6 hours ago, Shack95 said:

Unfortunately quite a few of these airports are not currently on sale at Orbx Central, but they are on other websites.

Yes! Make sure you shop around! If you find an airport you like on one store, look for the same one on Contrails, Aerosoft, Simmarket, and Orbx. Maybe include the in game store and FlightSim.to as well. I’ve seen airports range from $5 off, all the way to 75% off just by cycling stores. 
 

When the sim first came out, I wanted to just get everything through the in game store, so everything would be neatly together. But that store is more of a PITA than it’s worth, unless there’s a too good to be true sale going on. 

10 minutes ago, V1ROTA7E said:

But that store is more of a PITA than it’s worth, unless there’s a too good to be true sale going on. 

Another comment I can't relate to at all.  Every single purchase thru the Store has been flawless, easy, etc and when it's time if it is to reinstall everything it's all there ready to go w/ no need to monitor the install.

6 minutes ago, V1ROTA7E said:

When the sim first came out, I wanted to just get everything through the in game store, so everything would be neatly together. But that store is more of a PITA than it’s worth, unless there’s a too good to be true sale going on. 

Exactly the same here. I ended up buying from 5-6 different stores because of the many shortcomings of the Marketplace. To cope with the mess I keep an excel list in which I put down every addon together with the store I bought it from and when I last updated it. Admittedly, it‘s a bit tedious but without it I‘d lose track of my downloads. 

Download speeds from the MP have been sad for me even at 4am lately.  With a 30mbs connection all it could manage was 1mbs for the vision Jet G20 this morning.

sp

Edited December 27, 20223 yr by Sky_Pilot071

30 minutes ago, Noel said:

Another comment I can't relate to at all.

Fair enough. But the last straw for me (aside from the abysmal quality control) was their product update process. When iniScene updated EGLL and optimized it for better performance and quality, store owners had to wait about a month to get the update. No bueno. 

7 hours ago, Noel said:

Another comment I can't relate to at all.  Every single purchase thru the Store has been flawless, easy, etc and when it's time if it is to reinstall everything it's all there ready to go w/ no need to monitor the install.

The advantage of not buying from the marketplace is that addons can be stored anywhere e.g. on another drive, and managed through addons linker. 

26 minutes ago, Cpt_Piett said:

The advantage of not buying from the marketplace is that addons can be stored anywhere e.g. on another drive, and managed through addons linker. 

I've had no need for addons linker!  KISS is my MO ;o)

4 hours ago, Noel said:

I've had no need for addons linker!  KISS is my MO ;o)

KISS is why I use addon linker.  It simplifies addon management immensely. The only alternative would be to have almost no addons which is not really an alternative it is a work around.

To put KISS in context, the term was originally coined by Kelly Johnston (P38, U2, SR71) in an endeavour to get across to his engineers that the SR71 needed as far as practicable to be repaired by normal airfield mechanics using normal tools. This principle seem to have been abandoned recently when we here stories about western equipment donated to the Ukraine needing to be returned to Europe for normal maintenance and repair.

This is the famous "14 rules" he introduced for the Skunkworks/Area 51 projects:

Quote

1. The Skunk Works^® manager must be delegated practically complete control of their program in all aspects. They should report to a division president or higher.

2. Strong but small project offices must be provided both by the military and industry.

3. The number of people having any connection with the project must be restricted in an almost vicious manner. Use a small number of good people (10% to 25% compared to the so-called normal systems).

4. A very simple drawing and drawing release system with great flexibility for making changes must be provided.

5. There must be a minimum number of reports required, but important work must be recorded thoroughly.

6. There must be a monthly cost review covering not only what has been spent and committed but also projected costs to the conclusion of the program.

7. The contractor must be delegated and must assume more than normal responsibility to get good vendor bids for subcontract on the project. Commercial bid procedures are very often better than military ones.

8. The inspection system as currently used by the Skunk Works, which has been approved by both the Air Force and Navy, meets the intent of existing military requirements and should be used on new projects. Push more basic inspection responsibility back to subcontractors and vendors. Don't duplicate so much inspection.

9. The contractor must be delegated the authority to test their final product in flight. They can and must test it in the initial stages. If they don’t, they rapidly lose their competency to design other vehicles.

10. The specifications applying to the hardware must be agreed to well in advance of contracting. The Skunk Works practice of having a specification section stating clearly which important military specification items will not knowingly be complied with and reasons therefore is highly recommended.

11. Funding a program must be timely so that the contractor doesn't have to keep running to the bank to support government projects.

12. There must be mutual trust between the military project organization and the contractor, the very close cooperation and liaison on a day-to-day basis. This cuts down misunderstanding and correspondence to an absolute minimum.

13. Access by outsiders to the project and its personnel must be strictly controlled by appropriate security measures.

14. Because only a few people will be used in engineering and most other areas, ways must be provided to reward good performance by pay not based on the number of personnel supervised.

 

8 hours ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

KISS is why I use addon linker.  It simplifies addon management immensely.

Hey Glenn--there IS NO MANAGEMENT required!  KISS!

The Asobe system of dumping everything in a single folder is not simple it is chaotic.

56 minutes ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

dumping everything in a single folder is not simple it is chaotic.

As is giving priority to sub-folders based on alphabetical order...

 

On 12/26/2022 at 12:01 AM, ndflieger said:

dumping everything in a single folder is not simple it is chaotic.

16 hours ago, Noel said:

I've had no need for addons linker!  KISS is my MO ;o)

I’ve had airports I had to buy again from the non marketplace because static ai could not be turned off. Many of us fly online or use third party traffic solutions where this is a massive limitation of the marketplace 

2 hours ago, Noel said:

Hey Glenn--there IS NO MANAGEMENT required!  KISS!

Also the addon linker will save you many many hours when it’s time to reinstall the sim.  Should you need to 

11 minutes ago, micstatic said:

Also the addon linker will save you many many hours when it’s time to reinstall the sim.  Should you need to 

OMG!  Here's what I did with my 2 complete reinstalls and the 2nd one involved a fresh Windows 10 install.  Here it is:

1. Copy the contents of the Community Folder to a separate folder (or in the case of a complete Win install, a separate data drive).
2. Delete MSFS, then reinstall MSFS which as you know is a case of checking all the boxes, hitting download, then walking away until it's done.
3. After #2 completes, dump the saved contents of the Community Folder back into the new empty one.

Voila, all done!

I have to assume this procedure is reserved for folks who have massive content in the Comm Folder.  I only have PMDG 738, AS CRJ700, AccuSeasons, GSX Pro, Subtle Taxi Ribbon (fabulous!), FSLTL (forget if that's in there), and a bunch of liveries is about it, about 23 entries in all.  

 

Edited December 28, 20223 yr by Noel

17 minutes ago, Noel said:

Here's what I did with my 2 complete reinstalls and the 2nd one involved a fresh Windows 10 install.  Here it is:

1. Copy the contents of the Community Folder to a separate folder (or in the case of a complete Win install, a separate data drive).
2. Delete MSFS, then reinstall MSFS which as you know is a case of checking all the boxes, hitting download, then walking away until it's done.
3. After #2 completes, dump the saved contents of the Community Folder back into the new empty one.

Voila, all done!

This has been my approach too and it has worked fine for me, although I generally remove the third party aircraft that use the community folder and then download the latest version and reinstall them. I have reinstalled 3 times now in the past 2.5 years and it has been smooth each time -- in fact it takes me a lot less time to reinstall than it did on P3D, about half as much. 

It seems the add-on linker may be best for people with hundreds upon hundreds of add-ons.