What is Vatsim's view on MSF2020?

[Andreas Stangenes]

I am pulling my hair out over at Avsim because I'm trying to point out the flaws of MSF' IFR logic, and many people seem to have their rose tinted glasses firmly glued on. I LOVE MSF, and I cant really make myself fly my older sims anymore, but I also love flying on Vatsim. The two are not a particuarly good combination. Ie, I cannot program an approach on the fly in the cockpit without it overwriting my STAR most of the time. That means that I have to program my approach (ie chosing ILS for runway X) as I am on final intercept heading. I cannot go direct to any waypoint that is on the approach or transition. I cannot delete any part of the approach or transition. When I chose an approach the game will automatically chose the first transition in alphabetical order and add that to my route automatically. 

These are just a FEW of the IFR problems with the new sim. Over on Avsim the only time I've seen someone commenting with vatsim in their signature is to say that all are welcome. Which of course is true, but it doesn't help to fix the issue. I wish Vatsim, AS A MSF PARTNER, could be a little bit vocal about the navigational issues that the SIM is having so that we might get some attention to the issues and eventually get them fixed. 

Link to the thread at Avsim: https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/587647-to-asobo-if-you-are-still-reading/

Edited October 24, 2020 at 07:09 AM by Andreas Stangenes

[Lauri Uusitalo]

I think AVsim thread started well, but then degenerated a bit (or a lot...). I am not sure if it would have helped at all, even if everybody there would have stated "Yeah, MSFS IFR sucks."

I think everyone in that thread know the limitations currently in MSFS. But there is not much they can do, but eiither bash MSFS or just try to live with it. With current limitations.

So either you keep bombarding M$ about the issues, or fly with some other simulator and wait for the fixes. Having a high blood pressure even for this is not healthy. Because I guess the fixes will take quite a long time, and life is too short.

[Mats Edvin Aaro]

I don't usually wander into the AVSIM forums, but I read through your posts. You have many valid points, but it's easy to judge the simulator based on what you see at the current stage.

I agree, the simulator at its current level lacks a great deal you would expect to have when flying on VATSIM. However we who fall under the "hardcore simulation enthusiast" have always relied on third party development to get up to par with our standards. Yes, MSFS have had a rough start, but with time the bugs and flaws will be ironed out, and I have no problem seeing that this very easily might become the new industry leading simulator. 

Their approach to third party developers are something we haven't quite seen in the past, but it's certainly a path more and more take. 

At the end of the day, you as a pilot are responsible for what you are flying on the network. Beginner pilots will struggle using MSFS, but experienced pilots will be able to use it with some workarounds with ease. I personally only fly on MSFS now, and I see some astonishing progress in the very short time the simulator has been available. With amazing initiatives such as the FlyByWire A320Neo, Navigraph (beta), the upcoming PMDG 737, The Majestic Q400 (which is a bit more of a hype for us Norwegians 😉 ).

Additionally, we're seeing what I was hoping for pre-release; the birth of a XP11-like community of freeware modders, who already have fixed and improved hundreds if not thousands of airports.

I get your frustration, and I know it's not the easiest thing to hear, but wait and see. Change will come, and the change will be great.

[Andreas Stangenes]

Thank you for your thoughtful replies. Just to make it perfectly clear, I have no doubt whatsoever that MSF is going to be the industry standard for the next decade. I dont fly much else, and I bring my gimpy MSF onto vatsim to the frustration of many of your controllers Im sure. "Can you do this", "No, afraid not. MSF2020..." "a-ha!" is usually the way that communication goes. 

I have also used navigraph to update my airac cycles for years. When it becomes available for MSF I am surely going to continue with that. However, If you looked closely in that thread, you will notice that the DEVS of Navigraph are quite helpless at the moment. They are not able to fix the issues with the navigation because of how Asobo has hardcoded the reading and combination of the different nav parts. If you use Navigraph, you get the same errors, just with updated waypoints... What I am trying to do is to Raise Awareness at Asobo and MS about this issue. 

If you know that it is already on the issues list, please let me know. Because I cannot see it. Instead, there are all these smaller issues like "remove click to start", or "g1000 improvements" that are less impactful issues (if you ask me) than the fundamental flaws of IFR in MSF. 

In the end I want to ask Vatsim this: What does it mean that you are an official partner to MSF? In what way do you contribute to improve the sim? Is it a partnership in name only?

[Mats Edvin Aaro]

16 minutes ago, Andreas Stangenes said:

If you know that it is already on the issues list, please let me know. Because I cannot see it. Instead, there are all these smaller issues like "remove click to start", or "g1000 improvements" that are less impactful issues (if you ask me) than the fundamental flaws of IFR in MSF. 

I know they are very much aware of it. I personally believe that we fall short here as a market minority. Also, "fixing" IFR and the navigational issues is a much larger task than fixing a commonly requested minuscule feature. I know Navigraph is aware and talking with Asobo, and I am sure they'll come up with a solution to this, but unfortunately, things take time.. I would very much recommend the A320 mod though, there's finally airway implementation coming very very soon and plenty of bug fixes and new features coming every release. 

19 minutes ago, Andreas Stangenes said:

What does it mean that you are an official partner to MSF? In what way do you contribute to improve the sim? Is it a partnership in name only?

VATSIM is a spotlight partner, one of the supported partners Microsoft wanted to highlight and promote for their actions to the flight simulator community. We were also in talks with Microsoft and Asobo well before release about integrations and where their and our focus lays. While most of the hype was pre-release, that doesn't mean that it doesn't matter anymore. 🙂 In many ways, the VATSIM network and the realism-oriented simmer coincide in many ways. 

I know my response is not worth much, and I agree MSFS falls short on IFR at the moment without having the knowledge on how to circumvent common errors for the less-experienced simmer, but I am certain that will improve in the future...

Something I don't think will become clear before these problems are fixed is the positive aspects MSFS has brought us. I know a lot of controllers are extremely frustrated about the influx of beginners and unexperienced pilots joining the network, but the way I see it, it's not actually that different from the "standard" beginner - we're only seeing a much larger number of them at the same time. Give them time and experience, and they will grow to become seasoned VATSIM members who only contribute positively to network activity. 😄

[Andreas Stangenes]

I agree with your thoughts. Also, I can understand the double frustration of both pilots and atc in regards to newcomers to Vatsim through MSF. Many guides are not valid on MSF because no matter how you try there are several things that you simply cannot do with MSF, and the newbie watching guides may be doubly overwhelmed - both by the complexity of vatsim, and then the complexity layer that comes from MSF not supporting many of the functions.