You and me both.
I tilted toward XP because of helicopters simulation. By default XP platform is much beter in this regard than FSX platform.
By default I mean that developers has much easier job to provide good heli simulation in XP.
If you read helisimer web page reviews you know that helos on FSX platform strugles :
… I welcome their [MP Design Studio] effort, but I wonder if it’s worth add features to a helicopter, that make it behave weirdly, just for the sake of saying they are present. I’d rather have them not add these characteristics and just accept the shortcomings of the sim. Milviz, CeraSim and Nemeth Designs all do it and people simply accept the fact that, if they are flying their favorite helicopters in P3D, they are making a trade-off. …
Here I found also very good coment in regards to heli siming on FSX. I think the guy is right on spot :
…This is an all around fun chopper. It isn’t perfection, but it is well done. We die hard simmers have to put-up with developers’ excuses about how MSFX has built in limitations and they can only do so much. I keep thinking, ‘You’re software writers, write programs that expand MSFX platform limits’. I’ve always suspected this excuse to be a cost saver, a cop-out or a cover for their own limitations. …
But then we come to what @chipwich has writen, and I agree. There are particular aircrafts/helos that just cant be found outside of FSX platform.
Still today the available plane set is shorter on XP side.
Helo simming in FSX is, IMHO definitely a love-hate issue. For me, there are only two helo that havecrackecd through FSX’s engine helo limitations; Dodo Sim’s B206 and MILVIZs Hughes 500. Of the two, I think Dodo Sim’s product is superior.
Nemeth Design’s and Cera Sims’ helos, while fun to fly (I have a virtual hangar full), are have really not gone beyond the FSX engine limitations.
Quite frankly I think the MS decision to kill the line was inevitable and that the reason had been staring us in the face for years. The default installation of most MSFS versions put it under “Microsoft Games”.
Is any advanced PC flight simulator a game to most of us? It never has been so to me. A hobby? Yes. A game? No. However, to those who made business decisions at MS, MSFS was a game…and really, who cares if you cut another game from your line of products.
At least that’s the way I see it.
Oh, thank you for reminding me. While we’re on this, I’m still bitter towards Microsoft for the whole “Flight” debacle a few years ago. But that’s an entirely separate rant altogether (insert @BeachAV8R’sreview of Microsoft Flight from 6 years ago).
1 Like
Yeah. Flight and DTG’s latest try are just proof positive that you MUST ship a product with lots of content on Day 1. These sims aren’t like Arma where the users can quickly fill in the gaps and make fun stuff to play…it takes a long time to ramp up gameplay type content for flight sims.
In my perfect world, my very complex sims will have very good gameplay too. DCS World is pretty good at that and to some extend P3D with Air Hauler is that way too. I’m really, really hopeful that CAP 2 can reach that state soon. I’ve been a bit hands off on that sim hoping I’d revisit it and find just a huge leap ahead at some point.
Interesting mod that a user created for Air Hauler for X-Plane (the original Air Hauler 1) that allows you to add your own aircraft parameters to the Air Hauler database.
“Is known that Air Hauler works well with XP11 except the import of your aircraft to his database. You are stucked to use non-corresponding aircraft between AH and your XP. After some tests, I developed a software that now you can add new aircraft with the required parameters on the AH.”
2 Likes
An intersting point. Let me see if I understand it correctly. I considered Flightsimming my hobby, not a game. So were is the gameplay aspect?
Using the analogy of model trains…if that were my hobby, I would purchase different model trains and buy track and other things. I’d put a put piece of plywood on a unused ping-pong table, lay the tracks and build scenery. As time when by I’d get more track and bigger sheets of plywood. All-in-all I’d spend a bunch of time researching trains to buy and building better and better scenery.
But I wouldn’t do any of that if I didn’t enjoy putting on my engineer’s hat and send the trains around the track every now and then.
The building things for the trains/flight sims is the hobby part. Running the trains/flying the airplanes is the gameplay part?
It can mean different things for different people. Diversity. 
Why draw a line? Where is the line…?
I clearly like building stuff for my flightsim hobby.
I also like to fly virtual aircraft.
I like to fly virtual missions in my virtual aircaft, in the very physical simulator that I built.
It’s all part of the hobby…or game. 
The train analogy is good but only to a point. Hobbies like RC and modeling scratch a creative itch. The flight sim hobby does not (unless you are in to mission creation, hardware design or 3rd party content development). Flight siming as a recreation doesn’t have many equivalents.
So I agree with Beach. I want to be pulled into the world I paid for. I find that I am increasingly less able to find a reason to dive in without a good reason. So far, the greatest reason in my enthusiast’s life to dive in day after day has been the Falcon dynamic campaign. A little lower on the inticement scale has been the several very good DCS MP servers. Slightly lower still is the new IL2 career system.
Well, I’m an engineer…we like lines. 
Seriously, no line…definitely a grey area…a spectrum as it were.
That said, I think the the bean-counters at MS definitely saw a line. 
1 Like
That they did…
1 Like
Last night while getting shot off the boat in the DCS Hornet, after my aircraft was in tension, I ran the engines up to military, did a control wipeout, saluted a make believe yellow shirt, moved to afterburner, and grabbed a virtual towel rack. The salute and towel rack were something that I’d never done before. I’m so glad that my wife wasn’t around to see that, especially since I had my Samsung Odyssey on. Would have probably been spent the night on the sofa. 
5 Likes
Laughing so hard as to preclude sharing the bed? Sounds about right 
3 Likes
I consider it both. Both FSX and DCS have heavy gameplay aspects - I mean, look at all those missions and challenges that came with FSX, and DCS is all about gameplay unless you are just using it to practice cockpit type techniques. Each mission and campaign is definitely a game to me…sure, a simulation, but a game nonetheless.
I mean, Pilate’s Ghost and Tarnished Gold are both examples of fun gameplay that sprouts directly from the hobby.
Gameplay was the reason I was so enthusiastic about Fighter Ops when that was first announced. I mean, a basic training through attack/fighter aircraft type syllabus with career building type play - sign me up!
3 Likes
…and don’t forget 
4 Likes
I would put it this way. Lets say you are creative person and you have two hobies - (1) flight sims and (2) model trains.
So you will start with buying (1) sim and (2) railways. Then (1) planes and (2) trains.
Next you will try to figure out what to do. You have your (1) plain sim and your (2) plain piece of plywood.
So you will develop (1) custom scenery with one airfield and (2) diorama with one station and one railway circuit.
Now what to do? You can (1) fly your aircrafts around your airport and you can (2) drive your trains around your railway circuit. Thats boring…
So here comes some limited gameplay - you will start to (1) fly corect circuits, holding the corect heights, correct speeds, you will try to land always on the same spot and you will start to (2) drive corect speeds on the crosings with roads, corect speeds on the bridges and you will try to enter the station with corect speed and on schedule.
And it will get boring again…
So you will expand. You will develop (1) another airport and you will create (2) another railway station.
And here comes the solid gameplay - you can start your (1) Virtual Airlines plus Air Hauler between that two airports and start to drive your (2) Pasenger Trains and Cargo Trains between that two stations.
Now we see that with model trains you will have to figure out the gameplay part on your own while with sims you can have at least 3rd parties creating the gameplay part for you.
So its always best when the sim is shiped with lots of [gameplay] content on Day 1.
Actually I agree with all of you. My question was meant to prompt an answer that I tried answer as “it is both”. I was not as eloquent as @Nevo and @BeachAV8R.
Flying planes by the numbers, to me, never gets boring. That sense of success when you put on the parking brakes at your destination and start a proper shut down sequence, is to me, extremely enjoyable.
Obviously one can go beyond that, as I did with, Pilate’s Ghost , and DCS with a built in Mission Editor and Campaign editor is a dream come true, for both the developer side and gameplay side. (I am already beginning work on at least one DCS simNovel).
In other words, Flightsiming is like New Shimmer…
Anyway, thank you both for spelling it out better than I did.
1 Like
I agree, thats imo where the gameplay begins.
And @BeachAV8R put it right in review of your simNovel :
Yes, there are plenty of us that can simply develop a flightplan and entertain ourselves with a basic flight, but giving purpose to flying, whether through utilities such as Air Hauler or FS Economy, or a good story, is an essential component of our simming that often gets overlooked in favor of the shiny new features of the most recent sim release or update.
2 Likes