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INTJ Mastermind posted:Whatever happened to MS Flight? They shut down the team that made it for reasons that I don't think were ever explained and then tried to make their own which flopped horribly for not being as good as a game that was 6 years older. It's sad, I think FSX is still the easiest way now to get into flying with all the ridiculous free poo poo you can get for it. edit: AFAIK the FSX team is making a Suba Diving Sim or something? 
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Jun 28, 2015 17:56
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 22:29 |
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Yeah, a bunch of former Aces Studio members formed a new studio few years back http://www.cascadegamefoundry.com/
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Jun 28, 2015 20:30
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MS Flight was killed by being poorly marketed, poorly conceived, poorly communicated, tied to a terrible DRM system, closed DLC, and an atrocious choice of addons. It SHOULD have been the perfect gateway drug into mainline Microsoft Flight Simulators. It most of the ingredients to be just that. (It's how I personally got into flight sims, tbh) It traded geographical limitations for focus of gameplay. It had really good tutorial missions and a leveling system that allowed the player to feel progression as he/she learned basic airmanship as well as allowed the developers to focus the player improving their play. It was much more gamey than FSX where you COULD just fly between 2 airports, but how much cooler was it when you were taking a friend out for a $100 hamburger (and the person would talk to you, and get pissed off if you flew like an rear end in a top hat) The starting planes were pretty great for this kind of game too. 2 LSAs (one a seaplane) a larger GA plane, and a aerobatic capable trainer. It had achievements, daily challenges, a great sound system, really enjoyable music, voice acting on the missions. Some of the "Campaign" missions were of the "let's fly around to some historical sights around Hawaii, oh and land at that abandoned WW2 airbase while we're here please"  sure was pretty though But Microsoft started out on the wrong foot right from day one. (later on they would shoot themselves in the foot) The HAD to have known that the core audience would be apoplectic with the announcement. Every community hates the next thing in line, but if there is even a hint of "dumbing down" the screaming gets biblical. And this is exactly what happened as Microsoft announced a new flight simulator and everyone assumed it was the sequel to FSX. How do you think they reacted when it looked like they were going from a worldwide flight simulator with strong third party support to a limited flight simulator with closed dlc addons and locked to a market system everyone already hated (GFWL). This is also where the poor communication comes in since Microsoft should have noticed that their "This is not an FSX sequel" message was being ignored. If they had just rolled the improvements the Flight team were making in their engine back into FSX and released it as a backwards compatible sequel, or done what Dovetail ended up doing a few years earlier, they could have had a product they could point at and say "this is for you, that is for your friend who isn't really into flight sims but wants to try something out" At least they released it on steam, or even fewer people would have discovered it. As it was I don't think there was much in terms of advertising in the mainstream games media, which is where they should have been focusing their efforts. It was a free to play flight sim that gave you a pretty juicy taste for the free portion. The starter pack made it into a game a casual flight sim fan could have dumped a hundred hours into no problem. There is no reason that they couldn't have had decent penetration at the start. The first time you load up Flight, you start in a Icon A-5 on final approach. A lady in your ears then directs you over a beach out over the ocean, past a cruise ship and touching down for a perfect landing. It was the first time I had ever landed a plane in a flight sim, and that feeling DROVe me. I litterally bought every piece of DLC. I accidentally learned basic airmanship as I tried to finish as many missions and challenges as I could to get those sweet sweet gamerscore. So Flight is where I leaned about Vapp, using PAPI lights, taxiing, using checklists, all that stuff. But the cracks were showing on day one. I never had a problem with GFWL, but many people did. And ask EA what happens when your DRM kills the ability to play the game. The Islands of Hawaii were really nice and detailed, and there were plenty of airports to land at. But if there were any radio navigation aids, they certainly weren't pointed out in game. There was absolutely no ILS systems, or IMO markers. You knew where you had to fly because there was a marker in the sky with a distance underneath it. You knew how far from the runway you were because there was a distance floating in the sky above it. LAME. The "campaign" missions, landing challenges, and collectables were all perfectly functional, and fun. This contrasted with the job board missions (each airport had a random job board of hauling, tourism, and similar missions) where you started to really notice the shortcuts the developers took. First of all, if you crash during a challenge or campaign mission you say "whoops" start over and it feels suitable gamey (since that is what Flight was supposed to be) the job board missions were a different story though. They would have a voice pack so either a co-pilot or passenger would talk to you when flying. This actually detracted from the gameness, which might have been good except if you crash and retry the mission, it reloads with a completely different person in the plane with you. You would also suddenly have to deal with a dispatcher (not really but they would talk to your co-pilot on cargo missions) This was REALLY jarring because it felt simmy as hell, but only appeared on one type of randomly created missions. Also because normally you are the only person in the world.  The challenges. Mostly not done because I suck. That's right, in MS Flight, you might have disembodied voices talking to you frequently but you are the only person in the world. You can get out of your plane and walk around and there are NO people around. There is NO ATC to deal with. Which makes sense because there is no AI traffic of any kind either. There are not even static airplanes. There is no ground equipment. If you load heavy cargo in your Maule M-7 the suspension flexes but it would be better if they didn't even try since there is no ground crew loading the cargo into your plane. Knowing that some of these things were in FSX made this completely inexplicable, and was #2 on the unforgivable mistakes that killed MS Flight. The first DLC was day one downloadable Stearman and the rest of Hawaii. This was perfectly fine since the free game was only enough to whet your appetite. Again if they had built this as a gateway drug this would have been a perfect strategy. The first one is free, if you want more you gotta put something up. The Hawaii Adventure came with a Vans RV-7 and expanded the basic missions in the free game. The Maule, Stearman and RV were all complete planes with fully clickable cockpits. If you had them, there were a ton of plane specific landing challenges and other special missions available in the game. They really felt like you were adding to your experience by getting them.  look at this poo poo. The planes with the fancy borders are the ones with cockpits. At least the specs on each plane mattered a lot. (yes I bought ALL the DLC) They would not release another complete plane until AFTER the next scenery expansion. The released planes included a free RedTails P-51, a Corsair, Warhawk, and a Zero. They were $6-7 each and none included a cockpit. If you went to the cockpit view you would just have a screen filled with scenery. The speed you were traveling was displayed above you in a status bar. This could have been fine for them if they hadn't done the same for the Carbon Cub released with the second Scenery pack, Alaska. The Cub was later released as a full plane, but as a paid addon and way, way too late. Releasing Alaska with a cockpit-less plane was unforgivable sin #3. After MS pulled the plug on the whole debacle they released the first multi-engine plan for Flight, the C-46. It had no cockpit. Also it was broken (it would fall out of the sky at random) So in conclusion, if MS had abandoned GFWL way earlier than it needed to, put some AI in the game, and released full aircraft or nothing at all, they could have overcome some of the missing features of the game. They could have put FSX or a sequel to that later and probably pulled in more fans for what is really a niche hobby. Alas they didn't. Honestly I would have loved it if they had played up the game-ness and made the planes physical things in a living world. So if you parked your M-7 in Anchorage and needed it to be in Seward you would either have to fly it there or have it ferried. You should have had to deal with a simplfied ATC when around airports and on the ground and had planes lining up for runways and passing you in the air. You could walk around the world outside of the plane and they should have had upgrade shops in the airports you could walk into and get better spark plugs or fairings for your gear and stuff like that. I still feel that a spritual sequel to the game, where you are in Alaska and start with a busted up old CUB your uncle left you combined with Eurotruck Simulator style career mode is a viable and potentially fun game. Basically start the player with a CUB or other small plane and let them run cargo, build contacts, buy planes, and expand to a minor regional airline would be awesome. Just make the plane selection include something like a Maule M-7, a Beaver, a Twotter, and up to DC-3 or early DC-9 sized planes and limit it to something like the Pacific NW, or the NE, or Alaska. Track abuse and maintainance of your planes, make you budget for fuel costs, apron space, hangers etc. would be super cool. anyways that's my edit, broke up words with some pics Jonny Nox fucked around with this message at 22:25 on Jun 28, 2015 |
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Jun 28, 2015 22:05
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LordPants posted:edit: AFAIK the FSX team is making a Suba Diving Sim or something? Was it this one? http://www.depthgame.com/ 
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Jun 29, 2015 00:28
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darth cookie posted:Was it this one? no, it appears to be infinite scuba https://www.infinitescuba.com/ e: tbh I'm not sure the market can really support the 5-6 different scuba simulators there are, it seems like some serious dogpiling on a niche interest that can probably only support 1-2 sims
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Jun 29, 2015 00:46
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SybilVimes posted:no, it appears to be infinite scuba And that's totally different than flight sims! 
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Jun 29, 2015 00:50
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Jonny Nox posted:Words about MS Flight Wow awesome post. I worked on that game and this is all pretty accurate. Minor quibble: the game actually did have ILS but only the Maule had radios I think (and later the cub) and IIRC you are never taught how to use them and it isn't documented anywhere.  BTW: Cascade Game Foundry does have a few ex-Aces people but for the most part Aces has scattered to the winds. Many are still in various places at Microsoft Game Studios. Some have also clustered recently at TakeFlight Interactive, which is probably a studio worth checking out for those in this thread. DancingMachine fucked around with this message at 02:28 on Jun 29, 2015 |
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Jun 29, 2015 01:03
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Jun 29, 2015 01:04
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SybilVimes posted:no, it appears to be infinite scuba Yeah I remembered depth from a Steam ad but when I went to find a suitable picture I couldn't recall the name. So imagine my surprise when I went and googled scuba sim and got half a dozen different games. Kind of sad when there's maybe 3 decent civ flight Sims, two of which are stupid old and only being held up by third parties and the other has an actual "no fun allowed" clause and the combat Sims are DCS world which has no actual content aside from the planes and Falcon which is also a patchwork monster. 
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Jun 29, 2015 02:27
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darth cookie posted:Yeah I remembered depth from a Steam ad but when I went to find a suitable picture I couldn't recall the name. So imagine my surprise when I went and googled scuba sim and got half a dozen different games. I think a lot of it is that Depth Hunter 2 was heavily discounted back last fall, and sold a massive amount in that state, so it made the Steam bestsellers and people thought 'Scuba sim!? everyone must love those, lets make one...' and so there are like 4-5 in active development, plus Depth Hunter and World of Diving already out there... OTOH, the massive popularity of FSX:SE over christmas(? or was it easter?) and the summer sale may mean that people are quietly dog piling on civilian flight sims somewhere. We can but hope. It'll make a change from the dog pile on the 'survivalist zombie crafting and FPS' game fad that has been ongoing since DayZ last year, anyway.
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Jun 29, 2015 02:37
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Jonny Nox posted:my adding to OP
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Jun 29, 2015 02:59
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That MS Flight post was excellently written and actually made me want to play it again... but I cant find it anywhere - did it get completely canned along with GFWL?
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Jun 29, 2015 09:53
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Jiblet posted:That MS Flight post was excellently written and actually made me want to play it again... but I cant find it anywhere - did it get completely canned along with GFWL? AFAIK it's still on steam.. at least, it's still in my library e: Can't do anything other than the base flight missions because everything else needs you to be signed into GFWL and trying to do that just says 'invalid CD key' !? SybilVimes fucked around with this message at 10:19 on Jun 29, 2015 |
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Jun 29, 2015 09:56
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GFWL was quietly taken out the back and shot a couple years ago. Deservedly. I don't think I ever had an issue free experience with that thing. And while the upside to that is they can't make new games that use it, old games that didn't remove it are now hosed. vvv: Oh, I didn't know about the client thing. That's a cool thing they did then. Truga fucked around with this message at 17:01 on Jun 29, 2015 |
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Jun 29, 2015 16:26
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Truga posted:GFWL was quietly taken out the back and shot a couple years ago. Deservedly. I don't think I ever had an issue free experience with that thing. Weirdly I have no problem with it. I needed GFWL on my machine for FSX though. Also I installed and purchased everything through the steam store, and have never uninstalled. I think they have a "client" that they released to keep stuff purchased on their store running. Check ms games knowledge base? Mine asks me for my live account and then signs me in, no errors or anything.
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Jun 29, 2015 16:59
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GFWL was going to be shut down, but then someone at MS realized it would break a fuckton of games and they reversed the decision. It's not going into new games, but the servers are going to keep going for a while.
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Jun 29, 2015 20:57
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Captain Novolin posted:GFWL was going to be shut down, but then someone at MS realized it would break a fuckton of games and they reversed the decision. It's not going into new games, but the servers are going to keep going for a while. last i checked gfwl didn't function at all on windows 8 and I had to patch the game I wanted (fallout 3) to play to work without it
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Jun 29, 2015 22:01
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I played it yesterday with my son and it worked fine, including DLC. This was the non-steam version, which yeah I don't see a non-sketchy download for it anymore. Presumably the steam version still works. The "challenges" are honestly pretty fun. :\
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Jun 30, 2015 06:40
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DancingMachine posted:I played it yesterday with my son and it worked fine, including DLC. This was the non-steam version, which yeah I don't see a non-sketchy download for it anymore. Presumably the steam version still works. I bought it and enjoyed the poo poo out of it, it's sad in some respects it went away. But the skies are so lifeless compared to FSX + 5 minutes fooling with free traffic mods.
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Jun 30, 2015 07:12
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Jonny Nox posted:Mine asks me for my live account and then signs me in, no errors or anything. Yeah, I was being dumb and forgot I changed my live password after some security issue a couple of years ago - after I last played Flight - once I signed out and back in it worked fine, no idea how it still thought I was still signed in though *shrug*.
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Jun 30, 2015 18:47
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I've been using an old Saitek cyborg evo, and it's getting really creaky and hard to do gentle maneuvers near the center Before I go out and buy a logitech 3d, can anybody tell me how it feels at the center? Is it tight or is it pretty loose/floppy? creaky at all? am i being paranoid or should I actually replace my 9 year old $50 joystick
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Jul 2, 2015 16:41
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ethanol posted:I've been using an old Saitek cyborg evo, and it's getting really creaky and hard to do gentle maneuvers near the center Before I go out and buy a logitech 3d, can anybody tell me how it feels at the center? Is it tight or is it pretty loose/floppy? Replace that evo
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Jul 2, 2015 17:00
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There's a little play in the E3D but overall it's an OK stick. I got a deal on a TM T16000M though and I much prefer the Hall Sensor sensitivity.
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Jul 2, 2015 17:02
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DancingMachine posted:I played it yesterday with my son and it worked fine, including DLC. This was the non-steam version, which yeah I don't see a non-sketchy download for it anymore. Presumably the steam version still works. I just don't understand why they didn't tack the intro/casual aspects onto FSX, so that when you grew out of them, there was still an actual simulator under the hood. Simultaneously, it would have helped the FSX community, since it's STILL a buggy piece of poo poo, and probably secured MSFS as the go-to flight simulator for another fifteen years. I too, really enjoyed the challenges even in stock FSX, and wish there was more of that sort of thing out there. The Ferret King posted:There's a little play in the E3D but overall it's an OK stick. I'm an ultra-sperg and have a TM Warthog, and I had a machinist friend fab a ~5" stick extension... Holy crap. Hall sensors and a long-throw stick/cyclic is pretty much flight-sim nirvana.
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Jul 2, 2015 17:16
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MrYenko posted:I just don't understand why they didn't tack the intro/casual aspects onto FSX, so that when you grew out of them, there was still an actual simulator under the hood. Simultaneously, it would have helped the FSX community, since it's STILL a buggy piece of poo poo, and probably secured MSFS as the go-to flight simulator for another fifteen years. I too, really enjoyed the challenges even in stock FSX, and wish there was more of that sort of thing out there. Do you have a curve in it so it'll go over your chair seat?
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Jul 2, 2015 17:19
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The Ferret King posted:Do you have a curve in it so it'll go over your chair seat? I'll have to get pictures... Which involves buttoning my case up and cleaning up the abomination of cabling behind the desk. Suffice it to say, I went to the junkyard, pulled a seat out of a Nissan, and will probably never touch a female again. Worth it.
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Jul 2, 2015 17:28
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Good man.
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Jul 2, 2015 18:01
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What are my options for long ranged airliners in P3D? I gave the iFly 744 a go but the click spots drive me mental and it leaks memory like a sieve. Is it pretty much just the PMDG 777 at the moment?
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Jul 2, 2015 19:46
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The Ferret King posted:There's a little play in the E3D but overall it's an OK stick. thanks. I went out and bought an e3d, since the t16000m can only be had online. It's definitely got way less play that my evo, however it has a little spring click which I don't like. i think I'm going to try getting the thrustmaster online instead and return this
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Jul 2, 2015 20:00
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Forums Terrorist posted:What are my options for long ranged airliners in P3D? I gave the iFly 744 a go but the click spots drive me mental and it leaks memory like a sieve. Is it pretty much just the PMDG 777 at the moment? iirc there are reports the PMDG MD-11 will work in P3D but I cannot confirm. So yes, without fiddling with poo poo it's pretty much the PMDG 777.
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Jul 2, 2015 20:06
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I tried the MD-11 and ran into the elevators straight up not working so welp.
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Jul 2, 2015 20:07
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Just popping in to say the MD-11 is a great plane. I still, even though I haven't flown it in like six months, have the checklists hand written by my desk at all times.
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Jul 3, 2015 00:13
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Poppin in to say that X-plane.org is having a sale for all 3 of us that use X-Plane. Now I pose the question to all of you. JARD A330 or FlyJSim 732? I can't decide. Also, semi-comedy option Bell 412 cause helicopters in DCS is fun as hell and the idea of a huey with actual power seems fun as hell. Also, Sim Copter was the best game ever made. You have till the end of today thread, Help me choose 1. A330 (Pros: Looks super realistic for X-Plane and I like long haul fights where I can take off, go to bed, wake up and land. Cons: Weird Russian Devs with a history of doing dumb poo poo, not that I'm not used to that now between flight factor/DCS) https://plus.google.com/photos/+NicolasTaureau/albums/6137610577651604081 732 (Pros: Fuckin looks and flies like a jet is supposed to. None of this GPS poo poo. Also, can do Alaskan bush flying in an airliner. Cons: I have the 727 and fly J sim stuff seems a tad shallow? Maybe that's just me) https://plus.google.com/photos/+NicolasTaureau/albums/6018561836992114353 Bell 412 (Pros: Is a helicopter Cons: Is a helicopter in a civilian flight sim which historically have had comedy helicopter physics. This could be a problem coming from DCS which does helis pretty good) https://plus.google.com/photos/118179421914452480091/albums/6041141869082203281
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Jul 5, 2015 13:17
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The 732 is great. It's /A, what seems shallow about it? I downloaded a cracked version of the a320 and immediately deleted it. The FMS was a joke compared to pmdg. I don't trust anyone to make advanced systems except pmdg. What I'm saying is go tool around in the 732 and do some real navigating
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Jul 5, 2015 18:15
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sellouts posted:The 732 is great. It's /A, what seems shallow about it? All of these points are relevant, except you should be doing it in the A2A B377. Bonus points for watching Mad Men while you're enroute.
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Jul 5, 2015 18:32
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No no, Mad Men would be the 707.
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Jul 5, 2015 18:33
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Lockmart Lawndart posted:Bell 412 (Pros: Is a helicopter Cons: Is a helicopter in a civilian flight sim which historically have had comedy helicopter physics. This could be a problem coming from DCS which does helis pretty good)
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Jul 5, 2015 23:49
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I'm in the Warthog Consideration Loop, which I guess happens to everyone eventually, and I'm looking to see what you guys think. For:
Against:
Any thoughts? I guess I'd love to know if some of the more casual enthusiasts among you have been in the same situation, and your thoughts if you decided to go for it. I have a Logitech G502 mouse, and it strikes the perfect balance between build quality and number of practical and neat buttons. I think that's the thing I see in the Warthog too, something solid, practical and well made, which is worth the money.
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Jul 6, 2015 00:00
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Do you want a HOTAS? Will you miss the difference in money between buying a cheaper HOTAS and a Warthog?
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Jul 6, 2015 00:10
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 22:29 |
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Black Griffon posted:For:
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Jul 6, 2015 00:19
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