I’ve just recently started to buy a bunch of airports to travel to along the south east coast of England. I’m doing a tour from the Scilly Isles in Cornwall to the far east visiting, Dover and Canturbary.
To that I end I bought all seven airports by Burning Blue Design and four by orbx.
So far I’ve visited two from Burning Blue Design, Bodmin, and Popham, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Popham in particular is absolutely superb, you can go inside the airport towers, inside the coffee shops, everything is super high texture, with surrounding landmarks modelled.
I was super excited to see Orbx’s Southampton and Shoreham airports, but they are nowhere near as good. The textures of buildings are super low resolution, like they have come from FSX, the towers just look like autogen buildings in comparison to Burning Blue Design’s and you can’t go inside any of them.
These are my only Orbx airport experiences so far, although I have also bought Stapleford and Elstree.
Compared to Burning Blue Design though, these feel like they belong to a different simulator.
I was going to buy all the airports in the South of England made by them but not sure if I want to any more.
What are your experiences with Orbx, and other developers. Do you have any favourites devs, especially for the United Kingdom as that’s where I spend my time flying…
Hi
Orbx has been the preferred one since always, though I’ve read about some “discomfort” with some of their products quality, right as you mentioned.
In my very personal opinion, I have the impression that yes, some seemed to have been ported or partially ported producing this quality you mentioned. That is very noticeable when the terrain is a photo instead of the usual MS grass terrain.
Very new airports though have been of outstanding quality. Orbx will always be a preffered one and this matter has been discussed in their forum so I would say they are aware and will take note.
It is also important to know that some airports might not be made by them but by others just that they’re being sold in Central.
Pilot Plus produces airports for the UK and their quality is really good, you won’t be disappointed.
I hope this has been useful somehow
Thanks Carlos. These two so far are my only experience, and I have two more still to visit. I’m new to flight simming since MSFS so I don’t have much experience of their stuff but it’s the textures that are super disappointing. I was expecting to be able to go inside Shoreham airport terminal but it just looks like an autogen building with a texture on it. Really low resolution windows. I might take some pictures tomorrow.
Meanwhile Burning Blue Design I could inside the office and look at children’s drawings of planes on the walls and leaflets on the table. It really feels like a generational leap.
The good news is the Orbx ones were reasonably cheap, £31 for all four, so around £7.75 each. Maybe that is because they are ports rather than new creations?
Hi again
I totally understand you, I love the full immersion this game offers. I like to go with my drone camera to every possible corner. Up, down, far, close, and check every possible building. I enjoy every element, the cars, the boats, the parked planes, the avatars and of course go inside the terminals or to the balconies of buildings, the towers etc, I love to be there, feel there, have the full experience.
When I had P3D I had every Orbx product, so I can tell they are good. I have not been able to buy everything they have created now for MS simply because I cannot afford it at this time, but every time I can I buy, they are the best for me. Unfortunatelly you started by those that seemed to have been ported or improved to be used in MS. I don’t think they created these ones from scratch for this sim. But do not lose confidence in their products I can assure you that you’ll find great quality in their products.
One thing to have into consideration is that this “mood” of creating interios of terminals and the allowance to access some buildings is really new. Orbx just started having this feature in their products. Pilot Plus, Pyreegue Dev Co, Drzewiecki Design and lately Aerosoft are developers who offer you this inside of the terminals and very nicely done, you can check them in Orbx Central all of them are offered there. Thought not every single of their airports offer this, as I said this is something really new that has taken relevance and they are considering this for the new airports.
I would say Orbx might consider this part too. It is not mandatory of course by it has been considered for some products. Let’s hope they’ll make it a rule as it is a really nice feature that some of us do enjoy. There are some people who doesn’t care at all about these details and consider them a waste of time, resourse, frames etc.
So be my guest in getting any of those mentioned and you´ll enjoy them for sure. Just check the images in Central so you can ensure the terminals are accessible
Cheers
Carlos
Thanks, Carlos. Yes, that is me too completely. I sim in VR and when I visit aiports or Asobo POI’s I land the plane and take a walking tour. You’re probably right in that this is the first sim to be good enough to make this kind of detail possibly so Orbx’s ports from older sims will look a bit dated compared to new airports made specifically for MSFS. I’m still enjoying myself.
It was probably a negative title to be fair, and I should have instead focused on the positive of just how good Burning Blue Design’s aiports are. Popham is incredible. I can’t wait to fly there again!
Yeap looks like we enjoy this a lot
I have deleted some images to make space but I currenty have 8,145 pictues and around 1.6 Teras of videos made.
I bet VR must be…another world. I think I will damage my eyes as you can see my numbers above. Every minute I got spare is for MSFS.
I think the resolution of the airports mentioned might also be affected by the VR quality making it more notorious to you. Just guessing but every time you fly in a very nicely done airport and then visit another not so cool is normal to have your reaction so you can’t blame yourself for that.
I’m sure Orbx will keep its crown and will keep an eye on the quality of their future products.
I checked the Burning Blue Design site and the pictures look very nice. I was not aware of them.
So I hope you enjoy your fly again in Popham !
Cheers
Carlos
Following comments re taking the drone camera into buildings and looking around. Can you please tell me what are the drone camera settings to move freely. I seem not to be able to focus only on to and from an aircraft.
I use an Xbox controller for the drone, I’m not sure how to control it with a mouse and keyboard.
Squirrel did some great tutorials for MSFS when it launched on Youtube however and he covers all the camera options in the video below. The drone is discussed towards the end in the showcase camera section.
I use my joystick to control both primary flight controls, and Drone camera control at the same time. It won’t conflict with each other because on drone camera mode, you can set the flight controls to be locked so any of the same movement you input using the same hardware would only control the drone and not the aircraft itself.
Think it’s been said but Pilot Plus are good. I only have EGMC but think it is very good. Also agree with Burning Blue. I bought EGSL only yesterday and it’s terrific.
I have Southampton and given the lower price I think it’s fine, though it’s a port, so it’s lacking compared to high-end products like the ones mentioned below. I have lot of UK airport’s and while especially the first Orbx airport’s to MSFS (such as London City and Leeds-Bradford), feel “dated” (textures, lack of interior etc), I still greatly enjoy them and they add a lot to the sim compared to auto-generated ones.
Edinburgh by Pyreegue and Bristol by Pilot Plus are two amazing UK airport’s that I can really recommend if you want top-quality! Apart from those two devs, I also like Maccosim, their Manchester airport is great.
You have to look closely at everything at ORBX. Back in the older P3D days, they were long known for superb Details and Quality. But that is long gone now…
Firtstly, they act more as a Publisher instead of a developer. Means, they just sell almost everything, even from external developers that dont deliver the best quality.
Unfortunately, even their own developed scenerys under the ORBX name vary extremely.
There are some stunning ones, but there are also just simple P3D-Ports, like ketchikan, which is awful. There are other devs that do a much better job than ORBX.
I also have a few ORBX airports that are mediocre at best… you have to look at every scenery individually and cant trust on the Brand anymore. Some even have important bugs since the release a few months ago that are still not fixed… (wrong ILS course/placement, no ground handling at many ORBX airports, etc…).
In short, ORBX is not anymore what it was a few years back…
For example, this is a static airplane at an ORBX branded airport:
Orbx own brand stuff is workmanlike. I’d consider it if it was cheap enough and there were no alternative, but the ones I’ve sampled were competent but underwhelming.
They smack of ‘yup, that’ll do.’
Pyreegue’s Edinburgh is the best I’ve seen. That’s very impressive indeed. Burning Blue Design is right up there too.
with the new CEO ORBX has become a quantity provider. When you could purchase blindfoldedly a couple of years ago you have to look closely and check reviews now too just like with everything else in the sim business. There are also some simple P3D ports like Katchikan that really look disappointing in MSFS but they are very cheap. ORBX doesn’t mean great quality anymore.
Orbx have a number of airports under the “Throwback Thursday” heading and I believe these airports are the fsx ports. Southampton was one of them, as is Alderney and a few others. They’re a little cheaper than their bespoke MSFS airports but much better than the default so I’m happy to go with them at the price.
To be fair, I’m not disappointed with them considering the price. They were all in the sale and so about £7.75 each. It’s just a shame my previous experiences were Superspud’s freewares like St Mary’s and Newquay, and then Burning Blue Designs. Orbx textures felt like a large step down from both, although as only ported airports that might explain why.
They are totally functional for flying. But, I’ve getting out and having a wonder in VR with the other airports and these don’t lend themselves well to that.
