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Testing Aircraft in FSX

Nodd

Nodd

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35
Country
us-connecticut
I've been tweaking a FSX aircraft that I'm creating, testing it in FSX between edits. On my machine it takes around 3.5 mins between tests. That's the time it takes to quit FSX (ctrl pause), give it a few to shut down completely, make my tweak then re-run FSX & get back to Edwards AFB (a saved session I made for testing) to see the new results. 3.5 mins may not sound like much but not including time to actually edit the aircraft.cfg, that's limiting me to a maximum of 17 tweaks an hour. There's got to be a better way.

The FSX SDK mentions a key command named Reload User Aircraft that is supposed to help developers tweak their aircraft.cfg files without the need to reload FSX each time. I followed the instructions for mapping a key but couldn't find this function in the list. The closest thing I found was Refresh Scenery but that doesn't seem to effect user aircraft. Anyone know how to set this up? Or perhaps some other trick to make testing a little less painful?
 
You have it good!

I'm working on 2 different planes built in Gmax, and each one takes about 10-15 minutes to compile! That gives me 'bout 4 tweaks/hour.

Robert
 
Nodd said:
I've been tweaking a FSX aircraft that I'm creating, testing it in FSX between edits. On my machine it takes around 3.5 mins between tests. That's the time it takes to quit FSX (ctrl pause), give it a few to shut down completely, make my tweak then re-run FSX & get back to Edwards AFB (a saved session I made for testing) to see the new results. 3.5 mins may not sound like much but not including time to actually edit the aircraft.cfg, that's limiting me to a maximum of 17 tweaks an hour. There's got to be a better way.

The FSX SDK mentions a key command named Reload User Aircraft that is supposed to help developers tweak their aircraft.cfg files without the need to reload FSX each time. I followed the instructions for mapping a key but couldn't find this function in the list. The closest thing I found was Refresh Scenery but that doesn't seem to effect user aircraft. Anyone know how to set this up? Or perhaps some other trick to make testing a little less painful?
Click to expand...

I temporarily select another aircraft and then reselect the aircraft I'm working on without quitting FS X.
 
Robby88; Swapping aircraft seems to work fairly well. Thanks for the tip.

Robert; ouch
 
Hi
I have been customising one of the FSX panels, shifting guages about, resizing and so on, then saving the panel.cfg, and eventually found that by simply clicking the same aircraft again on select aircraft that it updated with a minimum of delay. This saves loading another aircraft first.

Cheers
Mike
 
mikesflight said:
Hi
I have been customising one of the FSX panels, shifting guages about, resizing and so on, then saving the panel.cfg, and eventually found that by simply clicking the same aircraft again on select aircraft that it updated with a minimum of delay. This saves loading another aircraft first.

Even quicker is to assign a keystroke to the reload aircraft function; that way, seeing the effect of changes to things like cfg file edits takes like 2 or 3 seconds each time instead of clicking on menus etc.
Click to expand...
 
Nodd said:
The FSX SDK mentions a key command named Reload User Aircraft that is supposed to help developers tweak their aircraft.cfg files without the need to reload FSX each time. I followed the instructions for mapping a key but couldn't find this function in the list. The closest thing I found was Refresh Scenery but that doesn't seem to effect user aircraft. Anyone know how to set this up? Or perhaps some other trick to make testing a little less painful?
Click to expand...

Hi Paul
The original poster was telling us of the difficulty encountered in mapping a key.
If you have had success we would be delighted if you would share it with us.

Cheers
Mike
 
Mmmm, thought I did that?

Being at a PC with FSX would be easier! Anyway, in the dropdown menu that includes assignments/sensitivities etc, it's just a case of looking down the list of items that can have a keystoke assigned to them. Many have been done by default.

Thinking about it, this is obvious stuff. Is it that the actual term "Reload Aircraft" (or whatever they call it) can't be found on the list? If so, I'll have to look again later to see what they call it in FSX; it's certainly there and working fine once a keystroke is assigned though.
 
The command in the picklist is now:

Aircraft (reload)

to which I've assigned Ctrl-Shift-R (seeing as that's what I used in FS9)...

Unfortunately, the "gauge commands" (both C and XML) do not work! :eek:
 
Doh! OK now I feel silly. However I can see why I had issues finding this feature. The SDK uses the term "Reload User Aircraft" in describing the event. So when I visited the settings section & noticed the rather long list of events was listed alphabetically, I immediately scrolled down to the "R"s where I found no such command. Who would have thunk the command would be hidden in the "A"s as "Aircraft (reload)". Silly me indeed.

In my defense here's what the SDK Aircraft Configuration Files.htm says:

...To see the effects of a change, the aircraft must be reloaded. Aircraft are loaded into the memory cache from disk, so you have to flush the cache to enable your changes to be reflected in-game. This involves a couple of steps:

  1. Configure a key command to Reload User Aircraft (which will reload your aircraft from within the simulation). To do this go to Settings, Controls Assignments, and scroll down to the Reload User Aircraft event. By default, it’s unassigned. Use Change Assignment to configure a keystroke combination for this event. Once assigned, you can use this key command to reload the aircraft within the simulation.
  2. Turn off AI Traffic in the game. AI traffic aircraft are maintained in the cache and even if you update the aircraft you are currently piloting, if the same aircraft is being used by AI traffic, then your cache won’t get updated automatically by simply reloading the plane. So to ensure your aircraft is reloaded from disk, you must also go to the Settings Screen, choose Traffic, and set the Air Traffic Density slider all the way to the left to 0%.
  3. Now you can test changes made to an aircraft.cfg within the game by using the Reload User Aircraft key command after each change, or set of changes, is made...
Click to expand...

Unfortunately the SDK seems to be filled with minor but misleading stuff like that. Its the age old problem. People who know what they're writing about are rarely able to explain things clearly as they assume you also know what they're writing about. Hopefully the new & improved SDK will be written by idiots so folks like me can follow it. :p
 
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Nodd said:
Unfortunately the SDK seems to be filled with minor but misleading stuff like that. Its the age old problem. People who know what they're writing about are rarely able to explain things clearly as they assume you also know what they're writing about. Hopefully the new & improved SDK will be written by idiots so folks like me can follow it. :p
Click to expand...

Well, I have yet to read all of the new "beta version SDK" documents, so I cannot comment specifically on this particular instance, but those I have read are a huge improvement.

ACES has a "professional document author" on staff who's sole responsibility is making the SDK's organized, complete and coherent. ;)

The biggest hurdle with any documentation process however, is that most of the time the people shown the draft are focussed on proof-reading and finding spelling/grammatical errors, and not errors in content per se. Presumably, that's why this time around, the beta team are being asked to put the SDKs through the seive of actual use, in an attempt to uncover the flaws... :twocents:
 
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