Silver Wings question

[Mick]

I've been thinking lately about getting back into the hobby, and if I do I'll want to rebuild my FS1954 installation, which was originally built in a stock FS9 chassis. I used to think that if I ever had to do it again I'd build it on a Golden Wings chassis, though neither is a completely suitable basis for depicting the early fifties. I once thought that Silver Wings was just Golden Wings without the deletion of the modern airports, but later I read that it's much more era-specific than that. This knowledge has inspired a question: does Silver Wings include the Interstate Highways?

Thanks in advance for anyone who can answer.

[Willy]

I use it for the basis for my version of FS 1954. It doesn't change the roads that I'm aware of. I still have dual highways. It will however change some of the autogen buildings (more barns out in the country and no fast food joints) and the some of the ground textures for cities.

[rich12545]

If you want to do that era, you might add the Cal Classic stuff which, while isn't exactly 1954, fits in nicely. It doesn't work well with Golden Wings. No matter what, you can't get the era perfect. There will have to be compromises.

[leuen]

It takes you at most half an hour to install FSGW3 and see what's really there. At least you could delete the "RDxxxxxx" files in the Scenery folders (Africa, Asia and so on), but then you have no roads anymore. Actually I deleted all "APxxxxxx" files in order to eliminate
all modern airports worldwide. Most sceneries for FSGW3 come with specific airports anyway.

Bernard

[Mick]

Thanks guys!

I'm thoroughly familiar with Golden Wings, since I developed and used it extensively from the day it was released until I dropped out of the hobby a couple years ago.

I'm also very familiar with the Cal Classics material, as I used it in FS1954. I just backdated their AI scheme by replacing the turboprops with propliners.

My biggest objection to my old FS1954 was the presence of the Interstate Highways, and I was hoping to get rid of them this time around. A stock GW rolls the era back to around 1940, which is a bit early for FS1954, especially since I already have a GW that's set at just a couple years earlier than that. (I set it back a little more by removing many of the big Army Air Force bases that were constructed in the 1939-1941 base building boom, which GW doesn't delete.)

I'd hoped that Silver Wings would delete the Interstates, because otherwise it seems like the optimal basis for a new FS1954. But with the Interstates present it would look more like the early sixties than the early fifties.

Hmmm... base FS54 on GW and have it look a bit too early (and a bit too much like my existing GW), or base it on SW and have it look a little more modern than it should. That would still be less modern looking than what I had before.

I suppose there's a way to mix and match and take the road structure from GW and put it into SW, but I don't think I have that much motivation! I killed the fun and drove myself out of the hobby by letting it become too much like work and not at all like play; I don't want to set myself up for another case of FS burnout!

Maybe I'll just go with Classic Wings straight from the box, and add the same stuff to it that I had before. That won't be an optimal FS1954, but it will be an improvement over what I had on my previous confuter.

[Jagdflieger]

Mick,

Great to see you back in the fold!

I've got my FS 9 optimized for the Calclassic packages and enjoy them thouroghly, even with the interstate highways. I guess I've developed the ability to ignore them as I haven't thought about them in years, even though I fly over them almost daily.

[tgibson]

There may be a way to remove them yourself, although I've never tried it. Back up your terrain.cfg file in your main FS folder (i.e. rename the copy terrain.cfg.orig), and then look for the road descriptions in the original file. Find the large divided roads (i.e. Interstates) and figure out a way to set the density (or whatever) to 0.

Hope this helps,

[Terry]

If you have Instant Scenery or something similar that generates thumbnails of the objects it's not difficult but it is tedious to find the folder with the interstate highway objects and disable or move them out of FS. That is what others have done to get rid of fast food joints etc.

[rich12545]

One thing I didn't like in SW is the modern sports stadiums in Seattle. And if they're there, they're elsewhere.

[Mick]

It's occurred to me that maybe I could install Silver Wings, then replace all the road (RD...) BGLs in North America with the RD BGLs from GW.

Or I could just ignore the Interstates like I did before...

Next step - see if I can summon up the motivation to progress from thinking about this to actually doing the work.

Getting started on the work might be difficult. Letting FS become work instead of fun is what drove me out of the hobby. But just thinking seriously about it is a step in the right direction.