CaptainCWGAllen hit the nail on the head I think, the spirit of the flight Sim franchise as a whole is built on the backs of third party development....

 

The airport gateway, in my opinion, makes X-Plane the "people's sim".....Willing contributions from the community that bring us some detailed airports with a provided tool from Laminar.....

 

I think it's exciting to see the creativity of others in xpx.....

 

X-Plane is a fantastic system and Laminar does a great job of refining that system and provides developers tools to enhance it...

 

I think this is key to X-Planes future, it's brilliant. You bring in more creative minds with different ideas that innovate and push limits....One only has to look at a closed platform like MS Flight to see why Flight Simulation must stay an open platform....

 

Just my too cents, maybe I'm biased because I am a developer.....

 

Back to these 25,000 airports.....Yeah they are not perfect but it's a brilliant start and a free offering from someone very creative who is trying to fill a much needed void.....Give support and feedback, who knows they may refine it into something more accurate in the future....

Yes development is slow but by now it has come quite a long way, to the point where I'll cautiously claim that this is now my preferred sim platform out there. 

 

The new airport buildings make a big difference, even for a guy like me who often skips the whole taxi experience and starts straight off the runway, engines running and all :blush:  

 

My preference is performance, and x-plane is simply more logically tweakable. If that makes any sense. 

+10   Enjoying having structure, where there was not...!

 

Well, those structures are actually still "where they are not", but it's good you're enjoying them.

 

 

The new airport buildings make a big difference, even for a guy like me who often skips the whole taxi experience and starts straight off the runway, engines running and all

 

 

Buildings and tarmacs, etc, nowhere resembling being where or what they are supposed to be "made the big difference for you"?  

 

That's the "simulation" you're going for?

 

I guess I must be the only person that actually flies an airplane in places where I'm very familiar with what's out there, and would like it to resemble real world airport data I'm flying with (like the diagrams and sat views)

 

I'm happy everyone got, basically, airport auto-gen for X-Plane I guess.

From a realism perspective it's a huge turn off to me, which of course is why I'm not using it.

 

 

CaptainCWGAllen hit the nail on the head I think, the spirit of the flight Sim franchise as a whole is built on the backs of third party development....

 

And that's just how Microsoft did it. I was a MSFS beta tester for three versions (2002, FS9, FSX). Most if not all, third party developers were right there in the test process, by invite.  

 

My thoughts, regarding these sims past..      Microsoft used the term, "As real as it gets".  I went with that, because it really did have real world navigation & airport databases by design. It was planned. This elevated it above game status, because it could easily be used for real world practice, such as flying to unknown airports beforehand. Living and flying in a real life mountainous area, as I did, I found this to be extremely useful.  I would know the surrounding terrain, and runway layouts, all in advance. So much for the "game" versus "simulation" mentality, that I've often seen on various forums. Even though MSFS was listed under games, it was, and still is, very real world.

 

But.................I'm not complaining about X-Plane. I've owned versions, 8,9, & 10................and know what to expect beforehand. No surprises for me.  I do prefer actual airport databases, and have downloaded some very good airport scenery, such as that from Mr.X.  With an Alaska airport, the X-Plane mountains, and a decent third party airplane, X-Plane was sensational for re-creating my mountain flight experiences. Note, I do the same with FSX and Orbx. I like not sticking with one sim. I don't have too.

 

 

X-Plane was sensational for re-creating my mountain flight experiences. Note, I do the same with FSX and Orbx. I like not sticking with one sim. I don't have too.

 

+1 on that - NOTHING beats XPX right now for the look of mountains, although the Extended DSF fix didn't make Mt. Rainier at KBFI RWY 13 come to life like it should, sadly.

Buildings and tarmacs, etc, nowhere resembling being where or what they are supposed to be "made the big difference for you"?  

 

Compared to being completely empty as they were, then yes. Improves the immersion quite alot. I'm usually not familiar with the airports I fly from in the sim. Because of OSM coverage I mostly fly in France, Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

Compared to being completely empty as they were, then yes. Improves the immersion quite alot. I'm usually not familiar with the airports I fly from in the sim.

 

Fair enough.

 

To each their own and if you're flying to airports you're not familiar with it make sense that you would not find it important. 

 

It does of course mean that using real world data to orient yourself will be pointless at and around those airports. 

 

Perhaps it fits in nicely with Austin's "plausible world" concept I guess

Dude we get it.....

I guess I must be the only person that actually flies an airplane in places where I'm very familiar with what's out there, and would like it to resemble real world airport data I'm flying with (like the diagrams and sat views)

 

So by your own admission you mostly (or exclusively) fly places you're "very familiar with". Can I ask you what places are those? I'm sure no one on earth is familiar with 24.000 cities. More like, 10 or 50 or 100 cities at most (if you're a globetrotter). Isn't there freeware scenery available for those in X-Plane? I'd think a person very familiar with a city/airport, would find default FSX/P3D scenery quite unsatisfying as well, and use scenery add-ons. Remember that, as CaptainCWGAllen said, X-Plane out of the box is already better for VFR navigation than FSX or P3D.

So by your own admission you mostly (or exclusively) fly places you're "very familiar with". Can I ask you what places are those? I'm sure no one on earth is very familiar with 24.000 cities. More like, 10 or 50 or 100 cities at most. Isn't there freeware scenery available for those in X-Plane? I'd think a person very familiar with a city/airport, would find default FSX/P3D scenery quite unsatisfying as well, and use scenery add-ons. Remember that, as CaptainCWGAllen said, X-Plane out of the box is already better for VFR navigation than FSX or P3D.

 

 

I think we're talking about two different things here.

 

For my personal preferences I'd rather not have buildings tarmacs and taxiways added in the wrong places as that actually just goes against real world data for the airport. 

 

If you're going to places you're not familiar this is the opposite of what you want since you can't reference actual data you might be looking at since the airports are inaccurate now. 

Again I think we understand your position on this beautiful FREE add-on, I don't want to blow your mind but it's safe to say, no matter how many times you say it, some people will not agree with you....

Didn't read all this thread but saw some talking about Xplane's slow development and why it didn't become THE thing.

 

Sometime ago there was a post in the developers blog about why X-plane doesn't have all of those "mandatory" stuff that MSFS had.

It makes sense , before microsoft stoped supporting no body really thought about an alternative , Xplane had a completely different type of customers.

After MSFS was no longer supported , and with Xplane10's release , people were looking into it , therefore we can hear all negative stuff compared to MSFS , as simmers are eager for something new.

 

Within Xplane10's run something really changed , if many scenery companies started looking at Xplane seriously , if even PMDG which is the most popular developer for MSFS , are now planing a future to eventually bring their fleet to this platform , it proves that something new (and good) is happening in Xplane's world.

And not mentionig groups like IXEG.

 

IMO i x-plane10's run a process was started , a process which Xplane is becoming more popular , and Xplane will continue growing in the next major version.

Xplane has a HUGE potential to become the true Next-gen ... to me it seems like LR now knows that.

Well, those structures are actually still "where they are not", but it's good you're enjoying them.

--------------------------------------------

 

As one poster stated, I truly don't know about every airport I have approached and landed into....that if the buildings sit exactly as in real life...no...but what I DO KNOW, is how great this gracious gift was in populating buildings, fences, services, static aircraft, into what was just a runway....taxiways...to nothing...grey squares of ground texture. Yepper..I'm having a blast now flying over territory...seeing an airport property...not having a clue what it is...but seeing the immersion of a plausible airport and tarmac.  I touch and go...and fly to the next one.  This gift was huge for my enjoyment...and so glad that the dev shared it with us.

 

Let's see:  Airport properties that might not have full real-life fidelity, or grey squares of nothing, but a runway all by its lonesome.  Hmmmm...easy choice...and that 'choice' is installed just below my Global Airports entry... 

Going back to an earlier post in this thread regarding my ongoing database of installed custom scenery:

 

I do not have a suitable "cloud" server that I use where I can upload my spreadsheet of airports.  I would be happy to send a copy to anyone requesting it.  FYI, the fields include the ICAO, name, country (and state in the U.S.), filename (which I use to check against updated versions), date of installation, source (if known), and version (if given).  It is in no way "complete", just what I've installed since I began collecting "missing" airfields.  I believe I misspoke earlier - there are just short of 4,300 ICAOs in the list to date, not counting default or the 25,000 in this thread.  Most are available on .org, those from alternate sources are so listed.  There are no commercial airfields in the database yet.

 

I will be away from wifi connections for a week, but send me a personal message and I'll find a way to get a copy to you.

I do not have a suitable "cloud" server that I use where I can upload my spreadsheet of airports.

If I might suggest sites like Google Docs where you can import your current file and set it to (read only) share with everyone. By this, any changes you make instantly make it into the 'live' document, visible to all and very bandwidth-efficient. :smile:

 

Should me much easier than handling individual PMs and update local files.