Hi all.I've been encountering a few of these in my flying simulation career, which is slowly being outpaced by my soon-to-be-awarded Phd in Tweaking and Troubleshooting (specialization: config file editing and software re-installing).Please have a look at the attachment enclosed.The latter, undocumented by modern geographical charts (remains of Atlantis, perhaps?) on a flight from EGLL to KBOS, just passing the eastern coast of Ireland.Actually, I know there's one of "these" (documented by other simmers) somewhere south of Nice (French riviera), one in the mediterranean, east of the Aeolian islands (north of Sicily) and one (in fs2002, though; haven't checked if it's still there in Fs9) between southern Portugal and northern Africa (Gibraltar).Usually these things pop up in the sim when you're just about to think it's becoming "as real as it gets".Guess in programming the sim they couldn't avoid leaving a few quirks here and there, just to remind us we're only sitting in front of a monitor. ;-)By the way, when is MS going to provide a decent graphic engine for their sim? I mean, something that can keep up with today's technology! Criticism and sarcasm aside, I'm "almost" satisfied with Fs9.Although, I' would like to know if there's a way to get rid of these goofy looking "artificial islands", or they're just therefor us to discover! (and for our viewing pleasure, of course)ciao to all.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/64288.jpg

Some coordinates would be nice. Then we could confirm if this is from the default BGLs or from some addon scenery.Of course, if the point of the post is to complain about Microsoft, you did a pretty good job.Dick

Hi,I've got these rectangular islands at many places.They are mostly due to custom landclass files.So try to remove any custom landclass of the areas where these "islands" appear and fly again to look if they are gone.Hope it helpsJean-Claude

I have one of those just outside the Thames estuary. I don't have any landclass files in that area at all and I think it was there before I installed any landclass whatsoever.Misha

Excuse me if I insist, but for a happy rhumbaflappy ;-), I've decided to post a pic with coordinates, for anyone willing to confirm.Thanks again.Luca

Hi all:A landclass file by itself won't create land in an ocean or lake; as Rhumba indicates, some default (probably) or add-on (maybe) Land-Water-Mask (LWM) file has declared this LOD13 area as land rather than water. To fix this, one would have to do the opposite: write a piece of .asm code (or use one of the scenery utilities) and declare that section as water.I think it's important to keep in mind that this sim covers the entire planet! The FS development team used existing (!) digital elevation, vector, and polygon data and translated those - in some automated fashion - into the FS data format. Only very few places were edited or added by hand. It's possible that they made mistakes with the translation software (and these square islands could be on of those) but most of the problems are in the source data. In other words, for most of the "glitches" it's more accurate to blame ESRI or NASA or the USGS than the FS design team ;-)Cheers, Holger

Yep, I have it too:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/64711.jpgI guess it's things like this that gives the sim character ;) Could always use it as a navigation aid - "Yes Capt'n we're on course, I can see that thingymebob down there. You know, we saw it last trip"There is so much that is good about this sim, I think we can easily overlook little glitches such as this example, don't you agree?Mike

Thanks, Luca.:)Actually, this is a tiny landclass square in the default worldlc.bgl ( seen in TMFViewer ):http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/64712.jpgHere's an oddity that's a misplaced shoreline:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/64713.jpgThe landclass may actually reflect the position of a tiny island or rock in the ocean, but perhaps not masked by LWM polys in the sim. When I checked the Olson landclassification data ( from which MS' landclass is derived ) it doesn't show the stray data... The rogue LOD13 landclass wasn't in FS2000, but it is in CFS2 and FS2002 as well. ( More info than anyone wanted to know ). :-lol They can be masked over as an LWM poly, to make it water, or a landclass file could be made to make the LC value as 100 ( water ).Dick

There's a good sized one south east out of Southend England too, big enough to land on.

Sorry to veer away from the subject here- but your horizon is beautiful! If you don't mind me asking what you have done to get the ugly "line" from your horizon I would much appreciate it!BTW- I have tried everything from table fog = 0 or 1, different sky textures (as found here on AVSIM downloads), different settings in FSUIPC, and more, but with no luck. I always get an ugly "line" where horizon meets the ocean or land.Thanks in advance!

Thank you very much, Dick, for your detailed answer.Is there anyway I can do what you suggest (turning the square into water) myself?The thing is, there's another one of these wich I recall being much larger and rather annoying (south of Nice, French riviera). I have to check for coordinates.I recon it's not much of a big deal.Just trying to waste a bit of my precious time! ;-)cheers,luca

Wow Tom!If a woman was to tell me: "Your horizon is beautiful!", I think I would ask her to marry me right away!Ok, pardon me for a bit of humour, and on with the facts.My horizons have greatly improved since using ActiveSky2004. It's a product which I strongly suggest buying if you want your sim to improve. Sometimes I'm dazzled by the beauty of the weather it creates. It does have a hit on framerates, though, so you better have a fairly powerful machine if you are interested.Other than that, I have visibility setting to 80 miles and cloud draw distance maxed out.No other strange tweaks applied.I hope this helps, and I think correct and realistic weather display is the key for gorgeous visuals. I took many screenshots on my last flights, and am quite satisfied with how things look.Aside from an obsolete graphic engine and a tendency in being too sensible to hardware, fs9 is not bad.cheers,luca

Hi luca.I used Russ Dirks EZ_landclass version2 to make a couple of landclass files. I put them in a project folder ( containing a "scenery" folder, and NO "texture" folder ). This project folder can just be added to the sim with the Scenery Library. I'm attaching the zipped files.The landclass value used for ocean is 100.Dick

Hi Rhumba:thanks for the quick "service" and the correction of my erroneous statement - guess I've learned something new today ;-) Cheers, Holger

WOAH!Thank you so much!I love these forums!This means you actually found the other rectangle south of Nice?Your kind effort has been immensly appreciated.BTW, I now remember of another square island which annoys me quite a bit. It's somwhere north of Sicily, but I haven't been flying there for while.Damn, everywhere I go I seem to be running into these.Is there anywhere I can get this EZ_landclass program, so I can start fiddling around myself?I love messing around!Thanks again!cheers,luca