If you look at the attached picture, you'll see an Airbus being serviced by two self-moving staircases. This is from a GSX customization for Salsburg (LOWS). I'm positive I used to see these "staircases on trucks" all the time in the last year but now all I get for the front stairs are the ones designed to be towed by something else, even though I haven't changed the airplane I've been using. Unless the staircase selection can be linked to the season, something must have changed in GSX .
And you'll still see those stairs, I'm sure.
As explained so many times in the forum, every GSX vehicle has several conditions. Stairs mainly limited to the airplane doors height so, each stairs has a range of heights it can use, but sometimes we *restrict* a certain type of stair to be used in lower height range than it could possibly reach as a model.
Many users complained the stairs with a truck shouldn't be used on small/mid-sized airplanes like 737s or A320s, because in previous version we had the range of the truck-less stair far too restricted, so they only appeared on smaller airplanes.
Since we always listen to users suggestions, we increased the height range of the truck-less stairs, so now they CAN appear on 737/A320s, which is what lots of users asked for, saying the larger stair was "inappropriate" for such airplane. The truck-less stair CAN reach up to 3.78 meters, we allowed them up to 3.50 meters now so they are already limited.
The ones with the truck are used when the airplane door is at least 3.00 meters high, up to 5.80/6.00 meters ( depending on the model ).
Since the door of an A320 is about 3.75 meters from ground, BOTH kind of stairs can be used and, being both candidates, they will be chosen at random, although since there are two models of stairs with a truck and only one model without, the ones with the truck will have a better chance to appear.
A 737 door is about 2.85 meters from ground, so you will never see the stairs with a truck, because we changed their minimum height to be 3.00 meters, and this was made precisely to address users that didn't want to see the larger truck models on a 737, and complained they never got a chance to see the truck-less stair.
So, what's happening now, is:
- On a 737 a similar size airplanes, you'll only get the truck-less model
- On A320s class, you'll get BOTH, with an higher chance to see the trucked model, because there are more of them to choose from.
- On bigger airplanes, you'll get only the trucked model.
So yes, there was a change, and it was of course made intentionally, to address to users asking to see more realistic smaller stairs on the 737, which never appeared before, which was a pity, since the PBR version of that model is very nice and, we are surely planning to make them nicer, like being towed by a truck or, possibly, being pushed by hand by a crew, so I'm sure you'll end up preferring this model for 737s.
