5 minutes ago, cavaricooper said:

@Wise87

Manually REMOVE the storage fee before purchase. BACK UP the installer.

I just updated my post. I'm going to wait on the Marketplace. The $6.99 Download Protection Service (DPS) is only good for 24 months. The MP is good forever and will contain the latest version. DPS must be a new FSDT service. Never had to worry about this with previous products. But then again were not using the live updater. 

Edited January 10, 20215 yr by Wise87

Nice! Full of AI Aircrafts! Love them.

Edited January 10, 20215 yr by Manny

1 hour ago, Jeff Nielsen said:

Actually, It can't.  Also, it's never happened in the history of flight sim.

Actually it has. There was a short period in the mid to late 90's when multiple airlines prohibited flightsim software developers from using their liveries. I know for a fact that American Airlines was one of them. There were lawyers involved and cease and desist letters sent. I forget exactly how it got resolved.

10 minutes ago, mwilk said:

Actually it has. There was a short period in the mid to late 90's when multiple airlines prohibited flightsim software developers from using their liveries. I know for a fact that American Airlines was one of them. There were lawyers involved and cease and desist letters sent. I forget exactly how it got resolved.

That was copyright, not trademark, If memory serves me correctly.

Aerosoft and other EU vendors need to learn from FSDT and FlyTampa in pricing airports for MSFS.

Any of you have trees all over the place throughout the airport? That's what I ended up with.

 

22 minutes ago, Manny said:

 

Yes, mine looks like that but with trees everywhere.

21 minutes ago, lehbird said:

Yes, mine looks like that but with trees everywhere.

Try reinstalling? and make sure you don't have any freeware for KSDF

Edited January 10, 20215 yr by Manny

Guys, FSDT, like FlyTampa, always listen to their customers and improve their airports. So please let's stop the is it worth $6 NONsense?

2 hours ago, Wise87 said:

The $6.99 Download Protection Service (DPS) is only good for 24 months. The MP is good forever and will contain the latest version. DPS must be a new FSDT service. Never had to worry about this with previous products

It has been like this for all our products for MSFS so far, we tried to explain so many times, and in this case we even tried to explain it in the email about the KSDF update:

- The reason why there's a Download protection service, it's because our products for MSFS don't have a Trial, because we don't have any software running with them in MSFS, like we do in FSX/P3D (Couatl + Addon Manager), they are JUST sceneries and, there's no technical means to make a Trial right now, at least not without adding extra software JUST to allow the Trial. Here I'm not 100% accurate: since the last update, this might be easier to do with the updated SDK but, if we did that, it would be *just* for the Trial.

I always tried to explain our Addon Manager / Couatl software is used for SO MUCH more than "just" offering a Trial and act as DRM, we surely will introduce it back, but do USEFUL things, like GSX, Docking Systems, the custom Cargo load at KSDF.

When we'll have GSX and all these things fully working in MSFS, we can then reintroduce the Trial and the always freely available downloads too, because when I said we wouldn't add a software *just* to allow a Trial and do DRM, I MEAN IT, and the way our sceneries for MSFS are working is proving exactly that, since they run *without* any software, the only thing related to licensing is that users without a license won't be able to keep the scenery updated with the Live Updater because, while we can tolerate someone would want so hard to pirate a 9.99$/6.99$ product, at least we shouldn't pay bandwidth for him!

So, because there's no Trial, there's no freely available download for everybody, but that doesn't mean you are forced to buy Digital River Download protection.

That service is an OPTION, which you can just Remove from the cart. Just store the installer in a safe place ( the best possible place being a cloud service, like Google Drive or Dropbox or OneDrive ) because, by default, the normal download link from Digital River lasts only 30 days with no Download Protection, otherwise it's 24 months at most. Unfortunately, 24 months is the longest Digital River allow to do. And, we cannot offer that option as an opt-in, it's either enabled by default so you must Remove it, or it's not available at all.

We don't make ANY money on the Download Protection, that's why Digital River doesn't allow us to show it "disabled" with an option to Enable it, they want to push it, because they make more money from that then from their normal processing fee.

However, this doesn't mean you risk "losing" your purchase, even if you don't want to buy the Download Protection. We don't not suggest you should, and we recommend keeping a backup of the installer instead so, what happens if you decided not to buy the Download protection ( or you have, but more than 2 years passed), and you haven't made a backup and you lost the installer ?

In ALL cases, we will always let you download the installer , you will just have to contact support and we WILL provide you with the installer, no questions asked, THAT'S why we suggest NOT to buy the Download Protection, because you are buying an FSDT product, and we'll never ask anybody to re-purchase anything.

The thing is, we say "do a backup", as the first, sane option, because it's best for everyone, you won't have to wait for our reply in case you lose the installer, and we don't have to spent time which would be better spent in...doing *actual* products, by replying all day to users that forgot to backup the installer. So, backup should be always the first option, but in case you haven't done it, FSDT support will always be there to let you download it again.

Edited January 10, 20215 yr by virtuali

4 hours ago, cavaricooper said:

the grass leaves me a bit underwhelmed, and the concrete apron edges have the flat look of earlier sims

The grass issue right now is more like an MSFS limitation, which is likely to be removed in future upgrades of the SDK. Right now, the kind of grass you get depends on the underlying aerial image, its density and color depends on the colors of that Bing tiles underneath.

So, for example, at Basel and Zurich we got "lucky", because the underlying aerial Bing area is very nice green, so we got nice and healthy grass, and this mislead both users and reviewers we "did a good job on grass" there, when we in fact didn't ( and couldn't ) do anything.

The opposite happened for CYVR: the underlying Bing image has been taken in Fall, so we didn't got much grass there, and this mislead both users and reviewers we "didn't do as good as job on grass" there. I'd say KSDF is something in the middle between these two cases, grass is not as lush as in Zurich or Basel, but not as sparse as in CYVR. 

In *theory*, if we made a custom aerial, we could control grass too but, as usual, things are not always so simple.

The way MSFS works, is that aerial images are not always "pure" aerials. If the original Bing image has issues like clouds, they are marked as such, and in those areas they are replaced by textures created procedurally. Anyone ever wondered what the "Texture Synthesis" option really means ? It means which resolution the sim should use to create textures on the fly to patch up holes. And, here's the issue: when these kind of textures are used, even if you DO create your own custom aerial, you lost control again of your grass. In areas marked with synthetic textures, the grass won't be following your custom aerial anymore. We THINK this is a bug ( or at least a limitation ), and of course we reported it to Asobo, so it might be eventually fixed.

And, custom aerials come with their own issues as well, apart from the grass. There's still the issue that, if two airports both come with their own custom aerial and they share the same QMID quadrant, only of them will show, that's something Aerosoft learned the hard way, when they did two airports in Norway more than 100 miles one from each other, but still in the same quadrant, and the only option for users to solve the conflict was to remove the aerial from one of them. So, we try to stay away from aerials if possible until this problem get fixed, and surely using them "just" to get a better grass is not worth the risk of conflicts.

A better possible fix, which is also under consideration, is allowing for the Projected Mesh feature to control the grass INSTEAD of the aerial image.

Projected meshes are a wonderful feature, which has SAVED the airport scenery market. Without it, we ( not just "us", but *every* other scenery developer out there ) would have to remake all their products entirely from scratch, resulting in many more months of waiting before getting fast access to all those sceneries you had in FSX/P3D and, of course, you forget those low prices.

So, we all use this feature, which also has the advantage of supporting PBR, which doesn't work on aerials so, Projected Mesh can look better too so, if they would be able to get us control of the grass generation, it would be the best possible solution and, my hope is that once Asobo fixes this, it might "just work" for existing sceneries, or they would require very minor changes.

Yes, the scenery edges are a bit sharp and yes, it IS possible to get softer edges, but this is more easily done with a scenery made from scratch, on a converted scenery you must work with what you have, but that's why those sceneries are so cheap!

I keep hearing stories about the fantastic increase of sales possible "just" because of the increased user base in MSFS and the MS Marketplace. While it is true that sales has been generally better than before, offering a *large* airport made entirely from scratch for MSFS for 6.99$ or 9.99$ is still not possible, I don't think such scenery even exists yet, every scenery you see has been converted from something else in some way, at least the for the bigger airports.

Edited January 10, 20215 yr by virtuali

@virtuali I always appreciate your honesty and insight. I look forward to FSDT’s increased product offerings in MSFS.

C

Virtuali, any surprise additions for this scenery, such as the Lincoln bridge?

4 hours ago, cavaricooper said:

I await more astute reviews from people like @mrfilbert ...

I'll do my best, but I can't promise I'll get round to this one I'm afraid. There are so many releases that I just can't keep up and I'm at the stage now where I'm having to be a bit picky. 

Southend, Bastia Poretta, Milan Malpensa & Islamabad are all waiting on the 'big airport list', and I have 6 smaller GA airfields that I've been promising developers I'll take a look at when I get the chance. I've also ramped up my live streaming recently... this'll probably come as no surprise to you, but flying is more fun than reviewing airports! 😉

That said, the reviews will keep coming and, if I do get round to reviewing this one, you'll be the first to know.