Is this not what the World Hub was/will be when it re-launches or am I misunderstanding things?
Yeah, that was supposed to be one of the big things that launched with 2024. Didn’t happen, so people still have to report bugged scenery items one by one on the forum and/or zendesk.
As far as I understand it was delayed because 2020 and 2024 were using separate iterations of the world. Now that that has been changed with SU16 they’ve said the World Hub is being relaunched soon
Woohoo! ten characters
Not really! The world hub would have to be done by others. But anyone should be able to easily change the parking locations, sizes, etc. without asking others to change them. I am asking for something like AFCAD that we used to have with FS2004. Very easy to use for basic changes.
So the World Hub is not an easy to use tool for modifying scenery in the sim? That’s a genuine question as I thought that was its whole point.
The World Hub alpha used the standard in-game dev tools for modifying airports, with a lot of elements restricted or removed to limit what could be added/edited.
I am not a developer. I made a couple of simple airport upgrades for FSX many years ago, just adding buildings and objects etc. I was interested to help fix things in MSFS and joined the World Hub alpha test.
The initial learning curve was moderate, considering I was almost completely new to it (with only a rudimentary understanding of airport design in the MS world). But once I got the basics down, I was adding taxiways and parking spaces to smaller airfields without too much difficulty.
It wasn’t possible to add building or objects with the alpha test, but I believe that was something they were looking at for the full release. I’m looking forward to it either way.
I want to spend my free time flying and not editing scenery, but I’m happy to do my part to correct airfields with glaring errors, where the layout doesn’t match the aerials, or where there are no parking spaces or windsocks and so on.
Agree. I modded about 60 airports in the world hub. The tools can be a little wonky, but once you get it down it’s not too bad. Myself and a few others made several UI and QoL requests on the dev forum based on our experiences.
I wanted to just go in and correct the PAPI/VASI positioning, as it’s a real difference-maker in terms of the glidepath aimpoint (they’re way off in the sim, don’t get me started). But I ended up making general alignments of pavement, removing errant taxiway lights and adding others, fixing parking spaces, adding parking Ts and other pavement markings, “cutting down” trees in approach areas, placing taxiway signs, and a lot of other minor fixes.
I actually enjoy the process, but it ends up being 3-12 hours or more per airport (obviously more as airports get larger), just to get it to a level of realism approaching the real world. Countless hours of watching YouTube videos of Cessnas landing at municipal strips just to catch a glimpse of a taxiway sign for correct placement/naming.
I mostly focus on small to medium/municipal airstrips; the largest was Sacramento International (KSMF), only to have my hard work on that one reverted by AI when 2024 launched. I’m still pretty upset about that.
I feel for you. But hey, you sharing this actually made me a little interested, it sounds kinda cool/fun!
Maybe once it relaunches for 2034, I’ll have a little crack at it myself!
That’s strange - the fixes/edits I made for KCID in the World Hub were still kept for MSFS2024
Yeah, they completely rewrote my edits for KSMF, specifically reverted back the taxiway W extension I corrected, which is 8 years old now. I’m guessing they let the AI overwrite it, probably based on an ancient aerial, the use of which is utterly ridiculous. Funny thing is you can still see where I manually placed the taxiway light strings to conform with reality, but they now lead to nowhere (they actually block taxiway Y at D in the sim, which no longer exists in reality). Also, the drainage ditches and gravel access roads surrounding the airport had very noticeable polygons written over the aerial and it looks awful.
If this kind of heavy-handed nonsense is going to be the norm, I’d rather just not put in the days and days of volunteer work. But I will complain loudly because this kind of stuff - taxiways, lighting, errant trees, even parking spots, is all very important in an operational sense. Errors in these will literally interfere with realistic flying, causing us to work around them in unrealistic “dangerous” ways. Fixing these items is literally the raison d’être of the World Hub and letting AI screw it back up at the expense of volunteer effort… I’m not having it.
I did a few airports in the World Hub beta and plan to do a lot IF/WHEN they ever open it back up again.