Request for Clear Guidance on Correct Installation of Add-Ons (Scenery & Aircraft)

Quote from AeRodri

...

I’d really appreciate help not in the form of “this is how I personally have it set up”, but instead:

➡️ “This is how it should be done according to Aerofly FS 4’s expected folder structure.”

...

I would like to help, but unfortunately I am the wrong candidate. Because everything (!) what I publish is always subject to the possibility of an error and therefore “this is how I personally have it set up” continues to apply. From my point of view, only IPACS can write itself "This is how it should be done according to Aerofly FS 4’s expected folder structure.".

For all users who can live with my hint, I enclose a PDF, as it was published in Flight-Sim.org in the FAQs. And that's how it works for me so far without any problems.

EDIT:

See also these posts:

• RE: Correct File Structure For Adding Aircraft?
• RE: Correct File Structure For Adding Aircraft?

Hi AeRodri,

I'm not on a Mac, but it doesn't matter. Your directory structure seems quite good; however, personally, I always create several subfolders. Let's take the example of the image: I create a folder for each continent, then a folder for each country, and then the location, to make things easier to find. Everything must always be written in lowercase and only with underscores (_).

Some examples:

scenery\images\sa\br_brasil\rio_de_janeiro

scenery\images\eu\fr_france\st_tropez

scenery\images\na\us_united_states\ma_boston

scenery\images\na\ca_canada\vancouver_bc

scenery\images\as\om_oman\muscat_01

muscat_02

You can find all the country codes here: https://laendercode.net/fr/2-letter-list.html

As for the aircraft codes, this seems correct to me.

I hope this helps.

And the example for airports looks like this:

airports \ at_austria \ lowi_innsbruck_orbx
airports \ br_brasil \ sbjr_jacarepagua
airports \ ca_canada \ bc_pnw_quatam_river_airports

Then everyone can customize the name as they see fit.

Quote from AeRodri

I recommend:

(1) I recommend to observe the specifications of IPACS regarding the letters etc. to be used for folder names.

(2) I recommend combining the IMAGES into country groups in order to be able to easily turn them off when they are not needed. FS 4 then starts much faster. This is noticeable when you have around 2 TB of addons like me.

Quote from AeRodri

I have the impression that FS 4 sometimes works better for me if only the data necessary for flight operations are stored under AIRPORTS and the objects under POI. Therefore, I now separate it if necessary.

Quote from AeRodri

I separate between the addons to FS 4 aircraft and the aircraft of third parties:

(1) Addons to FS 4 aircraft I save as in the photo:

• '/Users/USERNAME/Library/Application Support/Aerofly FS 4/aircraft'

(2) Aircraft from third parties I store under "addons":

• '/Users/USERNAME/Library/Application Support/Aerofly FS 4/addons/aircraft'

With this I have a clean separation between both areas. If I want to try something on FS 4 aircraft, I also copy them to (2) and complete their names.

Quote from ApfelFlieger

(2) I recommend combining the IMAGES into country groups in order to be able to easily turn them off when they are not needed. FS 4 then starts much faster. This is noticeable when you have around 2 TB of addons like me.

The continental structure before the countries is also quite good.

images \ as \
ae_dubai
bt_bhutan
cn_china
eg_egypt
jp_japan

etc...

Quote from Tomfa

The continental structure before the countries is also quite good. ...

Absolutely.

I actually structured my 1.98 TB that way because it gives me the most freedom.

Where are third-party aircraft installed?

Quote from AeRodri

... and then having to restructure everything from scratch...

Oh, I've done that several times in the last few years until I found my current structure.😂

It was exciting when I used the identical scenaries in parallel in FS 2 and FS 4, then it went through a fictitiously outsourced directory for FS 2 with '/Users/USERNAME/Library/Application Support/Aerofly FS 4/scenery'.

Quote from Winter

Where are third-party aircraft installed?

With me, all third-party aircraft are stored here:

• '/Users/USERNAME/Library/Application Support/Aerofly FS 4/addons/aircraft'

And there they are also sorted, whereby the names of the aircraft folder and the affected files must match:
- 0 = helicopter
- 1 = glider
- 2 = small Aircrafts
...
- 9 = vehicles

Using the example of my pushback truck, it looks like this:

Quote from Winter

Where are third-party aircraft installed?

And on Windows, it can also look like this:
C:\Users~\Documents\Aerofly FS 4\aircraft\pipercub

Since FS4, I no longer use the addons folder, but both variants are possible.

The planes won't install for me.

Quote from Winter

The planes won't install for me.

Can you show a screenshot?

It is also important:
(1) An aircraft name must never occur twice.
(2) The characters in the aircraft folder and in the important files must be identical.

For example, the Helicopter APACHE from larrylynx can be stored:

Quote from Winter

The planes won't install for me.

And if it's a model from Krzysztof on

krzysk1 - Repositories

krzysk1 has 60 repositories available. Follow their code on GitHub.

github.com

after extracting the file, please remove the name "master"
Example: bleriot-master / bleriot

Quote from Tomfa

And if it's a model from Krzysztof on
https://github.com/krzysk1?tab=repositories

after extracting the file, please remove the name "master"
Example: blerot-master / blerot

Ah this it's the problem