following smooth turns and climbs with this compared to a controller (not much of a surprise I guess)

 It looks amazing all lit up. You can choose from 10 colours I think it is, for all the backlights, plus around 10 levels of brightness. It comes with a couple of clip on overlays for the warning lights (SIPS?) that are behind the yoke, but they have stated that the warning lights don't function yet. A rep on YouTube was talking about adding various profiles, I assume then that the goal will be to have the warning lights reflect whatever plane you are flying. 

 The buttons to the right are programmable and they give you a ton of stickers so that when you are settled on what you want them to do, you can label them if you wish. It's a bit daunting starting off and it says "press button 30 to release the parking brake" and not knowing which button that is without keeping the guide to hand. 

 Some odd quirks, you need to still use a controller for navigating the menus, at least as far as I can tell. I guess that's because you use an analog stick like a mouse to move around and this doesn't have an analog stick on it, or a d-pad. The A,B,X,Y buttons didn't work at all in the game and I thought it was broken at first, but they work fine on the Xbox dashboard so I assume it is because other buttons on the stick are replacements for them in-game. 

 So yes, expensive, but so far no regrets. Looking online, Turtle Beach seem to be being very responsive to anyone with a problem or just stuck with functionality. Very happy with it. Worth the price if anyone is in it for the long haul (no pun intended!) 

 

 Edit: oh yeah, the trim wheel is just sublime, they have nailed that for sure. It feels so good. Also, the thrusters (I have no idea if they are called that? The four accelerator thingies with the white knobs) come with some replaceable knobs that look like landing gear and flaps knobs so that if you are flying a single or twin prop (or jet) you can use the other two as landing gear, flaps etc.

 

That looks amazing and had really brought out the gadget lust in me!

 

Is that a tiny screen in the middle of the yoke? if so what does it do?

[SteveH]

4 minutes ago, tobert said:

That looks amazing and had really brought out the gadget lust in me!

 

Is that a tiny screen in the middle of the yoke? if so what does it do?

 Yeah it's a colour screen although I haven't really fully checked that out yet. It's where you can adjust some settings though, like the backlight colours for example and is also where you access the firmware update section and select between PC and Xbox mode. You also use it to switch profiles. So far I've only seen people use it for flight times, so a glorified stopwatch. But I'm sure there are other things it can display, I just haven't got around to testing it all out yet. But I'm guessing (hoping) that as they update the game and controller drivers, it will be possible to use it for a variety of display functionalities. 

[milko]

I did a tiny bit of digging and it sounds like the lack of FFB is largely down to patent ownership.

No idea why this affects flight sticks so badly but not steering wheels.  If you've a few thousand euros to spare then a Swiss company called Brunner make some, but I doubt many games support it!

 

[K]

 

10 minutes ago, milko said:

I did a tiny bit of digging and it sounds like the lack of FFB is largely down to patent ownership.

No idea why this affects flight sticks so badly but not steering wheels.  If you've a few thousand euros to spare then a Swiss company called Brunner make some, but I doubt many games support it!

 

 

Isn't the guy in that post saying that it's not just down to patents, it's more that force feedback peripherals are very expensive to make and are very niche? Although having to pay on top of that to use force feedback tech probably doesn't help much.

 

I would imagine that force feedback wheels are more common mostly because driving sims are much more popular than flight sims. Flight Simulator 2020 has been pretty popular, but it's not exactly a mass-market game - it's not very user-friendly.

[milko]

I said largely not entirely! It seems odd that Saitek/Logitech/MS allused to have mass-market ffb sticks and now there's absolutely nothing out there. There's definitely been a big dip in sim popularity but between Flight Sim, DCS, Elite and The Space Game That Will Never Be Finished there ought to be a market and also one that is on the up - there already is for other ludicrous peripherals and yokes.

[RFT]

2 minutes ago, milko said:

I said largely not entirely! It seems odd that Saitek/Logitech/MS allused to have mass-market ffb sticks and now there's absolutely nothing out there. There's definitely been a big dip in sim popularity but between Flight Sim, DCS, Elite and The Space Game That Will Never Be Finished there ought to be a market and also one that is on the up - there already is for other ludicrous peripherals and yokes.

The engineering challenges between wheels and sticks are quite different.

 

A wheel only has one force axis and can have a large "base" into which you can put a big motor, hefty gears or belts and so on.

 

A stick will need all the stuff the wheel has, but twice, and also packaged into a smaller, tighter space. For a yoke, you have more space(like a wheel) but now you need to engineer something that gan generate (and resist) the forces produced by somone pulling directly on it with both their arms, possibly for quite a long time, longer than you;d spend fully loaded up in a corner in a car. that sort of use case where you're generating a lot of torque with a motor but it's not spinning isn't ideal.

[SteveH]

4 minutes ago, RFT said:

The engineering challenges between wheels and sticks are quite different.

 

A wheel only has one force axis and can have a large "base" into which you can put a big motor, hefty gears or belts and so on.

 

A stick will need all the stuff the wheel has, but twice, and also packaged into a smaller, tighter space. For a yoke, you have more space(like a wheel) but now you need to engineer something that gan generate (and resist) the forces produced by somone pulling directly on it with both their arms, possibly for quite a long time, longer than you;d spend fully loaded up in a corner in a car. that sort of use case where you're generating a lot of torque with a motor but it's not spinning isn't ideal.

 I've often been tempted to open up my Sidewinder to see how it works. You are right in that in wheels they can have (in the case of an old logitech one I have), a very small motor and not much else. 

 I would imagine it's quite a bit different inside the Sidewinder. Anyone who ever just played with the test mode checking out the machine gun, helicopter etc know it can produce quite a range of effects. Though to be fair it did get quite knackering using it!

[milko]

the Saitek was pretty small, but i think that was more of a 'rumble' than true FFB. Still, used Immersion Tech patents and cost £40-50, not bad at all. That Sidewinder truly was a little bit of magic, no doubt not exactly sophisticated but it did a good job without being massive.

[Gotters]

Game of the year update just gone live on xbox at 18gb, though expect lots more to dl  once you get into the content manager