Also worth noting, upon release it was the one way to fill the new sim with a bunch of content. There wasn’t anything else. So, it was, and still is an excellent way to flesh out your world on the cheap, and the airports you get are really key airports in the world (some of which will take 3rd party devs an extra long time to recreate because of their sheer size). But with all the world updates, this becomes less and less of a vital purchase. And with a marketplace filling with really detailed, bespoke airports, there are more options available now.
Same difference really. Gaya and Orbx most likely don’t work for free.
You did read my post in the beginning where I said that I would happily pay for those airports?
I specifically complained about missing signage and markings (taxiway, gates). I am not complaining about buildings not looking correctly here or that the finger is generic. So yeah, even if it’s 2 dollars per airport, there’s no real excuse not to have gate signs.
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Definitely report it.
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People sure love a good moan on this forum. The handcrafted airports we got from day one have been generally perfectly ok.
It’s only relatively recently that we’ve started seeing crazy super realistic and super detailed airports anyway. That’s because it’s only the recent sim optimisations have allowed that level of detail without total FPS drop.
Does anyone remember what a total performance killer Heathrow was before last summer?
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Considering that this is a flight simulator, my hope would be that any handcrafted airports in the sim would not impede aviation realism.
I sometimes wish as much care was put into handcrafted airports from an aviation point of view as well as a visual point of view.
While some of the handcrafted airports supplied as part of premium or delux packages and/ or world updates certainly look better than default airports, it is also true that from an aviation realism point of view there are certain aspects that are not what I would hope for.
Catering for AI traffic and ensuring all nav procedures are catered for should be a fairly high priority, I would have thought. EDDS is an example, with a logged bug for an offset ILS and an issue with terrain levelling which means that, even with navigraph installed, the terrain is incorrect at the 25 threshold. As a consequence attempting an autoland will cause the aircraft to “land” short, into the approach lights.
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I never said I wanted a crazy super realistic and detailed airports. I want taxiways and gates to be marked. Look at EDDF on a Friday evening (zulu) on VATSIM when it’s packed. How are you supposed to get to your gate in a quick manner? Just look at the EDDF charts, it is very complex. Shouldn’t “handcrafted” at least include them? It’s not like I am complaining about auto-gen airports…
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People comparing Asobo handcrafted airports to payware is one thing, but to be honest, I have downloaded tons of freeware airports that seem to be much better than Asobo’s creations.
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Definitely agree here. The world update airports made by Gaya are pretty decent, especially given the price I can’t complain about that. But the Asobo airports could really use some polishing, albeit only proper markings and level taxiways. Pretty disappointing that they are left in such a poor condition. I would definitely buy EDDF, EHAM, EGLL or LFPG if a renowned developer is working on it. Although owning the premium deluxe version. But I suppose some are already working on it. The recent Heathrow trailer looked nice and I read somewhere that FlyTampa is working on EHAM! Looking forward to that. However I am still wishfully thinking Asobo might be giving the original bespoke airports some love.
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I’m really looking forward to the EHAM by FlyTampa. With its 6 RWYs it’s almost impossible to navigate around there without the taxi ribbon. And it’s covered by controllers on VATSIM almost all of the time.
Its in the Market place. One of the good 3rd party
Airports in general aren’t very good; KCIC has you taxi through the dirt. I’ve never landed there but I can’t imagine that’s a true-to-life condition. Bad elevation as well… watch those unseen changes or you’ll get a prop strike!
Free airports also reflect a lot of work. Just because their creators generously provide them for free, doesn’t mean that anything produced to make a living must be of higher quality to be worth the price asked. The only fair comparison to Asobo airfields is with other payware offers, and in that case you undeniably get good value for your money.
To stay on topic, I agree that it would be more useful if they focused on getting the airport data correct rather than making them look prettier.
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I think the “moan” is fairly justified. I’d actually prefer to call it reasonable customer feedback, because we paid extra for some of these handcrafted airports. To say it’s “moaning”, is kind of unfair.
And even addons from the FS2004-era have been more detailed than the handcrafted ones on MSFS, with ground markings and such. Absolutely no excuses for the poor effort here tbh.
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But to be fair, and as someone pointed out earlier in the thread, you still only paid approximately £2 for each airport. Its hardly the £15 to £20 we pay for third party airports as of now.
There is partly an excuse though in that if the big airports were any more detailed they would have been utterly unusable for almost the first year or so of release. Most people got terrible FPS in places like Heathrow and JFK as it was, prior to last July.
I’m not saying that some of the stuff that was left out of hand crafted airports like runway markings isn’t annoying or a bit of let down or a bit short sighted but I just think overly negatively reappraising them through the prism of newer and better third party offerings seems a bit pointless, especially since the sim has now been out for year and half now.
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Does anybody know if Asobo still is planning on implementing a scenery gateway ala x-plane?
This would at least solve a lot of the major problems with a lot of airports through crowd working.
I really do hope they can bring something up, it’s such a simple and powerful way of increasing the fidelity of a lot of airports.
It is #8 on the Wishes Feedback Snapshot, still due for implementation this year.
Here is the thread associated with that item
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Oh, so for two bucks it’s to much to ask for gate signs? Oh and I highly doubt the airports would have been “unusable” with correct signage. I’ve been with the Sim since it was officially released and those “problems” you are talking about were not there at either KLAX or KJFK or others.
Like I said in my earlier post. I’m not saying there aren’t reasons to criticise the airports but starting a thread criticising them 18 months after the sim launched by viewing them through the prism of the standard of airports we’re seeing now from third party developers is not really getting anyone anywhere.
I meant they were almost unusable from a technical performance point of view. Does anyone remember getting about 10 - 15FPS in an A320 at JFK? I sure do. And that was with them not having the level of detail we’re seeing in airports now.
I actually did read your posts but I highly doubt you read mine. Because I am not talking about the looks of the airport. I made it very clear I am talking about signage.
And even back then, I flew into KJFK and KLAX without any problems (GA, 787,747, A320). Not everyone had these frame drops that you describe. Back then there were people confirming that they did not experience them. The only airport where I ever experienced serious frame drops (like 2 FPS) was this small airport somewhere in the midde of the US and I can’t remember the name right now.
Do you seriously disagree on the fact that airports need correct taxiways and gate signs? I mean, whoa, THAT’S seriously an immersion killer.
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