Msfs Area 51

[Favio Cassidy]

Ihave stripped the pack down to just water polys, removing any excludes or terraforming to rule them out as part of the problem. However, the load times are still high and there are a lot of terrain issues going on in the vicinity, which disappear when I deactivate the package.

Some of there terrain issues have been around for a while, and I always just thought it had to do with the mesh in the area, never putting two and two together until recently. Though, even though they have been around for a while, they have definitely gotten much worse after the last sim update.

This area has had terrain issues in the past when dealing with this same addon, so maybe there is a connection somewhere? Though, this exact issue seems to no longer occur, but that may just be due to me removing 90% of the water flattens I had at the time. Terrain spikes around added water features

I can get loaded in in 18 seconds at 8AK5 without the pack, but at least 5 minutes with it.

Look at the Denali range to the West/Northwest of the airport. Most of it will be missing as in the photo as well as around some of the lakes just before the mountains.

That said, it seems like the loading time is cumulative depending on the number of water polys present in the package, not just in a BGL chunk. Terrain issues also seem to be tied into the automatic water flattening, but only if a certain number of water polys are present in an area.

Something is corrupted? with the Atlanta area. I cannot start a flight from KPDK (my home airport!) or KATL. The load screen gets about 50% through, the screen freezes, and my headphones start screeching loudly. I have to power down with the PSU switch to get the PC to shut down. The same thing happens if I start my flight somewhere else, and approach the Atlanta area. About the time I start preparing for my approach into KPDK, the sim freezes and headphones screech.

Attempt to create any flight that starts at KDPK or KATL. Does it with the Beechcraft Baron with all 3P add-ons removed, and even in safe mode. Been like this for several months now but I just put 2-and-2 together that it always happens with the Atlanta area.

I am currently flying the bush mission in the Sierra Nevada. Many times, the landing area is not obvious. The runways are often grass or dirt, and MS's pictures don't clearly indicate which of the many possible landing areas are the runway. For example, a runway may have a dirt road that runs parallel to it for about the same length, and the "runway for credit" is actually the narrower of the two. If you don't stop the plane on the correct one, the mission does not end successfully. In another leg of the trip, there is, believe it or not, actually an arrow on the screen capture of the landing area that MS-Asobo provides that points to the runway, and there is an actual arrow on the ground in the sim. Simple, right? Nope. The actual finish of the leg is a parallel dirt track to the side a few yards. I have no doubt that the arrow indicates the intended (by the owner of the airfield) landing area, but MS-Asobo doesn't stop the leg and give credit until you are on a parallel dirt track a few yards away. Given the lack of documentation in the simulation, it is unclear exactly where you have to stop to get credit. So, here is what I plan to do from now on.

Setup a free flight departing from the destination airfield in the leg you are about to fly. Zoom out and look around. Find your landmarks, and then fly the mission. Simple, but hopefully this extra step will save a lot of frustration, and "driving" the airplane around the area trying to finish the flight. I'll report back after trying it a few times. If anyone has a better idea, please respond.

Yeah, some of those legs can be quite challenging to find the actual "Completed" spot. If I recall, that one you are talking about (with the arrow) has what looks to be a box in the middle of the runway. I had to stop in there in order for it to give me credit.

I also found that there are a TON of inaccuracies in some of the NAVLOG descriptions. Sometimes it say "Head West" when in fact you should head due-North. Also found a few of the clues were out of place. There was one (you may not have gotten to it yet) where it takes you to some Dams, then later on it's like "go to the so-and-so Dam", which was like 3 legs ago. Just out of correct order. I found that using skyvector.com helped a TON, and I didn't feel like I was cheating because using a VFR map is something you would realistically do.

Beyond the overly-visible runway textures, another sure sign of what the runway actually was is that the terrain under and around the runway was perfectly flat even if it was surrounded by rolling hills.

I like the better realism of actually having to look for runways rather than having them announce themselves unrealistically obviously. But the arrow pointing to the "wrong" runway is, I agree, annoying.

What I think would be awesome is a narrated bush trip, along the lines of these Gypsy Guide apps that you can use on road trips (absolutely loved the Banff/Jasper one). Passing by a POI would trigger a pre-recorded narration pointing out some specific POIs ("To the east you can see a power dam that was built in 1956. At the bottom of the reservoir that it created, and that you can also notice a little further, lie the former towns of X and Y") or geological information ("The darker curved lines you notice in the rock formation are witnesses to movements in the underlying plates over the last X millions of years. 10 million years ago, this area used to be covered by water.")

I know the main objective of the Bush trips is sightseeing, but I think it would be cool to throw in an occasion challenge too, specifically relating to weather. After 9 sunny perfect legs, perhaps throw a leg where a quick front blows through reducing visibility where we had to take additional action in order to avoid missing our waypoint. For instance, what should have been a straight flight over the hills is now suddenly hampered by the low ceiling that now exists. I feel between the Bush trips and the landing challenges, they are not utilizing weather in the challenges enough (not all all besides the "windy" landing challenges). Look how many FSX missions there were that used weather and visibility (lack of) as the primary obstacle of the mission. Hopefully we'll see more of that as time goes on. (I am just assuming that the "Activites" will be changed\refreshed on a semi-regular basis).

Good point @Trubicon. Talk to old Alaskan bush pilots and they'll tell you how you could be flying along fat dumb and happy in perfect VFR conditions with a high ceiling, and all of a sudden the clouds slam to the ground and you're inside a ping pong ball. That'd be fun if replicated in the sim.

I'm working on the Rijeka-Santorini bush trip. I just landed at Mostar. I stopped on the runway, on the taxiway, and at parking. The sim never recognized that I completed the trip. In this case, the runway is paved, so there is no question of maybe being a little off, or on a nearby path, as with the grass fields. I "drove" all over trying to get a completion, but never found it. I even did a complete shutdown in parking - no joy. The aircraft, in this trip, has a G1000, so it's not much of a navigation challenge. And, there is no chance of being at the wrong airport. Also, I used the "smart camera" view to see the objective. In this scenario, it's right at the beginning of RW33. Putting the ac right there didn't work, either.

And, there is no chance of being at the wrong airport. Also, I used the "smart camera" view to see the objective. In this scenario, it's right at the beginning of RW33. Putting the ac right there didn't work, either.

All I'd say is that I had the same issue in the Yosemite bush flights, took off again and spent an AGE looking till I found the actual strip, less than half a mile away - almost invisible (and I only really spotted it by referencing the overhead picture in the directions). So maybe worth a double-check that you were at the right spot?

Patch (1.8.3.0) appears to have broken leg completions in the bush trips. There are a number of posts about it on the official forums. Sounds like you can start over a trip from leg one, but any trips started before Patch (1.8.3.0) will no longer register legs as complete when reaching the destination airport.

Please take the time to read this topic. Its a bit long but it will give u a detailed understanding of a severe shortcoming which I feel nobody has yet pointed out but a serious realism killer. These are the 2 broad issues:

1. In most cases,the night lights in the sim is like the leftmost one(1st pic), both at airports and in general to a certain extent.(Obviously not so much highly focused but what I am trying to point out is the tight focus and the coverage area).Notice that the immediate surroundings suddenly becomes dark and the central part where the light actually falls is super brightly lit. There is a sharp noticeable contrast.

2. Whereas the apron/gate lighting or in general the airport lighting looks like the 2nd & 3rd picture in real life (sry for a bit disoriented positioning of the pics). Firstly, notice the intensity of the apron lights. Also, Considering the height at which the lamps are placed in the aprons, the coverage area of the lights should be like the one shown in the 2nd and 3rd pic. Also, Note the scattering of lights due to which the surface/ground looks almost evenly lit and not in sharp focused patches of light. The surface is lit even beyond the taxiway leading to the stands and generally its like that at almost all major airports.

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