Additional feature requests for vPilot v2.0

[Ross Carlson]

I would love to have a more intelligent handling of the performance, where the radius and the max aircraft count are governed by rulesets similar to those for AI. For instance the range radius value would increase the higher the aircraft is ( up to a limit ) while the aircraft display count would decrase ( down to a limit )

 

I don't follow ... can you elaborate?

[Semir Gebran]

I would love to have a more intelligent handling of the performance, where the radius and the max aircraft count are governed by rulesets similar to those for AI. For instance the range radius value would increase the higher the aircraft is ( up to a limit ) while the aircraft display count would decrase ( down to a limit )

 

I don't follow ... can you elaborate?

 

I would have the program check for the altitude and act accordingly depending on a set of rules. Range, aircraft count could then be dynamically altered depending on preference set in the rules. My preference would for example be to show more aircraft at a small radius when I am on the ground ( busy event, I prefer to see the ones closer to me than those flying 30nm away in the TMA ) and fewer aircraft with a bigger radius when in in flight. Someone else would possibly like to set a rule that aircraft that are vertically 20000ft higher/lower should not be shown ( like a VFR pilot who's flying at 3000ft and would not care to have the enroute jetliners at FL350 spawned )

 

Mockup rule example:

 

<PerformanceRule AltitudeStart="0" AltitudeEnd="1000" VerticalCap="3000" DisplayRange="15" AircraftCount="25" />

 

//When flying between 0ft and 1000ft, set performance to display maximum of 25 aircraft at a radius of 15nm. Do not display anything that happens to be 3000ft above or below the set altitude range. This could save resources to display aircraft at the airport during a busy event instead of displaying those 30nm away flying around in the TMA

 

<PerformanceRule AltitudeStart="20000" AltitudeEnd="60000" VerticalCap="0" DisplayRange="30" AircraftCount="10" /> 

 

//When flying between 20000ft and 60000ft, set performance to display a maximum of 10 aircraft at a radius of 30nm. No vertical display cap.

 

I hope this makes sense

[Ross Carlson]

Yeah, makes sense. However, the way it works now is I think correct for nearly all situations. When you set a limit on the number of aircraft, and that limit is reached, it deletes the furthest-away aircraft first. So you never have a situation where a far away aircraft is being displayed and causing a nearby aircraft to not be displayed.

[Nicolas Ammann]

One thing I would love is the ability to define an headset output device and a speaker output device and a button to switch between these outputs (something similar can be done in VRC).

 

On longer flights I prefer to have the radio on the speakers during cruise but on the headset during the other phases of the flight.

[1275389]

One thing I would love is the ability to define an headset output device and a speaker output device and a button to switch between these outputs (something similar can be done in VRC).

Adding onto this idea, perhaps a way to make text and SELCAL messages play to the speaker (if configured in a certain way).

[Kirk Christie]

One thing I would love is the ability to define an headset output device and a speaker output device and a button to switch between these outputs (something similar can be done in VRC).

Adding onto this idea, perhaps a way to make text and SELCAL messages play to the speaker (if configured in a certain way).

 

The sounds from text message/radio message and selcal already play on my external speakers while the comms go via my headset, is this what you want?

[Marinos Klouras]

Hi Ross,

 

First of all a big, great thank you. I am a member of VATSIM since the days of SB2.3 where you had to open up SB Relay to get connected!

 

We have definately moved forward from that and your program is a major leap ahead. So, once again, thank you for your time and work.

 

I have installed v2 and it is my first time using vPilot. It works flawlesly in a network environment and shared cockpit also seems to work OK. My only "problem" (and I admit that I have not read extensively on the issue) is that the model matching needs some fiddling so as to bring it up to the level that I had with FSInn. Given that this is the thread of requests, how easy would it be to add an edit button to the vPilot Aircaft list, so that we could manually edit models?

 

Please do accept my apologies if this is something already mentioned somewhere else or been explained somewhere - thruth is I have not read this or other forums extensively.

 

Thanks

[Ross Carlson]

how easy would it be to add an edit button to the vPilot Aircaft list, so that we could manually edit models?

 

That has been requested a few times, and I may add that feature at some point.

 

I never used FSInn so I'm not sure exactly how that feature worked. Can you describe it in detail?

[Pierre Ferran]

 

That has been requested a few times, and I may add that feature at some point.

 

I never used FSInn so I'm not sure exactly how that feature worked. Can you describe it in detail?

 

From what a remember, you clicked a button that opened an aircraft list, clicked on the model name, and it opened another popup, with 3 select list, the first was the aircraft manufacturer, the second was the aircraft type, and the third was the model name, you then clicked OK and the model in game changed.

[Marinos Klouras]

Hi Ross,

I will try my best to describe the functionality in FSInn. Please note that the below are set in a network environment. FS PC runs Windows 7 64bit and FSX and the nonFS PC runs Windows 10 64bit.

 

From the FSInn control panel, you have an option to see the pic below:

 

 

In this case we see the aircrafts connected on the multiplayer session. Let’s say that VNC103 is matched and displayed with a model I wish to change. I select it and I see that it is matched with a MALEV 737-800 AI Model.

 

 

I then press the blue box with the three little dots. On the following screen, we see:

 

 

(my initial choice has disconnected, this is another example).

From the drop down lists I can select the manufacturer, aircraft model and variation.

You select, press apply and then the model is displayed like you want.

In the initial window, there is also and ICAO default tab, where you can set the default seen plane for main ICAO aircraft codes:

 

 

In the ICAO Custom, you can go into even more detail:

 

 

So this is basicaly the functionality. I hope that is something that can be done relatively easy and that you will be able to provide it.

 

Thank you

[1275389]

Marinos, I think you need to change the viewing permissions on those photos.

[Marinos Klouras]

Hi Josh,

 

Thanks for the heads up. I changed the permissions and they should be OK now. If not, please advise via PM so that I upload them somewhere else.

[Ross Carlson]

I can see the images now, thanks.

 

I don't think I'll implement the second part where you can override the default model used for any given aircraft type code, because you can already do that with a custom rule set. I do plan to eventually allow you to override the model selection for a given callsign, though.

 

If you put in a model override for a callsign, does it persist for future sessions, or only the current session?

[Marinos Klouras]

If you put in a model override for a callsign, does it persist for future sessions, or only the current session?

 

To be honest, I do not know that. The normal thing would be not to, given that the any other user can or may connect with the same callsign yet another type of aircraft.

[Ross Carlson]

If you put in a model override for a callsign, does it persist for future sessions, or only the current session?

 

To be honest, I do not know that. The normal thing would be not to, given that the any other user can or may connect with the same callsign yet another type of aircraft.

 

Well, yeah, the persisted model override info would include the aircraft type, as well as the callsign. In fact, it would probably only include the callsign prefix, not the full callsign. Essentially I could treat it as a custom model matching rule. Maybe I'll add that as a checkbox option when overriding the model.

[Simon Kelsey]

Another thought (which is probably less of a vPilot thing and more of a network thing, but any thoughts would be appreciated): we're now using the shared cockpit feature quite a lot in the delivery of training. At the moment, the instructor (hosting the FS multiplayer session) has to connect to VATSIM normally (and thus has full comms) whilst the student has to connect in Shared Cockpit/Observer mode to prevent seeing each aircraft twice. This is broadly fine but it does mean that the student has no access to text comms, which is not an enormous issue except in UNICOM situations and with the occasional student who is text-only (we have at least one who is hearing impaired and thus cannot use voice).

 

If it were possible to come up with a means of giving both parties access to full comms it would be brilliant, but as I say I suspect this might be as much a network question as a software one.

 

Thanks!

 

Simon

[william gliva 1288893]

Could it be possible to transmit in voice on unicom or would that be difficult

[Thimo Koolen]

That's not possible. Unicom is a text-only frequency.

[Markus Schober 1328585]

Ross,

would it be possible to improve the way vPilot detects changes to the installed aircraft folders? In particular, when a livery is added to an already existing plane, this seems to go undetected.

 

It even would be sufficient for me to have a "fore refresh" button in the menu.

[Ross Carlson]

Ross,

would it be possible to improve the way vPilot detects changes to the installed aircraft folders? In particular, when a livery is added to an already existing plane, this seems to go undetected.

 

That would mean vPilot would have to open and p[Mod - Happy Thoughts] each aircraft.cfg file, which would make the startup take MUCH longer for anyone that has a decent sized AI library installed.

 

I've always [Mod - Happy Thoughts]umed that normally people only add liveries to flyable aircraft, which typically aren't used for model matching due to their complexity and performance impact. What are your thoughts on that?

 

Edit: I just realized that you can use WoAI's installer to add liveries to existing aircraft ...

 

Maybe adding a force refresh button is the best compromise, here.

[Markus Schober 1328585]

I've always [Mod - Happy Thoughts]umed that normally people only add liveries to flyable aircraft, which typically aren't used for model matching due to their complexity and performance impact. What are your thoughts on that?

What I do from time to time is manually adding liveries to AI aircraft from other sources than World of AI (for instance FSX AI Bureau).

The only way I found to make vPilot updating the rules was to change the content of the aircraft folder (for instance, move a folder out, start vPilot, confirm the dialog, close, move the folder back in, start vPilot and confirm again). While this works, it's not very handy. By the way, why does one have to confirm the detection of changes? There is no option to "cancel" anyway.

 

So if there is no fast and reliable way to detect changes to the folder, I would be happy with a "refresh" button.

[Ross Carlson]

By the way, why does one have to confirm the detection of changes? There is no option to "cancel" anyway.

 

It's really just to let the user know that the re-scan is going to happen.

[Markus Schober 1328585]

This one is not precisely a feature request but I put it here:

Can you add the following two ICAO codes to the list of known airlines in ModelMatchingData.xml -

EPA (Donghai Airlines)

CCD (Dalian Airlines)

Thanks!

[Markus Schober 1328585]

Edit: I just realized that you can use WoAI's installer to add liveries to existing aircraft ...

 

Maybe adding a force refresh button is the best compromise, here.

Yep, just happened to me, too. While I still think that a button will be sufficient for a quick solution, I like the approach of creating "hands-off" programs, in this case one that can detect changes itself.

I was thinking about the problem that parsing every aircraft.cfg file for possible changes was too slow and realized that I am using a version control system (Mercurial) that detects changes very quickly, even in rather large projects. Mercurial checks the timestamp and size of each tracked file, which is way faster than parsing the content of course. Maybe this is an idea for you to pick up for further improvements.

[Ross Carlson]

Mercurial checks the timestamp and size of each tracked file, which is way faster than parsing the content of course. Maybe this is an idea for you to pick up for further improvements.

 

I considered just looking at the timestamp and size, but there are reasons why the file might be modified other than adding or removing a model. For example, I recall reading about add-ons that modify entries in the file when you use their flight planning tools. Not sure what gets modified, maybe weight and balance data, tail number, etc.

 

However, I think I just thought of a way to make it work. After each scan, I could save a file on disk that keeps track of which models were found in each aircraft.cfg file, and also store the file size and time stamp. If a size or time stamp change is detected, I could re-scan only that file.

 

This would require a substantial change to the way the scan result data are stored on the user's disk, but it's probably worth it.