Guide: Getting the most out of Flight Simulator X

[brimlad]

Noooo! Am finally, FINALLY on my downstairs PC only to discover that my FSX disc apparently won't run the installer.

you probably tried this, but try running the installer with admin rights; right click the installer.

and v4moose that is huge my base install is 17gb; for cfs2 and fs2000 I had a 2gb folder with the 3,75 arc/sec terrain mesh and then I thought that was big lol

cheers

[DarkMellie]

My post up above talks about how the FPS Limiter batch file doesn't work for me. Anyone?

This post is all about you two nubcakes. When in the free-flight menu, choose your airport then in the bottom right of the window it says 'active runway'. Open this menu and select the part of the airport you'd like to spawn at.

[Mearehear]

Hmm the FPS limiter batch file works for me..not sure what would be stopping it for you..anything to do with admin rights on the files? (I don't know how win7 handles that stuff)

Know how to choose runway and parking etc mate, it just still defaults to having everything running in the plane as soon as it loads, never is a cold start. Am trying the "save a flight as default", with the plane turned off, will see how that goes.

[Mearehear]

Ok got the cold starts sorted now.

I followed a combination of moose and brimlads advice. Specifically I tried starting on a runway with the trike as moose said, then turned it off, and saved it as my "default".

Then I changed plane to the Cessna and loaded a flight and indeed the engine was off, but all the switches etc were still in the on positions, so it wasn't quite good enough.

As I mainly fly the Cessna I then turned off all items in the Cessna and resaved it as my "default". Now I can load any airport or position, and it will start with everything off for a proper cold start.

Thanks guys.

[Mearehear]

and Mearehear is on a hat-trick...

I have just noticed one thing. I had installed the Shader 3 mod for FSX that moose listed in the guide, and since then things have seemed jaggy, like there was no longer any AA. I just uninstalled the Shader 3 mod and now it all looks smooth like AA is functioning again. I'm pretty sure I am not imagining it.

I noticed this mod is best used for ATI cards, and I currently use a Nvidia GTX 550 Ti, so maybe it is a downside to being on a Nvidia card(?). Either way, I have left it uninstalled for now as I need AA (for complicated reasons).

And now I have another newb question seeing as my first one is now sorted. It is to do with failures.

How do I best set failures to be totally random? For example, I can see at the moment it is very simple to set failures for certain functions, and set a time window that it can occur in. But that kind of means I am expecting it, if I have set a time window for it to occur in.

What I would like to see is random failures with no pre-thought of what may happen, then it is a total surprise and unexpected if something does go wrong. Can this be achieved, or what is the closest way of achieving it? So far I am thinking all I can really do is select all the failure options, and set a time window of 0 - 9999 minutes for them all, but I am worried that will force failures to occur, when I really want them to be totally random.

Any thoughts of advice with that would be greatly appreciated.



*EDIT*
[ramble]

Hidden: show

As a guy who has mainly spent his time in racing simulations, I am really starting to move more towards flight style simulations, as they much more closely follow the randomness of real life situations, than a racing simulation does.

Racing simulations are actually for the most part very sterile and devoid of any these aspects, so often lacking overall simulated features such as wind and variable track surfaces - not just wet/dry issues, but things such as temperature across the track surface, and track dirt buildup - and when they are introduced in any small way many of the so called "hardcore" racing sim guys have a pretty big cry about their addition. The lack of these aspects then rewards drivers who can handle putting in hours and hours of repetition, repetition, repetition.

Live For Speed is an example of having some more realistic aspects added, and then totally overlooked/ignored by the racers. It allows for winds that can be variable in strength and direction, which then greatly affect the performance of a car (and its setup). But 99% off the time this is turned off by server operators, as so many sim guys complain about the fact they can't do their best laps any more.

NetKar PRO is another example of a racing simulation trying to add much better simulated details, but turned down by most race sim followers. It allows for fully clickable cockpits and manual car startups, and very realistic tyre wear, which is visible on the tyre (all very rare in a racing simulations) and full time scaled race weekends, with very true to life damage repair times. But again 99% of the so called "hardcore" race simmers won't run with such features enabled.

Flight simulations on the other hand seem to embrace such things much more, and the flight simmers really put an effort into learning how to deal with all these aspects.

And it is this side to it that is dragging me away from the racing sims, and is why I am more interested in finding how to enable cold starts ups and totally randoms failures. It adds such an interesting layer of depth to a simulation, that race simmers seem to turn their nose up at (normally they beg for it, then when introduced they disable it all, or whine about it)

[/ramble]

[brimlad]

How do I best set failures to be totally random? For example, I can see at the moment it is very simple to set failures for certain functions, and set a time window that it can occur in. But that kind of means I am expecting it, if I have set a time window for it to occur in.

What I would like to see is random failures with no pre-thought of what may happen, then it is a total surprise and unexpected if something does go wrong. Can this be achieved, or what is the closest way of achieving it? So far I am thinking all I can really do is select all the failure options, and set a time window of 0 - 9999 minutes for them all, but I am worried that will force failures to occur, when I really want them to be totally random.

Any thoughts of advice with that would be greatly appreciated.

the lack of truely random failure was one of the complaints about fsx when it was launched; it definitely is a feature of fs2000 not sure about 2002 or 2004 never tried them.
The best you can do with fsx is set each component category (engines, intsruments etc) to random failure and then set the time from 0 to the maximum which I think is 600 mins. you can also adjust the number of failures per catergory if you want to focus on a particular group but if you set to many you end up with a rather heavy glider. That said there may be a mod/addon that does a true random failures.
A good feature is the dynamic/real weather option it updates every 15 or so minutes and if you have a look at the bom weather satellite you can find some interesting weather to test your skills in and being weather it can be quite random in how it develops.
http://www.bom.gov.au/australia/satellite/index.shtml

cheers

[DarkMellie]

I'd forgotten just how much I enjoy the missions that come with the Deluxe edition.

[Mearehear]

the lack of truely random failure was one of the complaints about fsx when it was launched; it definitely is a feature of fs2000 not sure about 2002 or 2004 never tried them.
The best you can do with fsx is set each component category (engines, intsruments etc) to random failure and then set the time from 0 to the maximum which I think is 600 mins. you can also adjust the number of failures per catergory if you want to focus on a particular group but if you set to many you end up with a rather heavy glider. That said there may be a mod/addon that does a true random failures.
A good feature is the dynamic/real weather option it updates every 15 or so minutes and if you have a look at the bom weather satellite you can find some interesting weather to test your skills in and being weather it can be quite random in how it develops.
http://www.bom.gov.au/australia/satellite/index.shtml

cheers

Thanks brimlad. I thought I may have been overlooking something, but I guess that is just a limitation of the sim then. I will have a look for any addons that may provide those features, as it really would be great to have a total randomness to it.

The dynamic weather updates are a good feature indeed. I always make sure I have that set to update every 15minutes, I just wish the weather over here in WA was a bit more variable at the moment as it is where I have been mainly flying and it has been very, very calm lately.

I'd forgotten just how much I enjoy the missions that come with the Deluxe edition.

Certainly is no lack of missions there, and some of them seem quite decent in length too. I have made my way through all the tutorial missions weeks ago, and have slowing be working my way down the list. Have a long way to go though, but thoroughly enjoy most of them.

[v4moose]

apparently FS9 had a lot more tutorial missions which focused on ATC clearence rules, controlled airspace, and what not. Would have been great I think. Certainly no lack of other missions tho. One of my favs is where u gotta land on the moving school bus. short and sweet but tricky nonethe less

i've managed to fix the hosting issue I think Mearehear I'm currently on a 'hop' server called wingnutz. basically u spawn at the airport they tell u, type ?hop, and they give u a destination aerodrome. Quite cool. It means flying over the states however, i forgot how crappy the default scenery is haha havn't seen non ftx stuff in a while now

[v4moose]

ffffffffffffffff jumped the gun. still can't get these ports to forward properly ><

[Mearehear]

Ha, ports drive me crazy. With my setup here it is always annoying, being behind basically 2 routers. I'm too buggered tonight, but I think I will put some time into it this week to see if I can find a solution to easy hosting too.

That hop thing sounds interesting!

[brimlad]

the acceleration pack is good fun, it has red bull pylon racing at few different locations around the globe (no Perth though), some search and rescue missions with a chopper and a carrier take off and landing in a f-18.

cheers

[Mearehear]

I just found this freeware plane, as flown by the Royal Australian Air Force. Seems quite awesome and all its instruments etc seems very faithful to the real thing if you watch the video below. Might be fun to do some formation flying in . The download is a straight forward simple installer.

[Mearehear]

To go with post above. (this guy talks a little strange?)

[AsTheRushComes]

Ive been playing Fs2004 lately with the PMDG 737 mod

Been trying to get through the FMC using SID and STARS.

fark i love FS

also im studying towards commercial license in real life, having obtained PPL