FSX-SE Is ASCA worth it?

[SoloPilot 2]

I recently purchased AS16 and REX 5, and heard that ASCA is really good. I’m already loving the two add ones that I purchased. I’m wondering, is it worth it? What are your opinions on it? What benefit do I get from it, considering that I already have AS16 and SkyForce 3D?

[ESzczesniak 128]

I have not experimented extensively, but have both ASCA and REX TD.  After a reinstall I had put REX TD back in before ASCA and something seemed to be much better than I remember with ASCA.  Like I said, hardly scientific, but I think ASCA was early to the P3D v4 texture game, but has been surpassed.  The one nice thing was that it would automatically pick clouds based on the flightplans weather, but not something I've missed. 

Edited November 28, 2018 by ESzczesniak

[scottb613 1,188]

Hi Folks,

One feature in ASCA that's not available anywhere else (to the best of my knowledge) - when combined with ASP4 - is you get dynamic changing sky textures in real time - over the duration of your flight... Personally - I chose ENVTEX as my addon texture pack - even though I already owned REX TD - because ENVTEX is fully compatible with HiFi products and loads their sky/clouds textures directly into ASCA - keeping the "dynamic" sky feature in tact... Whether any of this matters to you - is for you to decide...

Regards,
Scott

Edited November 28, 2018 by scottb613

[scianoir 610]

I also use an Active Sky weather engine (AS16) with the ASCA/ENVTEX combination and I am very pleased with the overall results. As well as the benefit of dynamic sky textures, this combination also significantly improves haze and fog effects. Previously I had used weather textures from Rex Essential + Overdrive but moving to ASCA/ENVTEX textures was a definite improvement on these. However as Sky Force 3D is Rex’s latest weather product, I would expect it might come with improved textures but, as I have never used it, I cannot say how Sky Force 3D would compare with the ASCA/ENVTEX combination. 

Bill

[SoloPilot 2]

Okay, thanks for the input! I’ve found the SkyForce 3D is quite amazing, and seems similar to ENVTEX. I think I’ll just stick with what I have for now. 

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

3 hours ago, SoloPilot said:

Okay, thanks for the input! I’ve found the SkyForce 3D is quite amazing, and seems similar to ENVTEX. I think I’ll just stick with what I have for now. 

I think that is a wise choice, although ASCA is very good. But the SkyForce cloud textures and structures are the best one could see in any sim, no matter what add-on is used. I get the impression that Tim and Reed over at REX are students of the International Cloud Atlas. Their efforts with SkyForce could only be improved if the target sim had 3D clouds rather than billboard sprites.