12 hours ago, Kilo60 said:

Coming soon:

 

Orbx Powerlines for MSFS!!!

With Voltage Flow.

16 hours ago, UAL4life said:

First of all the sim is really fun and I really enjoy it as a guy who mainly was flying airliners to now flying GA...

But I don’t get where you are getting the idea that they will add something like powerlines or towers? Yes they will improve the product over time but there is nothing specific that they have said about the matter. Every thread it’s “they will add it later” yes maybe, but not for sure until it’s announced. 
 

or am I wrong? Has it been announced?

I don't know if it's been announced or not, but I think if MSFS is set to be a competitor to sims like XPlane, then they need to add powerlines and towers (and railways), because these are included in XPlane out of the box. They definitely need the radio towers if Asobo wants MSFS to be taken seriously as a flight simulator, IMHO.

12 minutes ago, Keto Ketchup said:

I don't know if it's been announced or not, but I think if MSFS is set to be a competitor to sims like XPlane, then they need to add powerlines and towers (and railways), because these are included in XPlane out of the box. They definitely need the radio towers if Asobo wants MSFS to be taken seriously as a flight simulator, IMHO.

Comments like this just leave me shaking my head...   Yep, Radio towers are absolutely what determine if it's a serious flight simulator...  I remember them all over the place when I was in the real life sim...  Oh wait, no I don't because the graphics fidelity was actually garbage but somehow it was still a real simulator LOL...  There are a TON of aspects of "flight simulation" that have no dependence on radio towers... 

9 minutes ago, psolk said:

Comments like this just leave me shaking my head...   Yep, Radio towers are absolutely what determine if it's a serious flight simulator...

If you're flying GA VFR over my neck of rural America, radio towers are one of the biggest visual aids and hazards to avoid. There are close to half a dozen very tall towers on hills in vicinity of my home airport alone. As @RamonB said, radio towers are on the official flight charts, so of course they belong in a flight simulator.

As for graphic fidelity, I thought for sure there were radio towers (though obviously not all of them) in my Commodore 64 version of flight simulator. Granted, they were simple vertical lines, but IIRC they were there.

The trouble with adding powerlines or at least transmission towers etc) in the sim is that they are hardly visible on sattelite photo's, if at all. Their might be maps that show them already in which case that information can be acquired and used but adding them manually for the whole world is a giant task.

Importantly, they have to be in the exact same spot in the sim as in reality, otherwise they would be of little use for VFR.

1 hour ago, Keto Ketchup said:

I don't know if it's been announced or not, but I think if MSFS is set to be a competitor to sims like XPlane, then they need to add powerlines and towers (and railways), because these are included in XPlane out of the box. They definitely need the radio towers if Asobo wants MSFS to be taken seriously as a flight simulator, IMHO.

You can unistall MSFS and play X-plane.

 

26 minutes ago, orchestra_nl said:

The trouble with adding powerlines or at least transmission towers etc) in the sim is that they are hardly visible on sattelite photo's, if at all. Their might be maps that show them already in which case that information can be acquired and used but adding them manually for the whole world is a giant task.

Importantly, they have to be in the exact same spot in the sim as in reality, otherwise they would be of little use for VFR.

Where I live, it's easy to see where the transmission lines are because a "path" is kept clear cut around them. I can even see the wires drawn on the ground textures! Now because of this, I personally don't need actual transmission line towers to use the lines as VFR aids, but I do really like the idea of having the towers and lines as eye candy. As I said before, I'm in rural America, so it's not like I've got tons of skyscrapers to look at, LOL.

I do wonder now what the OP means by power lines. I assumed he meant these high voltage trunk lines. If he expects all the poles running service to people's homes, well that's overkill IMO.

2 hours ago, Blaze said:

With Voltage Flow.

LMAO!

1 hour ago, orchestra_nl said:

Importantly, they have to be in the exact same spot in the sim as in reality, otherwise they would be of little use for VFR.

I wrote a utility for Aerofly FS2 that parsed Open Street Map data and generated a file that placed transmission tower objects in the sim.

The OSM positions are highly accurate and the data has enough auxiliary properties to vary selection of pylon objects based on voltage and number of conductors.

The OSM data is very good for NA and Europe but I am sure there are places where the data is sparse to none.

 

 

FranceVFR, obstacles et repères FSX importés dans MSFS:

450000 pylônes électriques avec balisage à proximité des aéroports, représentant l'ensemble des réseaux aériens Haute Tension et Très Haute Tension
3000 postes de transformation HT
7500 éoliennes
65000 églises, cathédrales, basiliques, chapelles et édifices religieux
55000 serres agricoles
23000 châteaux
11000 châteaux d' eau
5000 agricoles silos de stockage
12000 réservoirs industriels
14000 antennes
3500 pylônes de remontées mécaniques / téléphériques

Edited September 10, 20205 yr by eriktu

18 hours ago, tweekz said:

Found it! Mark 3:50 - but it's german.

Yes, I think it was this one I had in mind. Thanks!

18 hours ago, tweekz said:

Found it! Mark 3:50 - but it's german.

Basically he says that obstacle data is something they look to incorporate into the sim among other stuff within the nex months.

 

It may not necessarily be power lines, but so many key features which make a fight sim, a flight sim, is simply pushed aside as ‘something they’d like to work on/ will come in a future update’. 
 

MS has some serious convincing to do if they want to prove that they’re here for the simmers first. 

19 hours ago, hangar said:

Ok lets be real here...it's not power lines that are of issue, it is the transmission towers, radio towers and smoke stacks that are often useful as checkpoints in VFR planning.

I think everyone realizes you can't actually see the power "lines' themselves...which is a good reason not to go below the vasi's on approach (LOL).

You can sure see the power lines if you're flying NOE in a helicopter! 🙂 

There is no collision detection in a sim like XP, but it's still one of the fun "Oh word not allowed" moments when you pull up to avoid power lines in the sim. Not everyone flies fixed wing at 5,000+ ft. We don't have helicopters in MSFS yet, but we'll get them eventually. 

I'm not saying it's a huge priority, but if they're including the transmission towers as hazards at some point, then they might as well connect them with power lines. It doesn't appear to cause any impact on frame rate, in XP at least.
 

4 hours ago, orchestra_nl said:

The trouble with adding powerlines or at least transmission towers etc) in the sim is that they are hardly visible on sattelite photo's, if at all. Their might be maps that show them already in which case that information can be acquired and used but adding them manually for the whole world is a giant task.

Importantly, they have to be in the exact same spot in the sim as in reality, otherwise they would be of little use for VFR.

If it can be done in other sims with OSM or other data, then I don't see why Asobo couldn't do it here. The Lat/Long coordinates in a database should match up with the satellite photo-based terrain as long as it's positioned correctly.

 

20 minutes ago, Paraffin said:

You can sure see the power lines if you're flying NOE in a helicopter! 🙂 

Coincidentally, I was just about to chime in and say that we really don't need power lines until we get Helicopters.  I just couldn't decide what words to emphasize by placing them in ALL CAPS to make that point though, so settled on...

We dOn'T nEeD PowEr Lines uNtiL wE GeT HELICOPTERS!

😁

7 hours ago, Blaze said:

With Voltage Flow.

Nope! Sorry! Swing and a miss. It would be “Current Flow (tm)” not Voltage Flow 🤓