Review of TriSoftSim's new Boston MA DLC

  • This is a TEXT ONLY portion of a mini-review of TriSoftSim's Boston MA scenery pack (forum limitations). The entire review with screenshots and images is available at https://flight-sim.org/filebase/index…y-ray-marshall/

    Mini-review by Ray Marshall Boston MA DLC for Aerofly FS 2 December 14, 2019

    I was fortunate to be able to review a pre-release version of the Boston, MA DLC, a payware scenery area with two airports and a coverage area of over 620 square miles (1,600+ km2). This package is specifically built for Aerofly FS 2 and is available for download only.

    The improved area provides high definition ground scenery with excellent water masking of bays, rivers, lakes and ponds. A truly outstanding presentation of the greater Boston area commercial buildings, institutions, infrastructure and facilities. Historic bridges are the norm, with carefully crafted clusters of buildings and general cultivation.

    One mega airport, Boston Logan, and a smaller general aviation reliever airport, Hanscom Field, are detailed along with practically all the major hotels and iconic buildings. You can fly IFR or VFR, high or low, fast or slow, with or without ATC, fixed wing or rotary wing, as you explore this new and exciting area of New England.

    The Developer

    This is the first payware release from 3 of our well known forum members that have formed TriSoftSim. Each member brings his unique experience and talents for the common good. Ray Taburet’s ( tabu82) specialty is ortho photoscenery sourcing and preparation as well as elevation meshes and POI models. Colin Brown ( brunnobellic) does the cultivation and model conversions and Phil Hulme ( Spit40) of fsCP fame focuses on the airports.

    Boston, MA DLC is available for instant download at SimMarket and FlightSim.com. Depending on the success of this first endeavor, additional scenery packs for Aerofly FS2 may be forthcoming. If super successful, the sceneries might be available on Steam at some future date. Possible choices for additional products could be some of the European island vacation spots and maybe even expansion of this Boston, MA to include Martha’s Vineyard.

    The general area – Boston, Massachusetts

    Boston is the largest city in New England and the capital of Massachusetts, a state in the northeastern United States. The city lies south of the Charles River on Massachusetts Bay, a bay of the Atlantic Ocean. Boston is about 215 mi (347 km) Northeast of New York City.

    Greater Boston is the home of several world renowned colleges and universities, Harvard and MIT being the most highly ranked, are located in Cambridge, but usually considered in Boston.

    Boston is probably the most historic city in the United States with modern history starting with the landing of the Mayflower at Plymouth, 40 miles South, to establish the first colony in New England in 1620. The strong ties to Great Britain and the United Kingdom was certainly strained by the American Revolutionary War that ended in 1783. Of course, the war was fought over a much larger area, but, was started in Boston and many famous battles were won and lost here.

    With the Colonists’ victory, the United States of America was officially formed as a result of the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

    Boston Logan airport.

    It is the largest airport in both the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the New England region in terms of passenger volume and cargo handling, as well as the 16th-busiest airport in the United States, with 38.4 million total passengers in 2017.

    Logan International Airport] (IATA: BOS, ICAO: KBOS, FAA LID: BOS), officially known as General Edward Lawrence Logan International Airport, and also commonly known as Boston Logan Airport, Logan Airport or simply Logan, is an international airport that is located mostly in East Boston and partially in Winthrop, Massachusetts, United States. It covers 2,384 acres (965 ha), has six runways and four passenger terminals, and employs an estimated 16,000 people.

    It is the largest airport in both the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the New England region in terms of passenger volume and cargo handling. The airport saw 40,941,925 passengers in 2018, the most in its history. It is named after General Edward Lawrence Logan, a 19th-century war hero native to Boston.

    Logan has non-stop service to destinations throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Latin America, the Caribbean, the North Atlantic region (including Bermuda and the Azores), Europe, Africa, and Asia. The airport is a hub for Cape Air and Delta Air Lines as well as a focus city for JetBlue. American and United also carry out significant operations from the airport, including daily transcontinental flights. All of the major U.S. air carriers offer flights from Boston to all or the majority of their primary and secondary hubs.

    Close enough to New York for planning.

    In addition to the thousands of flights available to and from Boston, for flight sim flying you can easily use either of the three major New YorkCity area airports for flight planning and routing purposes.

    JFK, La Guardia, or Newark are all close enough for city pairs.

    This could be especially useful for the international flights in our flight sim.

    For the Jet Set and General Aviation flying

    Hanscom Field (IATA: BED, ICAO: KBED, FAA LID: BED) (Laurence G. Hanscom Field) is a public use airport operated by the Massachusetts Port Authority, located 6 miles from the central business district of Bedford, a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States.

    Hanscom is mainly a general aviation airport, the largest in New England. Both runways can accommodate jets, and are used by Hanscom Air Force Base, a defense-research facility next to Hanscom Field. It is a popular training airport, with more than 40 rental aircraft on the field. The Civil Air Terminal building hosts two flight schools, East Coast Aero Club and Mike Goulian Aviation. East Coast Aero Club offers helicopter and airplane instruction, aerobatics and rental. Mike Goulian Aviation offers airplane instruction and rental. Transient general aviation planes are served by three FBOs: Jet Aviation, Rectrix Aviation, and Signature Flight Support.

    This joint use civil and military airfield is the US Air Force Electronic Systems Center under the Air Force Material Command. The facility is responsible to provide research, development, training and evaluation (RDT&E) of command, control communication, computer intelligence (CCCCI) interface with industry.

    A Reliever airport for Logan

    Most private jets and practically all general aviation aircraft will avoid the heavy traffic delays and high landing fees associated with any mega airport that favors airliners.

    Hanscom Field (BED) is one of four reliever airports that are just minutes away from downtown Boston. The others are Beverly (BVY) to the North, Norwood (OWD) to the South, and Lawrence (LWM) a little further Northwest. All three of these relievers have control towers, multiple runways, and FBOs that favor fast movers. These last three airports are available at http://www.fscloudport.com/ for downloading.

    A river runs through it.

    The Charles River (sometimes called the River Charles or simply the Charles) is an 80-mile-long (129 km) long river in eastern Massachusetts. From its source in Hopkinton the river's mouth is northeast of its headwaters, though it follows a highly meandering route, doubling back on itself several times and traveling through 23 cities and towns before reaching the Atlantic Ocean at Boston.  Due to the close proximity to the Atlantic Ocean, occasionally Charles River dolphins can be spotted at the border of the museum of science. They like to migrate upstream to warmer waters at the beginning of the fall season.

    The Coverage Area

    The enhanced coverage area is a rectangle with Boston Logan airport near the center and Hanscom Field near the upper left (west) corner. A rough measurement using Google tools is about 26 nm (49 km) east to west and 21 nm (39 km) north to south. When drawn as a rectangle the total distance to fly around the box is just shy of 100 miles (158 km). Google computes the Total Area to be about 620 square miles (1,600+ km2) based on the rough sketch that I used. The actual size is whatever it is, but this is huge.

    I use fsWidgets maps for flight sims and can choose from up to 20 or so maps or charts. These range from zoomed in airports for gate assignments and taxi routes to Terminal Area Charts (TAC) to ESRI Satellite Hybrid maps to identify specific building or installations.

    Google Maps is a free option for comparing aviation charts to detailed maps to identify features that you may fly over or near.

    How Does it look in the Sim?

    In one word – fantastic. I suppose what you see on your system should be very similar to any other high definition dlc scenery. The downtown area of Boston and Cambridge with the mix of historical and modern high rise buildings among the meandering waterways and the extensive green areas throughout the city is truly amazing when viewed with in low and slow flight. The R-22 helicopter should be ideal for those of you that can hover and move about slowly. There are 7 or 8 scenic bridges waiting for your critical inspection. There are large medical complexes, universities, 5 star hotels, and many historical and scenic stand-alone buildings.

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    Conclusion

    Totally outstanding product and so very affordable. If I assigned stars it would be a 5-star most highly recommended product. Go get it. This can be a great stocking stuffer or Christmas present to yourself.

    https://secure.simmarket.com/trisoftsim-aer…s2-boston.phtml

  • If this would be a 5 star product (out of 5, I suppose) how much stars would any Orbx addon get...? You can't seriously compare this addon to Orbx and so it is beyond me how you can give this 5 stars. What a biased and subjective review this is.

    Ah well, to each his own. Maybe it's time to leave the AFS2 community.

  • The unatural looking airport buildings and facilities is a dealbreaker for me. I have Boston airport installed from a 3rd party into another sim and it's far better done. So, for a payware product as the current subject I wil not purchase this, together with too many 'square' and 'cubic' scenery objects over the whole area, it's a no go for me...only good enough if it was freeware, sorry....

    Real name: Johnny

    PC-Specs: i7-3930K - 32GB RAM - GTX1070ti 8GB - 2TB SSD + 1TB SSD + 2x3TB HDD

    Laptop Specs: i7-9750H - 32GB RAM - RTX2070 max-Q 8GB - 2x 1TB NVMe SSD + 2TB SSD

  • If this would be a 5 star product (out of 5, I suppose) how much stars would any Orbx addon get...? You can't seriously compare this addon to Orbx and so it is beyond me how you can give this 5 stars. What a biased and subjective review this is.

    Ah well, to each his own. Maybe it's time to leave the AFS2 community.

    The comparison is not to Orbx as they do not have a Boston scenery area to compare, but to what we had prior to this, which is pixel soup in a forest. 5 star improvement.

    Maybe you should. You can’t seem to find any happiness here. God speed.


    The buildings aren’t unnatural, as you say, they are just not representative of the Logan terminals. I too have the other Boston Logan, along with New Orleans, Los Angeles, and a few other U.S. Cities, but that is comparing apples and oranges. We can’t fly our AFS2 planes in that scenery and their scenery will not work in AFS2 so why try to compare them.


    My first review, in 2011, featured that Boston Logan, and it had a few unnatural problem also, like an incorrect elevation the devs couldn’t solve. Seems nothing is perfect at these prices. 😜

  • Regarding me, it is certain that we should not look too much in the details, but overall it is a correct DLC, but in no case comparable with ORBX, it is obvious.

    If I had to give a note, I would give ★★★★:thumbup:

    It's good, because there is still a lot of work that has been done by these 3 guys!

    If I bought it, it is mainly to keep in mind the advancement of DLC, and in order to contribute in a certain way to this community which continues to develop for this SIM.

    In any case, the price of this DLC is more than reasonable, compared to what I had seen at the time with others like Aerosoft, much more expensive and some of poor quality and I know what I talk, having more than 200 addons, Payware for FSX.!!!

    However, I fully agree that certain details should still be improved, such as cultivation which is too random, (Trees on the roofs, or on the roads)

    Some houses which are floating, and these two airports which remind me of FS 2004, only the runways were very successful and well detailed with the addition of a few objects on the ground!

    Probably, that there will be soon, an update for some adjustments which I hope!

    In any case, Bravo and thank you @TriSoftSim;)

    Best wishes 😉

    Pascal

    AFS2 / FS4 / MSFS / - Intel(R) Core i7 -12800HX 4.80 GHz - DDR5 4800MHz 32 Go - NVIDIA GeForce RTX™ 3070 Ti 8 GB GDDR6X - 2x 2 TB SSD M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4

  • You can’t seem to find any happiness here.

    I really want to find happiness here but it just doesn't happen...

    Anyway, if everyone has some complaints about this addon and some won't even buy it (while there already is so little to buy for AFS2) it simply is impossible to call it totally outstanding and give it a 5 star rating. That's just odd, to put it mildly.

    Edited once, last by Flamingpie (December 15, 2019 at 6:23 PM).

  • Well Jeroen,

    There is always room for more review writers.

    That's not my talent. ^^ It is yours, I have to say (in all honesty!), because you always add a lot of interesting information to your reviews and they always are a very nice read! Unfortunaly your recent conclusions (when it comes to AFS2 addons), so the actual REVIEW parts, are way off imho... ;)

  • I really want to find happiness here but it just doesn't happen...

    Anyway, if everyone has some complaints about this addon and some won't even buy it (while there already is so little to buy for AFS2) it simply is impossible to call it totally outstanding and give it a 5 star rating. That's just odd, to put it mildly.

    Jeroen,

    You are so ill informed. Everyone does not have complaints, actually only a handful or less, and those will probably be addressed in a future update. I just checked Simmarket and it is the number one seller at the moment.

    As a reviewer, I can rate any product as I see fit, with or without your opinion being taken into consideration. An important point that has not been addressed is the developers have been giving their work away as freeware here on the forum, some for years. If they were paid by the hour, they would be making something less than beer money. This is a labor of love, not an attempt to pacify people like you.

    I did take into account that this is TriSoftSim's first product, so I cut them a little slack for trying to get it to market for Christmas. Every single complaint that has been posted was caught by me in the review copy and several more that were corrected at the very last minute so my rating is solid.

    I am not expecting a rebuttal and would appreciate you seeking your happiness elsewhere. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

  • The airport contained is KBOS, a mega international airport. What are the orbx ones? Even though they are highly detailed, no one can accommodate planes bigger than Boeing 757. This kind of airport is what orbx won’t be willing to develop even for the other two platforms and will never develop for AFS2, then why do you guys mention orbx? Besides Schiphol is also done cursorily.

    We should really thank the three developers’ courage to choose this site. This is the scenery that really push Aerofly forward, this is the kind of scenery and airport that the majority of players need! Look at how well the new AFS2020 mobile sells. Why? Because of the new 777: simmers love flying airliners! Aerofly can never be popular if only cater those of you who fly those tiny baby airplanes. Yes, the airport looks ugly, especially the terminals, but what do you expect from three guys who first step into this field? A flyTampa quality airport? You know this is not gonna happen for Aerofly now. Anyway, I think this is a good start for third party airports, real kind of airport, not grassfields or municipals.


    In addition, the city is done quite good. There are much more POIs and details than I thought. Although some downtown buildings use ugly textures (TE NL also use that), overall it looks nice, no to mention this is done by only three people.


    In sum I really appreciate the three developers for presenting us this scenery. It’s a good start, keep going!

    Edited 2 times, last by W.B. (December 16, 2019 at 11:45 AM).

  • Yes, no doubt many of us are eager to fly the new B777. I expect the Triple 7 to be flying in and out of Boston Logan sooner than later along with a bunch of other new stuff to explore from IPACS. It looks to be a big Christmas this year.😳

  • Being from the Boston area, I am compelled with this addon. I am hopeful that someone will produce New England scenery with the same level of detail as the Aerofly southwest... The Boston title with the New York scenery addon is a great beginning. My biggest problem is that I fly Aerofly on the Mac... Enough said!

  • I am not sure how it works, but I am compelled enough with this Boston title, that as I type, I am creating a Bootcamp partition on my mac and installing my steam version to see if I can copy up the sceneries...

    I have little interest in west coast flying, so if I can figure out how to load the Northeast (New York) scenery on my mac, I will purchase the Boston scenery and give that a try also...