Now that nature looks absolutely stunning, procedural buildings in MSFS 2024 need some attention.
I would like to see:
And in general:
More culturally specific residential buildings, especially in Europe. Previous MSFS 2020 World Updates included specific buildings; however, after WU5, that development stopped.
Let’s see what future World Updates have in store!
Though it’s improved over the years, the default procedurally-generated scenery object library still leaves a lot to be desired. Things like buildings, power poles, etc. need a wider variety and general updates and tweaking. There are several items that I’d consider to be “big ticket” items that jarringly effect immersion when they are rendered using the current library of generic buildings. They’re either distracting for how out of place they are, completely unuseable as visual reference, or very “meh” when sightseeing.
Tanks, water towers, and cisterns. These are probably the most commonly mis-appropriated scenery items - usually being rendered as a round-ish polygon. Water tanks and towers are an extremely common visual reference in flying.
Power transmission towers/pylons - I love that power lines exist natively in MSFS2024, but many are too tall compared to their real-world counterpart. This can have a detrimental, obstructing effect in and around airports.
AWOS - awos or other weather observing stations are a common sight at many airports.
Airport beacons - needless to say, the obstructionary nature of these giant beacons have plagued the sim for years. There need to be several different styles and sizes
Windsocks - more variety is needed. The length to height ratio is often erroneous.
Wind tees and tetrahedrons - a very common sight at airports, used to determine landing direction. Often more visible than a windsock, and often lighted at night
Silos - similar to water towers, these are very common visual references that dot agricultural areas as well as anywhere there is mineral extraction
Industrial buildings - many industrial type areas are filled with buildings that look like they would be found in a Dickensian novel, with dozens of chimneys in a row, protruding from a pitched roof. That style hasn’t been commonplace, at least in the US since the 1800s. This is very immersion-breaking.
Housing styles in general - similar to the industrial buildings, the housing styles look very dated and not region-appropriate to the US.
Approach light standards - more colors are needed, like red, aviation orange, and bare metal, in addition to the yellow found in the sim. This also applies to PAPI/VASI boxes and REIL units.
T-hangars - very common at small to mid sized airports. Currently the sim renders these as mushroom-shaped, generic PG buildings, but since they’re commonly found all over and along a ramp, it’s very noticeable.
Fences - in general these are simply missing from the stock sim. Especially around airports, where it would be useful to separate the airside from the landside. But in reality, they’re everywhere - neighborhoods, industrial sites, military sites, rangeland, etc. I understand these might be hard for the AI to properly detect and place.
Those are just a few things I notice any time I jump into the sim.
True enough. But even though MSFS is now half a year old, the focus is still on fixing the teething problems instead of improving the simulator by adding new content or at least improving the existing features. Let’s hope for improvements in the next month.
It’s not up to us to worry about how they prioritize their work. Your wish is a good one, and the points @CharlieFox00 pointed out are things I’ve wished for MSFS since it came out. It boggles my mind how bad GA airports look because of the many things @CharlieFox00 pointed out, the 80 ft tall by 30 ft wide hangars, the massive beacons, to the point I end up spending more time redoing the airports I like to fly into than flying in the sim it’s so bad. Let’s keep these wishes coming!
Thanks, and to be fair, I had submitted this as a new wishlist, but it got merged into this existing one.
We need textures for shopping malls, shops, grocery shops, hotels, schools, market places, industrial buildings, silos, barns etc. Devs can use openstreetmap and ai to put textures on sides of commercial and industrial buildings. We need more variety and billboards etc.
Highrises are not allways white, they are dark grey even completedly covered with glass etc. . We need completedly new procedural buildings and even benches on market places. That can be achieved by using open street map data which covers all shops etc. in the planet.
TIN cities are overrated, cuz they are melted buildings. Can we have new procedural system which is made for helicopters and even low flying and road vehicles.
3rd party cannot do this, so we trust in you devs.
Agree with all. Silos and water towers/tanks would be a great place to start. Low-hanging fruit, as it were.
Yes, and don’t forget all those culture specific building like churches, temples, mosques etc. - they would add so much to the sim in terms of immersion of actually being there. Just add localized ATC and maybe a few country flag poles at every airport and the result would be perfect.
And, Asobo, if you find this is impossible to do, provide the features to leave this to third party developers.
well said, my man