CACTUS, for the southwest deserts USA

[Bob70]

I like everything about FSX for the most part. BUT, they sure dropped the ball when it came to the

[Ashton Lawson]

ur rite.  but some deserts in the US, like the Nevada desert are more baron than others, and i think ACES just thought, hey its desert, just turn the textures to sand, and throw in a few cacti.  but they dont seem to hav thought about the level of vegetaion and types throughout different deserts...

but anyway, i dont really know of any addon to help.

i do remember an addon for FS9 which actually gave you cactus, rather than the default desert shrubs...

[Stubbedtoe18]

It's mainly becuase when you're actually flying you don't see the tress but the textures.  It is a flight sim...  however, they should have the correct scenery around the airports, where most pilots are actually low to the ground.

[NightProwler]

Not sure about this, but I think it's because the scenery is of the general landclass variety - which is very broad. So you get a "desert" landclass in all desert areas on FSX globe. Since the scenery is general, they couldn't add the Saguaro to it, because it would show up in all the deserts.

I do remember some scenery for FS9 that had the Saguaros. It was for the Tucson area - which was great for me, since I live here!  :)

[BAW0343]

Hey another Tucsonian! What part of town you from? thought i was alone  :'(  Anyway that scenery was for photoreal Tucson and it was good, however it didn't match how this desert really is. Close, but not quite with the autogen anyway. You need to remember that they (the ACES team) had to recreate the entire world, they cant nitpick at every minor difference between this desert and others.  And besides, that photo (most likely from Tucson) shows what it looks like, but if you look around you'll see A LOT of pine trees, which arnt native to the desert. Tucson's greenery is mostly man made. To see what it should look like drive towards Phoenix and you'll notice mostly short creosote bushes, and I personally feel FSX did about as good as there going to on that aspect. Maby add a saguaro here and there and we'll be better off but till then, This is what we have.

[Stubbedtoe18]

Ey my grandparents live right out of Tuscon!  In Benson.  Anyways, in Benson there is a lot of foliage despite the deserts.

[NightProwler]

The scenery I was thinking of was actually for FS2K2 called Saguaro National Park East by Robert Palmer. Sorry about that - thought it was for FS9 - but most FS2k2 scenery was compatible with FS9. Anyway, It did have Saguaros in it, but it was for a very small area.

BTW I live on the east side. What part of the Old Pueblo do you live in?

Benson - my sister has some land near St David, close to Benson. It's a little bit higher elevation with a tad more rain, and more vegetation. Nice

[BAW0343]

East side as well, near pantano and speedway to give some general areas  ;D

[NightProwler]

East side as well, near pantano and speedway to give some general areas  ;D

22nd & Kolb . . .  :)


Dinsdale

[PsychoDiablo]

East side as well, near pantano and speedway to give some general areas  ;D

22nd & Kolb . . .  :)


Dinsdale

southerners

[NightProwler]

southerners

Well at least it's cooler down here . . . by 3 degrees  :P  ;D

Seen any F-16s lately?  :)

[PsychoDiablo]

southerners

Well at least it's cooler down here . . . by 3 degrees  :P  ;D

Seen any F-16s lately?  :)

Yea, i live about 2 miles from Luke. You learn to kind of drown out the noise of f-16s but occasionally something special fly's in  Earlier this morning saw a kc-10 doing touch and goes on the way to work, it almost looked like he was doing a slip maneuver trying to land in the cross wind

[BAW0343]

I'm going on base tomorrow with an A-10 pilot,  getting a nice tour and some up-close looks at the plane. Not sure what else he has in store but also in a few weeks hes getting me some A-10 sim time  ;D  And BTW, F-16's arnt very special, we get them here alot too if you haven't noticed. We have an entire fighter wing at KTUS. The noise is something you just get used to, unfortunately some people move in NEXT to the base which has been there longer then they have then they complain about the noise....  ::)

[PsychoDiablo]

I'm going on base tomorrow with an A-10 pilot,  getting a nice tour and some up-close looks at the plane. Not sure what else he has in store but also in a few weeks hes getting me some A-10 sim time  ;D  And BTW, F-16's arnt very special, we get them here alot too if you haven't noticed. We have an entire fighter wing at KTUS. The noise is something you just get used to, unfortunately some people move in NEXT to the base which has been there longer then they have then they complain about the noise....  ::)

We have the same problem here only the developers are building houses right under the flight line, it was only a year ago one of the pilots had to hit the silk about a quarter mile from my house, the field the plane crashed in is now a subdivision :-/

[GunnerMan]

I used to live in Kingman, I love Luke AFP. I did get some F-16 sim time there a while back. Was quite neat, those sims run on huge super computers and yet the gfx on them are still no better than fs98 heh. Now I live in NM by Kirtland, they have an ANG F-16 wing, a large C-130 wing, an an V-22 test squadron, can't wait to jump a v-22  

Anyway back on topic, I can attest to the poor desert textures in fsx. All autogen aside it still looks horrible, most northerners/northeasterners I have found think the desert down here does look like a sand box. It does not and in most parts is actually abundant with vegitation, it's just not the lush green stuff you see over in Maryland or Washington. You can say it looks like someone took a tan canvas and used a spray can with green, brown, black, red, orange. Sprayed sporaticly and that is a bit what it looks like from the air high up. FSX has made the southwest a very boring place to fly even though there are tons of natural land features vfr pilots love to see.