Hi, I posted this in scenery design forum, but maybe that was the wrong place, so I thought I'd ask here. I am trying hard to increase the realism of the landscape in Michigan. In particular, south east michigan (livonia, plymouth, 1D2, etc.) and the Detroit area. I am now ready to buy a third-party add-on, but am a little confused as to what "features" I should be looking for. For example, I know that in my area the mesh/terrain is relatively flat, so that's not AS important to me as the overall look of the landscape. So far, I believe that products such as FScene 2004, FSGenesis, MyWorld 2004 may meet my needs. Are there any others I should consider? What are your thoughts on these products? What features/benefits should I be looking for? Thanks again for any insight.(As a side note, the folks over at MyWorld were kind enough to post a screenshot of my airport. But...I was disappointed by the results. Here is the link to that: http://forums.simflight.com/viewtopic.php?t=20448&highlight= Do you think that I may experience this same problem with the other land class products?) Well, thanks to all who take their time to offer their opinions and advice, I greatly appreciate it...!Regards, SteveSystem Specs:MSI 865PE-NEO2-LS, P4 2.8 Ghz/800Mhz FSB HT, 1GB KingMax PC3200/DDR400, Windows XP Pro w/DirectX9.0c, Main: Western Digital Raptor 10K rpm 36GB - 2nd: Maxtor ATA133 7200rpm 120GB - CD-RW: Lite-On 52x32x52, BFG Tech GeForce 6800 GT OC 256MB GDDR3 AGP Graphics Card w/official 61.77 drivers, SoundBlaster Audigy 2 w/6.1 speakers, USB CH Flight Sim Yoke and Rudder Pedals

Landclass is inherently very inaccurate since it's designed to cover very large areas of terrain using very coarse data and small file sizes. Only "hand-crafted" landclass files look reasonably accurate but those are rare and only cover smal areas. However, the FSGenesis landclass covers the entire US and is supposed to be quite accurate. Try http://portal.fsgenesis.net. I'm sure that someone there could post a screenshot of the same airport for you to compare.FScene is just replacement textures. The layout of scenery features will be the same, they will just look different. Depending on where you live, it will either look better or worse than default.MyWorld and FSGenesis are different because they re-arrange the existing textures (be those FScene, default or some other replacement set) to create a more accurate scenery. It's important to not confuse the two.

I've also written a utility called Landclass Assistant that allows you to "touch up" landclass and make it more appropriate to the area you live in. If my tool seems counterintuitive, Russ Dirks also wrote EZLandclass which does much the same. Both of our tools use a little utility, FSConnect, that Russ wrote.Regards,John, Author-Landclass Assistant

Thanks to both of you! John, I'm intrigued by your Landclass Assistant. I looked in the AvSim Library but am confused as to which files I will need. I assume the latest update I will need (lca-140), but what is the "base" file I need to install? Regards, SteveSystem Specs:MSI 865PE-NEO2-LS, P4 2.8 Ghz/800Mhz FSB HT, 1GB KingMax PC3200/DDR400, Windows XP Pro w/DirectX9.0c, Main: Western Digital Raptor 10K rpm 36GB - 2nd: Maxtor ATA133 7200rpm 120GB - CD-RW: Lite-On 52x32x52, BFG Tech GeForce 6800 GT OC 256MB GDDR3 AGP Graphics Card w/official 61.77 drivers, SoundBlaster Audigy 2 w/6.1 speakers, USB CH Flight Sim Yoke and Rudder Pedals

The base file was the original install package.... It's a larger download than all the rest, and has some documentation with it and it sets up some base files. Locating the FS2000 tools that Landclass Assistant still uses may be a greater challenge. Last time I checked, FSNordic.net still hosted some of the needed files from Microsoft.LCA (and EZLandclass) are really useful for "spot" touch ups of city sized areas, although LCA was used on a project to redo most of Florida. If you search the library, you'll find a few other projects LCA was used for. I wrote the program originally to add Carson City/Minden/Gardnerville to Nevada... That metro area was missing from FS2002--100,000+ souls vanished :)-John