Flight Simulation

Start preparing for take-off. Xbox Game Studios and Asobo Studio are thrilled to announce that Microsoft Flight Simulator launches on August 18, and you can pre-order on Windows 10* or pre-install with Xbox Game Pass for PC (Beta) today.

We have been thrilled and humbled by the support and dedication that has fueled the Flight Sim community for the past 38 years. Since the launch of the very first Microsoft Flight Simulator in 1982, we knew it was finally the right time to develop the next-generation version of Microsoft Flight Simulator. We have the right tools, technology, partners and hardware to release the most realistic and authentic flight simulator to date. Microsoft Flight Simulator features include:

• Vivid and Detailed Landscapes – Immerse yourself in the vast and beautiful world that is our planet with more than 1.5 billion buildings, 2 trillion trees, mountains, roads, rivers and more.
• A Living World – Earth is vibrant and ever-changing and so is the world of Microsoft Flight Simulator which includes live traffic, real-time weather and animals.
• Highly Detailed Aircraft – Hone your pilot skills in a variety of aircraft from light planes to commercial jets with comprehensive flight models. Every aircraft includes highly detailed and accurate cockpits with realistic instrumentation.
• New Checklist System – From pro to beginner, scale your level from full manual to full assist with interactive and highlighted instrument guidance and checklist.
• Dynamic Weather – The new weather engine enables users to switch on the live weather mode to experience real-time weather including accurate wind speed and direction, temperature, humidity, rain and more.
• New Day & Night Engine – Experience flight at any time of day or year allowing for night VFR, visual flight rules, navigation.
• Aerodynamic Modeling – A state-of-the-art physics engine with over 1,000 control surfaces per plane allows for a truly realistic experience.

Three Editions of Microsoft Flight Simulator

Explore all of this and more with any of the three editions of Microsoft Flight Simulator.

• The Microsoft Flight Simulator Standard Edition ($59.99 USD) includes 20 highly detailed planes with unique flight models and 30 hand-crafted airports. The Standard Edition will be available on day one with Xbox Game Pass for PC (Beta).
• The Deluxe Edition ($89.99 USD) includes everything from Microsoft Flight Simulator’s standard edition plus five additional highly accurate planes with unique flight models and five additional handcrafted international airports.
• The Premium Deluxe Edition ($119.99 USD) includes everything from Microsoft Flight Simulator Standard Edition plus 10 additional highly accurate planes with unique flight models and 10 additional handcrafted international airports.

In addition to its digital versions, Microsoft Flight Simulator will be available as a retail disc version at European stores via Aerosoft. For more information on these retail disc versions in Europe, please visit the Aerosoft website.

Your fleet of planes and detailed airports from whatever edition you choose are all available on launch day as well as access to the ongoing content updates that will continually evolve and expand the flight simulation platform.

By Hilbert Hagedoorn @ GURU3D

Interesting feature huh? Right now the skies would be quite empty though. But yea, next to ading real-time weather Microsoft Flight Simulator will use real flight information to simulate real-time air traffic.

This is confirmed by Sebastian Wloch, director of Asobo, in the latest video in the series of new features. The flight information will simulate “most, if not all” of the planes that fly over the world at any time, and when the game is offline, an AI will take over piloting them. Meanwhile, if players activate Live Players mode, the weather will also be simulated based on real-world information. For example, if you fly over Paris in the middle of a storm, that’s because there is indeed a storm in Paris.

Live Players mode will be the main simulation of the game, but there is also the All Players mode, which allows you to control practically everything in the simulation, including weather. The latter will be more attractive for those who only want to fly and enjoy the landscapes of the world without paying much attention to reality.

Update April 22nd: the specs have been released as to what is recommended PC wise. Obviously you’ll need a beefy PC. Flight Simulator requires at least 150GB of storage. Just 8GB of ram and an AMD Ryzen 3 1200 or Intel Core i5-4460 processor at a minimum, with 2GB of VRAM from a graphics card — with Microsoft requiring an AMD Radeon RX 570 or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 graphics card.

If you really like some eye-candy, you’ll need a Ryzen 5 1500X or Core i5-8400 with 16GB of system RAM paired with a Radeon RX 590 or GeForce GTX 970.

The “ideal spec” is a Ryzen 7 Pro 2700X or Core i7-9800X / 32GB of system RAM and a something like a Radeon VII or GeForce RTX 2080 graphics card. Interesting that a Radeon VII is listed, likely in the best graphics conditions the simulator will eat up lots of VRAM.

Watch the Feature Discovery Series Episode 7: Multiplayer Trailer HERE.

Source: GURU3D

Interesting feature huh? Right now the skies would be quite empty though. But yea, next to ading real-time weather Microsoft Flight Simulator will use real flight information to simulate real-time air traffic.

This is confirmed by Sebastian Wloch, director of Asobo, in the latest video in the series of new features. The flight information will simulate “most, if not all” of the planes that fly over the world at any time, and when the game is offline, an AI will take over piloting them. Meanwhile, if players activate Live Players mode, the weather will also be simulated based on real-world information. For example, if you fly over Paris in the middle of a storm, that’s because there is indeed a storm in Paris.

Live Players mode will be the main simulation of the game, but there is also the All Players mode, which allows you to control practically everything in the simulation, including weather. The latter will be more attractive for those who only want to fly and enjoy the landscapes of the world without paying much attention to reality.

Watch the new Feature Discovery Series Episode 7: Multiplayer Trailer HERE.

By Tom Phillips, News Editor @ Eurogamer

I have watched last night’s Microsoft Flight Simulator gameplay trailer numerous times today and gosh, what a majestic thing this game looks to be.

So, yes, I could give you the press release spiel: Microsoft has now confirmed a bunch of aeroplane companies it will officially license planes from: Airbus, Boeing, CubCrafters, Daher, Diamond Aircraft Industries, ICON Aircraft, Robin Aircraft and Textron Aviation.

Or you could just watch the trailer a couple more times and marvel at its astonishing recreation of the planet below.

Crank this up to full screen and 4K.

Source: GURU3D

Microsoft has released a new in-engine video for its upcoming Flight Simulator game. Microsoft Flight Simulator will be the next generation of one of the most beloved simulation franchises. From light planes to wide-body jets, players will fly highly detailed and stunning aircrafts in an incredibly realistic world. Players will be able to create their flight plan and fly anywhere on the planet. The game will put more emphasis on overall simulation, and will support third-party Content Development and Community Content creation. In short, it will support mods. The game will also support a wide range of control schemes. Owners of yoke and pedals, mouse and keyboard, as well as controllers will be able to play the game. Microsoft Flight Simulator currently targets a 2020 release on the PC.

Source: Blue’s News

Insider Program Sign Ups for Microsoft Flight Simulator are now underway, as the testing program for the next installment in the series seems to be coming a little later than called for in the original flight plan. Here’s the Insider Program FAQ and here’s a summary:

Do you share our passion for flight? Are you interested in working directly with us to deliver the next generation of Microsoft Flight Simulator? The Insider Program is for you! Join your fellow aviation enthusiasts to get exclusive behind-the-scenes updates from developers and partners, gain access to preview builds, and advanced content updates before the general public. Best of all, you’ll become part of the Microsoft Flight Simulator team responsible for providing feedback and recommendations critical to helping deliver the very best experience! You, matter.

After a fairly long break, we have a new update for Buzz Aldrin’s Space Program Manager!

This brings the Slitherine version up to the same level as the recently released GOG one.

Buzz Aldrin’s Space Program Manager (SPM) is the ultimate game of space exploration. The game features the race to the Moon, the historical event that started in the early 1960s and that ended in July 1969, after the successful completion of the Apollo 11 mission. To verify its accuracy and authenticity, the game has been developed in consultation with Dr. Buzz Aldrin, former U.S. Air Force combat pilot (66 missions in Korea) and NASA astronaut, who took part in the first Moon landing mission and became the second human being to walk on the Moon.

You can update your game via the game’s updater, logging into our website’s My Page section (requires the game to be registered under your username), or you can download it directly from THIS LINK.

v1.7.1 Changelog:

• Fixed a bug in the general stats screen shown at the end of the game.
• Added functionality in order to validate the fact that a rocket is not being used by a scheduled mission when attempting to close it.
• Revised the list of Soviet candidates from all three employee groups.
• Changed the TLI property of the Atlas-Agena from 366 Kg to 390 Kg. This value is more realistics and will allow players to use it in the ‘Lunar Orbiter program’.
• Achieving the ‘LK lander test in Moon orbit’ goal will now grant the achievement of ‘Soyuz 7K-L3 lunar orbital flight’.
• Removed the ‘Venus Orbiter’ goal penalty from the ‘Venera 7 Venus Lander’ mission.
• Fixed a bug that triggered a runtime exception when players exceeded the maximum number of turns.
• Accomplishing the 28_TEST_EARTH_ORBIT_LANGLEY_LIGHT_LUNAR_LANDER and 30_EARTH_LEM_TEST goals grants the DOCKING goal.
• Fixes to the ES (Spanish) strings that were causing issues with the tutorial.
• Fixed goals cancelled by 28_TEST_EARTH_ORBIT_LANGLEY_LIGHT_LUNAR_LANDER and 30_EARTH_LEM_TEST (DOCKING).
• Added functionality for cleaning the data cache when exiting the game.

Get more information about Buzz Aldrin’s Space Program Manager from its official product page.

Meticulously crafted environments with satellite data and Azure AI, coming in 2020

Source: TechSpot

Fans of Microsoft’s Flight Simulator series were treated to the next installment in the long-running series at the company’s E3 2019 keynote. The brief trailer showcases a few landscapes and aircraft, of which there will be many, all captured in stunning real-time 4K footage.

Hardcore fans of the flight sim genre remember Microsoft’s Flight Simulator from the early 1980s all the way to its tenth and last installment titled the FSX: Steam Edition that launched 5 years ago on Valve’s store. The series is returning next year with visuals looking more lifelike than ever before.

Realistic and hyper-detailed cockpits will see many players become avionics experts pointing out and discovering switches, knobs, gauges and other equipment on their aircraft, which will roam the skies in challenging weather above gorgeous scenery, all made with the help of satellite data and Microsoft’s own Azure AI technology.

“From light planes to wide-body jets, fly highly detailed and stunning aircraft in an incredibly realistic world. Create your flight plan and fly anywhere on the planet. Enjoy flying day or night and face realistic, challenging weather conditions.”

The series has always remained an exclusive on the PC but this time Microsoft is also planning a couch experience for those with an Xbox One console. Release dates for either version remain unknown but they’re expected to be out some time in 2020.

Dynamic weather dated for release

Flight Sim World, developed by simulation specialists Dovetail Games, has entered its second phase of development.

This phase will see the sim released from Steam’s Early Access program as the development team moves towards making bigger, less frequent updates. “We have some really exciting updates planned”, said Stephen Hood, Executive Producer. “We are working on weather and world improvements, IFR, and the introduction of sleeker, faster aircraft from business jets right through to the all-important airliners all delivered with the key features that support them. The feedback our community has given during Early Access has absolutely steered the program for what we bring to Flight Sim World next.”

The Phase 2 content schedule includes:

• A variety of aircraft including airliners
• IFR and ATC upgrades
• World improvements
• Dynamic and live weather

“We are confident that our players will feel the benefit of us focusing on their feature requests now Flight Sim World’s foundations are in place”, said Rob O’Farrell, SVP of Development. “Larger updates will really allow us to deliver high priority community features and aircraft this year.”

Since initial launch in May 2017, 15 updates have been released for Flight Sim World which have included the addition of Steam workshop functionality, passenger models, the ability to start all aircraft from a cold and dark state, advanced weather featuring trueSKY technology, lighting and rendering updates, as well as countless fixes and performance improvements.

The first major Phase 2 update is will release on Thursday 1st February and will feature Dynamic Weather.

View the new Flight Sim World  “Moments” trailer HERE.

Flight Sim World is available to purchase from Steam or the Dovetail Store for £29.99/€34.99/$39.99

Source: Blue’s News

Steam now offers early access to Flight Sim World, a new flight simulator with an emphasis on realism. You can judge whether this flies in this trailer with a brief look at the game. Here’s the pitch:

Flight Sim World®, developed by specialist simulation developer and publisher Dovetail Games, has now been released into Steam’s Early Access program.

Take control of your exquisitely modeled aircraft from take-off to landing through a variety of dramatic weather conditions. Either fly with friends in multiplayer mode, or fly solo from over 24,000 airports worldwide.

If you are new to flight simulation, learn the basics while working towards obtaining your in-sim qualifications in our true-to-life flight lessons. For those who demand more of a challenge, a series of complex missions will push your skills to their limit.

As part of Flight Sim World’s release into Steam’s Early Access program, regular updates will be delivered over the coming months – including a weather system upgrade, flight planner expansions, and enhanced multiplayer functionality. Additionally, the Flight Sim World team will be collating and acting on player feedback for the complete duration of the early access period.

“The flight sim community is a fountain of experience and expertise and early access is our way of drawing upon that knowledge to make Flight Sim World the best it can be,” said executive producer Stephen Hood. “With this release, we are forging a brighter and more vibrant future for flight simulation.”