Play one sim, you probably play others. Now they have all kinds from aircraft to boats to trucks to power washing. What other sims are you into? Aside from trains, I like American Truck Simulator and Digital Combat Simulator (aircraft)
I have one of the 5,000 versions of IL-2 but I haven't got around to giving it a deep dive due to my train obsession. ETS2 and ATS also got supplanted by rail vehicles, but I really like them, keep them updated and keep telling myself I need to indulge more, especially now that they've gotten into the parts of the country I'm from. In addition to TSC and TSW, I have Diesel Railcar Simulator, though I had trouble getting into it. Railroader is in a unique status where most nights I try not to play it because if I do there's a danger I'll be switching till sunrise. A category I lament not being able to really indulge in right now is racing sims. While there's far newer available, my heart still belongs to GT Legends.
Main ones I play are Snowrunner (occasionally its Roadcraft spin off). ATS and ETS2, the latter about to get a huge buff with the long awaited Nordic Horizons DLC. Also Farming Sim 25. I have FSX installed but not flown in over a year. MSFS 2020 not currently installed due to the huge HD footprint and just a bit too arcadey. MSFS 2024 above my hardware specs. I have X Plane 11 but not installed, couldn't get my head around the different control commands to the MS products and I disliked the lack of crash detection. Driving, mostly rally games but also have Forza Horizon 4 which I fire up occasionally.
Forgot about Farm Sim. I just have FS 22. Is FS 25 that much different? Diesel Railcar Simulator sits in my Steam least to look at if it goes on sale.
I do like a sim. Ats/ets Flight simulator 2020 Snow runner Roadcraft Construction simulator Airport simulator Airport baggage simulator Fs 25 City skylines if you could class that as a SIM The sims Dakar desert rally Forza F1 There's probably some others I have forgot about and not worth a mention. I'm looking forward to road kings when it releases next year.
I saw my brother playing Airport Sim on XBox. He says it's pretty realistic (aside from a few bugs like clipping issues), not airlines but as logistics on the flight line for the Air Force for 23 years. Almost a little TOO realistic like the long drive out to get the plane and drive it in at 10mph.
Forza and Snow Runner are my two other sims of choice. Occasionally I mess around in MSFS. I used to play Farming Simulator, but I work for a New Holland dealer and there's many times where I try to forget tractors exist outside of work lol.
I still am on FS2020. Is it worth upgrading to FS2024 at considerable cost since this premium title hardly gets discounted and the finer improvements in airborne realism, operations and IFR/navigation elude me? After casually playing FS for a few years I've come to like single prop planes on big tyres under VFR, planes able to land on or take off from any field or bush strip or small GA field. All those jet liners and commercial airports aren't really my fancy. Sightseeing in the rendered world at 3000 ft is fun though.
I've always been a simulation type gamer, ever since I got my first computer in the early 90's. Flight sims have been the main interest for me since the beginning, starting from MSFS 5.1 all the way up to FSX, then switched over to X-Plane (version 11) and have stayed with that ever since. These days my available gaming time is, for the most part, divided between TSW and XP12. I have also spent decent amount of time with ETS2/ATS, too, but it's been a few years since I played them last. Should get back to them at some point again, though. Although not really simulations, I dig out the old but still good Cold Waters from time to time, and I'm really looking into getting Sea Power at some point after it matures bit further.
flight simulator 2020 derail valley Train simulator classic Seafarer the ship sim Farming simulator 2018
The fun thing in MSFS2020 for me is tracing the routes of railways. Most recently I followed lines west from Chicago, ended up following tracks by the Mississippi and arriving in Minneapolis, then looping up to the border up by Rainier/Fort Frances, and then making my way back around, eventually following the White River-Sudbury route (ending up with quite a challenging flight in a blizzard, so keeping my eye on the track was HARD) and then circling through Toronto and heading to Montreal and following the route of VIA's Ocean sleeper train to Halifax.
some more simple relaxing sims which i like cleaning off dirt with PowerWash Simulator 1 or 2 tank mechanic simulator train station renovator
all sims games I have in my steam library + three I have on epic + six I have on gog train sim world 2020 (steam) train sim world 2 (steam) train sim world 3 (steam) train sim world 4 (steam) train sim world 5 (steam) train sim world 6 (steam) subwaysim hamburg (steam) subwaysim 2 (steam) ship simulator extremes (steam) ship simulator realistic (steam) microsoft flight simulator x steam edition (steam obviously) hmmsim metro (steam) bus driver (steam) the sims legacy collection (steam) the sims 4 (steam) construction simulator 2015 (steam) construction simulator (2022) (steam) construction simulator 3 (gog) construction simulator 2 US pocket edition (gog) world of subways volume 1 new york the path (steam) world of subways volume 2 u7 berlin (steam) world of subways volume 3 london underground circle line (steam) world of subways volume 4 new york line 7 (steam) metro simulator (epic) metro simulator 2 (epic) farming simulator 22 (epic) roller coaster tycoon (gog) roller coaster tycoon classic (gog) roller coaster tycoon 2 (gog) roller coaster tycoon 3 (gog)
I just picked up a t.16000 thrustmaster kit for FS. I also bought fs24 and the a350 inibuilds, its definitely an improvement overall however id say its less stable personally then 2020, had a few random ctds but that might be me pushing my new pc to the max to see what it can do lol. One thing I hated was setting up all the new controls, there is an option to use default 2020 controls but if like me you customised all them it was a nightmare, literally took me most of the day to figure out the new way of doing it. Definitely enjoying it and getting a new flight dedicated set makes a massive difference. Atc is still clunky but definitely an improvement, there an efb you can use to send your flight to atc and they will guide you via the sid and star now but don't always give you the appropriate approach height etc so you have to follow your approach and sometimes disregard then lol. Havent touched tsw in over a week now , even reinstalled tsc and am enjoying that more as well. In terms of other sim I play ets, omsi , fernbus etc, good old omsi, its an old game but it soldiers on. Shame it never had a 64 update.
That... was a lot. DCS just released the C-130 DLC which I'd say puts it up there with anything in MSFS for accuracy and detail. You can also for the first time use an avatar like in TSW to walk around the plane and ramp. I don't think MSFS has that yet. It does make the preflight a bit more "hands on" instead of just using external view. I wonder if the "faults" in TSW would include things that you'd find in a pre-move checklist. I know some people like their checklists before setting off from "cold and dark" but there's no real chance you will have a faulty system so it feels kind of pointless. If there's a possibility you'd actually find a broken light, bad brake line, fuel leak or something that'd be kinda neat. Of course I'd have it toggle-able with the other faults too since most people don't do that and like to just hop in and go. But if you're going to have faults, the pre-start inspection is where you'd want to find them! =-)
There's a limit to how much "realism" most people want in their games. A "realistic" military simulator for example would be 90% sitting in a classroom, sweeping the floor, cleaning your gear and doing motor pool inspections. The other 9% would be guard duty, PT and standing around in formations. Then the final 1% you might actually see some action. When the sim becomes a "job" then it's gone a bit far.
Totally agree. Players of the Football Manager series have moaned for years that the press conferences are repetitive and boring. I imagine that's what real club managers think of them too, so it's realistic. I'm a bit of a fair weather Flight Simmer. I couldn't care less about pre-flight checklists, calculating weight, keying route into the systems or doing ATC stuff. I just want to get up in the air and go somewhere, or do some sightseeing. I would think that most Flight Sim fans would tut at me for being an arcade gamer or something, but that's the beauty of a good simulator; it lets you do what you like doing rather than forces everyone to take hours and hours of tests and learn everything a real pilot does.
Does Red Dead Redemption 2 count as a sim with how realistic it is ?? lol . Apart from TSW I enjoy Bus Simulator, Fernbus, I haven’t played Farming Simulator yet but I’ve watched videos on it and it does look really fun.
Farm Sim can be addictively engaging too, especially given how much there is to do in the games now. Logging, ranching, production chains, landscaping, etc. I do like all the "realism" options you can toggle. You can play "hard core" if you want with punishing economy and onerous maintenance and details (like having to pick rocks out of the soil, or use lime for that extra 5% crop yield)... or you can just put it on "easy" and it's actually quite relaxing puttering around on a tractor or feeding the cows.
You make that sound amazing. I’m gonna have to buy this after Christmas. I’ve been meaning to get it for a while I’ve just never got round to it... Sadly my money has went on everyone else’s Christmas presents at the moment so it will have to wait until after the new year. Poor me is skint until January lol.
Are you looking at fs 22 or FS 25? More sales on FS 22 and a lot more mods out there since it's older, but FS 25 is the latest version. Either way it's a good franchise. Especially a sale bundle.
Not actually sure yet but I’ll look into them. I’d imagine the latest one will be better ???. I’m also on console by the way so I can’t get mods unless they are downloadable on console…
Yeah, that's unfortunately true. Just go with FS 25. I don't get too crazy with the "realism" but if that's your thing there are a TON of options to toggle to customize. I just find it a nice relaxing distraction after work for a couple hours. It's very... atmospheric in that there's natural background noise, a few animals run across occasionally, birds, etc. Like I said it's first person so you can just walk around and explore. It's somewhat forgiving too on easy mode so if you miss feeding them the cows for example don't just immediately die, but they don't produce any milk. On the other hand, with full realism on you can accidentally crush crops by driving across a field or break your eqpt if you leave rocks in the fields. You can even have your tractor get "dirty" so you have to wash it off. It's a bit of a "management" thing too in that you have to pay rent/taxes on buildings and eqpt (you don't have to repair the buildings but there's taxes, and eqpt wears out over time) Again, totally customizable to what level of "authenticity" you want. If you have any questions on it when you get it, just ask. =-)
