Author Topic: Ground Service X Online 🌎  (Read 2380 times)

hurfifx

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Ground Service X Online 🌎
« on: February 02, 2022, 08:24:34 am »
Hello, it’s been a while since I was thinking of this, I own gsx since p3d v3 (not too old) but I’ve seen the number of online users (VATSIM/IVAO) growing a lot and I always fly online. I dont know how many of your customers are simmers that « only fly online » but I’m sure it’s a majority. I love gsx and I can’t do a serious flight without it because its so important for the immersion ! (impatiently waiting for the msfs version) With the recent addition of Velocity on Vatsim compared to what it was years ago, it changed a lot. In +5 years we got flaps animations, all lights triggerable, gear, sounds and lower latency ! Unfortunately something is breaking all that stuff, we miss you here gsx 😅. It feels so wrong when you see the aircraft next to you pushing back with magic, and it would be ofc wonderful if a quick and simplified ground services existed !

I don’t know how your addon works and if it would be able to connect intra users but maybe a simplified integration using the vars of the mtl could do the job ? Especially with the new Vatsim Velocity. For exemple an aircraft in parked position (speed 0 for a period) with nav lights on would trigger stairs or nearby jetway and baggage loading for a short period or/and when the beacon light would be turned on the services would go away and bring a tow attached to the nose and following the sim object where it goes and disctonnecting the tow when the aircraft stopped moving for a time period.

Only suggestions and once again I don’t know a lot of programming stuff so I would understand that it can’t be done ( just trying to upgrade technologies as we are in the future now 😂)

Best regards,
Franck Cagnes
« Last Edit: February 02, 2022, 08:30:21 am by hurfifx »

virtuali

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Re: Ground Service X Online 🌎
« Reply #1 on: February 02, 2022, 09:59:15 am »
With the recent addition of Velocity on Vatsim compared to what it was years ago, it changed a lot. In +5 years we got flaps animations, all lights triggerable, gear, sounds and lower latency !

This mostly answers it.

Took 5 years to sync over the internet those basic animations, which are not even "streamed" over the network, the only thing that gets transmitted is in fact the standard variables that holds the status of these system and/or the events that caused it, like keypresses. The actual animation is played locally, no need to transmit it.

Instead, GSX animation are completely custom, and they also need to synchronize with each other.

Something like the guy that loads luggage, for example, requires a precise synch between the animation that picks up a bag at a specific frame, then it drops it at another specific frame, and this across several different objects working together, the baggage truck, followed by a series of baggage carts holding the bags that must also advance at the right moment, the guy that picks them, and the belt loader animation. They must all be synched to the frame, otherwise the animation would look wrong/choppy, and I'm afraid it might not work over the internet, where latency and speed are unpredictable.

Captain Kevin

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Re: Ground Service X Online 🌎
« Reply #2 on: February 02, 2022, 04:50:26 pm »
With the recent addition of Velocity on Vatsim compared to what it was years ago, it changed a lot. In +5 years we got flaps animations, all lights triggerable, gear, sounds and lower latency !
And even that's not completely accurate. I've lost track of how many times the AI traffic would show somebody having their speed brakes deployed when they obviously don't have them deployed since they're either taking off, taxiing in, or at cruise altitude.
Captain Kevin

hurfifx

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Re: Ground Service X Online 🌎
« Reply #3 on: February 08, 2022, 11:55:12 am »
Okk thanks for the precisions and quick answer 😇

hurfifx

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Re: Ground Service X Online 🌎
« Reply #4 on: February 16, 2023, 09:03:53 pm »
Hello, it's been multiple months now gsx has realesed and I'm very happy about it. I push this message on this old forum because "maybe" you have more employees now as I hope msfs have generated a bigger income for your company.  I wanted to know if after discovering the msfs sdk a little further you found a way to implement this feature, even an ultra light version of it like only pushback tugs attached to acft.

Best regards,
Franck CAGNES

virtuali

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Re: Ground Service X Online 🌎
« Reply #5 on: February 22, 2023, 10:38:33 am »
I don't know what do you mean with "this old forum": this is the only support forum we have, there isn't any "newer" version elsewhere.

Also, your reference about now having "more employees" now due to GSX success doesn't make any sense, since nowhere in my previous reply I ever said the only problem to add this feature was lack of resources on our side. In fact, I said something completely opposite, giving sound technical reasons why this is not really feasible.

hurfifx

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Re: Ground Service X Online 🌎
« Reply #6 on: February 24, 2023, 05:55:30 pm »
sorry I meant old thread; I wanted to know if the situation was still the same because when I opened this thread we didn't know if gsx would release soon or way later and maybe you made some changes to your platform/addon base code that could have made this possible for msfs. I didn't know such stuff was "not really feasible" because I'm not a software engineer.. and in your answer you mentioned technial stuff that I don't really understand as a customer, the only thing I got from your initial answer was that it was hard for the bagage guy to work correctly but I was mostly asking for the pushback feature.. that's unfortunate that it can't be triggered in the computer of somebody else instead of having to sync each frame. So I guess doing a shared cockpit and having the same stuff hapenning in the pc of your friend during the pushback is impossible (idk how betterpusback managed to do it while they use custom pushback plans all the time)
« Last Edit: February 24, 2023, 05:59:42 pm by hurfifx »

virtuali

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Re: Ground Service X Online 🌎
« Reply #7 on: February 25, 2023, 10:52:14 am »
If we could hypothetically have GSX working on a network, it would have either the whole program, or nothing, regardless if you said you might only need it for pushback.

That's because it doesn't make much sense to have a network pushback without other services available, for example different passengers showing up and not even completing boarding/deboarding at the same time, because there are so many randomizations in the process ( to make it less robotic ), that you either sync everything at each frame, or you would still have to do a very complex event passing to be sure everything that happens on a PC also happens on the other one at the same time.