Prepar3D 2.5 is out now

[DaveG]

I upgraded last night. All seems good so far. Not noticed any major improvement TBH, but it's no worse anyway!
Some extra AI models in the simobjects folders. Tonka, C130J, F14 & a couple of others.

[Kevin Farnell]

Upgraded this afternoon.
Everything seems OK, just got to get my head around the 'Addon Scenery' issue.

Regards

Kevin

[DaveG]

There's not really an issue as such. If you want, you can always make an Addon Scenery folder as per earlier versions and add and scenery to that as normal. Seems LM are trying to get addon devs to place files outside the main folders though, so what I've done is create a "P3d user files" folder & inside that I have Addon Scenery, Effects, Fonts, SimObjetcs etc and put all the 3rd pary stuff in there. Just add the paths to the relevant cfg and you're good to go. There may be a few issues with panel aliasing etc which I'll sort out case by case.

[Kevin Farnell]

Thanks Dave

I assume this will make a lot of sense when it comes to clean installs of new versions of P3D. as it won't involve deleting 3rd party add-ons.

Cheers

Kevin

[Paul K]

...so what I've done is create a "P3d user files" folder & inside that I have Addon Scenery, Effects, Fonts, SimObjetcs etc and put all the 3rd pary stuff in there.

Dave, where do you place that "P3d user files" folder ? Can it go anywhere ? Another drive, even ?

I've got some time off towards the end of March: I suppose I must bow to the inevitable, and do the full 2.5 re-install.

[GHD]

There's not really an issue as such. If you want, you can always make an Addon Scenery folder as per earlier versions and add and scenery to that as normal. Seems LM are trying to get addon devs to place files outside the main folders though, so what I've done is create a "P3d user files" folder & inside that I have Addon Scenery, Effects, Fonts, SimObjetcs etc and put all the 3rd pary stuff in there. Just add the paths to the relevant cfg and you're good to go. There may be a few issues with panel aliasing etc which I'll sort out case by case.

There will still be problems with custom autogen. There is only one Autogen folder and ORBX always cock-up AutogenDescriptions, RoofDescriptions and default.xml.

[Kevin Farnell]

where do you place that "P3d user files" folder ? Can it go anywhere ? Another drive, even ?

Paul, yes it can. Scenery can be added as usual, but I find the sim needs to be restarted before it shows.
In my case, I added a folder to my D drive (same drive as P3D, but not in the P3D folder), which I named 'P3D Addon Files'. Within this, I have 4 other folders - 'Addon Scenery', 'AI Aircraft' 'Effects' and 'Fonts'.
For the AI Aircraft to show, you need to add a line to the Simobject.cfg (found in C:\ProgramData\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v2) to show the path to the folder.
In my case this now reads -

[Entry.0]
Path=SimObjects\Airplanes
[Entry.1]
Path=SimObjects\Rotorcraft
[Entry.2]
Path=SimObjects\GroundVehicles
[Entry.3]
Path=SimObjects\Boats
[Entry.4]
Path=SimObjects\Animals
[Entry.5]
Path=SimObjects\Misc
[Entry.6]
Path=SimObjects\Submersible
[Entry.7]
Path=SimObjects\Weapons
[Entry.8]
Path=SimObjects\Countermeasures
[Entry.9]
Path=D:\P3D Addon Files\AI Aircraft

Hope this helps

Kevin

[Paul K]

Absolutely it helps, Kevin, thanks very much indeed. So when you install an add-on aircraft, such as one from Carenado or one of Dave G's freeware planes, where does that go ? In this new separate folder ?

The thing is, at the moment I'm having great success installing certain aircraft in P3DV2 that seem to cause problems for other people - the A2A Stratocruiser is one, a certain tri-jet tubeliner that must remain nameless is another - and I don't want to throw that away by having a file structure that is alien to the installers. I'm using the Estonia Migrator Tool, and it works like a charm in v2.4 - not sure how the changes in v2.5 will affect it, though.

[DaveG]

Yup, I've done it more less the same way as Kevin. I've duplicated some of the original P3d folder structure under "P3d user files", so when I install an add-on aircraft I point the installer at that instead so everything should go in the new folders. Chances are there will be some that don't work properly this way though.
re. autogen. I don't use Orbx, but Earth Simulations scenery has the same problem.

[Paul K]

Hmm...I think I'll wait and see, after all. It's the potential for problems with my add-ons that's bothering me, and I can't face yet another round of error messages, tweaking, configuring, searching forums for fixes etc. If I do uninstall v2.4 I might take the opportunity to try out FSX Steam for a while...though no doubt there will be error messages, tweaking, configuring, and searching forums for fixes with that too.