Hi everyone. My Dad and I are looking to get into Flight Sim X "together" and wanted to look at the following add-ons to make the experience more fullfilling. We'll be playing from out own houses and connected by direct IP:* A traffic add-on.* A scenery add-on (make the US look better)* Maybe one or two aircraft add-ons.I have absolutely no clue where to start looking, who is reputable for this stuff, and what's recommended. I know there's a lot of free stuff out there, but need stuff that will be reliable and not crush frame rates too badly. We both have both FSX and Accelerator, and as far as additional aircraft, we'd like to get something unique from what's already on the disks. A few aircraft with with more depth, animation, and options to give us a good tandem flying experience.Thanks for any stopping in to give some direction. We're excited to really dig in!

* A traffic add-on.

Payware - Ultimate Traffic 2 or MyTrafficX or for free WOAI - www.world-of-ai.com.

* A scenery add-on (make the US look better)

To improve the look texture wise for the US you will want GEX North America and if you want to improve the terrain features such as accurate roads, freeways, coastlines, rivers, lakes, and comes with landclass to properly place cities, farmland, residential areas, etc. in the correct place then you will want to get Ultimate Terrain X. Both products are must haves in my opinion, but Ultimate Terrain X wont change the looks of the textures, so if you want more of a visual difference get GEX North America. Both products are sold at www.flight1.com. If you and your dad can afford it, I would get both GEX and Ultimate Terrain. If you dont buy Ultimate Terrain, you should look into a stand alone landclass product.

* Maybe one or two aircraft add-ons.

Depends on what you want to fly, airliners,general aviation aircraft, or military.If airliners, you wont go wrong with PMDG (747, MD-11, JS4100) and of course their upcomming 737NGX which will be probably the most revolutionary a/c ever built for a desk top sim. Also Level-D Sim's 767 is very good as well.If you seek small general aviation prop planes, probably the best is anything by RealAir or A2A. I don't own much g/a stuff but a lot of people enjoy the Carenado series of a/c. Also Lionheart puts out some nice g/a stuff as well like the Quest Kodiak which I own and can sometimes be found for $15 on sale.If you like military, the most talked about right now is probably the VRS Superbug (F-18). Also of note is the Lotus L-39 which I dont own, but is very good and the Aerosoft F-16, which I do own and is pretty nice in its own right.One thing that is nice about the product sold thru Flight1 is that they come with a 30 day money back offer if your not satisfied with the product you purchased. Not many online flight sim retailer offer that, in fact none that I can think of off the top of my head.Good luck.

* A scenery add-on (make the US look better)

In addition to GEX/UTX you will want to look at the two heavyweight add-ons Full Terrain Experience and MegaSceneryEarth.FTX is really the leader in this category right now - their annotated autogen is just stunning and they use higher-res ground textures. However this will put a decent burden on your system. MSE on the other hand uses satellite textures rather than ground textures and even with autogen completely off can offer up some stunning views. Also, the two scenery products do not completely overlap, and you'll find you really have no choice depending on what location you want to purchase. For example there is no FTX on the US East Coast (yet) and only MSE has tiles there.For additional airport sceneries - FTX has the OZx website and MSE has MSE Airports (which I only just started at the end of last year)There are also freeware options that are more involved on the user setup end like Tile Proxy.Also, unrelated to your categories but still extremely worthwhile is Real Environment Extreme.

If you post your system specs it might help with the suggestions ................

Well, Enceladus, Saturn sounds like it's far, far away. Expect some delay if in multiplayer and your each on a different planet. :( That being said, it sounds like your both relatively new to FSX.If it were me, before adding anything else to the mix, I would make sure both of your computers are tuned to the nth degree. Do a search for Nick Needham's FSX tuning suggestions. Get some time under your belts flying with the default scenery and aircraft before you go adding this and that. If you do not already have them, a good headset with microphone would be a good "to have" instead of additional scenery or aircraft.Good Luck!

Well, Enceladus, Saturn sounds like it's far, far away. Expect some delay if in multiplayer and your each on a different planet. :( That being said, it sounds like your both relatively new to FSX.If it were me, before adding anything else to the mix, I would make sure both of your computers are tuned to the nth degree. Do a search for Nick Needham's FSX tuning suggestions. Get some time under your belts flying with the default scenery and aircraft before you go adding this and that. If you do not already have them, a good headset with microphone would be a good "to have" instead of additional scenery or aircraft.Good Luck!

Yep already used his guide and tuned perfectly. We already have headset/mic. There are two ways we plan on flying:#1 - Pilot/Co-Pilot of a commercial passenger or cargo plane. Start by loading cargo/passengers and do everything "official".#2 - separate planes but fly together (follow the leader, or side by side).For #1 we need aircraft that have higher difficutly levels and require more attention to detail. Something that we'll feel like we accomplished something by completing our route but also is more apt to fail. We'd also like to see actual passengers and maybe see from their viewpoint when one of us has down-time. So "Traffic X" by Just Flight is not the best traffic program?My system is pretty good:* Windows 7 - 64-bit* Intel Core i7 920 2.66GHz overclocked to 4.3 GHz stable* Asus P6X58D Premium Motherboard BIOS v.0703* G.Skill DDR3 2000 in Triple Channel Mode - 6 Gig* NVidia GeForce GTX 480* PCIe Titanium Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatality* Planar PX2611W 26" widescreen LCD* Win7/Boot drive on 80 Gig Intel X25M SSD

You should also start out with freeware and mostly those payware F-Lite planes from Just Flight to start out. Freeware aircraft are typically not as complex as the usual Level-D class aircraft and would usually use the default stuff that are very simple to use nonetheless, which lessens the complexity. The F-Lite range aircraft are extremely graceful in matters of visual and internal detail but are less complex in systems. Although I've been flying on my struggling IP4 PC for almost 2 years now, IMO, complex aircraft makes us actually press buttons more than we do actually flying the aircraft. Dave.

You should also start out with freeware and mostly those payware F-Lite planes from Just Flight to start out. Freeware aircraft are typically not as complex as the usual Level-D class aircraft and would usually use the default stuff that are very simple to use nonetheless, which lessens the complexity. The F-Lite range aircraft are extremely graceful in matters of visual and internal detail but are less complex in systems. Although I've been flying on my struggling IP4 PC for almost 2 years now, IMO, complex aircraft makes us actually press buttons more than we do actually flying the aircraft. Dave.

Could you direct me to a few high quality free-ware planes? I'm not exactly sure where to look and what's reputable as there are millions of links out there. Thanks! :)

There are two ways we plan on flying:#1 - Pilot/Co-Pilot of a commercial passenger or cargo plane. Start by loading cargo/passengers and do everything "official".#2 - separate planes but fly together (follow the leader, or side by side).For #1 we need aircraft that have higher difficutly levels and require more attention to detail. Something that we'll feel like we accomplished something by completing our route but also is more apt to fail. We'd also like to see actual passengers and maybe see from their viewpoint when one of us has down-time. So "Traffic X" by Just Flight is not the best traffic program?Since you are talking basicly about a 'multiplayer' session, let me jump in and maybe save you some time and money.You said you are going to connect via LAN from 2 different locations. Hopefully you have already tried this and got it working. I mention that because for most, it is a bear to set up and get working, and most I know use the Gamespy option to connect to each other. Having said that, if you do use Gamespy, use ANY other lobby except the default lobby and you will have less problems.No one here has mentioned this yet, so I assume none in this thread fly multiplayer......but..... if you are planning on using a traffic program in multiplayer and not just in single player, save your money, multiplayer will NOT show any AI planes, you will only see other connected players. If you want traffic in single player, then my suggestion is Ultimate Traffic. it uses real world schedules for commercial traffic adjusted to time zones.Now regarding using the 'shared cockpit' and flying in the same plane together, there is a small problem as well. That is that most developers and I do mean MOST, have completely ignored this and do not set their planes up to work with it. There are a few that do work on a limited basis, that is the major controls will work, flaps, gear, etc but none that I know of, (except for a few VERY expensive planes) work with all systems, and that includes any with an FMC. My suggestion for trying this is first, use the default planes, they were designed to use shared cockpit and they do work. However none have the advanced systems like a FMC, so that is lacking. After depressing you with the above, now I'll add this.....most of the above planes that are not set up to use shared cockpit DO work, on a limited basis, and the only way to find out what works and what doesnt is to try them. Usually you have problems with the AP readouts, so you have to experiment with each plane to see what works and what doesnt. It's not a 'commercial' plane, but one I can reccomend that works well is the EagleSoft CJ1. It has a very simple FMC and outside of a few small things, it works great for shared cockpit and is a good 'trainer' for it. Although they are beautifull planes, if shared SP is your specific goal, stay away from Captain Sim, you can't even join their cockpits, let alone get anthing working. Hopefully they will fix this eventually as otherwise they make a great product ( I have almost all of theirs).For a resonable price ( actually MORE than reasonable considering what you get), I would suggest the Quality Wings 757 as a first commercial plane, BUT, there are issues. As with any plane with an FMC, you both will have to program it seperatly, so both need to be identical. Also, you may have issues with the AP readouts in that you both may not see the same thing. Thats not a big problem and the workaround is to make sure the PF (pilot flying) sees the correct numbers before switching pilot control. This is a 'medium' model so some systems are user controlled and some are automatically controlled. go to their website, download the free manual, and check their forums for additional info.Re: seeing passengers, cant help you there, but there are programs that will do that. I suggest you take 'baby' steps with this, as you are getting into some fairly complicated stuff and there will be a LOT to learn. Hope this helps, let us know how you make out, and welcome to the world of FSX multiplayer, it's the best feature FS ever implemented! If you have more questions, just ask.

Could you direct me to a few high quality free-ware planes? I'm not exactly sure where to look and what's reputable as there are millions of links out there. Thanks! :)

Hmmm...where should I start? Ah yes, the Thomas Ruth Airbuses: http://library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=Thomas+Ruth&CatID=fsxac&Go=SearchThere's also Hauke Keitel, to whom has released this beautiful work of art:http://www.flightsim.com/file.php?cm=SEARCH1&fsec=0&fname=PA28R201.ZIPBest of all, if you're interested in military aviation, I have a couple of selections for you:Douglas Skyraider by Tim Conradhttp://www.flightsim.com/kdl.php?fid=153403http://www.flightsim.com/kdl.php?fid=153096http://www.flightsim.com/kdl.php?fid=152956http://www.flightsim.com/kdl.php?fid=150966Dave.

Hi,Both of you can go online with FSX launched from Ideal Flight!You will get better weather and atmospheric effects.You can compare your assessment scores after the flight.You can use flight plans tuned to your aircraft.And a great many other things...http://www.codelegend.com/Please check out the thread "this changed FSX for me" on the forum here for more information.Best regards; Steve