Having got their Xclass addon for europe and being quite pleased with it , I thought our American cousins might be interested in this announcement from Cloud9 ....cloud9 Xclass United StatesFollowing the users feedback, cloud9 is happy to announce the development of another Flight Simulator X native product: Xclass United States. This product improves in a considerable way the terrain of the United States continental area. Using the new raster terrain data (instead of the old vector data), Xclass United States renders the terrain with absolutely high accuracy above all for the urban and suburban areas. Xclass uses the new land class set available in the FSX only. Xclass United States is another cloud9 Flight Simulator X completely native product and not and update of old packages developed for the previous simulator versions. Expected release date: Dec 1st 2006.The product description page is here - http://tinyurl.com/yxa4dcJust in time for Christmas !Len

I also own Xclass Europe. Indeed, the landclass is much more detailed but do not expect miracles : the autumn-winter desert textures are still there for some parts of Europe. For more information, see this thread :http://forum.fscloud9.it/viewtopic.php?t=3983Jean-PaulAsus P5W DH Deluxe - Core 2 Duo E6600@3Ghz - Leadtek 7950 GT TDH 512 - 4 x 1GB Kingmax DDR2 667 CL5 RAM - 2 x 250GB Hitachi T7K250 SATA2 AHCI - Creative Audigy 2 Value - Antec Sonata 2 Case - 450W Antec SmartPower 2.0 PSU - Windows XP Pro SP2

I was hoping Alaska was part of the United States. LOL. I can't tell from the early press release, but continental US general leaves out AK/HI. I'll wait for Holger to work his magic yet again. :)Bob..

released!f.

I'm confused over this product. What does it do and why is it so cheap? The pictures look pretty good but I can't see what it does except make everything look greener. Can anyone shed some light on this for me? Thanks.

The product seems to be an allegedly improved set of landclass assignments. Thus forests are where they should be, small towns are well placed etc. I am not sure if the desert appearance of the world has been fixed.The other is a different seasons mapping that supposedly causes the correct seasons to appear in a more detailied manner than the stock Microsoft map. Unfortunately, this element seems to be terribly wrong. Pittsburgh Pa hard winter (February) is green!If it fixes the desert world of Microsoft then it is worth while. Otherwise, we can hope that the US Governmant landclass data they used is better than the stuff incorporated by Microsoft and that the seasons are fixed. Until then the jury is out.I cannot tell anything about the greening of the world's new deserts since I manually tinted many textures myself. Need to do some more testing to see if the seasons map is my fault or Cloud Nine's.Dick near 5G8

>If it fixes the desert world of Microsoft then it is worth>whileIt does:>Otherwise, we can hope that the US Governmant landclass>data they used is better than the stuff incorporated by>Microsoft.Yes, the data is more precise, because it's not much use to repaint textures or fix regions/seasons, if the landclass data beneath it's too repetitive, the great US desert in FSX it's mostly a result of a not too varied landclass in the default scenery.

I just bought it. Speaking just of southern Ohio and southwestern Virinia it's got many large office buildings where there are really only a few houses. Happily it's un-clickable from "library".

Thanks for the info but I will wait for FSGenesis Landclass which I'm sure is in the making. Had it for FS9 and it was quite good. Craig

> I just bought it. Speaking just of southern Ohio and southwestern > Virinia it's got many large office buildings where there are really > only a few houses. Happily it's un-clickable from "library".Please post a message on Cloud9 support forum with your problem (position on FSX lat lon.) and on next upgrade the problem is resolved.Regards.Alessandro Cucinotta.www.fscloud9.com

After a few quick hops over various airports from Florida,SC over to the West Coast,KLAS,KSAN, Im happy.Things look alot more colorful.Some other obserations are there appear to be less trees. However I do have most of the texture mods and autogen tweeks.I also noticed the use of some large buildings where they were not before.But overall for $10, getting some green and color was worth it.

>I just bought it. Speaking just of southern Ohio and>southwestern Virinia it's got many large office buildings>where there are really only a few houses. Happily it's>un-clickable from "library".Maybe you haven't followed how XClass Europe developement progressed: we already released 3 updates, because a Landclass product has to be developed like this, following users reports.I wonder how another Landclass product could be "better". The data sources are what they are, we simply started with the highest resolution data available, and it's way better than default but, while they are *very* good in determining terrain and vegetation, they aren't so precise discriminating the differences in built-up areas, so we had to integrate data from several other sources, and to hand-correct a lot of things, and this could only come after having heard user's reports about specific areas.The developement process is tuned to easily add such integration, in order to be able to release updates very fast. It has been working very well with XClass EU so far.

A huge improvement in my area-I look forward to exploring others. Well worth the cost.Thanks!http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg

I wonder if the screenshots BEFORE are with the settings( Autogen, scenery complexity, etc) turned down and the AFTER ones with the setting max out ? Please clarify this doubt. Thanks Carlos

>I wonder if the screenshots BEFORE are with the settings(>Autogen, scenery complexity, etc) turned down and the AFTER>ones with the setting max out ? Please clarify this doubt.Absolutely not, that would be really cheating! Same settings, just saved a flight with the scenery unchecked in the Library, took a screenshot, and reloaded the flight with the scenery checked on.Of course, a change in landclass, will change the autogen density, because each landclass "class" comes defines its own autogen so, by replacing it, you'll of course impact the autogen for that place.