Flight sim game suggestions

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burty
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Flight sim game suggestions

Post by burty »

Hi All,

So, one of the genres I like playing are the transport sim games (e.g. Euro Truck Simulator 1&2 and most of the DLCs for ETS2).
One that I've never found myself getting into is Flight Sims, I tried the most recent free one from Microsoft a few years back and that seemed ok in terms of learning curve/fun but was still pretty bad at having a tutorial.
I also tried the open source flightgear (i think its called), seemed laggy and again the tutorials/learning curve weren't very good.
As such, I've come to the world of TT forums to garner some advice.
I'm looking for a flight sim game that's good, runs smoothly, doesn't require a fortune to get half the game. It must be fun to play and it would be nice if there was multiplayer support but it is not a top priority for me.
I'm not worried about a steep learning curve providing the tutorials (official or unofficial) are of a good quality and can get me up in the air within a couple of hours, even if that is a crash course on up,down, fly around... I'm willing to spend days (multiples of 24 hours) to get well versed but not to just fly around in some small downtimes I get (evenings for eg).

Tldr; Looking for flight sim suggestions that are easy to get running with, doesn't cost a small fortune, has good tutorials and had some fairly decent content

Many Thanks,
Burty


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Train<In>Vain
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Re: Flight sim game suggestions

Post by Train<In>Vain »

To answer your questions, need some info first:

What are your machine's specs?

Are you interested in: General aviation? Air combat? Carrier Ops? Airport and ATC procedures? VFR? IFR? Multi-engine? Tail-draggers? Jet airliners? Lighter than air? (There's a Zeppelin I could recommend)

And finally, how important is eye-candy to you?

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Re: Flight sim game suggestions

Post by Pilot »

Microsoft Flight Simulator X is still one of the best out and out flight sims there is. The game itself costs £19.99 on Steam, and only comes with a handful of aircraft, however, there are many sites where you can get additional Aircraft for free, such as Simviation.

There is also Multiplayer support for it as well, due to it's age, it runs rather smoothly on most modern PCs (even rather awful one's), and it includes 10 Tutorial Missions, which should help get you up and flying in no time :D
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Re: Flight sim game suggestions

Post by burty »

Train<In>Vain wrote:To answer your questions, need some info first:

What are your machine's specs?

Are you interested in: General aviation? Air combat? Carrier Ops? Airport and ATC procedures? VFR? IFR? Multi-engine? Tail-draggers? Jet airliners? Lighter than air? (There's a Zeppelin I could recommend)

And finally, how important is eye-candy to you?
Hi TIV,

My machine specs are currently "In between machines"... I.E. I'm in the process of replacing my 4 year old "gaming" laptop with a desktop.
My current "spec" for the new pc is:
i7 6800k CPU
8/16gb RAM
GTX1060 GFX Card
However, this is by no means concrete specs and so I'm not too concerned if any recomendations would require an adjustment to this.

As I've not really had a lot of experience with Flight Sims yet, I'm not overly sure what I'm interested, I think it's more general aviation BUT I'm likely to look at youtube/twitch for some gameplay videos of any recomendations to see what they are like, I tend to like watching the players play (trailers are often over hyped and not a good representation of the game imo).

Eye candy isn't the end all and be all, that being said I like a game to look nice but the small details aren't that important (i.e hyper detailed planes aren't a massive detail, as long as they are detailed enough to have some resembelance to their real life counterparts/inspirations).
Pilot wrote:Microsoft Flight Simulator X is still one of the best out and out flight sims there is. The game itself costs £19.99 on Steam, and only comes with a handful of aircraft, however, there are many sites where you can get additional Aircraft for free, such as Simviation.

There is also Multiplayer support for it as well, due to it's age, it runs rather smoothly on most modern PCs (even rather awful one's), and it includes 10 Tutorial Missions, which should help get you up and flying in no time :D
I've heard of MS Flight Sim X but due to it's age I always overlooked up thinking it was either near EOL or no longer supported, sounds like I need to check that one out.

Thank you both for the suggestions/replies :)

Many Thanks,
Burty
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Re: Flight sim game suggestions

Post by Train<In>Vain »

burty wrote:
Train<In>Vain wrote:To answer your questions, need some info first:

What are your machine's specs?

Are you interested in: General aviation? Air combat? Carrier Ops? Airport and ATC procedures? VFR? IFR? Multi-engine? Tail-draggers? Jet airliners? Lighter than air? (There's a Zeppelin I could recommend)

And finally, how important is eye-candy to you?
Hi TIV,

My machine specs are currently "In between machines"... I.E. I'm in the process of replacing my 4 year old "gaming" laptop with a desktop.
My current "spec" for the new pc is:
i7 6800k CPU
8/16gb RAM
GTX1060 GFX Card
However, this is by no means concrete specs and so I'm not too concerned if any recomendations would require an adjustment to this.

As I've not really had a lot of experience with Flight Sims yet, I'm not overly sure what I'm interested, I think it's more general aviation BUT I'm likely to look at youtube/twitch for some gameplay videos of any recomendations to see what they are like, I tend to like watching the players play (trailers are often over hyped and not a good representation of the game imo).

Eye candy isn't the end all and be all, that being said I like a game to look nice but the small details aren't that important (i.e hyper detailed planes aren't a massive detail, as long as they are detailed enough to have some resembelance to their real life counterparts/inspirations).
Pilot wrote:Microsoft Flight Simulator X is still one of the best out and out flight sims there is. The game itself costs £19.99 on Steam, and only comes with a handful of aircraft, however, there are many sites where you can get additional Aircraft for free, such as Simviation.

There is also Multiplayer support for it as well, due to it's age, it runs rather smoothly on most modern PCs (even rather awful one's), and it includes 10 Tutorial Missions, which should help get you up and flying in no time :D
I've heard of MS Flight Sim X but due to it's age I always overlooked up thinking it was either near EOL or no longer supported, sounds like I need to check that one out.

Thank you both for the suggestions/replies :)

Many Thanks,
Burty
MS FSX is "outdated" technologically, but has the most content available, both payware and free add-ons. If you have a lot of extra time to spare, it would be worth to have just for the fun of hunting all the best free 3rd party stuff (and you will, because while there is a lot of included content, it lacks the level of detail to measure up to today's standards). With the specs you listed you'll be able to turn up all the graphics details to the max.

I recommend trying X-Plane 11 beta, which is free to download.

Give it a try and post back here with any questions.

See you in the virtual skies!
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Re: Flight sim game suggestions

Post by YNM »

burty wrote:... I tried the most recent free one from Microsoft a few years back and that seemed ok in terms of learning curve/fun but was still pretty bad at having a tutorial. ...

Tldr; Looking for flight sim suggestions that are easy to get running with, doesn't cost a small fortune, has good tutorials and had some fairly decent content
Actually FSX does have some proper close-to-RL tutorial (as with an actual flying school); it'll range from single engine private until commercial license. It even have an FAA checkout thing, AFAIK. It's not in the missions category, so probably most people don't notice. Helps with using the instruments and having a proper understanding of flight.

Also, try to use mouse yoke (in case you don't have a joystick) for control - keyboard are horrible.
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Re: Flight sim game suggestions

Post by Train<In>Vain »

Some very nice clouds to be seen in FSX, but, it will cost ya...

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Re: Flight sim game suggestions

Post by Pilot »

Train<In>Vain wrote:Some very nice clouds to be seen in FSX, but, it will cost ya...
Or there are freeware add-ons that do the same thing.
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Re: Flight sim game suggestions

Post by burty »

Given the xplane11 trial a go and quite liking it... The flight school is pretty decent, i just need time to get used to the sensitivity of controls


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Re: Flight sim game suggestions

Post by Train<In>Vain »

Friend of mine, Jerry, couldn't sort out his controls, pranged his kite right in the how's-your-father; hairy blighter, dicky-birded, feathered back on his sammy, took a waspy, flipped over on his Betty Harpers and caught his can in the Bertie.
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Re: Flight sim game suggestions

Post by Train<In>Vain »

For $24.99, all this can be yours. Nevada map on sale 50% off.
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Re: Flight sim game suggestions

Post by Chrill »

I guess it's fair to bump this topic. The new Microsoft Flight Simulator, announced last year, has had its required specs revealed. How about 150GB of data as a minimum, recommended to be on SSD?
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Re: Flight sim game suggestions

Post by Zakos »

A quarter of my SSD, that's insane. Those had better be some detailed maps.
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Re: Flight sim game suggestions

Post by kamnet »

Zakos wrote: 27 Apr 2020 00:54
Kranzer wrote: 06 Nov 2017 12:20things
Was this spam?
Indeed it was. Now it's gone.
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