Author Topic: Whats on the horizon?  (Read 18710 times)

Luke160388

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Whats on the horizon?
« on: July 06, 2014, 01:03:20 pm »
Is there any new features planned, not necessarily right now though? Just in general any new things in the future. Im hoping there is still plenty of room for development in GSX.

virtuali

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Re: Whats on the horizon?
« Reply #1 on: July 06, 2014, 03:46:35 pm »
The next GSX update will add:

- De-icers.

- An addition to the Airplane customization editor to allow users to specify the precise position of the wingtips and the wing roots, to support de-icers ( the informations in the aircraft.cfg are usually always off ). Of course, all internally-supported airplanes will come pre-configured by us.

- New Pushback vehicles.

- Operators liveries for all Pushback vehicles, both new and existing ones. Previously, they were almost always generic.

- Ability for users to specify a custom Pushback node and a custom Label in the Scenery customization editor.

- Additional straight Pushback option.

We are targeting a release somewhere in August, most likely.

Richard McDonald Woods

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Re: Whats on the horizon?
« Reply #2 on: July 07, 2014, 11:05:20 am »
Thanks for the heads-up, Umberto 8)

socili

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Re: Whats on the horizon?
« Reply #3 on: July 08, 2014, 07:22:27 am »
- Ability for users to specify a custom Pushback node and a custom Label in the Scenery customization editor.
- Additional straight Pushback option.

Great to hear for the update, bud just a small question on that.

Will the costum(s) pushback be an extra line in the menue? like:

1 right
2 left
3 straight
4 N-F north
5 N-F south


virtuali

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Re: Whats on the horizon?
« Reply #4 on: July 08, 2014, 07:59:56 am »
Will the costum(s) pushback be an extra line in the menue? like:

No, only the straight pushback will be. The custom pushback works like is working now at those FSDT airports where we enabled it, up to two entries will replace the Left/Right default entries, with a custom label you can define as you please, such as:

"End on Taxiway A, facing North-East"
"End on Taxiway A, facing South-West"

With those matching the coordinates of two existing AFCAD nodes that will act as targets for the final destination. In this context, Left/Right don't really have any sense, when you customize with a custom destination, they will just be like an Option 1/Option 2, with a customized label. Since you can insert the coordinates of any AFCAD node, nothing would prevent you to make a custom pushback up to the runway...and the coordinates don't even need to be 100% exact, since the closest node will be then used, so it should work even it the AFCAD is edited.

GSX always had this capability, we are now allowing users to get access to it in the scenery customization file.

GSX has *far* more customizations capabilities that most of the people think, the typical opinion is that GSX has a "generic" approach, while other products are "custom", thus more "realistic."

In fact, what's is really difficult, is making a generic program that works everywhere, because, of all variations and quirks in the AFCADs, and all the problems related to automatic pathfinding, fitting approach curves that must be calculated over random and sometimes erratically placed AFCAD nodes, especially at 3rd party airports (and we put ourselves to have been in the "guilty" category sometimes, as scenery designers, but we tried to improve, after GSX...).

Making a program that *requires* to be tailored to a specific airport, instead, is far easier, as a program, but it will then require a lot of work to support each airport, so you are then forced to charge for it. We are taking the approach that, instead of charging per-airport, we'll allow users to do more and more customizations on their own.

Next one, we'll likely open up the ability to customize the marshaller and docking system parameters, so anyone will be able to place those in any scenery they like, and setting stopping distances precisely. This is a bit trickier though, because it really needs an easy visual editor without having to type coordinates or measurements.

This of course will apply to 3rd party scenery developers too, that can add value to their products for free, and without having users spend any extra money, to enhance their product, by simply providing their sceneries with a GSX .INI file to go along with it, and they can do it on their own pace, so they can have it ready for the scenery release.
« Last Edit: July 09, 2014, 11:53:33 pm by virtuali »

Luke160388

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Re: Whats on the horizon?
« Reply #5 on: July 09, 2014, 11:47:00 pm »
Thanks for the detailed reply Umberto! Some great features to look forward too.

Will extra baggage trains be included at all? Maybe with cargo pallets mixed in with containers. A 777 does have plenty of room in it's big belly and a 77W has even more. ;) Also a change of fuel truck would be great, especially if you say that we can make wing tips positions etc. Most large airliners have the fuel pumped by a small truck from the ground into the tanks. That baby Shell tanker wouldnt get me to the runway hold point.  :D
« Last Edit: July 09, 2014, 11:50:46 pm by Luke160388 »

socili

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Re: Whats on the horizon?
« Reply #6 on: July 10, 2014, 06:51:17 am »
THX for the information, really looking forward to it.  :)

meds60

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Re: Whats on the horizon?
« Reply #7 on: July 10, 2014, 11:49:58 pm »
De-Icers is a great idea but only used during the winter. Something that is used almost every flight ia a lavotory trucks to dump the lavs. I think this is a must with the update!

JRSchiphol

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Re: Whats on the horizon?
« Reply #8 on: July 11, 2014, 01:21:23 pm »
Sounds great!
I would love to see some passengers coming out of the busses or out of the plane when there stairs connected to the plane (no need when there are jetways of course). I dont know if that is too hard to make and could be heavy for FPS, but it would be a nice addition.

Can't wait for this update!

funkyj4ever

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Re: Whats on the horizon?
« Reply #9 on: July 12, 2014, 05:24:57 pm »
I think a lot of users are using gsx on stands without pusback. Like most greece airports or rotterdam etc. I really would like to see this better made with gsx. On AES you get" right is clear left is clear oke the start engines" and than it waits for the wave sign. On gsx everything just disappears. Please make this better

virtuali

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Re: Whats on the horizon?
« Reply #10 on: July 13, 2014, 09:51:38 am »
I think a lot of users are using gsx on stands without pusback. Like most greece airports or rotterdam etc. I really would like to see this better made with gsx. On AES you get" right is clear left is clear oke the start engines" and than it waits for the wave sign. On gsx everything just disappears.

What do you mean with "everything just disappears". It doesn't, the wingwalker will walk away, and the pushback truck will return to the parking.

Or, with "just disappears", you mean at those parkings whose developers has (intentionally or by mistake) set the Pushback preference to NONE, indicating to GSX there shouldn't be ANY Pushback ?

As discussed many times already, and of course as clearly explained on the GSX manual, GSX can't possibly known if the scenery developer, if the "None" for a specific parking was set that way because you CANNOT Pushback from there, for all sort of reasons like dangerous position, too cramped position, etc. or just because it was an oversight. If there's no Pushback preference ( but Pushback IS allowed ) the correct setting should have been "BOTH", which means "I have no preference for Pushback, so you can do it either side"

Of course, all of this is easily customizable with the GSX scenery editor so, if you have an airport where the developer has set all the parkings to "None" (probably by mistake, if they are all set that way), you can EASILY set them to the correct preference in GSX with its integrated scenery editor. You can do it for multiple parkings at once, for an entire terminal at once, and even for a whole airport with a single command so, if you want to make a quick fix for airports made that way, you can do it in 10 seconds in GSX: select the ICAO code of the airport in the "Root" of the parking list in the GSX settings editor, GSX will tell you how many parkings will be affected at once, and just set the parking preference to "BOTH"

The reason why many 3rd party airports are made that way, is because, since FSX default pushback doesn't really care about that setting, and always allow pushback in both directions, ADE for years didn't let users edit the setting, but it defaulted to "None" so, there are many sceneries out there with all parkings set to "None", since it only happened more recently that ADE added the ability to set the Pushback direction, and I think is still not available in the free version.

hwmertens

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Re: Whats on the horizon?
« Reply #11 on: July 13, 2014, 11:54:03 am »
Hi, it is great to hear that GSX will be functionally extended.

What about push/pull?

With the ability of a custom made endpoint, it would be possible. The strategie can be: push beyond the first node then pull to custom endpoint.

BTW what is the strategie of the baggage cars to arrive/depart? Do they prefer to use vehicles pathways or are they going on taxiways?

Regards
Hans-Werner

virtuali

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Re: Whats on the horizon?
« Reply #12 on: July 13, 2014, 07:09:37 pm »
What about push/pull?

With the ability of a custom made endpoint, it would be possible. The strategie can be: push beyond the first node then pull to custom endpoint.

We'll surely add it in the future, but not in the *next* update.

Quote
BTW what is the strategie of the baggage cars to arrive/depart? Do they prefer to use vehicles pathways or are they going on taxiways?

The give more importance to vehicle pathways so, even if a path is a bit longer, they'll prefer using vehicles pathways. Of course, if the scenery has none ( which unfortunately is quite common with 3rd party airports ), they don't have much choice other than taking taxiways.

funkyj4ever

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Re: Whats on the horizon?
« Reply #13 on: July 13, 2014, 09:24:14 pm »
I now that there is a no pusback option. But when i select clear to start nothing happens anymore in gsx. No goodbye etc http://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php/topic,7865.0/topicseen.html
« Last Edit: July 13, 2014, 11:43:51 pm by virtuali »

virtuali

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Re: Whats on the horizon?
« Reply #14 on: July 13, 2014, 11:48:00 pm »
I now that there is a no pusback option. But when i select clear to start nothing happens anymore in gsx. No goodbye etc

The "None" pushback is used when you DON'T want a pushback, that's how it does. Not to simulate an immediate clear to start engines with no pushing, another separate option will be needed, perhaps we might just make it as part of the "straight pushback" option, as a sub-option of pushing for 0 meters.

My reply was to clear it up that, when pushback is set to "None", GSX correctly doesn't do anything, that option was never meant to do what an user in that post you linked has suggested.