This was one of the last major airports in NZ without a decent payware option.
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In the context of other australian & NZ developers like Impulse Simulations or NZA Simulations this looks kind of not so impressive but I might get it after all because it’s in a very interesting area.
I second that, especially as it has regular flights across to Stewart Island (beach landings!) with my beloved BN Islander.
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A small airport like this should have a terminal interior in the latter part of 2025 but the rest looks decent enough (and it’s well under £10).
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I agree. I was also surprised that Toowoomba by Auscene doesn’t have an interior either.
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Wish Astralis would add some interior modelling-whether it’s planned or even a priority for updates we don’t know but the buildings do look good texture wise nonetheless.
Greetings everyone!
Darwin here from Astralis Studios! Thank you for everyone’s interests and feedback. Since I am still fairly new to modelling and texturing, I didn’t feel like adding an interior would represent a final product that is representative of my abilities (For now). I’d rather deliver a decent terminal without an interior for now than to publish one with a mediocre terminal. I think our offered price compensates for that.
That being said, I’ve been working on several projects behind the scene in order improve my skills and to learn how to properly incorporate interiors into my models without performance issues/visual artifacts. Once I feel like I am comfortable enough with my skills, I will slowly begin to update our product lineup to the best of my abilities in order to provide the best possible experience for everyone.
I hope everyone understands and thank you for your continued support 
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Hi Darwin, thank you for the nice words and you’ve just got another customer! I can’t wait to fly to the airport and I look forward to your next projects.
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Thanks for the nice words, Darwin!
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…and that airport is double the price!
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A very honest and humble reply. Thanks for that.
There’s a review (from a local) on the flightsim.to store that highlights a few omissions:
“This is great rendition of Invercargill Airport. I have worked there extensively and was the surveyor in charge of the terminal upgrade and surrounding area. I also grew up on this airport; the only thing it is missing is the smell of cows from surrounding paddocks. In other words lots of memories here, great to have it look right in the sim, thanks. I was going to make my own, don’t have to now. I collected a lot of photos for this airport though (I got airside permission). Happy to give you this, let me know. A few things missing, the new private jet hanger down by the fuel tanks, the helipad by the fuel tanks, and the new Air NZ maintenance building near the grass runway 30. Also the VOR is the wrong style. The fencing around it for the most part is not security fencing, it is mostly farm fencing for cattle (wooden post and 3 wire fence). The stuff that the public can get to though looks great.”
Now, the airport was upgraded to ‘secure’ in 2019 — due to the resumption of jet services — which would have necessitated the construction of a new, more robust perimeter fence; so I think the last part can likely be disregarded.
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Thank you! I am currently in contact with him and out of his generosity, he provided a multitude of reference pictures/insights which will help incredibly with the future updates.
Best Regards,
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Would love to see some static people near the terminal building, landside added in the future maybe once a terminal interior is included in a future update.
The building textures are superb for $17:
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Just bought this and only had time for a quick flight. It’s quite nicely modelled, but some of the textures and the general feel can seem a little ‘sterile’.
I think something that would make a big difference would be to swap out some of the extremely low poly vehicle models, particularly airside. Pulled up by the terminal and there’s this terrible van, it’s visually jarring.
I can live with default Asobo vehicles landside but they’re a bit of a distraction airside, to be honest. I noticed an abundance of default non-fixed assets in the promo screenshots. Is there anything custom airside? I like to see a bit of hustle and bustle when arriving on stand. Of course a decent interior helps with immersion but this doesn’t yet offer that.
This scenery appears to have the basis for a good end product but, by the dev’s own admission, he’s still new to airport creation. I’d like to support but I think this airport might just fall short of my current expectations, as it is. I’d happily pay a couple of quid more for decent custom detail — that and a bit of surrounding modelling can make a real difference.
As a follow up to this, Pyreegue released a vehicle and traffic mod which replaces default assets. Invercargill has benfitted from this but there’s still some default remaining airside. I mentioned this to him and received this reply (the ‘monstrosity’ was used by me to indicate a very low detail default):
This monstrosity appears to be “Traffic_TruckUtility”. The base library typically contains two variants for each vehicle model:
Standard Variant: Base model (no prefix).
“Traffic” Variant: Super low-quality model (prefixed with “Traffic_”).
MWR replaces the standard vehicle variants through simple model swapping. The lower-quality “Traffic” variants are code-locked and cannot be replaced directly, instead traffic is replaced using SPB Living World scripts. But this script-based replacement method cannot affect the “Traffic” prefixed models that have been manually placed by a developer in custom scenery. This explains why the low-quality van remains unmodified by MWR.
Why the developer spawned this traffic model I am not sure, may have been an oversight.
Hopefully the dev will see this and change out the low detail models as described above.
As a side note, I would have contacted the dev direct but I can’t find contact details on Contrail (where I bought it) or any of the other stores except Simmarket - which goes to a dead link.
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