Greetings, I just wanted to kind of air some thoughts/ observations of how I feel about diving into MSFS and navigating the incoming deluge of 3rd party paid content. Just to kind of bounce ideas off of others who may be new to modern flight sims and are trying to figure out if any of the premium 3rd party content is worth it or not.
I feel like im in kind of a special case because a lot of the ORBX content is laser focused on my home region so far. So it was very tempting to buy it and to compare to the other areas im familiar with.
Im going to start with some examples of things I bought and spent time with:
ORBX KORS ORCAS ISLAND
I bought the KORS Orcas island airport because it is quite literally my home airport in real life, and i’m very impressed with its fidelity in game. I fly from there in sim probably 50% of the time. It has detailed textures of all the quirky barns and taxiways, the runway lighting is different than base so it actually makes it a bit harder. Overall, for the $15 or so, I was able to get an almost photorealistic replication of my home airport in real life. It seems like an easily justifiable buy. I think this is an example of an interesting coincidence where the base game and the 3rd party addons are just hyper focused on the Pacific northwest - (think seattle being flagship photogrammetry city, ORBX Tacoma Narrows and a few others). Its clearly a beautiful place to fly, but I think that most of these would be a little less justifiable a purchase If I didnt actually have a home there and fly over it as a passenger so often.
CARENADO MOONEY
This is new on the marketplace and im well aware of Carenado’s reputation. I watched some videos before I purchased it and overall people were pretty positive (in comparison to the contempt people had for the 182). My favorite plane in the base game(well premium deluxe), is the 172 Steamer. So having access to a steam gauge classic Mooney seemed like it would be worth the 30 dollars.
So far, after 3~ hours of flight, night/day/VFR/IFR short hops… I actually really like it. It definitely has problems and the two biggest that I found are the AP NAV function rubberbanding while not keeping a proper GPS heading, and the fact that it doesnt seem like that the mixture leaning is modelled at all. Those two thing need to be fixed. That being said, it has working custom DME (I think its the only analog one in game right now?), all of the custom gauges are great, the old school digital readouts have a funny effect at my graphics settings but I think its part of the experience. It’s fast, the model is gorgeous, and Id say that it works about as well as any of the default aircraft (minus the NAV mode problems, I mostly get around this by using heading mode instead). So i’d say so far im not immediately repelled by the purchase and im probably going to fly it more than the majority of the planes from the base game, and even more if they fix the NAV function. I have the 182 and flied it plenty but the Mooney is just a more unique offering.
Drzewiecki Design WASHINGTON LANDMARK PACK
Now this one is funny, I just couldnt live with myself that Washington DC was such a mess in the base game, and after purchasing this ($20), it’s much better. I can see large scale landmark packs are going to be a major focus for 3rd party addons. In a similar sense to the ways they pushed high quality aerial imagery of regions in P3D and XPlane, instead I can see them focusing on expansive landmark packs for regions of the world. To a much larger extent than in base game, where there may be one or two POI’s in a region, I can see them adding famous Monasteries, particular funny looking buildings, maybe high quality radio tower collections, just overall larger scale improvements that smooth out the character of places compared to the base games autogen. I don’t know if it was worth it yet, It looks pretty great but I just havent been flying into or from DC (or anywhere seriously other than the pacific northwest and central Texas).
Some Thoughts:
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Local Ties - I think people including myself are far more likely to buy airports/scenery for places that they live near or have a connection to. That leaves a kind of limited scope of the kinds of payware scenery that I can see being made. There is definitely still a place for it, but I just dont see a lot of people buying airports on the other side of the planet that may be very nice, but what kind of psychic connection do they have to it to justify the admittedly comparative steep cost. Id like to know if there are any airports that people just randomly purchased in some far away place that they feel very strongly that they got their money’s worth for.
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MSFS shines on its smaller scale - When you can polish the scenery with airports and focus improvements on one particular area, it really feels good to fly in. I feel like due to the Custom airports and the high quality photogrammetry/landscapes that are available in the pacific northwest, its the only region that really feels complete that ive flied in so far. Also, since the GA aircraft are relatively stable compared to the airliners, I see myself flying out of KORS or Tacoma Narrows or Renton… SeaTAC much less so. So those purchases are getting a lot of use. I can see why ORBX focuses on a few airports in every region because you really have the impetus to fly from one custom airport to another.
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Telecommunication Towers - Id pay $30+ for some kind of procedural or hand crafted but well done and height accurate database of TV/Radio towers of the USA or something. They are just so conspicuously absent from the skyline and from where they should be on VFR charts that it needs to be done (if asobo wont do it procedurally). That is part of the VFR landscape and some of the most prominent landmarks in many of the flatter regions there is.
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30 dollars a plane - This is actually not a bad spot. I can see myself buying a 30 dollar plane from the marketplace about once every couple of months. If the Mooney gets its NAV mode fixed and they fix the engine leaning (along with Asobo side base fixes), I will say that it is definitely worth the 30 dollars if you want to buy a steamer GA plane or didnt get the 172 from the premium version of the game. We will have to see how much a quality DC-3 will cost, and the Twin Otter. I would have liked if they had added pontoon option to the C182 or anything in base game other than the A-5. That being said yeah I can see a functioning Concorde that has good systems being 100 dollars or such. I might not buy it though.
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Different Kinds of players - So far I can see within me and my friends different kinds of players/simmers in MSFS. I feel pretty well rounded, I went to many parts of the world to see the scenery, but I focus on one particular home region and I run my OnAIR business from the custom airports, therefore getting lots of use out of them. My brother just wants to fly to weird places and through storms, etc. For him to start buying custom scenery would be a very expensive waste of money - simply because he’d get bored in one place really quick.
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Game or Hobby - I think this is where a lot of the pricing philosophy differences come into play. If you play it and value it as a game (and frankly right now it is pretty much well within the “game” realm in many ways) you probably will not want to spend too much on 3rd party addons. Those that see this as more of a possible hobby platform, probably look at the 3rd party purchases as a kind of long term plaform investment, and not entirely different from what they experienced with FSX or X-Plane, perhaps more future proof even. Although the questions still remain on whether MSFS will end up being more of “game” or a “sim”, and I think its still up in the air. Hopefully there will be a balance between the two because I think that the mainstream appeal of the game is to fuse those two worlds together. So far it looks promising, pretty much every 3rd party paid content maker is working on something for MSFS - we will see whether they are successful.
So for those of you that are new to this as I was - if you can afford it and you have a connection to a place/plane, don’t beat yourself up about buying custom scenery. Buy things that you have a particular tie to, because in my opinion this engine is well suited to getting its gaps filled in where the skeleton is strong. I really enjoy my ORBX scenery, and even the Mooney so far - things have to work obviously - but I actually do feel I’d have gotten less out of a more barebones implementation of my home airport.
If you dont have any particular connection to a place, I’d say dont buy it. Even if you feel compelled to fly in that scenery, I doubt you would get out of it enough to feel that great about it. But obviously everyone is different and I’d like to hear peoples thoughts on how they justify these larger purchases.
Cheers