ORBX FTX Region General Question

[louisdecoolste 12]

If you're flying tubeliners seven miles up then the Regions probably won't do much for you - most of the airfields wouldn't take a 737. Regions are best for low/slow GA when you can open the window and smell the pine.

[gpbarth 12]

Well, I also fly the Turbine Duke, the Grand Caravan, and the A2A Cub, 172 and P-51. Oh, and a couple of turbine Porters. I live in the southeast of PA. But there doesn't seem to be any offerings around here. Maine, maybe.

 

What I was really curious about was the plans for a North American "mesh". I heard that was in the works. And then I saw this "Alaska/British Columbia" thing, so...

[raymie 81]

Hi Gary,

 

First, I noticed that you live in the southeastern section of PA. I lived the first 10 1\2 years of my life in Pottstown, PA, about half an hour from Reading. However, I lived most of my life in the Pacific Northwest (WA, specifically Bremerton). That's where I received my pilot's license many years ago. For that reason, I am partial to the PNW region that Orbx offers. As it has been noted, a lot of great add on airports for you to purchase and enjoy--but be careful of the Seattle area with your scenery settings. I currently live in Spokane, WA and enjoy Orbx's Felts Field add on. For that reason, I purchased the Northern Rockies region. Northern CA is my second favorite region as there are some very nice add on Orbx airports for that region and the overall scenery is quite nice. So far, I have not had any problems with the SFO area--that seems to be almost as bad as the SEA area. If you have a desire to do any "bush flying" then I would suggest Pacific Fjords & or Southern AK regions. It all depends on what you enjoy the most from your flight sim experience and tastes along with your flight sim "budget". Hope this helps,

 

Raymie,

Spokane Valley, WA

[gpbarth 12]

The Southern AK region looks very nice, and I find I am doing more and more "low and slow" flying lately. I started getting interested in realistic airports while still flying the big iron, and got KFLL (where I was born and raised), KJFK, and KDFW.  But I've been looking at lot of videos of flying in the Pacific and Alaska areas, and I love the details of the smaller strips. So I guess the first will be the Souther AK area and the the Juneau airport, to start.

 

Thanks for the input. I'm sure that after flying in these areas, I'll be impressed enough to get the other regions. I'm still waiting to hear more about the North America area, too.

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

Initially, you do not even have to buy airports... the ones that come with the region are quite nice and complete!

[raymie 81]

What's nice about both the Pacific Fjords & Southern AK Orbx regions is a lot of smaller airports that you can still get either a turbo-prop liner or a 737 into and out of along with the "low and slow" bush flying. You have great scenery, and the best of both worlds flying wise.  As Bert has noted, many of the default Orbx airports are still quite nice in both of those regions. Sorry, I do not know anything about the North American "mesh" or plans for that. Maybe some one else reading this can answer your question. 

 

Raymie

[gpbarth 12]

Okay, guys, you have me convinced, and I finally worked hard enough to be able to pick up some more goodies. I had bought the FTX Global Base, and then picked up the Southern Alaska package, and I'm really getting into flying around up there in the Great White North (which isn't all that "white" in the summer!). So now I'm interested in getting a few more items, but I don't want to buy something I don't need.

 

After installing the above packages, I looked at my scenery in FSX, and it seems that I have the OpenLC Europe and OpenLC NAmerica already installed (as a result of FTX Global, maybe??). I wanted to get FTX Global Vector, OpenLC NA Alaska/Canada, the NA Pacific Fjords, and the Juneau, Ketchikan and Yakutat airports. Does that sound like I'm on the right track? I'm very impressed with this scenery, and went so far as to totally unstall and remove the Megascenery Earth files from my computer. It actually got me half of my 300 Gb hard drive back!

 

And now I've bought the A2A Comanche, so there is another nice GA aircraft I have to fly around up there. I'm parking the heavy iron in the hangar for now, and vacationing in Alaska!

[787flyer 633]

Gary,

 

You are definitely on the right track with FTX Global, your landclass, then your large regions such as Southern Alaska etc. Vector gives extra detail in the coastlines and the smaller details you would expect in any scenery area... railways, motorways etc. This is optional but great for flying at relatively low levels but at altitude the differences are less obvious. Me personally I did not bother with Vector as I am flying airliner routes most of the time.

 

One comment on the OpenLC. As far as I recall, one of the versions/updates of FTX Global (can't remember which?) provided a subset of new land class for the South Western states of the US. It was not full coverage of the US so this has yet to be released by Orbx. For sure Europe LC was released and just recently Alaska and Canada. Next to come is the US coverage, but Germany LC is also on the horizon.

 

Tip: If you look in FTX Central 2 you will see which OpenLC areas you have installed under FTX Global layers.

 

Regards,

[Dominique_K 10,134]

 I would also encourage you to frequent the OrbX forums. A very active and friendly community there.

[adeh 0]

Hallo! I'm having trouble with the latest (Sept 2015) FTX Central in that it will not open when I try to re-install regions, nor am I able to install PFJ from the DVD. The

Fullterrain website is off-line and I wonder if the FTX Central problem is a cause of this (if they are receiving a large number of queries, that is, and are trying to fix it).

 

Ii should say that other DVD programs install without problems.

 

Has anyone else had this problem?

 

Cheers Ade

[MartinRex007 390]

Go to their forum, they can help you there. Also I don't think they use DVD's anymore.

 

Cheers

[louisdecoolste 12]

Hallo! I'm having trouble with the latest (Sept 2015) FTX Central in that it will not open when I try to re-install regions, nor am I able to install PFJ from the DVD. The

Fullterrain website is off-line and I wonder if the FTX Central problem is a cause of this (if they are receiving a large number of queries, that is, and are trying to fix it).

 

Ii should say that other DVD programs install without problems.

 

Has anyone else had this problem?

 

Cheers Ade

 

Reinstall usually means trying to put an old version of FTX Central on top of new - never a good idea. ALWAYS install the libraries last and before running Central as that contains the latest FTX Central V2. The latest version is 150815 IIRC.

[adeh 0]

Thanks for your prompt response, Louis. No, I'm not trying to install over existing files, the ORBX folder has been deleted in an attempt to clean up the Sim. What I meant (and perhaps should have written :smile:) is that I am trying to install all FTX regions again. At the moment I can't install any ORBX files. I get as far as the acceptance of conditions page and no farther.  I am going to nuke everything by getting a new HD, with fresh W7, FSX Acceleration etc. If that doesn't work I shall cut my throat!! :smile: (Not really!)

Thanks again, Ade

Incidentally, FTX Central is the Sept 2015 edition which may mean it has some issues to be sorted out.

 

Ade

[louisdecoolste 12]

Ade,

 

Unless you have updated versions of the original installers, you will be installing the older versions of FTX Central. What you do is quit out when installing and only run FTX Central after you've run the updated libraries.

 

The ORBX folder is NOT the only place the FTX files are installed, so you probably made an error there. Restore them if you can. FTX is not so easy to remove as simply deleting the folder !

 

What you could try rather than all this faffing abaht is install the latest libraries (there's nothing wrong with them, it's the FTX website that's crocked) then use FTX Central to uninstall or at least remove the entries for all the FTX products from the scenery library. That MAY allow you to delete the ORBX folder to start the reinstallation process, although I've not tried it myself.

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

Vector only helps outside the regions you have installed.

 

If I were you, I would get PNW, and NorCal next.