Hi everyone. This is a question I'm sure will have many answers, so I appreciate all opinions and suggestions!!I'm all about enriching my flying experience by any and all means possible. For example I'm currently flying with MegaScenery Earth for the whole NJ/NYC/Long Island area, Manhattan X, REX, UTX and GenX. This combo has given me some amazing results flying around the area. I'm perfectly happy here in my little corner of the world as I start to get back into flight simming. Eventually though I'm going to start branching out into other areas and so my question is:How do you go about finding the best scenery options for a given world region?I mean you can literally spend hours or days looking through all the sim shops and freeware sites and catalogue all the options you can find. Once you find them it's easy to go about searching the web for opinions and such, but really the main challenge is making sure you've researched out all your options.And this doesn't just pertain to scenery either, but aircraft as well.Now, there comes a certain point where you're just searching and searching when you should just settle... but when is that?Anyways, I would like to hear how you all have gone about finding the scenery that you fly with today and love so much that it's a permanent resident on your hard drive.

Gaiiden,Interesting question - in some ways each of our intallations is uniquely 'ours'; other than the default installation, we all have something different. I can only "keep track" of the things I find myself USING frequently.Like the proverbial 'kid in a candy store' we rush to the free download libraries and after-market scenery, aircraft and utility providers to customize OUR sim.The only possible way to survive this extravagance is to use a little (or a lot of) restraint. Even as a retired virtual pilot I can only fly 18 hours a day and that's not enough to do justice to all the possible add-ons and enhancements; fifty clones would probably be needed to experience it all.A lot will depend on our processing power and storage but our interests matter most of all. I'm "mostly" about touring interesting places VFR.This means I'm less concerned about sophisticated instrumentation in the cockpit, realistic startup procedures, super-detailed airports, hundreds of leveries for my A320, 250 AI traffic plans, and cloud textures at 4096. I do want roads and rivers, shorelines and lakes in the correct location, so Utimate Terrain.I do want rugged mountains to be 'rugged', so FSGenesis mesh.I do want to look down and see trailerparks, factories, and real surface textures, so Photo scenery (where available)I do want fSX airports to match alignment with the real, so Airport Design Editor.I do want to know where I am and what's around me, so Plan-G.I do enjoy multiplayer also, so Teamspeak and Skype for on-line conversations.I do make screenshots, so a screen capture utility.I do download 'interesting' things that I might install, but I have far more untouched zips than I have installed. This includes many 'mystery' zips whose contents are long-forgotten. This is TOO MUCH.I only have "some" restraint. I figure that my interests do evolve with time and I might use some of those things still in 'storage' someday. So much clutter...Loyd

Yes, but how did you go about actually finding them all? I myself have spent hours upon hours upon days just troving site after site for all my options and wondering if there wasn't a better way.Tho I do suppose I could always just ask like this guy:http://forum.avsim.net/topic/295507-favorite-payware-freeware-add-ons/

Yes, but how did you go about actually finding them all? I myself have spent hours upon hours upon days just troving site after site for all my options and wondering if there wasn't a better way.Tho I do suppose I could always just ask like this guy:http://forum.avsim.net/topic/295507-favorite-payware-freeware-add-ons/

I typically just browse new releases at major sites for free downloads. I do NOT go looking for where to spend money. Otherwise I'll investigate things that other people mention.Example: after the PacificNorthwest release by ORBX, I downloaded the sample Olympic Penninsula and flew across it once. Haven't been back.Blueskyscenery.com has most of Colorado and Glacier National Park in 1m photoscenery (free) and I spend a lot of time in these areas and where he is currently adding new 2m scenery for California.As I get more into multiplayer I sought and dl'd the AICarriers and the KC135 tanker for practicing air to air refueling and carrier landings.So much of it just comes from following links in posts and such.Loyd

Gaiiden,Interesting question - in some ways each of our intallations is uniquely 'ours'; other than the default installation, we all have something different. I can only "keep track" of the things I find myself USING frequently.Like the proverbial 'kid in a candy store' we rush to the free download libraries and after-market scenery, aircraft and utility providers to customize OUR sim.The only possible way to survive this extravagance is to use a little (or a lot of) restraint. Even as a retired virtual pilot I can only fly 18 hours a day and that's not enough to do justice to all the possible add-ons and enhancements; fifty clones would probably be needed to experience it all.A lot will depend on our processing power and storage but our interests matter most of all. I'm "mostly" about touring interesting places VFR.This means I'm less concerned about sophisticated instrumentation in the cockpit, realistic startup procedures, super-detailed airports, hundreds of leveries for my A320, 250 AI traffic plans, and cloud textures at 4096. I do want roads and rivers, shorelines and lakes in the correct location, so Utimate Terrain.I do want rugged mountains to be 'rugged', so FSGenesis mesh.I do want to look down and see trailerparks, factories, and real surface textures, so Photo scenery (where available)I do want fSX airports to match alignment with the real, so Airport Design Editor.I do want to know where I am and what's around me, so Plan-G.I do enjoy multiplayer also, so Teamspeak and Skype for on-line conversations.I do make screenshots, so a screen capture utility.I do download 'interesting' things that I might install, but I have far more untouched zips than I have installed. This includes many 'mystery' zips whose contents are long-forgotten. This is TOO MUCH.I only have "some" restraint. I figure that my interests do evolve with time and I might use some of those things still in 'storage' someday. So much clutter...Loyd

Ditto!jja

I don't know if there is any magic here or easy solution. There are some well known addons that after some research narrow down the key payware items, which you appear to have some already. Add Orbx, FS Addon stuff for the west coast of North America and your set.Once I got my new rig last December, I checked out the key payware items and have been buying them all or as many as I can.For freeware I use this sight and flightsim.com as a paid member and a ton of other sites. I only beef up those places on the planet that I care about. I am not interested in Africa, Saudi Arabia, desert stuff.I focus on places with mountains, lakes, scenery variability. Each to there own.I do maintain a very good and well organized browser Bookmark of key sites to visit. I maintain an excel spreadsheet to record all additions and deletions of any addon to my computer and very detailed on flightsim listing, this has saved my bacon many times as I have a record of what the heck I have on my system and where. It has helped my track down scenery problems so I can trace where and what files might have been modified.

One thing that helps to clear out the noise is to decide what you like. In FS9 & FS2002, I downloaded almost everything I could find that was decent. I never flew to Uzbekistan but if there was good scenery for Tashkent, I would install it. After installing it, I still wouldn't fly there. I fly in the US, Caribbean, Central America and holiday destinations around the world. In short, I like to fly to places I have visited or would like to visit (no offense Uzbeks). Now that I have recognized what I truly like, I install a lot less. As for the logistics, I do have a specific approach to downloading freeware. I check AVSIM and Flightsim.com daily if I can. I download things that look interesting and I save them in a folder on a external hard drive names "fsx downloads". I have sub folders for scenery, utilities, ai aircraft, AFCADS, repaints for payware aircraft, repaints for freeware aircraft... I keep everything in those folders until I get a chance to install things. When I do get that chance, I have found that I only end up installing 20% of what I downloaded. The last thing you want to do is bog down your system with a bunch of stuff you will never use.I know what I want, I download a lot but I install very little. For me, the toughest temptation to avoid is ai aircraft/flightplan packages. If the repaints and the flightplans are included, I will probably install it even if I will never see the aircraft in the sim.

Thanks everyone, keep the suggestions coming!

As for the logistics, I do have a specific approach to downloading freeware. I check AVSIM and Flightsim.com daily if I can. I download things that look interesting and I save them in a folder on a external hard drive names "fsx downloads". I have sub folders for scenery, utilities, ai aircraft, AFCADS, repaints for payware aircraft, repaints for freeware aircraft... I keep everything in those folders until I get a chance to install things. When I do get that chance, I have found that I only end up installing 20% of what I downloaded. The last thing you want to do is bog down your system with a bunch of stuff you will never use.

Ha! I do the same thing. I have quite the extensive folder heirarchy, especially for all the airport sceneries I've downloaded - sorted by region and all named with their ICAO. It's on a seperate FSX Downloads internal drive and I even install as much as I can onto a third hard drive that I can keep defragged easily and not suck up all the space on my main drive that's needed for other games.

To keep an eye on what has recently been added to the surmountable list of FS addons, I often refer to the NOTAMS at FlightSim.com.http://www.flightsim.com/main/m-notams.htmTrevor

I decided at a very early stage that I was going to concentrate on the British Isles, and forget about the rest of the world. That has made purchase decisions very easy.