Expand your horizons

Bored with your simulation game? Stretch your wings with these suggestions for new missions and challenges

It’s easy to understand why simulation games – those that imitate real life – are so popular. After all, how else would most of us get the chance to fly over Area 51 in a light aeroplane, or attempt to break the steam train speed record held by the 4468 Mallard? On the other hand, simulators do have a few disadvantages, most important of which is that, unlike life itself, they are limited.

Most include several vehicles and areas to explore, but there are only so many times you can fly a circuit around Chicago’s now-derelict Meigs Field airport before you’ll want to stretch your wings a little further afield. Fortunately, help is at hand as many simulators can be expanded using extra software known as expansion packs. Some can be found in the shops, while others are available for free on the internet.

Packs can contain new aircraft (or trains, or ships), new areas to explore or new missions and challenges. In this issue we’ll look at a few of the best, and how to get and use them.

Extra special
Expansion packs add new vehicles, environments or missions to a simulator game. They don’t work on their own – in every case, you’ll need a copy of the original simulator to use them. Some expansion packs are created by the companies that made the original simulator - after all, this is a good way to keep people interested in their product, and to get some extra money.

Quite often, though, expansion packs are written by other companies, or even by amateur programmers. The type of content included in expansion packs varies: some might include a new vehicle to pilot, for example, while many others include new terrain to fly or drive over. Some include both, and others might even add new missions or features to a game.

The Just Flight website is a great place to start when looking for professionally produced expansion packs, although you may find some in high-street shops such as Game and PC World, too. The website contains a wide selection of add-ons for all the popular flight simulators, including the Microsoft Flight Simulator series, Combat Flight Simulator and IL2 Sturmovik.

There are extra aircraft such as the Avro Vulcan or Spitfire, scenery and even add-ons to simulate running a complete airline with Airliner Pilot. More information on this add-on can be found on its website, and there’s even a list showing how long the most avid pilots have spent jetting around – some have clocked up over a thousand flight hours.

Just Flight also sells scenery packs for flight simulator software. The VFR Real Scenery packs use satellite imagery to improve the appearance of Microsoft Flight Simulator. We tried it out, and found that it was possible to fly across London and to a member of staff’s house, simply by following visual clues on the ground.

First Class Simulations also publishes a number of add-ons for flight simulator fans. Examples include the World War 1 Fighters pack for Microsoft Flight Simulator, which contains five aircraft and costs £20. Some products even come with a ‘fly before you buy’ option, so they can be used for up to seven days for free while you decide whether to buy or not.

One important thing to check when buying expansion packs for Microsoft Flight simulator is the versions that they support. One major change made by Microsoft to the latest version of its Flight Simulator software, Flight Simulator X, was that the folder containing aircraft and scenery was moved.

This means that some expansion packs won’t work with Flight Simulator X, and others will only work with this latest version. To make sure expansion packs will work with your software, check the specifications listed online carefully and if in doubt ask the manufacturer.

Train to win
Although there are many great expansion packs for flight simulator software, this doesn’t mean those of us who prefer to keep our feet on the ground need be left out. The popular train simulations Microsoft Train Simulator and Trainz can both use expansion packs, whether bought in a box or simply downloaded.
Just Flight has a sister site for train simulators called, unsurprisingly, Just Trains.

First Class Simulations also has a comprehensive list of train simulator add-ons that supplement your software with new trains, scenery and activities. There are also some good community websites, the linked site has a collection of add-ons for Microsoft Train Simulator and Trainz. These are free, although you need to register for an account at the website in order to access the download page.

There’s also an active forum where you can get advice from other keen train simulation fans. Another forum has dedicated sections for fans of both Microsoft Train Simulator and the recently released EA Rail Simulator. More information on Rail Simulator can be found here.

Community service
The enthusiasm of many simulation fans means that there is a huge amount of help available online should you come across any problems with a simulation game. Better yet, many of these enthusiasts have also produced their own expansion packs for simulation software.

The quality of these extras isn’t as consistently high as that of boxed products that you pay for, but with no money at risk there is no reason not to try them. As ever when downloading files from the internet, be sure to scan any downloaded files for viruses and only download from websites you trust. You’ll find news about all the latest simulator software here.

The site includes features that explain certain aspects of flight simulators in more detail or provide training. One add-on described by SimHQ is the Admin Super Pro add-on for Jane’s USAF. This adds loads of planes and missions to this older flight simulator. More information can be found here and it can be downloaded from here.

Another good place to find new aircraft includes a selection of aircraft, scenery and utilities for all versions of Flight Simulator and Combat Flight Simulator. Microsoft Flight Simulator X was the first in the series to include missions. These are flying challenges that can react to what the gamer does.

In one mission, for example, the player must decide whether or not to go looking for an ancient idol in the Amazon – and this choice then affects the rest of the mission. Although there are plenty of missions included with the game, once these have been mastered there’s little incentive to go back and try them again. Fortunately, a good selection of free missions can be found here.

This site has some aircraft to download as well.

Putting it together
The precise method for installing expansion packs varies from simulator to simulator. The advantage of buying an expansion pack from a company like Just Flight is that these come with an installation program – simply run that, and it’ll copy all the files into the right place. This is not to say, though, that you should avoid free expansion packs – it’s just that installing these can take a little more time.

To demonstrate, we’ll explain how to install a DeHavilland Comet aircraft for Flight Simulator X. To start, click here. Scroll down to the ‘FSX DeHavilland Comet Package’ link and left-click on it. A new window will appear - click ‘Download this file now’ and save the file to your desktop.

Once it has downloaded, double-click the zip file (a file that has been compressed to make it quicker to download) to open it and then drag the folder inside, which will be called decomet3, onto the desktop. Double-click on this new folder to show the contents, which includes some Windows wallpapers. Left-click on the Start button and then on My Computer.

Double-click on Program Files, Microsoft Games, Flight Simulator X, Simobjects and then finally Airplanes. Drag and drop the Microsoft DeHavilland_Comet FSX folder into this folder. Start Flight Simulator and the DeHavilland Comet will be available to fly. Installing new scenery is similar, but requires a little extra work in the Flight Simulator program itself.

We tried using the RAF Coningsby scenery available here. To install it, copy the RAF Coningsby folder into the scenery folder; this is found inside the Flight Simulator X folder, as described above. Once the folder is copied, start Flight Simulator and click on the Settings option on the left-hand side. Click on Scenery Library and then Add Scenery.

Find the RAF Coningsby folder, left-click on it once and then click on OK. It is a good idea to move this scenery up to the top of the list. Left-click on the entry once and then click on the Move Up button until it is at the top – it’s now easy to find, and ready to fly.

Build it yourself
There are hundreds of new aircraft available to download or buy online, but if you have a particular favourite that you can’t find then it’s even possible to make it yourself. The process is fairly difficult, but many of the enthusiast-run websites mentioned earlier include advice on how to make new aircraft models. One easy way to get started is to look at an existing expansion pack and see how it works.

Aircraft in Microsoft Flight Simulator are made in two sections: a 3D model of the plane’s shape, and a description of how it performs. Plenty of very detailed information can be found on the official Flight Simulator website. It’s not just Microsoft Flight Simulator that can be expanded in this way, either – information on creating aircraft for Flightgear can be found here.

Whichever simulator you use, the main challenge when building an aircraft will be creating a 3D model of it. There are plenty of free tools for this, though, including Blender and Google’s Sketchup. For all their freedom, even the best simulators can become stale after a while. But that’s no reason to leave them gathering dust on a shelf.

There is a huge wealth of expansion packs that can breathe new life into all kinds of simulators, from Flight Simulator to train simulators and even the free Flightgear. Investigating the websites that offer these packs is also worthwhile as it allows you to join enthusiastic communities of simulator fans with a wealth of experience. And with so many add-ons available for free, there is no reason not to give them a try today.