NZFF

Discovered this will be available from Dec 7 - that's my Christmas sorted. https://www.aerosoft.com/en/fsxp3d/simu ... rofly-fs-2
Steam is all very well for real world trains and road vehicles, but not in cyberspace.

I doubt you will get all AeroflyFS2 addons in that box. My present (complete) installation is 130 GB. Even using good compression this might amount to ~20 DVDs.

Aside the two ORBX addons available via ORBX direct, I hope IPACS will make addon-content like the recently released Colorado scenery (and new contents) available for their box users.

Kind regards, Michael

I took the plunge into Steam - it kind of felt like that, too - for the first time, to install AFS2.
I don't have ultrafast broadband (although no data cap) but it's been quite painless.
You read about this or that update in the forums, and at some point it just shows up in the game!

No tweaking of .cfg files for me (I have no idea where it resides, even)
If you want to buy addon stuff, all you need's a credit card and it shows up.
No signing your soul over to some 3rd party vendor's "Central Control" which will override anything else on your computer.

The cherry is Virtual Reality, and I see there are VR headsets on the horizon which have the resolution you'd want to fly totally within the virtual cockpit environment.
Steam is also mature enough to know what it is you want, when you ask.
So far, I am a Happy Steamer.

Well, it arrived this afternoon. A nice tin box, six DVDs asking for 55GB of space, a good instruction manual, which tells you the Activation Key is inside the box...so having failed to notice it is printed on the front cover of the manual, I spent twenty minutes looking for it

Should be an interesting couple of days coming up
Mike
PS - interesting that the back cover of the manual has those nice yokes /throttle quad from Honeycomb "Coming soon at www.aerosoft.com", so we should be able to get them through through Dean.

Started install at 1630, it completed at 1743, without reporting any problems.
I rightclicked the shortcut icon, to make sure it was going to 'run as administrator', saved that and clicked the thing to start up " The Aerosoft FS exe was unable to start. Windows is trying to find the problem."
Rebooted, same result.
My system meets their requirements. Why bother continuing?

six DVDs asking for 55GB of space

I am so reminded of loading MSFS from a whole lot of floppy disks...
Be interested in your first take: it is best described as a "sim with a lot of potential" I suggest.

ORBX has just released KMRY Monterey which sits nicely in the middle of the (stock) enhanced scenery of California.

I hear talk of something for NZ too! which at present is a little empty.

EDIT: go to their forum with technical issues - they will sort you out.

Charl wrote:

EDIT: go to their forum with technical issues - they will sort you out.

Charl, why should I? Their stuff should work 'out of the box' - AUD60 for something that won't even start up?

Yes, I'd be very annoyed if it didn't work out of the box. But from some of the posts I've read -- including IPACS own admission that the disc went out with the wrong version -- they rushed things far too much.
I must admit, though, that I've never had a single issue with Aerofly on Steam, it just updates itself now and then, and keeps on chugging.

toprob wrote:Yes, I'd be very annoyed if it didn't work out of the box. But from some of the posts I've read -- including IPACS own admission that the disc went out with the wrong version -- they rushed things far too much.

That's what I infered from their forum. too. However, as far as I recall these were minor annoyances with stuttering, antialiasing and such, not the whole game not starting at all.

I don't have the tin box, thus I can't comment on this issue. As annoying as it may be, I would consult their forum, too, which is quite active.

https://www.aerofly.com/community/forum/

Kind regards, Michael

Yes, the 'error' related to a VR setting, which they were trying and accidentally released, from what I've read. So it shouldn't affect anything but VR performance. But I'd be concerned that if this could happen, what else was rushed in the disc release.
I'm just playing devil's advocate here, personally I'd do what I could to track down a solution, but then again I'm already a big fan of FS2.

Rob -
I was going to reply "So was I", but I installed it on another machine (which I didn't want to use because it is too small, storage-wise), and flew from LA to SF in a Cessna 172. That's almost as bad as being seen driving a Ford.
That's because I couldn't get the Beech Baron started, which I later fixed with a mouse driver upgrade. FS2 seems to be very picky about things like that.
Sim behaviour, very smooth.
Terrain mesh very sharp, textures a bit patchy, and mixed.
San Fran scenery very impressive, especially at night and I also got a great sunset.
Aircraft behaviour very good.
So, it gets to stay. I hope it will be simple to deactivate and uninstall from MiniBeast when I get a new SuperBeast. The addons downloads are pretty massive, so we'll need to look at that. I don't like unknown third parties making free with my bandwidth allowance, but my provider is slowly coming round to unlimited for everyone. We shall see.

Thanks for the advice, and the moral support. There's nothing worse than an unhelpful error message. I could see the bl**dy thing wasn't running. I needed to know why it had stopped.

MikeW

Good news from the IPACS blog on their forum: https://www.aerofly.com/community/forum/

"To all Aerofly DVD owners, Aerosoft will be releasing installers for Switzerland, New York, and Colorado DLC's soon. This will allow for you to begin adding DLC libraries to your DVD copy of Aerofly FS 2.
Once this is released, we will provide you with more information."

N-E USA download now available from the Aerosoft shop. AUD20.60 for 7.6GB of scenery, nearly four hours to d/l which is a tad slow, but I expect they were very busy at the other end.

https://www.aerosoft.com/en/flight-simu ... ofly-fs-2/

MikeW

Getting better all the time. This is on the IPACS forum this morning:

"Aerosoft is currently preparing a dedicated Aerofly page. Please be a little bit more patient. A few free DLCs are already available here:

http://aerofly.aerosoft.com/ "

Scroll right down to the bottom

as I am already a steam client with FSX , aerofly was a no brainer . click, pay, download, play. no worries.