McCrackenAir

Hey thanks for sharing your experience! I just checked out your airport, very nice place right alongside the cliff! My personal experience with the sdk might not be considered "Advanced", which is in part a large reason why I made this tool. What would be some intermediate/advanced things you'd want to be added? Hammer on nail on the monetization - I don't want to charge the everyday simmer and want to keep it free, and the supporters make that possible. Wouldn't be possible without them, and people generally don't become supporters without some sort of perks. I also don't want people to join, claim 10 spots, build giant ugly airports and cause havoc. A progression system really helps weed those folks out, and people who are able to make those large airports, will be the people willing to put in the effort to make them look nice. Eventually, I'll release an offline tool with no limits for experimenting without the MP aspect. I plan to support creation of full on international airports, this isn't going to be some small airport tool. Will be fun :) Look forward to seeing what you build up!

Hey just had a chance to look - it looks like you grabbed the claim next to the RAF field, and neither the north/south parts? Join our discord, we'll figure it out!

Cool area! I've removed the blocks for both claims - claim one and let me know the other you need.

I'll just leave these two comments together to say yeah, you should try it - and no, you don't need to shut up😉 That sounds like a really cool project, would love to help out. Hit me up on Discord and I'll attach that second tile for you 👍

With that kind of experience with WED, how did you find the ease of use of my editor? Any suggestions?

This is a very interesting idea. I was able to import an airport file and reverse it, placing the airport on my claim map/editor. Had it's fair share of issues, but I think this is something worth ironing out. What kind of aspects? Genuinely curious, I'm not a fan of using devmode (obviously) and that pain point might be solvable 🤷‍♂️

Alright, so there's clearly some demand for an offline version of this - how would you envision that? What would be most useful/helpful to you? Editor with unlimited everything? Selecting existing airports to edit? I'm more than willing to branch out and add to the roadmap if there's a need!

I thought about that as well - however, I'd like to avoid conflict with paid scenery as much as I can. I think it could get messy fast. Perhaps I can spin off editor for real airports someday :)

Nope! I have a vast majority of airports have the area around them blocked from being claimed. I can't say it's perfect, and backcountry/private/old airports are less likely to have been blocked. If you find any that aren't, I can add them to the block list. Same thing for Natl parks in the US. I don't have good data for important POI's elsewhere yet. Willing to block those off too. One account can have several plots. Increasing cost per plot, meant to fulfill the need for longer term goals. One guy already bought a second plot near his first, and made a lil seaplane base. Really fun to fly between. Will be cool to see how your SAR base turns out!

Oops - forgot this one. I honestly haven't touched career mode since 2024 came out. I wasn't impressed and genuinely have no idea if PA airports will even show up there or not lol. I might have to test this later

Hey, thanks! It's been a ton of fun already. Monetization - I'm deathly afraid of adding a way to pay for currency, at least at the current stage. This economy has to be tested, broken, and fixed dozens of times before I'll feel comfortable adding that. I've been around gaming a long time, I've witnessed some horror stories regarding in game economies. I do understand those who would like to jump into the full experience without having to grind, and for those, perhaps paid currency options closer to the 1.0 release. There's a passive currency backing the project - but you won't need to do anything different than you already do to earn it. When I created this for myself, one of my goals was to create a system that rewarded getting on and flying (I'd get a lot of unmotivated flying days) and rewards actually turning on all my word not allowed software like ATC/GSX/OnAir etc. The currency is given out based on exactly those terms, active flying with apps on. Flying with only MSFS open rewards 1x the currency, flying with up to 5 categories on can give up to a 5x multiplier. In addition, bonuses for landing at PA airports - motivation to make cool looking airports people want to visit! We do have a supporter pack for a small one time boost with a few more perks as a thanks for making the project possible. Those supporters already made 3d maps possible for everyone. Haha yeah - I'd thought a lot about people doing stuff exactly like that. To head those concerns off, any user can easily hide any other users airport from their sync/sim. Hidden airports go on a report that I review, and enough people hiding an airport will auto-hide it from everyone until I review. Right now, people are still learning the tools and how to actually make a good airport, so I'm heavily leaning on leniency and education. I'd like to believe that given the right tools, the vast majority of people will create something beautiful - and I'd like to give everyone that chance. Hope to see you creating one yourself soon!

I really hope this means what I think it means 🤞

Thank you! Please feel free to stop by the discord and show off some pics when done! Unfortunately not, we're able to keep each airport file tiny in 2024 by utilizing streamed assets from Asobo. These assets aren't all available in 2020. For consistency, just decided to keep it 2024 only 🙂

Few updates since launch - the first directly thanks to our first supporters. Huge thanks guys. Changed maps provider, which gave us a 3D globe/terrain layer to use in the claims map and airport editor areas! Makes choosing a good spot far easier. And looks hella cool! https://projectairports.com/explore Finally got windsocks working - few variants to choose from - as well as country flags. Stiff objects in the editor, but will be dynamic objects in the sim. Newly placed taxiways will now generate hold short points and signs. Working on building this out to support more complex placements. If you're still on the fence about the project - you should know someone already claimed Disney World. Don't miss your chance to build somewhere cool too!

Hey thanks! I think it's pretty neat. Over 30 builder going at it already - covering 10 US states, and 12 countries!