Aerofly FS 4 Roadmap?

[BigChungus]

Is there a roadmap that can be shared? I think it would also help to increase visibility to this awesome Flight Simulator and get more people excited about it. Also, it would be cool to get more third part developers involved.

[kalnon]

I don't own this simulator yet, I've been on the fence about it for a long time. The aircraft look really nice and they offer system depth and the scenery (the little that exists) looks really good. I would be interested in seeing a roadmap too to see if it might be worth my time.

There are two huge downsides to this simulator for me. First and foremost, there is the extremely limited amount of scenery, 90% of the earth is missing scenery. This will make the flights become extremely boring really quickly once you've seen all there is to see. All other sims allow you to explore the entire earth.

Second, there is NO third party development scene at all that I can find which means the only improvements you'll get is from the developer. Every other simulator out there has hundreds or some even thousands of add-ons allowing you to customize everything just the way you want.

[Jan (IPACS DEV)]

Aerofly FS 4 now has the entire world as well, available as scenery streaming.

[kalnon]

İlk olarak Jan (IPACS DEV) tarafından gönderildi:

Aerofly FS 4 now has the entire world as well, available as scenery streaming.

Interesting, thank you for letting me know, now my interest is peaked. Even if there's no development scene, if there's scenery available for the entire world than it may still be worth my time.

What about more airports for the rest of the world? Does that scenery also include more airports as well? Also, do you plan to add more GA aircraft? I enjoy flying jets too but I really wish you had more GA aircraft choices (even if they come as another paid DLC) and maybe another helicopter or two would be awesome.

Thanks

[squashplayer1]

The scenery is ok for me, often it even looks very good.

My main point of critqiue is that the aircraft are too shallow. Things like proper route editing in the FMC and up to date navdata are missing which makes it (unfortunately) unsuitable for airliner flights.

[kalnon]

İlk olarak squashplayer1 tarafından gönderildi:

My main point of critqiue is that the aircraft are too shallow. Things like proper route editing in the FMC and up to date navdata are missing which makes it (unfortunately) unsuitable for airliner flights.

I think that's kind of ironic considering the sim offers so many airliners (if you include the DLC package). I like to create and edit proper routes as well, this is a big downside for me too. If you want study level airliners than X-Plane offers the best. Even their default airliners have an ability to create proper routes and edit them.

Every time I consider buying this simulator, I just think I would rather spend that money on another add-on for X-Plane.

[dohh]

AFS4 is great. I own AFS4, MSFS 2020 and XP 12. I play/use AFS4 MUCH, much more than the other two.

[kalnon]

İlk olarak dohh tarafından gönderildi:

AFS4 is great. I own AFS4, MSFS 2020 and XP 12. I play/use AFS4 MUCH, much more than the other two.

Why choose AFS4 over MSFS and XP12? Both those sims offer far more (each in different ways) than AFS4 does.

MSFS has the most amazing scenery (though aircraft flight models are trash) and XP12 offers very advanced flight dynamics & advanced systems implementation and both sims offer the ability to explore the entire world, each with around 40,000 or so airports, airstrips and seaports (XP12 also has many helipads scattered around the world too) to choose from. Both have large 3rd party development scenes with lots of freeware & payware add-ons to choose from to allow you to customize everything the way you want.

There's really just no comparison in my book but to each their own I guess.

[dohh]

Frankly, the reasons I play AFS4 more than the other 2:
-Easy-to-load flight plans in-game (without using an external program): AFS4, MSFS2020 equally simple; perhaps MSFS 2020 is a bit easier than AFS4 as you can easily pick "from and to" in a drop down menu for pick your own flight. AFS4, though, has pre-made flight path missions of all types and challenges, and MANY locations globally, WITHOUT having to purchase them through a marketplace (such as with MSFS2020).
-Superb grfx: MSFS 2020 over the other 2, hands down. No comparison. Actually, AFS4 pales in comparison graphically re. environments and external grfx. No water animations at all, no traffic, etc. ALthough interior aircraft designs are gorgeous. Sky, cloud, night skies and night-environmental grfrx (lit buildings, etc)...and sunlight are also very nice in AFS4. Oceans look awful, but that's why the game loads so quickly even WITH global scenery ON. Still, you're looking for pure eye candy? Yes, MSFS 2020 is the way to go.
-Easy to learn aircraft handling: AFS4 over the other 2, IMHO hands-down, especially for beginners or novices like myself.
-Sound design; pretty good with all 3 games.
-Using M/KB only: easier with AFS4, easy but not AS easy with XP12, do-able with MSFS 2020 but not preferable (although I use M/KB ONLY all the time; personal reasons, even with MSFS2020.
-AFS4 comes with many global FREE addons: Just one extra $40 DLC for all the rest (many aircraft choices, global airports, etc): again, AFS4, hands down. I LOVE the DLCs for MSFS2020 and their marketplace, but adding all the marketplace items I purchased from MSFS2020 REALLY added up, $$-wise. And the XP12 extra airport DLCS are UBER-expensive. Ridiculously so, IMHO. AFS4 has a LOT for LESS money overall.
-Here's the BEST part: LOAD times ,even with global scnery on, are almost non-existent with AFS4. Hands down quicker load times to get up and running (up and flying?) with AFS4. XP 12 isn't bad, but nowhere near as quick as AFS4. And MSFS2020 takes quite a while to load up. Seconds for AFS4 compared to many minutes waiting with MSFS 2020, as an example.
SO frankly, except for environmental grtfx, there's PLENTY of comparitive features that make AFS4 worth my while.

[kalnon]

İlk olarak dohh tarafından gönderildi:

Frankly, the reasons I play AFS4 more than the other 2:
-Easy-to-load flight plans in-game (without using an external program): AFS4, MSFS2020 equally simple; perhaps MSFS 2020 is a bit easier than AFS4 as you can easily pick "from and to" in a drop down menu for pick your own flight. AFS4, though, has pre-made flight path missions of all types and challenges, and MANY locations globally, WITHOUT having to purchase them through a marketplace (such as with MSFS2020).
-Superb grfx: MSFS 2020 over the other 2, hands down. No comparison. Actually, AFS4 pales in comparison graphically re. environments and external grfx. No water animations at all, no traffic, etc. ALthough interior aircraft designs are gorgeous. Sky, cloud, night skies and night-environmental grfrx (lit buildings, etc)...and sunlight are also very nice in AFS4. Oceans look awful, but that's why the game loads so quickly even WITH global scenery ON. Still, you're looking for pure eye candy? Yes, MSFS 2020 is the way to go.
-Easy to learn aircraft handling: AFS4 over the other 2, IMHO hands-down, especially for beginners or novices like myself.
-Sound design; pretty good with all 3 games.
-Using M/KB only: easier with AFS4, easy but not AS easy with XP12, do-able with MSFS 2020 but not preferable (although I use M/KB ONLY all the time; personal reasons, even with MSFS2020.
-AFS4 comes with many global FREE addons: Just one extra $40 DLC for all the rest (many aircraft choices, global airports, etc): again, AFS4, hands down. I LOVE the DLCs for MSFS2020 and their marketplace, but adding all the marketplace items I purchased from MSFS2020 REALLY added up, $$-wise. And the XP12 extra airport DLCS are UBER-expensive. Ridiculously so, IMHO. AFS4 has a LOT for LESS money overall.
-Here's the BEST part: LOAD times ,even with global scnery on, are almost non-existent with AFS4. Hands down quicker load times to get up and running (up and flying?) with AFS4. XP 12 isn't bad, but nowhere near as quick as AFS4. And MSFS2020 takes quite a while to load up. Seconds for AFS4 compared to many minutes waiting with MSFS 2020, as an example.
SO frankly, except for environmental grtfx, there's PLENTY of comparitive features that make AFS4 worth my while.

Thank you for elaborating, I was genuinely curious as to why you prefer this sim over the others and I appreciate your input.

For flight planning, yes most other sims, including MSFS and XP12 you do need external flight planning tools but that is because those sims allow you to create real life, accurate flight plans to and from anywhere in the world but they do not cost money. I use SimBrief as well as an amazing program called LittleNavmap to plan my flights and they are both free to use. AFS4 does not allow you to create your own custom flight plans in the way you can with other sims, this is another big downside for me. It may be easier to plan flights in AFS4 but it doesn't seem to use real life approaches, you cannot edit flight plans and things like that.

Yes, 3rd party payware does add up but I look at it as an investment into the simulator and as I said, these types of add-ons allow you endless ways to configure your simulator just the way you want it. ASF4 cost so little because it offers so little content compared to any other sim out there and the only content you can get is from the developer and nowhere else. Even the free areas you speak of still only cover very small areas of the world whereas MSFS and XP12 you already get all the scenery for the entire earth included with the sim. XP12 autogen is very lacking imo though, many real life buildings and even whole towns and cities are missing by default but there's a freeware solution called SimHeaven scenery that adds pretty much all towns and cities in the world with accurately placed buildings.

As for load times, I have heard that this simulator has fast load times but like you said it is because there's so little scenery and effects to load compared to other sims. Also, I have MSFS and XP12 on SSD's and they only take about 1 to 2 minutes to load a flight. If they where on HDD's which I wouldn't recommend, then yes it would take long to load.

I can see that AFS4 would appeal to people who are more casual about flight simulation and just want an easy, no fuss simulator that doesn't require lots of time to learn to use and to set up flights and you seem to be one of those people (not that there's anything wrong with that). As I said, to each their own :)

[dohh]

Good points, all. I also have all three of my flight sims running off an SSD drive, which still has plenty of room on it (though it fills up quickly, thanks to these same games). MSFS2020 still takes a few minutes to load, then another minute or more to be "ready to fly". THe choices in MSFS 2020 (activities, custom stuff, bush trips etc) are amazing, and even on my 4 yo desktop PC running WIN 10, settings almost maxed out it still runs well....just runs my fans noisy as heck. And MAN, do I wish the scenery with AFS4 was better. But it's my go-to for a flight sim to be up, running and flying within a minute.

[kalnon]

İlk olarak dohh tarafından gönderildi:

Good points, all. I also have all three of my flight sims running off an SSD drive, which still has plenty of room on it (though it fills up quickly, thanks to these same games). MSFS2020 still takes a few minutes to load, then another minute or more to be "ready to fly". THe choices in MSFS 2020 (activities, custom stuff, bush trips etc) are amazing, and even on my 4 yo desktop PC running WIN 10, settings almost maxed out it still runs well....just runs my fans noisy as heck. And MAN, do I wish the scenery with AFS4 was better. But it's my go-to for a flight sim to be up, running and flying within a minute.

You damn kids these days all have ADHD I swear, no patience at all :)
(I am only kidding)

There's nothing wrong with the fact that you prefer AFS4 over other sims, in the end, all that matters is that you have fun and enjoy your flying, no matter which simulator you use.

[dohh]

Kid...I WISH I was 40 years younger :-)

[Alexandre Costa]

Another good reason to choose AFS4 over MSFS or XP12 is the VR performance, in case you own a VR headset. You can't beat the smoothnes of AFS4, it is just superb

[not.philip]

Totally agree - AFS4 in VR is the most amazing experience - way smoother and clearer than MS flight sim with my setup.

[kwm57]

Ditto on the VR experience. Pico 4, rtx3070, virtual desktop or pico connect work great with AFS4.