Congrats!
Coming from FSX to P3D was pretty amazing. The academic license watermark isn’t distracting at all, you’ll get to where you don’t even notice it.
In my opinion, the ORBX packages are well worth the investment.
I’m running Global Base, Vector, All the Landclass packages, HD Trees, HD buildings. The results are nothing short of stunning.
I’d also recommend REX SkyForce with ActiveSky as the weather engine, I have Environment Force as well, but haven’t installed it yet. It’s essentially a shader application, and is supposed to work in concert with SkyForce to provide a more life-like “living environment”. Not 100% convinced yet that I need it.
Keep us posted on your progress!
Mike