I will be heading over to Flightsim.com here in a bit to find replacement skins for the stock planes that are used as AI...737, 747, 777, C-172, C-182, Bravo and such. Tired of those stock skins making my sim look bad.
I would also like to add some more variety in the number of paints used on AI....seeing the same 5 747s around the world...gets kind of boring. How hard is it to add another 4 or 5 paints to the mix and to get the sim to use the new paints on the AI...giving my sim 8 to 10 747s to display instead of 4 or 5.
OBIO
Hello Obio,
I know exactly how you feel. Here's what I recommend:
1) decide what "era" you want your sim to be. In my case, I have a GW3 install modifed so it's actually a FS1955. I have another install that is a Silver Wings setup modified to FS1970.
2) Ditch all stock FS planes - save for the Cessna. Don't like Cessnas, but I believe getting rid of it will mess things up.
3) Based on your era choice, download a fleet of planes that most closel mirrors the stock fleet you had. For example, for my FS1955 install, I downloaded the entire calclassics.com suite of AI planes. B377, Constellation, DC-3-to-7, etc. Bearing in mind a lot of the stock AI flights deal with mid-size and even smaller GA planes, build a fleet that mirrors those planes too. Again, for 1930-1960, the GW planes work nicely. The calclassics packs have nice commuter planes too, so again, you can replace your MD-80s and 737s very nicely.
Ditto for my FS1970 install - in that case, it was a mix of calclassics (jets like Caravelles, Comets, a few stray freighter Constellation and DC-7s, etc.) as well as AA Aardvark. Lovely 60's/70's era 707, 727, 747, C880/C990, and the like.
4) Decompile your stock traffic .bgl file, and edit the aircraft.txt file. It took me a couple of hours (I'm smart like hammers, so it may take you less) and replaced every stock entry with my new fleet, one-by one. Around 50-60 entries, can't remember now. So, for example, every Cessna entry (I think there was 3 or 4 of those) got replaced with by the 2 or 3 variations of Piper Cub that came with the GW3. The DH8s got replaced by Convair propliners, 747s by either Constellations and B377s in the case of my FS1955 install, or by 707s and such in the case of the FS1970 install.
Now, even if you don't install a single realistic AI pack, you've radically changed the default environment. This solution is the 80 out of the 80/20 rule: gives me 80% of the impact with only a little bit of work.
The last 20% takes the 80% of the work. That's going airline by airline, dowloading the requisite planes, etc. It's time consuming, and probably rivals cocaine and gambling in it's addictive quality - but it truly does leave you with a beautiful final product. That's where calclassics, WOAI, and a few others are good in that the flight plans, planes list, and airports are all spelled out.
I did the airlines that I find most interesting, and made sure I did at least a couple for every major region. So, for FS1955, obviously, I did Canadian Pacific and Trans Canada Airlines, and then hit the majors from the US, UK, Spain, France, W and E Germany, etc. I also did Aeroflot, Quantas, a couple from Central and South America, and the Middle East. Probably around 30 AI packs for each FS install, and that gave a really nice flavour. That way, most country I visit, I will likely see either it's national airline, or that of another that would likely have serviced it in real life.
More than all, though, back to your question, I have not seen a single Soar or orbit flight in my FS skies in almost half a decade ...
I hope that helps.
