Captain Sim has been releasing products for flight simulators now for over 24 years. During this time, the team has created a number of add-ons which have included a paint kit to allow creators a chance to paint their own livery design. However, with the 767 Captain III, this trend will come to an end.
In a rather blunt statement on the forums, Captain Sim said that there will not be any free liveries with the 767 Captain III. They then proceed to blame how creator-made freeware liveries are the reason for this new move.
According to them, there are six things people can expect when downloading a community-created freeware paint. Captain Sim argues that all painters use a ‘model hack’, which then results in “ugly cockpit roof bumps appears, broken pilots’ windows area, missing windshield glass.” Captain Sim also claims this guarantees a 30-50% drop in frame rates.
They then take aim at those who complete 8K liveries, saying that many of them are outdated 4K liveries with “4 times less [details] then the official CS liveries.” They also say that many of the liveries are of “questionable quality” and claim that many of the liveries are a “waste of PC resources.”
The final two points say most of the free paints include technical and factual inaccuracies. This could include the wrong engine type, missing colours, incorrect reg numbers, etc.
Their full explanation is below:
1. ALL of them use a model hack which:
– Damages the exterior nose section (the ugly cockpit roof bumps appears, broken pilots’ windows area, missing windshield glass and frames).
– FPS drop 30-50% guaranteed.2. Most of them are made from outdated P3D 4K liveries which gives you four times less detalization compared to official CS 8K liveries.
3. Some of them painted over official CS 8K liveries compressed dds files which gives you very questionable quality.
4. Most of the so called 8K free liveries are in fact a stretched older 4K which just wastes your PC resources providing zero visual improvement.
5. Most of them use the wrong engine type (PW for GE) and/or door layout.
6. Most of them have technical and factual errors (wrong colors, logos, missing items, layouts, reg numbers, antennas, winglets, you name it).
Captain Sim Forums
Whilst Captain Sim is not blocking freeware liveries being distributed, they have effectively stopped any further ones being developed by removing the paint kit for download.
This isn’t the first time that Captain Sim has been involved in a controversy regarding freeware liveries. They previously issued takedown requests to FlightSim.to, only to then backtrack on that when there was community outcry. This, alongside their poorly received Microsoft Flight Simulator releases, will only add to the feelings we’re seeing from community members in forums and our comment section.
You can voice your thoughts on the Captain Sim forums or find out more about their 767 Captain III product in our previous post.
Update 8-Feb-2023 @ 07:00am Zulu: It appears that the Prepar3D paintkit has also been removed. This is likely due to the fact that the Prepar3D kit can be used to make liveries for MSFS.
