pred02

Hi, After 5 years I am getting back into the world of FS. I was an avid FS-er first with FS2002 and then with FS2004. My knowledge back in that day is tied to FS2004, so a few of the questions are probably validation of what has changed. SCENERY 1. AFCAD files - I know these were significant in FS9, were almost required to match third party scenery, make sure correct airlines are parking at gates, and there were enough gates at each landing airport. My understanding is that in FSX these are now called ADE files. Is the set up similar to AFCAD (i.e. will need to download matching ADE for each airport to ensure aircraft are parking correctly?) I would copy them into the scenery folder for each airport. 2. Aircraft CFG files - in the old days, we had to set up the correct airline parking code for each aircraft otherwise aircraft would park randomly. Is this still the case? 3. For ORBX, REX, and UTX - in which orders should they be installed? I presume I would install these as base before any third party airport sceneries? 4. Scenery.cfg - For third party scenery do you automatically let it install in FSX directories and copy the files? I remember in FS9 I would install in a dummy directory then copy the files into my file structure and add into scenery.cfg? AI TRAFFIC In FS9, I manually inserted all the repaints and schedules by using Traffic Tools. I manually managed flightplans.txt adding flightplans and recompiling, also manually installing all the liveries. I kept all traffic in a single BGL file (probably because I inherited this from FS2002). 1. If you were starting from scratch, would you recommend a commercial AI package (i.e UT or MyTraffic) as baseline and then customise? Or should I start with WOAI and then manually build as this will enable me to be structured and control my AI world? I am a little bit concerned about getting a product such as UT as it uses a proprietary system to inject traffic - will this conflict with manually installed AI? 2. Do you recommend any tools to install new airlines and liveries? This used to be very time consuming done manually in FS9 with copy and paste errors, issues to sort when compiling etc. 3. Should I use a single traffic BGL file or multiple? 4. Any best practice on installing AI aircraft - directory structure? 5. For WOAI do you recommend exec installers or manually extracting the liveries and plans and then installing into your traffic files. FSX CLEAN INSTALL 1. I will install FSX Acceleration pack. Do I need to install any patches etc? 2. DX10 - is this automatically installed or something that I would need to take care of/install manually? ADDONS/UTILITIES: Reading on the Internet, I see some are the same, some are no longer valid, but just to go through a list of what I identified as key utilities - ADE (part of the SDK), Editvoicepack, fsuipc, ASX, GSX, FSNavigator (does not exist for FSX, what alternative planner do you recommend?), OpusFX (seems better than Active sky) Any other utilities do you recommend? I am really looking forward getting back into FSX again Thanks