Thank God none of that is happening as part of the official development cycle. Modders like Mugz are doing none of that. I’m referring to those modders that have proven themselves to give us working solutions.
one example, load the animated Ramstein Airbase. (absolutly safe)
And then, compare to vanilla.
Ramstein Air Base - ETAR - Germany - Static Enhancement » Microsoft Flight Simulator
What is the “official third party mod”? Only the one released by Asobo? Or maybe just those you have to pay for? Just trying to find logic here.
I agree there is no clear cut distinction, but I would say “an official mod” is a product sold by a company (such as Just Flight, Aerosoft, PDMG (or whatever their name is, I can never remember). Of course, not all companies are solid, have good customer service, etc. and not all hobby modders are unprofessional. But on average you get what you paid for.
Will try it, but when I comes to scenery, I have recently even been uninstalling ones that I bought through the Marketplace. I usually find that add-on scenery, even officially purchased one, cost me a lot of fps (which in VR I can’t afford…)
Well it sure looks like more than a handful of poverty stricken lone coders try to carve out code in dessert stone with no tools as some would want us to believe.
1 Like
So over 20 million in 2020!
17,851,000 Euro equals
20,938,776.72 United States Dollar
Mostly because these payware developers often go into pure quality, not giving a ■■■■ about performance.
I guess I need to start selling my mods to get some street cred 
1 Like
Here is your Sign! “NOW HIRING”!
MS… $60 billion net income… $65 billion net cash… they don’t need unpaid volunteers with significantly less resources to help them along. In the end it’s MS that holds the checkbook for this project
2 Likes
There are two problems with flight simulator mods.
-
Modders
-
Users
The problem with modders is the huge spread between those that know what they are doing and those that ‘think’ they know what they are doing. Writing code is easy. Writing good code get’s you a pretty good job. If you are good enough to be employed, you likely don’t have a lot of spare time to write ‘good’ modding code. If you are unemployed and can’t get work as a programmer then I have to question the quality of your workmanship. If you are selling your mods, I have to hope that your moral compass prevents you from taking advantage of my curiosity.
The problem with users is that, sadly, the truth is that most users do not have the discipline to properly track, backup, install, test and monitor the mods they add to the sim. Managing your mods is, in many cases, more important to your sim than the features they added. While there are literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of flight sim users from across the decades, that have installed all manner of mods, I would bet there are very few that ever really understood what the mods did and why. I remember the FSX years on the forums. Thousands of posts where I wanted to just respond, “Don’t”.
“I put the 737 folder in the modules folder but the plane never shows up.”
“I downloaded new livery files but I don’t see them when I open the plane.”
“I installed the new scenery but now I have a terminal in the middle of the runway.”
My advice to all but the well versed few;
Stay away from mods. If they are really good, they will not only be in the marketplace but they will be simple to install, update, and uninstall. They will also come with enough documentation that anyone will understand how to install them and use them. (Not to say there won’t be some total duds that show up in the marketplace that will continuously crash your sim.)
Over time many of the little work around mods will become obsolete. Anything worth having in your sim folders will be ADD-ONS, not mods. In general, you want to know what impact a mod will have. Not just what does it offer, but also what does it take away. Frame rates, loading performance even stability are all impacted by every new feature or feature adjustment. You cannot keep adding things and not expect there to be a cost.
Generalization Disclaimer
Obviously there are some employed programmers that should probably be released from there duties , just as there are some brilliant programmers that are not working for any number of reasons.
Just like programmers, users come in all levels of expertise. If you truly are an experienced sim user, you understand the perils of modding. If you don’t think there are perils then you don’t have the experience required to use them. Each user needs to have an honest look at their level of expertise and make choices accordingly.
ABOVE ALL, PLEASE DO NOT ALLOW YOURSELF TO BE TALKED INTO DOING SOMETHING BECAUSE ANOTHER USER SAYS ITS EASY AND "IT’S AWESOME AND WORKS GREAT’. IF YOU ARE UNCOMFORTABLE OR DON’T COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND, DON’T DO IT!
The above generalization is for illustrative purposes.
1 Like
Now Hiring! its as simple as that! but they are wanting to keep control and its a lawyer Marketing thing, while they reverse engineer for the next 10 years, and put things in the way they want them to be. Free mods are great tools to use to figure out what works, and how to do things they didn’t think of. Like a tiny 2 character display for Sim rate! So you know if you hit that key trying to type something, and your Sim is now running 2 X the speed or .5X rather than what it should be running at… How much of a “Well Duh” is that! Labels that don’t take up the space of 50 clouds while the people you are flying with mysteriously disappear every 2 minutes. All in white of course with a shade box behind it to really stand OUT for that real experience.
Wow, I cannot imagine using this sim without mods. Just a few of the items in which I experience improvement due to mods:
- Several default aircraft improved with better flight models and avionics
- Much improved airports in virtually all areas I fly. Sure the “hand crafted” default airports are nice, but the rest are by in large terrible and uninspiring without mods.
- AI airliners show real life liveries instead of those hideous default liveries
- broken aircraft lights for AI aircraft (introduced with SU5) fixed by a mod
- Ships/boats now populate the world’s waters thanks to a mod
- Several very high quality freeware aircraft are available and some of my favorite aircraft to fly in the sim.
I could go on, but you get the point. I am sure the “vanilla” sim is fine for many users, but quite honestly if I had to go back to a mod-less MSFS, I would probably find myself rarely using it.
For the record, I have close to 200GB of mods, and I do not even remember the last time I had the sim crash. So mods, if properly maintained and managed do not pose a threat to MSFS integrity/stability.
6 Likes
Same story with helicopters and sail planes.
Already done by modders.
Reminds me of how some rally or racing cars are made:
Get a stock car from a dealer
Throw out everything except the chassis and an engine block
Put in quality racing parts made for purpose
That’s what my MFSF looks like, lol, Removed every challenge, fake livery, training, POI, bush trip and unused airplane with content manager to make the space for quality built mods.
2 Likes
What you write makes a lot of sense, but just for fun let me respond how I think about your points. Neither you or I are absolutely correct, just different tastes.
-
Several default aircraft improved with better flight models and avionics
True, but my opinion is why fly with default planes, or modded, improved default planes, if you can buy professionally made ones. I fly primarily the Warrior by Just Flight (I’m lucky because this is also a plane I fly often in real life). It isn’t perfect, but pretty ■■■■ good. Again, nothing against modders, but I prefer professional products. -
Much improved airports in virtually all areas I fly. Sure the “hand crafted” default airports are nice, but the rest are by in large terrible and uninspiring without mods.
Even add ons bought on the marketplace cost me too many fps in VR, and Asobo continuously improve the scenery with world updates that often make scenery mods obsolete. -
AI airliners show real life liveries instead of those hideous default liveries
That’s one I’ve been considering myself, I’m still on the fence about installing it hoping that Asobo will make this happen sim-internally. -
broken aircraft lights for AI aircraft (introduced with SU5) fixed by a mod
temporary problem, sure it’ll get fixed by Asobo -
Ships/boats now populate the world’s waters thanks to a mod
nice, but not a must have for me -
Several very high quality freeware aircraft are available and some of my favorite aircraft to fly in the sim.
Same response as to first bullet item.
Again, not saying you’re wrong, just an example of different preferences.
1 Like
If the best and most realistic jets happen to be free mods (A32NX, CJ4), why buy addons, which can be worse quality (CaptainSim fake 777, for example)?
True, but here is my take. I tried the A32NX when it was on the marketplace. I quickly gave up on it because it gave me dismal fps in VR. If I fly airliners, I fly Aerosoft’s CRJ-700. Much better fps and overall really a well-done plane (it has a couple of issues though, but minor). I would never buy the CaptainSIM 777, even for professional products one must still read the reviews, etc.
Having said all that, I have never understood, why FBW doesn’t turn their A32NX into a commercial, professional product…
Thanks for adding that…
Of course the important words are “maintained” and “managed”. 
I am not so naïve as to dismiss the wow factor that most sim users experience when given the chance to actually fly and look out the windows at a representation of the real world. To those that are ‘drinking it in’, the fidelity is important. It is all the little things that many of the mods or add-ons can provide.
I, on the other hand, fall into a different category. I have seen the world out the window from so many different perspectives and angles that the scenery is nothing more than a poor representation of the map on my lap. As long as there is a river junction or a cement plant where I need it to be for the purpose of navigation, I really could do without the rest.
That is what attracts me to MSFS. The ability to accurately navigate from A through E,F and G just by looking at a sectional chart, even at a couple hundred feet above the jungle in low cloud and rain squalls. Any previous sim required you to be at high altitude so you could navigate by the general lay of the land. Now I can fly from landmark to landmark.
I chuckled with the airport description you used, “by in large terrible and uninspiring”. Not because I disagreed, but because after landing at a few thousand of them, they are, “by in large terrible and uninspiring”. Have never landed at an airport and said to myself, “Wow, this place is awesome!” My excitement in aviation always ended the moment I hit the taxiway.
I fly the sim to challenge both my IFR and VFR skills. Last night I flew the Baron, night VFR, with 1200 foot ceilings and scattered showers to a 1800 foot grass strip 150 NMs out in the mountains. Just by dead reckoning and following small rivers where I could. Couldn’t tell you what the trees looked like or if the mountains morphed along the way. I simulated a pickup followed by a departure IFR, 800 miles south to a major international airport. Arrived in pouring rain and coastal fog.
The flight was rewarding in its complexity and difficulty. Once on the ground and taxiing to the ramp, I can recall nothing of the airport aesthetics, or the liveries on the other aircraft. I just went through my checklists while trying not to run into anything, parked and shutdown. Mission accomplished. ALL done without ANY mods, other than Navigraph.
We all use the sim differently and for different puposes. I still, “ooo and awe”, looking out the window sometimes, in real life, and in the sim. If I didn’t, I shouldn’t be up there anymore. In the sim, the important thing to me is that I can trust the sim. I cannot do that once the mods start piling up. Not without spending more time managing them than I spend flying.
1 Like
maybe 10% of this content in the next years.
You should flip through the free catalog. If you want performance in VR, look out for Handcraftet Sceneries. Google Convert eats memory and FPS… but looks often really nice. Exept the trees. xD
Edit:
here you can take a look, to some parts of the Ramstein Base, if you dont install .
And yes, this is freeware.
Timestamp 1:29:00
1 Like
I didn’t even know Sim Rate was a thing! That’s an unexpected find from the thread. Thanks!
1 Like