I recently gave a talk about past, present, future of MSFS at Nerd Nite Tokyo, titled “From Flight Sim to Digital Twin: The Evolution of MSFS

There’s a lot of things that you could talk about when projecting the future of what MSFS could be, based on the progress made over 40+ years.

However, a lot of these things are already recognised, roadmapped, and already under development eg. Flight Modelling, AI content gen, weather (aerial only generally) , seasons, SDK, AI traffic, ATC, etc etc

I chose to focus on one aspect that currently doesn’t seem to be on the radar and/or roadmap – or discussed much at all except for occasional lonely threads in the MSFS forums.

That focus aspect was water simulation, which I think is a key element in taking MSFS to the next level out to 2030 and beyond.

Realistic water simulation is critical for lots of reasons, two in particular:

  • Modelling the full behavior of natural systems
  • Provide realistic environments for navigation

Here’s one good use case:
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ref: Queensland floods: Burketown residents warned of crocodile-infested waters ahead of expected peak | Queensland | The Guardian

What you can currently do in MSFS:
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Ditto for the tides.

I gave two other use cases as examples which are even more critical:

  • Sea Level Rise
  • Simulating the global underwater environment

I’ll post the video link if it gets posted, or I’ll post the slides instead.

It would be good to get more of a conversation going about the need for water simulation in MSFS to get some more focus and visibility.

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