User Guides for Orbx products

[Matt McGee]

Are the User Guides for Orbx products available somewhere before you purchase a product?

(After installation, I know they are available through FTX Central and also in the P3D/ORBX/User Documents folder on your HD.)

 

It would be helpful if User Guides were available before purchase.  Perhaps on the product page (especially for a new customer who hasn't installed FTX Central yet) or pinned in the forum.

 

I just answered someone's question about a coverage area by referring to an excellent image in the product's User Guide, which they did not have access to.  

The guides are generally very good and contain descriptions, images, and coverage areas that are often better than what is available on the web site's product page.

I would think that making them available for people to view would be an excellent advertisement for buying the products.

[Guest]

Hi,

Coverage area is available by the baseline of ORBX Direct base like below:

 

 

Other useful information are into the description of the products themselves on the store

[Matt McGee]

Hi Richard.  While the "Product Map" is very useful for showing what is covered by the various FTX terrain regions and for showing where all the airports are in relation to each other, it does not show the coverage area of the openLC products and does not show the coverage area for the airports.

 

Here are a couple examples of Product page vs. User Guide information:

The KFHR product page says, "Whole island at 60cm per pixel" and lists the identifiers for bonus airports.

The KFHR user guide has a fantastic image that shows the 60cm island, plus the 15cm per pixel coverage areas for all 8 included airfields.  That information is not available on the product page description or screen shots.

 

The KRDD product page says, "Huge coverage area at 30/60cm including the majority of the City of Redding".  What is huge?  What exactly is covered?

The KRDD user guide includes a great image that shows exactly what is covered at 60cm and at 30cm resolution.

 

The KSAN product page says, "Huge photoreal that covers entire San Diego Metropolitan area".  Again, what exactly is covered?

I don't own KSAN, so I don't have access to the user guide and can't tell what is covered.  (I assume the guide has a very nice depiction of what is included.)

 

My point is that the Orbx User Guides are great and do a fantastic job of showing exactly what you are getting.  I would think that most customers would appreciate knowing exactly what they were getting, before they buy a product.  I see those detailed coverage area images as a selling point.  "Wow, I get all that scenery!"

[Jarrad Marshall]

Great feedback Matt, definitely something for us to consider implementing. In the meantime, in the case of our airports, quite often the user guide coverage area maps/info/blurbs come directly from the first preview announcements in the previews forum, in addition to extra screenshots that don't make it to the product page. Whilst it's not as direct as checking the airport product page itself, that info can be found by running a search of that forum. Usually the airport name + first name of the developer (eg "Block Island Alex" or "Avalon Tim" or "Avalon Ken") will help narrow down the search for what you are looking for. For example, you mention Redding; the info from the user guide was copied over from my initial preview thread here. 

 

Cheers,

Jarrad

[Vora]

5 hours ago, Jarrad Marshall said:

Great feedback Matt, definitely something for us to consider implementing. In the meantime, in the case of our airports, quite often the user guide coverage area maps/info/blurbs come directly from the first preview announcements in the previews forum, in addition to extra screenshots that don't make it to the product page. Whilst it's not as direct as checking the airport product page itself, that info can be found by running a search of that forum. Usually the airport name + first name of the developer (eg "Block Island Alex" or "Avalon Tim" or "Avalon Ken") will help narrow down the search for what you are looking for. For example, you mention Redding; the info from the user guide was copied over from my initial preview thread here. 

 

Cheers,

Jarrad

 

You have way too much trust in the human race, Jarrad. We are dumb, clumsy and very simple-minded.

 

Simple proposal: you have a nice screenshots section on every product page... simply reserve the first screenshot slot for the coverage map out of the manual.