Do I Really Need This?

[bosflo 53]

So I finally bit the bullet and bought WF ZBAA airport scenery because I was tired of waiting for the other version. While landing I noticed that the landscape was pretty good without having ORBX Vector covering that area. I have Vector for the other areas of the world but it seems every time I have a problem with add on airports or other issues it always seems to be caused by Vector. Since I did not see too much of a difference in an area not covered I was wondering if I really need Vector. What am I getting in Vector that I can't get with non Vector?. Have you guys noticed any differences?. I do have FTX so that is fine but it's fine without Vector too. I didn't want to ask in the ORBX forums because I don't think I would get an honest opinion there. Thanks

 

[Benjamin J 751]

Vector will give you updated roads, coast lines, etc (which is based on 'vector' data, hence the name of the addon: 'Vector'), so yes, areas that are covered by vector should look massively improved. personally I have found Vector a real boon. It's true it can cause issues with third party airports due to the elevation corrections that Vector ships with. However, for that reason you can manually deactivate these correction in vector's interface (elevation correction tab). Do not bother to use the automatic detection, as this process does not analyze the xml-based method to add scenery to P3D, rather it only considers the scenery.cfg (which personally I use as little as possible). All in all I would highly recommend keeping vector active, for at least in the regions that are covered, it will make everything look 100% better, at least in my opinion.

My one gripe with vector is that 'the west' seems to enjoy much more complete coverage than the rest of the world. I'm guessing this has everything to do with the availability of data. E.g. the northern coast of Iran, on the Caspian sea, seems to be entirely default, but the highways around Tehran appear to be fairly up to date. Similarly, it seems to me that the coast of Panama City is rather default-looking too, but the US and the EU looks great.

[edpatino 1,960]

25 minutes ago, Benjamin J said:

Do not bother to use the automatic detection, as this process does not analyze the xml-based method to add scenery to P3D

Have you tried to use the Lorby-SI Addon Organizer to generate a temporary Scenery.CFG file with all your scenery, including those added through the addons.xml method, to allow Vector's AEC to automatically apply the altitude corrections?.

Cheers, Ed

[Benjamin J 751]

3 minutes ago, edpatino said:

Have you tried to use the Lorby-SI Addon Organizer to generate a temporary Scenery.CFG file with all your scenery, including those added through the addons.xml method, to allow Vector's AEC to automatically apply the altitude corrections?.

Cheers, Ed

I have not, no. I use his excellent addon organizer to bring all those scenery.cfg addons straight to the xml-based system as soon as they are installed, though. My flow for installing sceneries:

1. Install the scenery (duh)
2. Make any necessary changes in Lorby's addon organizer (e.g. convert to xml, change the position in the library etc)
3. Manually check in Vector if altitude correction files need to be deactivated.

As such I don't really have any elevation issues in any airports, as I take care of any potential conflicts right of the bat. I generally do not like to mess with the scenery.cfg. I've had nightmarish troubles with that file in the past and thus want to steer clear of it as much as I can. Really the only scenery in there is OrbX's as well as default scenery files.

[jhaley 8]

For me, I love the way Vector adds ice and frozen surfaces to lakes and waterbodies during the winter.   I can start in Canada in the winter with snow and ice textures, end up someplace warm those textures are gone.     UTX is way better for performance, but their scenery seasons don't cut it.    I agree Vector is horrible for elevation issues and I don't know if it's vector or global or LC, but there is always a long pause nearing the destination airport after I install Orbx.    After anywhere from 5-10 seconds, the pause ends and flying resumes.    

But the textures with global are super.  

JH  

Edited November 16, 2018 by jhaley

[mtrainer 136]

I liked the added detail Vector brings, but early this year when I re-installed everything Vector was the only ORBX product I didn't reload- of all the add-ons I own (plenty) Vector had the largest performance impact.   I'll load it back in through when I build a new rig.

Mark

 

[Christopher Low 5,341]

I assume that there was no way for ORBx to avoid messing about with airport elevations when they developed FTX Vector? I have seen lots of posts (on the UK2000 forums and elsewhere) regarding elevation issues with addon airports, and a large percentage of them have been caused by the alterations made by FTX Vector.....

[Guest]

Vector is the one Orbx product I never liked and never use. Luckily I bought only one Vector region. I'll never reinstall that one again. It can be a performance killer, introduces elevation problems, and imho it doesn't look good either. I prefer Orbx regions all the way.

[Benjamin J 751]

3 hours ago, J van E said:

Vector is the one Orbx product I never liked and never use. Luckily I bought only one Vector region. I'll never reinstall that one again. It can be a performance killer, introduces elevation problems, and imho it doesn't look good either. I prefer Orbx regions all the way.

But, there are no regions? You have Vector and it covers the world... You sure you don't mean UTX, which does come in distinct regional packs?

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Benjamin J said:

But, there are no regions? You have Vector and it covers the world... You sure you don't mean UTX, which does come in distinct regional packs?

Ah LOL forgot about that, haha! Well, I own the whole world of Vector then but I don't use it anymore anyway. I only fly where there are FTX regions and for quite a few years already I mainly fly in FTX Norway.

[dave2013 1,123]

It's been almost a year and a half since the last FTX Vector update and according to ORBX there's one more release still pending.  Hopefully the developers have had enough time to finally fix the airport elevation problems as well as get the elevation correction tool to work with the P3Dv4 XML scenery file.  We'll see...

Dave

[CFIJose 5,485]

v1.6 has just been released. I usually optimistic, but I doubt that the issues with stutters or field elevation discussed on this thread have been addressed. It's still one addon that I have on my list of regretful purchases.