21 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

When I buy airports for my chosen sim they’re usually from SimMarket. Where users have posted reviews I use that as a guide to their quality. Buying without reviews is risky unless they’re from a known quality developer such as FlyTampa.

SimMarket used to be my goto for p3d.  But I find their actual application and download process is cumbersome and often does not do what I want it to do.  That's why I prefer contrail, inibuilds and orbx now.  I like creating a custom download folder then using addon linker to point them to the main community folder.  I feel like for reviews between this site and various discord's supplemented with a little youtube we can get good reviews now.  But that's just my preference. 

55 minutes ago, micstatic said:

But I find their actual application and download process is cumbersome

That’s odd. I don’t use their “app”. Just Windows 11 which downloads to my download folder. Then just right-click the exe to turn on the unblock option and double-click to install. Dems easy enough. 😉

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

That’s odd. I don’t use their “app”. Just Windows 11 which downloads to my download folder. Then just right-click the exe to turn on the unblock option and double-click to install. Dems easy enough. 😉

some of the newer purchases force you to use the app.  I believe it's due to piracy protection.  Also SimMarket is terrible about notifying me about updates.  Sometimes they do.  Sometimes they don't. 

34 minutes ago, micstatic said:

some of the newer purchases force you to use the app.  I believe it's due to piracy protection.  Also SimMarket is terrible about notifying me about updates.  Sometimes they do.  Sometimes they don't. 

Not for me thank god. I do have to receive a text message on my phone for each purchase which is a bit over the top.

My biggest gripe are the ground textures that show shadows of stuff in the base textures.

dd

I am potentially interested in the new LEMI Murcia International airport addon by Fly X Simulations. However, I notice that there is another one of those ugly blurred out harbour areas in the Bing maps south of the airport at Cartagena, so I will need to check this out in MSFS 2020 before making a final decision. Interestingly, the Google Earth maps are not blurred out in this area, which makes this situation even more ridiculous.

This may sound petty, but massively blurred low resolution ground textures in a flight simulator (for the sole purpose of hiding details of.....well, a few plain looking buildings and a couple of stray cats) annoys the hell out of me.

I am a bit disappointed with the IniBuilds LOWI Innsbruck addon as it stands. I am not a big fan of those runway textures (I think that they may be default textures), and the alignment of the runway centreline markings is absolutely shocking. How that got through the first pass of beta testing is beyond my ability to understand. They are all over the place I really hope that they address this ASAP (and yes, I have already sent an email about it).

To be honest, the colour of the terrain textures in the Innsbruck area looks a bit "washed out" to me. Not quite as vibrant as the textures included in the P3D version of the ORBx Innsbruck addon.

30 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

, and the alignment of the runway centreline markings is absolutely shocking.

The marketing pics show mostly pictures of the terminal interior and nearby McDonalds .....funny how many devs don't show any pictures of the actual runway...the thing you will likely see the most!!

This is in reference to GA regional and local airports.

Without any hesitation the issue of cold and dark.  NOT cold and dark aircraft.  Instead, cold and dark addon airports.  No life!  Looks as if locked down or quarantined.

Is it perhaps that so many were developed during the pandemic?  

• no open hangars
• If open (rare) nothing populated inside (tool boxes, hand tugs, etc)
• few and sometimes no static aircraft
• no human beings, not even static humans
• little and sometimes no ramp equipment, not even static
• missing ramp, taxiway, and runway signs, and understated markings

In general, no signs of life.  Like landed and feel like in an episode of the Twilight Zone

Edited May 10, 20251 yr by fppilot

36 minutes ago, fppilot said:

Without any hesitation the issue of cold and dark.  NOT cold and dark aircraft.  Instead, cold and dark addon airports.  No life!  Looks as if locked down or quarantined.

Yep, this.  So many otherwise excellent airports are completely lifeless.  Flew into Orbx' Key West a couple of days ago and... nothing.  The Key West ramp is, in real life, generally a zoo.  In the sim, a ghost town.  Not to pick on Orbx, just the latest example I've encountered.

 

Scott

1 hour ago, fppilot said:

no open hangars

This is one of my biggest nits to pick, along with others already mentioned.

Most times I'm at an airport and the weather is decent, there are a good number of hangars - of all sizes - with open doors.

IRL, I realize most aircraft are pushed in and pulled out, but it's quite fun to be able to roll in every once in awhile, or even just pull up outside in prep for the tow.

And pretty much every airport I've been to has planes under maintenance in open hangars, with a bunch of clutter and such. Sometimes the big jumbos, sometimes the bug smashers.

Like many here, I'd gladly give up accurately modeled soda machines and snack bars for a few well modeled hangar scenes.

And yeah, I'm one of those guys who likes to actually fly around a good payware airport in a helo and get up close to anything of interest. The FAA wouldn't approve, of course, but it sure is fun in the sim 😁!

P.s., while I'm at it, many of the default MSFS airport buildings look like they came straight out of a recently built commercial office park. The only time I see those airside is if it's some luxury FBO or something.

59 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

 

P.s., while I'm at it, many of the default MSFS airport buildings look like they came straight out of a recently built commercial office park. The only time I see those airside is if it's some luxury FBO or something.

I've begged Asobo for years for actual hangar structures....and not a office park with industrial buildings.  Sometimes it makes me wonder who decided that airplanes could fit through tiny man doors haha.

The fact that too many time, I'm weak and buy an add-on airport. Then I tell myself that it is wasted money as I only use it when I fly from/to this airport and that the most airport in your collection, the less opportunity you get to fly back at this airport as you have so many.

I'm even ashamed that there are aiports I bought that I never used. And lately, I was even ready to buy a new one then fortunately realized on time that I already bought it a few months ago.

I know this is stupid but it's like an addiction. I could keep the money to buy the aircrafts I would like to buy, like the 77F or A350. But it's like an ddiction. Surely, because I see a sale, it's just $10 and voila... 😞

I know the feeling. Being the really fussy person that I am, everything needs to be almost perfect for me to be able to use an airport. This is why the vast majority of default airports are way outside my comfort zone. Only a handful of the hand crafted airports are on my "accepted" list As for payware airports, there are a few that I have purchased, and then discovered that some slight issue (with the airport itself, or the surrounding scenery) prevents me from using it. A few examples are listed below.

• Papa Hotel EHLE Lelystad - the airport is great, but it was only after I had purchased it that I realised that the Bing terrain textures a short distance to the north east change to a horrible lime green, and there is an oh so obvious joint line that looks at me and laughs when I am on final approach to runway 23
• MK Studios BGSF Kangerlussuaq - again, the airport is great.....but the vector data for the coastlines (and particularly the small lakes dotted across the landscape) is woefully inaccurate. The water in the lakes is displaced significantly from the Bing image, which leaves huge areas of black where water should be. The resolution of the vector data is also very low, and this makes the lakes look very polygonal and unrealistic. Anything that screams FAKE at me just kills immersion.
• FSim Studios BGGH Nuuk International - nothing much wrong with the airport, but the vector data of the coastlines is once again very low resolution, which leaves large chunks of what should be water rendered as jet black. There is a particularly annoying section of coastline a few miles short of the runway 22 threshold that laughs at my OCD every time that I see it Oh, and the DEM data is not as high as I would like, which results in too many of those "polygonal coastal cliffs".
• SLH Sim Designs TXKF Bermuda International - it is the misalignment of the runway centreline markings that gets me with this one. The developer is well aware of this, but he has TXKF v2 on his development list, so I need to wait for that one to be released before I can return. It is a lesson in frustration.
• Pilot Experience Sim LFRB Brest Bretagne - again, the airport is fine.....but those ridiculous blurred textures of some insignificant French naval dockyard nearby literally do my head in. This one probably sounds pathetic to most people, but once I have seen garbage like this, I cannot stop it invading my mind.

To be honest, IniBuilds LOWI Innsbruck is close to the ban list with those misaligned runway centreline markings (they bounce from one side of the centreline lighting to the other) and displaced threshold arrows.

 As a beta tester:

- Taxiways not named

- Parking spots with wrong size

- Missing/incorrect parking codes