Upcoming changes to vPilot, feedback requested

[Kirk Christie]

Can we have proper sets where

 

B73H = Boeing 737-800 with winglets

B738 = without

B752 = Boeing 757-200 without winglets

B75W= with winglets?

 

Is this possible? I imagine some more fundamental code will need updating??

 

Thats incorrect because 73H is an IATA code and B738 is an ICAO code. People should be signing into vatsim with the ICAO codes.

 

IATA codes dont include the B where as ICAO does.

 

A B738 is a 737-800 with or with out winglets as far as ICAO is concerned.

 

A 73H is a 737-800 with winglets and a 738 is a 737-800 with out.

 

IATA is for airport parking. A 73H needs a bigger parking spot than a 738.

[Artyom Maslyonkin 1099699]

There are a number of reasons why many vPilot users like to run vPilot on a computer other than the one that runs FSX/P3D. It may be because they run FSX full screen and it's a major pain to switch over to the vPilot window when necessary. Or they just want to be able to see the vPilot window at all times and don't have a second monitor. Some just want to reserve every last bit of CPU power on their sim machine for the sim itself.

 

I think one of best upgrades/decissions for the 'one comuter scheeme' is to let it run as module of fsx/p3d (as other everyknown pilot client) and let the user decides what they want so they could change mode of running and comfort rk in full-sceeen mode with text.

 

Anyway, planned upgrades are perfect!

[Andrew Stacey 1315093]

It's really great news you can pick which PC the audio comes from. I tried the old vpilot on my network where the chat function worked really well. However I have a MacBook Pro running Windows for my slave PC and the Mic port is not amped. So I could use the radio function.

How long till v2 is released ruffly

[Andrew Stacey 1315093]

One thing that it would be nice to see added. Rather then typing (.Chat Persons name) for private chat. Being able to double click on the their name on the public chat and that then brings up private chat instead

[Robert Bressert]

Ross, what about pilots who fly on IVAO too. They have the IVAO-MTL models in their SimObjectsPath. Will 2.0 be programmed to exclude them?

[Ross Carlson]

Ross, what about pilots who fly on IVAO too. They have the IVAO-MTL models in their SimObjectsPath. Will 2.0 be programmed to exclude them?

 

The IVAO models will not be in the model database, so it won't use them for automatic model matching. Users could still make custom model matching rule sets to use the IVAO models if they want ... I'm not going to go out of my way to stop that from happening.

[Pierre Ferran]

Ross,

 

I think the changes you are proposing are really good, we need a more "all in one" solution.

 

A few suggestions on that topic:

- Make sure commercial models (PMDG, Aerosoft) are not spawned by AI, you don't want 14 PMDG T7 spawning during CTP...

- Maybe broadcast the registration for the model of the user, and if the same registration is available on the other end, display that. That would resolve the winglet problem for instance.

[Ross Carlson]

- Make sure commercial models (PMDG, Aerosoft) are not spawned by AI, you don't want 14 PMDG T7 spawning during CTP...

 

Yeah, the model database used for automatic matching will not have high resolution models in it.

 

- Maybe broadcast the registration for the model of the user, and if the same registration is available on the other end, display that. That would resolve the winglet problem for instance.

 

Not sure what you mean by "registration" here. To me, registration means tail number ... are you talking about the ICAO aircraft type? If so, the user enters that when they connection vPilot to the network.

[Pierre Ferran]

Not sure what you mean by "registration" here. To me, registration means tail number ... are you talking about the ICAO aircraft type? If so, the user enters that when they connection vPilot to the network.

 

Yes, I do mean the "tail number" by aircraft registration, N172BX, F-HEPF, etc...

[Ross Carlson]

Not sure what you mean by "registration" here. To me, registration means tail number ... are you talking about the ICAO aircraft type? If so, the user enters that when they connection vPilot to the network.

 

Yes, I do mean the "tail number" by aircraft registration, N172BX, F-HEPF, etc...

 

In that case, your two suggestions seem to be at odds with each other. For example, if I'm flying a PMDG triple 7 with registration number N12345, then other pilots that I encounter that have the same PMDG T7 livery installed aren't going to want to have vPilot use that model since it would be hard on the frame rates.

[Pierre Ferran]

In that case, your two suggestions seem to be at odds with each other. For example, if I'm flying a PMDG triple 7 with registration number N12345, then other pilots that I encounter that have the same PMDG T7 livery installed aren't going to want to have vPilot use that model since it would be hard on the frame rates.

 

To clarify, i'm not talking about an absolute selection of the model based on the registration. But say a user has got a AI traffic package of all aircrafts in an Airline, he's got all different aircraft with different registrations, each might have different options like winglets, etc...

 

Now, another user is flying his high poly, hight end Aerosoft Airbus of that same airline, the registration is then send on the network, and used to see if any low definition/AI traffic that the user has installed has got the same registration and airline. If so, the correct aircraft with the same registration is shown.

[Ross Carlson]

But say a user has got a AI traffic package of all aircrafts in an Airline, he's got all different aircraft with different registrations, each might have different options like winglets, etc...

 

Every AI package I've seen doesn't work that way. They just have one model for each type code, and sometimes for each livery. They don't have a separate model for each registration.

 

Maybe this is something VA's do if they have their own custom model set? I don't fly for any VA so I wouldn't necessarily know if this is common practice. And it would have to be a common practice in order to warrant a network protocol update like this.

[Pierre Ferran]

Every AI package I've seen doesn't work that way. They just have one model for each type code, and sometimes for each livery. They don't have a separate model for each registration.

 

Exactly, it'd just be an optional selection parameter. Certain livery in AI packages are only [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ociated to a certain registration, provided that the AI package implements it correctly, since usually one aircraft in the whole airline fleet is gonna have that special livery.

 

You could even use the registration sent from the client to map in your custom database the aircraft characteristics. So if the AI package doesn't contain one model per registration, just find the best one based on what you know about that registration in your system.

 

What i'm basically trying to say is instead of doing like FSINN which used a unique model string, use the registration of the AC, which is already unique to do that.

 

I don't know if I'm making any sense, if not i'll sleep it off and explain it better tomorrow

[Ross Carlson]

I don't know if I'm making any sense, if not i'll sleep it off and explain it better tomorrow

 

I understand the suggestion completely. I think we just differ on whether or not a registration number match would occur frequently enough for it to be worth the development effort.

[Ned Hamilton 1215492]

I know your deadline has already p[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ed and maybe vPilot is not the place to do this:

But since the p[Mod - Happy Thoughts] errors are still coming. Is it possible to have an option in vPilot to ignore (not display) p[Mod - Happy Thoughts] error messages?

[Nick Botica]

Quite often I see incorrect ICAO codes such as the case in an earlier reply; B73H, which is not an ICAO code but in fact an IATA.

 

While I think it's a good idea to have a free form field (4 characters), perhaps an autocorrect type box could be introduced.

For example the user starts typing B73 and several valid options appear under it B733, B734, B735 etc.

This way you can encourage people to select a valid code while leaving the user the flexibility to enter a code that isn't in the database (although could this be possible, apart from fictional aircraft where most people wouldn't have the aircraft installed anyway)

 

Cheers, Nick

[Ross Carlson]

I know your deadline has already p[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ed and maybe vPilot is not the place to do this:

But since the p[Mod - Happy Thoughts] errors are still coming. Is it possible to have an option in vPilot to ignore (not display) p[Mod - Happy Thoughts] error messages?

 

That's already been fixed in the current 1.1 beta version. I'll be releasing that fix in the Stable update channel soon.

[Ross Carlson]

While I think it's a good idea to have a free form field (4 characters), perhaps an autocorrect type box could be introduced.

For example the user starts typing B73 and several valid options appear under it B733, B734, B735 etc.

This way you can encourage people to select a valid code while leaving the user the flexibility to enter a code that isn't in the database (although could this be possible, apart from fictional aircraft where most people wouldn't have the aircraft installed anyway)

 

I mentioned above that I'm planning to show a popup warning if the type code you enter isn't a known valid ICAO code, but still allowing the user to proceed with the unknown code.

 

However, I like the idea of a suggestion list appearing as you type. To be clear, it would not be an autocorrect function ... it would not change what you type in. It would just show a list of matching codes that you could click on or use the arrow keys to select. You can still just ignore the suggestions and continue with whatever you type in. It would still show the popup warning if you type in something that is not a valid ICAO code. Those two things together should go a long way towards eliminating invalid codes.

[Nick Botica]

However, I like the idea of a suggestion list appearing as you type. To be clear, it would not be an autocorrect function ... it would not change what you type in. It would just show a list of matching codes that you could click on or use the arrow keys to select. .

 

Ah yes, wrong terminology on my part... more like an autocomplete

[Nick Botica]

Just had an idea, can you use simconnect to grab the aircraft code if it's in the aircraft.cfg and use it if it's valid?

[Ross Carlson]

Just had an idea, can you use simconnect to grab the aircraft code if it's in the aircraft.cfg and use it if it's valid?

 

Yeah, there is a SimConnect variable that stores the type code from the aircraft.cfg file for the user's aircraft. I know I looked at that when I first wrote vPilot, but I don't recall why I decided against using it. I'll take another look at it.

 

I would still need to allow the user to override it, though, since pilots need to be able to file a slightly different code than what might be found there. (B738 instead of B737, etc.)

[Ross Carlson]

Slight change of plans. Originally I said this:

 

When in remote mode, vPilot is essentially acting as a remote control for the host copy. Any actions you perform in the remote window will be sent over the network and carried out on the host machine. You'll actually be able to use either the host or the remote copy to perform any actions such as connecting, filing a flight plan, squawking mode C, chatting with controllers or other pilots, etc.

 

I've since changed the way it will work when running vPilot on a remote machine. Now, on the host machine (the machine running FSX/P3D) you will launch vPilot in "host mode". This mode will show a very simple window with a button to open your settings window, and some status indicators showing whether or not voice is running on the host, and whether or not a remote has connected yet.

 

As before, when you launch vPilot on the remote machine, you'll see the same window that you see now.

[Ross Carlson]

Re-reading this thread, I realize that I missed this question when you first posted it:

 

Are you going to use the existing rule sets to build your web server data, or are you planning to collect data again when it comes time for building it?

 

I'm going to use the existing rule sets as the starting point for the database. When users run the new version, it will scan their installed models and send the list to the vPilot web server, so that I can periodically review the models that were found in the scan but didn't exist in the model database at that time, and add them to the database. (You'll be able to opt out of this if for some reason you don't want your list of models sent to the vPilot web server.)

[Reinhard Brantner]

Hi,

 

First of all: Great news. Thanks for driving vPilot into the next direction.

 

I would suggest a feature, which can be a result out of your collected database. It would be fine to collect all the models, which couldn't be matched during the session, in a special log file on my client, when I haven't currently installed the right models. So whenever a similar model or the default aircraft was used, this should generate a log entry. At the end of my session I want to be able to upload this file to a website, where this missing aircrafts are matched against your database. And as a result I get back as a proposal, which AI models you know, that would cover this missing aircraft on my machine. By that I can complete my AI traffic based on the missing models list.

 

Another fine feature for the client V2 would be, if I were able to undock the several sub elements of the client window. This means, that if I would be able to move and resize ATC, chat and input windows according to my screen layout, this would give great flexibility. And by defining these positions and size information in the config file, would allow to start with different setups.

 

Best regards

Reinhard

[Ross Carlson]

At the end of my session I want to be able to upload this file to a website, where this missing aircrafts are matched against your database. And as a result I get back as a proposal, which AI models you know, that would cover this missing aircraft on my machine.

 

Interesting idea, and it wouldn't require uploading the file anywhere, since vPilot will already have a local copy of the model matching database.

 

However, that database does not include information about where to get each model, or the package that it comes from, so that would have to be added. In many cases that won't be possible. When vPilot scans your installed models, it will post a list of the unknown models to the vPilot server so that I can periodically review that list and add new models to the database. For those, I won't always know where you got the model. So, the database would only be able to contain download URLs for the popular packages like WoAI, MyTraffic, etc. It might still be useful to show a list of unmatched aircraft and whether or not there is a match in one or more of those popular packages, but I don't know if it would be worth doing since the database would be somewhat incomplete. I'll think about it, though.

 

Another fine feature for the client V2 would be...

 

Please post any feature requests not related to the model matching and networking changes in a separate thread. I'd like to keep this thread on topic.