This scenery adds a period rendition of the landscape around the 'Advanced Airfield' B-9 (LGB9, addon by Miltech/Sundownersim on Marketplace and ORBX). It currently covers a map of 10km x 10km = 100 sq km (on a cartesian system).
First a couple of important remarks
- the map is not historically accurate (in lack of an historic map with reasonable resolution). It's a fictional rendition of the «se non è vero, è ben trovato» type.
- the scenery is far from perfect, it still has glitches ─ but it should improve your immersion on a big scale.
I generally like the payware addon «Advanced Landing Ground B-9». Some things may/should be improved like the duplicated bomb holes. However, the main and biggest fallback is its geographic limits. Right beyond all four corners of the airfield there is the modern world, 4-lane highways, industrial buildings and complexes, silos, modern houses. Even some windmills in the not so far distance. As soon as your WWII aircraft has leaped off the ground the illusion of Normandy summer 1944 is - just gone. Completely.
To be fair, the very same (limitation) applies to the «Redwing 1935» addons (also payware).
The reason for this (apart from technical restrictions) is quite simple: It takes an enourmous amount of time to «rebuild» landscapes 80 or 90 years back the timeline. That simply doesn't pay off in a commercial product. It doesn't pay off in a freeware, either. But there's no need for it. ;-)
That said, I started with a 10km x 10km tile, the airfield not in its precise middle.
The biggest immersion killers are hard to overcome. The Shark AI and the MS default building pool do not a very good job on the French country side. The biomes do not match. Far too many trees in the wrong places. Many buildings are completely surrounded by big trees ─ worse than in a jungle. No farms and houses of the rural type. Of course, nowadays many are gone or replaced. But there should still be a good many number of them.
And while we have dozens of palm species, there is not a single poplar in all game libraries! At least that I could overcome with my custom poplars.
I REMOVED:
- hundreds of buildings & houses
- hundreds of obnoxious trees (by the default biome)
- some roads
- outside of the map's range: some industrial buildings and wind mills
I ADDED
- hundreds of poplars, seaming the roads and dividing the fields in typical French country fashion (7 different custom poplars of 3 species)
- dozens of animals, some animated, sheep, cows, horses
- some bridges and churches
- long convoys of WWII vehicles
- replaced some farm houses by better suiting ones
- covered up the ugly white shacks in the backyard of the castle
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
- LGB9 by Miltech Simulations/Sundownersim (also in Marketplace & Orbx)
Well, you can use my scenery all of its own, but without an airfield to land and service your aircraft it may get a bit boring. - IPDC Vehicles Library by Amarillon for all the additional WWII vehicles
- BeeKay-Pack1 v5.0 (sub libs: animals & animated)
- SE_Lib, replacement for farm houses with a more 'rural' type
- and, of course, WU IV with France
RECOMMENDED (but you can do without)
- Dave's 3D animals Library
- for just a few instances of a genuine 'normandy cow': totof library object v5
- EG78 Outskerries in MS WU-III UK (a couple of bridges)
- any tree resizer. However, some freeware tools may conflict with my own biome that removes excessive trees.
- use summer season!
Since this is a niche product, all comments are welcomed. It's also an open project. Anyone with some skills in either photo retouching or MSFS SDK can participate! The imposing next map tile will be the adjacent stretch of land up to the the Normandy coast.
Enjoy!
PS:
Screenshots have been taken with the Sundownersim addon activated.
Due to 3 GB upload size limitation the map tiles are in resolution 18.
2 months ago
2 months ago
deHavilland
Amarillon
2 months ago
2 months ago
deHavilland
jvortiz56