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Medellinexpat

X-Plane Fan
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Everything posted by Medellinexpat

  1. Thanks for this review. I had been pondering buying this but there is little information about it. In many case there were just the same half a dozen screen shots and only half of those showed the airport itself. The same lack of information is true of their Lyon Saint Exuperey offering. From your review this looks worthwhile in particular with the TE compatability. Interesting that outside the airport the developer has done a good job but airside, with say the clutter, it misses a little. Am I the only one who believes that developers need to focus on the airside more and worry a little less about the eye candy outside? I had seen talk that this airport was going to be available on the Orbx Direct platform. Do you know if that’s true, that Orbx are going to include Digital Designs products on their store?
  2. As always Wikipedia is your friend Flights between Westray Airport and Papa Westray Airport occur daily in both directions, except on Saturdays, when only flights from Westray to Papa Westray are available, and on Sunday, when only flights from Papa Westray to Westray are available.The total distance covered by the flights is 1.7 miles (2.7 km), which is about the same length as the runway at Edinburgh Airport. The flights are always combined with flights from and to Kirkwall Airport (27 mi (43 km) distance), flying in a narrow triangle.
  3. I have the Nimbus BN-2 and would also recommend it. Including the Westray airports seems to me to be a good way to differentiate their product from the Torquesim one. For me when I originally bought the Nimbus it was something of a coin flip as both had decent reviews. Thanks again for the review and the help on flying between the two airports. It cuts out a lot of trial and error!
  4. On your reviews I do find them very useful and often they influence my buying. I believe that there is a real lack of useful reviews available. Maybe it’s an age thing but I find the long rambling video reviews less that useful. Increasingly those reviews seem to get longer and longer perhaps I guess to earn revenue from more advertisements. I also find that many of the reviews have some bias or deliberately look for small issues to make big. However i think that the larger problem is that the development community does a very poor job in promoting their products. Expect me to drop $30 on a scenery or $70 on an aircraft and all you can offer is a few screenshots, a list of features and a short video with a banal soundtrack? After all that development work you can’t put some time into promoting the product? Some of the scenery developers seem to go out of their way to choose screenshots that make their wares look worse than most freeware. Most developers are small shops but few take any real steps to engage customers or provide decent feedback on forums. Three notable exceptions for me xOrganizer, Stick and Rudder Studios and Vertical Simulations. Some like Orbx can be really bad. Where they sell third party products they then pass questions to those developers who then provide no response. Want to know why I didn’t buy your scenery? It wasn’t because my question wasn’t answered it’s why you’re ignoring two other forum participants who are asking why, near the terminal, your scenery runs like a slide show. And if you are a developer having a web site about your product that has little information or even worse broken links doesn’t enhance your chance of selling to me nor give me a lot of confidence in your capabilities. Perhaps if the industry spent less time complaining about poor sales and focused more on promoting their wares things would be different. Or perhaps it’s just easier to ride on the coat tails of something like MSFS and hope that increases sales numbers?
  5. In the end i reordered, from the Org.store, and had no issues. I’m very pleased with the purchases and your reviews are right on. I might have worried about the weather radar in the Navajo unless I’d seen your comments that it does pretty much nothing. My guess, given how few liveries are available for them, is that they’ve not had stellar sales. Carenado aircraft are anything but perfect and since Thandra departed the community really don’t seem big fans. But at the sale price, the Navajo was less than $20 and the Bonanza $16, I’d argue they were pretty good buys. Buying one or two when a sale comes around isn’t an expensive way to build a interesting little fleet of GA aircraft. Of course whether they are updated in the future if that becomes necessary is a risk but they aren’t major investments. Anyway back to the Navajo currently en route from Ibiza to Malaga. A rather pleasant way to spend the afternoon.
  6. Based on your reviews, which I find to be both useful and accurate I went and ordered both. Once I’d purchased using Paypal I got a message that there was a problem on the vendor (Carenados) side. I went back to the Carenado site and my new purchases weren’t in my account. I did get a message from my Bank credit card (linked to Paypal) that the payment had been made. That charge (not a hold) now today shows on my credit card. I opened a support ticket with Carenado and a day later there’s no response. So at best I’m going to be spending hours sorting this out. Carenado doesn’t make it easy to report an issue. Having an account with them isn’t enough to file a support ticket you also need to open another account for the support section. It might make sense to them, it doesn’t to me. I always try to buy directly from the vendors but in future I’ll get any Carenado purchases elsewhere.
  7. I have a fair amount of Carenado aircraft and am pretty happy with them. There’s a sale on (again) but most of what I don’t have and would like get pretty dismal reviews. This Bonanza might be an exception. Recommended still at 11.5? The Navajo also might be a buy. The review from 2018 on here was pretty positive but there’s little other feedback I can find. Neither, one or both?
  8. ‘In early 2021, I think the penny will drop for the Dev Houses’ I do worry that with some of them being so focused on MSFS that they will have ‘bet the farm’ on sales there being successful that they might not be around in 2021. Kudos to developers like Justsim in continuing to provide new content for Xplane. They deserve our support.
  9. A little off the main subject but at least this is a release for XP11. Still very little or nothing at all from other developers like Orbx and Carenado. They’re obviously working hard on product for MSFS. There’s certainly a lot of payware content, in particular scenery, for MSFS. Any industry whispers about how sales are going? Is MSFS the gold mine that they seemed to think it would be?
  10. You are right about having airports that form route networks, or at least provide some interesting alternatives in routes to fly. Looking at some of the airports under development or recently released for MSFS there’s a lot of niche stuff coming out. This for Xplane seems a worthwhile buy. Having said that I do wonder if developers really think about their release dates as carefully as they might. This appeared just as Steam, and to a less extent the Org store are having sales. That means you’re competing against 50% off items. There’s always a temptation to buy those items when they appear. This is well priced and I will pick it up. Your comment about the disappearing runway lighting is interesting. How did they achieve that? It’s not something I’ve noticed in other sceneries.
  11. I think that the actual aircraft had a castoring tail wheel, so unconnected to the rudder movement. You may be right about the rudder but perhaps the tail wheel isn’t ‘free’ enough and creates too much directional control. And shouldn’t the castor be a similar problem on takeoffs? On flaps on landing I’ve seen articles that flaps 15 is more common in the real world (55 knots at touchdown) but flaps 30 improves the view over the nose.
  12. Kudos to the developer for keeping the faith with this aircraft and producing this new version. I do wonder about that $40 price tag. That’s high compared with most small single engined aircraft for X-plane and most (being more modern) have complexities that this simulation won’t have. The other question in my mind is the difficulty of landing. That seems unlikely in what is a basic trainer. Does the real aircraft display those vices - or at least to that extent? $25-$30 and the landing characteristics sorted out (if incorrect) and this would be a buy
  13. Thank you another interesting piece. I must admit Vulkan met my expectations and The performance is noticeably better in my rig. I also am a big fan of Navigraph but I’ve not seen the stutters or the delays. Having said that Simlink isn’t always perfect and there have been many updates to it over the past few months. On Vulkan I’ve seen my RTX 2080 much busier in particular in overcast and heavy weather. I use Activesky and I’ve reverted to their default clouds which seems to help significantly and with the temps. But in terms of how few problems there seem to have been since the release I think Laminar deserve a lot of credit. Totally agree with you on the IXEG 733. It’s not only a good piece of software but also a pleasant blend of automation and manual. Personally I prefer it to Zibo although I am sure many will disagree. On the CRJ I’d always discounted purchasing it, one its so long since the last update and secondly because there are a fair few negative reviews, although again many of those are now three years old. One issue is with pricing. At $60 (including the sound pack) that seems expensive for something that’s fairly old in the tooth, and unlike the IXEG 733 not getting active updates. Your review has made me wonder if I’m missing out though. Personally I’d highly recommend XOrganizer. One it’s great for managing scenery but the plug in management - the ability to turn a plug in on or off for any session - is I think useful in helping have a stable platform. If nothing else it makes testing performance issues (which plug in is causing this) very easy. One question I’ve been thinking about it the impact of real world aviation on flight simulation. Unfortunately we’re likely to have less flights and less airlines for the foreseeable future. What does that imply for products (like Traffic Global) that contain scheduled flight representations? Updating those schedules would mean a lot less traffic. Should we keep to a representation of a pre Covid world?
  14. Does MSFS have to be a Sim rather than a game to sell add ons, in particular scenery? I think that all the third party developers were rushing to MSFS just because it was going to have large numbers of players (and therefore target audience) rather than it was going to be the most realistic simulator. One thing that will be interesting to watch is whether MSFS changes the sceneries that are available. X-Plane has little beyond the US and Europe for example. There’s very little if anything for Asia. You can buy an excellent Fresno (Orbx) but not a Narita. The early releases for MSFS seem to be following that same trend. Lots of niche airports in Europe and the US.
  15. But if MSFS does make It more of a mainstream hobby? I’ve always believed that it is the wider audience on MSFS might not accept pricing that we’ve been used to. It’ll be even more interesting when MSFS starts to go on sale (Black Friday?) which will make add on prices, in terms of content for your dollar, seem even more distorted. A lot of us Quietly rebel against that niche market pricing anyway. Take Orbx, and I’m a big fan and have plenty of their stuff, but for the most part I wait for the sale. When Carenado recently had a big sale I bought five aircraft that I wanted and generally I’m not that price sensitive. So we in a world of niche pricing have all learnt hoe to play the game. Steam pricing is interesting as well. I live in Colombia and the local Steam store pricing, even without sales, tends to lower than in the US or Europe. For example Aerosoft’s fairly recent Ibizia is $23.95 on the Org store. it’s the equivalent of $13.95 on Steam here. That’s not a cherry picked item either, just an example. So niche pricing isn’t consistent. Perhaps VerticalSimulations might make a good interview to understand how they came to their new pricing. But you’re probably right, as a niche market pricing was never going to be that competitive but if MSFS now means we’re moving away from niche, maybe the dominos will start to fall.
  16. But why is scenery a $25 item? Why is a lower price ‘giving it away’? Yes, that’s pricing that we’ve become used to, but with more competition and potentially more sales perhaps that’s changing? Orbx have developed Key West for other platforms so perhaps that’s probably a candidate for MSFS except now, with FSDT’s pricing maybe they’ll be less keen to release. VerticalSimulation pricing for many of their regional airports for Xplane directly from their website are $6. Even Tampa is $16. I wouldn’t have picked up many of their airports and missed out on the great quality if they had been $20 or $25. I don’t want developers to starve (quite the opposite) but I’ve always wondered if the high price of add-ons, in particular scenery, was the real barrier to getting more sales and ultimately through volume more profit. With scenery in particular there aren’t many barriers for new entrants. There’s going to be a lot of competition and pricing is going to become a big element.
  17. I’d commented before on whether MSFS might start to move scenery prices down, the idea of micro transaction pricing. I’d offered up VerticalSims Plant City pricing as an example and you’d suggested that was a test on pricing. Now FSDreamTeam are releasing Key West at $9.99. Are you sure that this lower pricing isn’t a trend rather than a test?
  18. An interesting post, thank you. I’m very impressed with Vulcan but I did notice my rig was running harder. I’ve color matched components in my rig to their temperatures so visually I could see that more heat was being generated. More of the increase seemed to be coming from my RTX 2080. The setting that significantly increased the temperature of that was the difference between HDR+SSAO. The issue wasn’t huge but put the card borderline on what is recommended for normal operating. Changing the setting back to HDR lowered the component temperature by 10 degrees. The positive is of course is that Vulcan is making better use of our rigs. However, at least in my experience and depending how conservative you are or aren’t about trying to maintain hardware life keeping a thought on not just what your machine can do, but also on what the temperature impact is might be worthwhile. My CPU temperatures (it is water cooled) are well within recommendations.
  19. An update to my earlier post on performance Vulkan does make a huge difference.
  20. I bought this on the Org.store sale over the weekend. Nothing has ever had the impact on frame rates on my PC like this, particularly on the ground. Hopefully Vulcan will help but just so people are aware I’ve a fair amount of payware and nothing has had anything like the impact that this scenery has.
  21. Stephen I’m not talking about the discount for MSFS from owning in another platform. Check pricing yourself. MSFS sceneries are much cheaper on Orbx than other platforms. Take London City. For X-plane and P3d the scenery is AUD 32.95 and for MSFS AUD 20.99. A small airport like Orca island (KORS) AUD 17.99 for MSFs for Xplane AUD 34.95. One theory from the Orbx forum for the price differential is that MSFS only includes textures for the airport wheres other platforms have surrounding photo real scenery ehich is expensive. I think there’s some validity in that, but not enough to support the price differential. Nothing to do with crossover.
  22. And just an addition Orbx prices for their airports are half on MSFS what they are on other platforms (which as an X-Plane user pleases me not a bit), so it looks as if MSFS might be pushing add on prices down already. Presumably they believe they’ll make it up on the volumes.
  23. To our point VerticalSim today released for MSFS Plant City Municipal airport. What is interesting is that it’s priced at $5.49 Now it’s a limited size scenery (and probably I’d suggest of limited interest) but at that price point it’s a micro transaction (below $10). It’s also around one-third of the price Orbx are asking for their small airports for the same platform. It’ll be interesting to see how pricing develops for add-ons for MSFS over time and whether that then starts having an impact on pricing for other platforms. Now I’m a big Orbx fan, and most of their product for X-Plane is excellent but personally I think one way to win on the MSFS store is going to be pricing within that micro transaction level that gamers are used to.
  24. I don’t think you understand my comment. I never suggested that the simulation community as we understood it would accept dumbed down add ons.What you are missing is that MSFS has different demographics to legacy platforms like X-Plane. If nothing else the median age of users on MSFS is likely very much lower. Adding consoles to the mix will only change those demographics even more. MSFS will bring more people to the hobby, but many, if not most, of those will be casual users (call them gamers if you want). Those casual users will likely have different criteria about what they want compared with those existing simmers moving to the new platform. They will almost certainly have different price pain points. Gaming has moved on from the days of FSX. People don’t focus on one game, or a couple of games exclusively. They own many games. Those that invest hundreds or thousands of dollars in a single game, either for hardware or add on software is a small minority of users. Think (before MSFS) how many copies of FSX were sold, particularly after it became widely discounted on Steam. How many of those users stayed around and how many of those bought expensive add-ons? My point was, and is, selling a lot of copies of MSFS is an opportunity for the add-on developers. But if they believe that their new customers have the same buying needs and depth of wallet that they had with their legacy client base they might be surprised. Scaling up (like Orbx) and rushing off to MSFS and leaving their legacy customers behind may for some turn out to be a huge mistake.
  25. In terms of developers for MSFS it will be interesting to see if the market is for the same sort of complexity in add ons that we’ve seen in the past. MSFS is attracting a wider group of players. Many of those will want better than the stock aircraft but whether they will want or pay for the complex add ons that have been marketed on other platforms is unproven. I believe that the market is limited for those types of add ons. So will people pay for adds ons that simulate every sort of systems failure? Adding features like that are expensive in the development process. Perhaps rather than $150 for a 737 add on the sweet spot for sales is going to be an eye/feature candy rich $20 one? As for the existing scenery developers if sales take off there, which I doubt, it’s going to bring a huge amount of new competitors to the platform. Scenery development doesn’t require the specialist aeronautical knowledge that aircraft add ons need. If nothing else the thought that $30 for a small or regional airport is a fair price might not last long.
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