Sunday 2 October 2011

Fantastic FSX add-ons

I have to confess to doing rather little on my scenery recently.  I took a large number of photos for the textures and in a schoolboy error realised when I uploaded them from the camera to my PC that there was a greasy smudge on the lens and that every image was unusable.  Combined with some issues at work I've not managed to retake them yet.  So I did the next best thing and invested in a couple of great add-ons instead :p

I was always a little disappointed with my VR-Insight Hat-Track product.  Although it did the job, it was always a little unresponsive no matter how I set it up and it had a killer problem in that it jumped forward and to the left for a few seconds every now and then, resulting in disorientation especially at critical times such as landing.  Despite a visit to their customer support forum where the problem was already documented, (and where I found that they had discontinued the product and almost all support for it!), no suggested fixes or workarounds helped.  So I decided to splash out on a TrackIR 5.  (I initially decided on the Hat-Track because of a review detailing that it was a little weak physically in one place and had broken easily.)  Now I wish that I'd bought the TrackIR in the first place!  It's much more responsive, lags much less and adds so much to the immersivity (is that a real word?) of the sim :) Highly recommended....

Also, I'd seen the EZCA camera add-on after coming across the 737NGX promo videos.  After a quick download and upgrading to the latest version with a patch, I soon had EZCA and the TrackIR working perfectly in tandem.  It's much easier on the eye being able to seamlessly drift from one view to another and chose which ones you can track around with head movements with.  Again, highly recommended....

The next one was a bit of a punt...I'd found FSFlyingSchool2011 on a random google search for FSX add-ons a while ago and thought I'd try it out as there was a free demo.  It doesn't contain any flyable missions but it does provide helpful advice on flight techniques and amusing commentary from your in cockpit flying instructor Smitty.  FSFS2011 offered a weekend special offer so I got the voice command pack and Cessna 173 detail pack for free as well as a 15% discount :p   It tracks flight plans and offers advice for waypoints and you can configure many different options regarding what help and advice is offered during a flight, including coping with failures.  I don't think I've plumbed the depths of this product yet but even after only a few days I now can't help but marvel at how flat and empty my cockpit experience was without Mr Smith there to keep me company.

My penultimate choice was an ATC upgrade courtesy of VoxATC6, from RCSimulations.  This aims to almost replicate correctly the ATC in real life.  It's voice recognition led so comms is much more realistic at a stroke being through a yoke button set to ATC together with a proper headset.  There are prompts on-screen so even newbies can get to grips with proper CAP413 radio usage rather easily.  This is a fantastic add-on, not cheap but it makes FSX really feel realistic and I would rather lose a leg than be without it....! :O

If you haven't found Plan-G yet download it now!  It's a freeware add-on flight planner head and shoulders above anything else I've seen.  The only downside is that when you run FSX fullscreen you can't follow Plan-G.  Apparently though it's possible to run a second PC as a client using SimConnect meaning that you can have FSX fullscreen on the server (main PC) and have Plan-G running on the second PC displayed at the same time (and it won't be consuming any cpu resources either) so this might be something I want to delve into at some unspecified point in the future.

I really do feel that the quality of experience in FSX has taken a great leap forwards with these additions, so I'm feeling the motivation to take my scenery to the next level to match it.  To make it easier to do larger residential and unspecific industrial locations I have another potential trick up my sleeve, more on that maybe later....!

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