Autopilot, Autothrottle and instrumental issues in MS Flight Simulator 2020

Anonymous
2020-08-22T06:22:31+00:00

Hello guys,

I have been playing the game since launch and problems keep appearing since the moment of the slow download. I am not willing to talk about frequent crashing (despite good specs: Ryzen 2700x und 2080 Ti), but the autopilot in airliners like A320 Neo, B747 and B787 is horrible and extremely annoying, in them all!! Suddenly stops working and plane does not respond to any input given at any time, any altitude or any speed! And I am not assigning any crash simulation!!!

The same applies to autothrottle!

Is any one facing a similar issue? Could you manage to solve it?

Thanks!

UPDATE on 30.08.2020:

So dears, to sum up some of the issues I met, I am putting that in short, keeping in mind I am not a true pilot, just a hobbyist simmer:

  • first, I got relatively good specs PC (Ryzen 7 2700x, Samsung SSD, 16 Gb RAM, RTX 2080 Ti GPU). System all up to date, including BIOS, drivers and other softwares. Running on Windows 10 Pro ver. 2004.
  • regarding game performance: the game struggles with loading speeds. Takes really really long time loading up. On 2K and 4K resolutions despite good specs and GPU there is a lot of frame drops. Opening Chrome in a separate desktop to read charts and route data into FMC for example makes the performance yet more horrible that it leads to the game continuously freezing and sometimes crashing to desktop, that the desktop becomes strangely blank and black that a reboot is then a must. Closing chrome improves the performance a little, but not much. The game freezes as well without having chrome open! Sometimes opening VFR-map, changing weather and co could end up freezing the game and even crashing it!
  • flight control issues:
  • starting with the horribly buggy autopilot buttons: engaging a function cannot be disengaged easily later, vertical speed is strange, that the button must be pressed twice and vertical speed must be inputted twice to force the plane into its ascent or descent. This is seen in all airliners including A320-Neo, B787 and B747. Sometimes (especially in B747) pitching the nose during level control is really horrible and too much! Have never seen all of this in true life and with true pilots!
  • disengaging the autothrottle is catastrophic, that the throttle gets back to idle! Have never seen this as well in true life!
  • B747 ILS is silly! After being established on the localiser, the plane suddenly and during final descent desynchronises with the localiser and G/S, that manual control is definitely a must and sometimes ending up in missed approach/overshooting runway!
  • LNAV is generally working good. However, a strange thing happened when I flew from EHAM to EDDF with B787, where the LNAV suddenly entered a 360° loop just after the second or third waypoint, as if it is not getting recognised. Removing the affected waypoint(s) from the FMC did not help. (is it a bug?!)
  • ATC is horrible!! A lot of bugs! For example, cannot request other approaches, once option selected, nothing happens! Being on IFR, ATC requests to change altitude is horribly silly!! For example, once approaching to finals, the ATC suddenly requests unexplained ascent to high levels (FL120 from 5000 ft as example) and just a few seconds later requests back again to descend back to 4600 ft. Just silly! I would prefer controlling levels myself! ATC does not synchronise with the high-altitude flight data given into the FMC! For example, when a flight is intended to be a high-altitude flight (FL350) with some waypoint(s) having FL370, ATC asks yet only to maintain an altitude of 7000 ft throughout the flight, as an example! That’s a silly function as well!
  • FMC is - generally speaking - not bad, but yet primitive. Cannot change a lot of parameters (like V1, VR and V2) or other thrust or take off limits. FMC does not provide the point of descent as well!

This is what I noticed so far. If you noticed some of these bugs, all of them or other bugs, please share. If you could manage to fix any of them, please share as well!

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Gaming

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-08-29T21:56:19+00:00
    I have experienced some problems since I installed the simulator. But I'm going to refer to the autopilot.
    On Boeing 747 and 787 planes the autopilot is a complete disaster. It is not stable. VS mode is either too low or too high. In LNAV mode, it does not steer on a steady course, steadily deviating. When cruise altitude is reached, it is unable to keep the nose level. Either it rises with a vertical speed of up to 15,000 ft / min, which is absurd, or it descends sharply.
    Microsoft must fix this bug that is causing problems on flights.
    

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-08-30T00:11:52+00:00

    So dears, to sum up some of the issues I met, I am putting that in short, keeping in mind I am not a true pilot, just a hobbyist simmer:

    • first, I got relatively good specs PC (Ryzen 7 2700x, Samsung SSD, 16 Gb RAM, RTX 2080 Ti GPU). System all up to date, including BIOS, drivers and other softwares. Running on Windows 10 Pro ver. 2004.
    • regarding game performance: the game struggles with loading speeds. Takes really really long time loading up. On 2K and 4K resolutions despite good specs and GPU there is a lot of frame drops. Opening Chrome in a separate desktop to read charts and route data into FMC for example makes the performance yet more horrible that it leads to the game continuously freezing and sometimes crashing to desktop, that the desktop becomes strangely blank and black that a reboot is then a must. Closing chrome improves the performance a little, but not much. The game freezes as well without having chrome open! Sometimes opening VFR-map, changing weather and co could end up freezing the game and even crashing it!
    • flight control issues:
    • starting with the horribly buggy autopilot buttons: engaging a function cannot be disengaged easily later, vertical speed is strange, that the button must be pressed twice and vertical speed must be inputted twice to force the plane into its ascent or descent. This is seen in all airliners including A320-Neo, B787 and B747. Sometimes (especially in B747) pitching the nose during level control is really horrible and too much! Have never seen all of this in true life and with true pilots!
    • disengaging the autothrottle is catastrophic, that the throttle gets back to idle! Have never seen this as well in true life!
    • B747 ILS is silly! After being established on the localiser, the plane suddenly and during final descent desynchronises with the localiser and G/S, that manual control is definitely a must and sometimes ending up in missed approach/overshooting runway!
    • LNAV is generally working good. However, a strange thing happened when I flew from EHAM to EDDF with B787, where the LNAV suddenly entered a 360° loop just after the second or third waypoint, as if it is not getting recognised. Removing the affected waypoint(s) from the FMC did not help. (is it a bug?!)
    • ATC is horrible!! A lot of bugs! For example, cannot request other approaches, once option selected, nothing happens! Being on IFR, ATC requests to change altitude is horribly silly!! For example, once approaching to finals, the ATC suddenly requests unexplained ascent to high levels (FL120 from 5000 ft as example) and just a few seconds later requests back again to descend back to 4600 ft. Just silly! I would prefer controlling levels myself! ATC does not synchronise with the high-altitude flight data given into the FMC! For example, when a flight is intended to be a high-altitude flight (FL350) with some waypoint(s) having FL370, ATC asks yet only to maintain an altitude of 7000 ft throughout the flight, as an example! That’s a silly function as well!
    • FMC is - generally speaking - not bad, but yet primitive. Cannot change a lot of parameters (like V1, VR and V2) or other thrust or take off limits. FMC does not provide the point of descent as well!

    This is what I noticed so far. If you noticed some of these bugs, all of them or other bugs, please share. If you could manage to fix any of them, please share as well!

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-08-30T23:51:04+00:00

    As a pilot, your feedback couldn’t be anymore accurate. The 787 and A320neo autopilots are garbage. I couldn’t believe how awful some things are. Autothrottle literally does not work in the 787 and when I turn it off, the switches go back to the “On” position. It can’t be disengaged (not that it works anyway). I’ll stick with the Cessna Citation until they fix the airliners.

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-08-31T18:07:48+00:00

    There is no way Microsoft should have charged for this game.  I mean it literally is not ready, at all.  Sure the graphics are nice but the game play is JUST NOT READY.

    I want a refund.

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-08-31T23:53:52+00:00

    I think some of this is being blown out of proportion and a lot of newcomers to sims have likely not experienced this with past releases. Guys, this is a SIMULATOR, and the scope is massive - nothing like we've ever seen before. There will be teething issues and they've mentioned numerous times that this is a 10 year platform.

    These issues will get fixed over the next few weeks/months - it will take time. You have to remember that Asobo are just one developer who have to stretch their resources across multiple aspects of the sim (world, physics, graphics, performance, optimisation, aircraft, etc). Companies like PMDG/Aerosoft have multiple developers who are working on a single plane.

    • Yes, the 747 AP is bugged and basically unusable. I would suggest not using it for now.
    • The A320 is pretty good for the most part, I don't have many issues at all and have completed numerous flights. If you're getting stuck, please check out some of the tutorials on Youtube on how to use the AP. The throttle in the A320 does not get adjusted after CRZ. Do not touch it for landing (unlike Boeing), this is why it goes crazy because it's preventing the plane from stalling, it's normally all controlled via the FMC or AP. You only idle the throttle when you're 30ft above the runway.
    • The 787 I've found has the most stable AP & FMS system, again there are plenty of tutorials on how to use this on Youtube

    Not saying that there aren't issues with the AP's or other aspects of the game (I've had numerous CTD's when I've been 2mins from landing after long 16+hr flights) but you have to remember, this is not like other "games". Other sims like this have ALL had major issues on launch. My suggestion would be to stick to the GA aircrafts as they are pretty stable/AP works great, and also look at some of the fantastic A320neo/787 autopilot and FMS tutorials on Youtube.

    Hope that helps someone.

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