Hocking2

Thank you all for the great suggestions. Whoa!!!! This marketplace is on fire. Everyone is releasing great stuff it seems. Most of my previous add-ons are still usable, but there appears to be bigger and better things out there now so i am going to have to spend some money. I guess a better question would be what addons have become obsolete over the last five years: FSGenesis (don't hear much about them at all) AISmooth Traffic Programs in general (seems like WOAI is superior to both Traffic 2013 and UT2) Flight Environment X (fond memories of Flight Environment in FS9) FSRealTime (at least I think that was its name. It was the software that fixed FSX time when flying across time zones) FSCommander (seems to be clearly out of the top 3 flight planners today) etc...

Looking for some help with getting a grasp on where Flight Simulation has gone over the past 5 years. In short, I have been away from flight simulation since 2009 and am ready to get back into it. When I left the main add-ons were Level-D 767, PMDG 747, GEX, UTX, FEX (REX was just coming out), and Active Sky 6.0. Things have obviously exploded since then and to put it bluntly, you could spend two weeks trying to get your head around what the pros and cons are for all of the new add-ons that are available and what you really need to have to make FSX as realistic as possible. I have searched for a summary of all of the available add-ons for each area but haven't found anything. What I am looking for is a summary list of all the most realistic add-ons that are available for FSX with the key word being "Realism". The areas I am looking for add-ons for is planes (both jet and prop), scenery (both ground and clouds), weather engines, Landclass & Mesh, Traffic, ATC, Flight Planners, and other miscellaneous add-ons. From what I have read over the last week, and as an example of what this list would look like, here is a start: Planes: PMDG 737 NGX (600-900 series) PMDG 777 Carenado B200 King Air HD Series 737 PIC Evolution Deluxe Edition (for those looking for older non-glass 737 series) etc.. Scenery: Flight Environment X (is this still around?) REX (sounds like they want to be a texture, weather engine, flight planner, and about 10 other things add-on provider when most people just want to use their textures. Also confused here as well.) Natural Tree Environment X (looks interesting) Ultimate Airport Environment (looks interesting) FS Altitude Series (looks great for jet flying, but very expensive) FS Global GEX vs Orbx FTX Global & Vector, and UTX (very confused here and it seems like Orbx isn't playing nice with other developers. Really need advice in this area.) Weather Engine: Active Sky (sounds like ASN is the clear winner here at the moment). OPUS (who is this?) FS Global Real Weather (also, who is this?) Landclass: Cloud9 Orbx? FSGenesis etc.. Mesh: FSGenesis (are they still top of the list in his area?) FS Global 2010 (or is there a newer Mesh product from them?) etc... Traffic: My Traffic 2013 Ultimate Traffic XXXX (my last version was 2007) Who is on top here? Flight Planner: FSCommander (still relevant?) Professional Flight Planner X (they sound like they me be the top dog now) ATC: Radar Contact (still top dog?) etc.... Misc: FS2Crew etc.. If there is a current list of providers and products to link me to I would greatly appreciate it. If there is another forum to post this please let me know. If you can help please do. This is totally overwhelming for someone who has been away for awhile, or for someone completely new. Thanks.

That sounds great. Having us pay for major upgrades it totally fair in my opinion, and to allow us to pay a discounted price is very generous on your part. I just wanted to make sure that I did not buy version 4.3, and then have version 5 come out within a few weeks. It doesn't sound like that will be the case, so I am comfortable purchasing Version 4.3 at this point.I do have one more question concerning how to buy Radar Contact. I would like to have an immediate download of the software, but I always like having software that I buy on a CD/DVD in case I have to reinstall it in the future. Do you offer an option where I can download the software, and also get it on DVD? It appears as if you offer one way or the other. Furthermore, if I just downloaded it, and then burned the download to DVD, would I be able to install Radar Contact from my created DVD on any computer that I wanted? I know some software that you buy in the form of a download has to be installed from the download itself. If you lose your hard drive, it can become difficult to get access to that software again since you lost your original download when the drive crashed. This is my concern.

I am considering purchasing Radar Contact V4.3 (or whatever the latest version is). However, I understand that V5 is coming out soon supposedly. Is this new version going to be a free update for people who already own Radar Contact? Or, we current owners have to buy the latest version? If they do have to purchase, will there be a discount for current owners? Obviously, if the V5 release is imminent, and current owners would have to purchase it at full price, I would just wait on the latest version to be released before buying.Sorry if this has already been asked. I couldn't find anything about it. Thanks.

It means nothing. Just something to say to add a positive note to an otherwise grand exit from an industry. Any future "realistic" flight simulators will have to come from somewhere else rather than Microsoft.