GSX level 3

[MARCUS0010]

Hi ,
 It would be great to have
1 : New sets of people for gsx  so you dont have to see Always the same people getiing on/off  on each flight .
2 : lavatory and clearing services
3: The possiblity to keep pilot and crew onbord  ( all low cost airlines  " pilots and crew"  have 3 to 6 flights a day and dont get off with the passagers )
4: More ground crew  buttom of the staires , top of the stairs and wings tips like in real life .

No need for a free update all work deserves to get  paid  and i am shure most of us will be happy to contribute to have a better and more real expérience in Gsx  .

Regards
Marco

[DarrianCZE]

Completely agree!

[fahdriyami]

Personally I would hope a GSX Level 3 would have AI driven passengers. Not just in terms of randomizing their appearance, but also in terms of their movement.

Now that developers are including interiors for their airports in MSFS, I would love to see passengers actually moving around in those terminals, and making their way to the jetway/bus, and into the plane, rather than just spawning at a jetway. I think this would only be possible efficiently with AI rather than something pre-programmed for each airport. But I'm no expert, so what do I know lol 😂

And why stop there? We are also seeing more and more airplane devs include full cabins in their planes. So it would be even cooler to see these passengers actually board and take their seats and be with you in flight. Moving around the cabin, eating, going to the lavatory, reading, cabin crew serving food and drinks, maybe even have a crying baby or two lol. There's just so much potential with MSFS.

In any case, I can't wait to see what's to come with a future GSX.

[virtuali]

Now that developers are including interiors for their airports in MSFS, I would love to see passengers actually moving around in those terminals, and making their way to the jetway/bus, and into the plane, rather than just spawning at a jetway.

For the MSFS version ( although the feature will fall back to P3D as well ), we added a new feature which we used in a couple of our airports ( KORD V2 and Basel ), which in GSX are called "Airport Walkers". Previously, it could only be used by us, since it required programming their path in the Python language, which is what most of GSX is written into. However, it wasn't possible for users to access it.

Now, with the MSFS version, in a way similar to the Passenger Walk-in path editor shown in the latest Preview we released yesterday, it will be possible for users to define paths that passengers will walk freely, as loops, independently from the GSX actual Boarding/Deboarding process.

This still requires lots of editing, but it's now available to users as well, with a graphic editor that can place waypoints that can also be 3D, so you might allow passengers to walk stairs or take elevators, if the airport you are enhancing has them.

Having something entirely automatic is another issue altogether. Keep in mind that, even in games that "looks" AI-based, like GTA or Cyberpunk, there's still behind the scene the concept of waypoints that tells the game what is a road and can be used by AI characters and what isn't. And there's the concept of "areas" as well, were AI might form in clusters, playing some kind of interaction animation, that's the most common ways to populate game environments like large cities with AI people.

However, in all these cases, the whole scenery is in complete control of the game developers and, regardless how large the map it is, is VERY limited in size compared to what MSFS has, if you add together all thousands of default airports and 3rd party add-ons as well, nobody could foreseeably place waypoints for walking characters everywhere, so we can only provide with the tools, but it will up to users and the community at large to enhance the airports they are interested in.

Surely, shortly after the release, we'll add all these things to our own airports. If 3rd party developers are smart, and realize how easier is to use these high-quality characters compared to how hard normally is to add them to an airport with any other method, they should start offer GSX profiles together with their airports.

[Justinthomas7]

The main feature I'd be looking for is decouple pax boarding/deboarding from baggage loading/unloading. 

[virtuali]

The main feature I'd be looking for is decouple pax boarding/deboarding from baggage loading/unloading.

Of all the things GSX does, you consider separate passengers from baggage loading is the "main" one ? Nobody ever asked for it, in 10 years it has been out, I even checked all your forum posts, and there was nothing about it.

I'm sorry if I don't see lots of value in it, could you please explain why it would be useful ? Not that, I  think it will be very unlikely we'll do this change, surely not for release, because it would require massive changes in too many parts of the code, requiring months of troubleshooting and bugfixing, time that could be better spent to add much more interesting features, new services, new models, etc.

Instead, because we always listen when people DO post suggestions, we'll allow users to choose to Deboard Crew and Pilots or leave them on board in case of a turnaround, saving some time, because they won't have to exit the plane only to reenter shortly thereafter.

MANY users asked for it, so we'll add it, and in this case the fix was quite easy and reliable, because GSX was already coded to allow this, just it was only accessible to airplane code, not the normal GSX menus.

[Justinthomas7]

Is this not a GSX level 3 thread?    Ie future expansion product with new features?  I must be mistaken and I regret making the suggestion with that hostile response.

On certain aircraft where refuelling and baggage loading/unloading cannot occur at the same time, this would allow more flexibility and ultimately more realistic as pax and baggage loading is not paired in real life either.   I didn't think it would be a big ask considering GSX will start pax boarding even if bag loading can't start due to refuelling.   

[virtuali]

I must be mistaken and I regret making the suggestion with that hostile response.

Your only mistake is reading my reply as "hostile". Sure, you can post any kind of suggestion, and I replied that one was a bit small in value, but quite complex to make, so the cost/benefit ratio is very low. And I also asked you in which cases it could be useful, that's hardly an "hostile" attitude.

On certain aircraft where refuelling and baggage loading/unloading cannot occur at the same time, this would allow more flexibility and ultimately more realistic as pax and baggage loading is not paired in real life either. 

Which airplanes ? Why is done that way, exactly ? It's clearly not a very common procedure, and it surely goes against saving precious time so, there must be a sound reason.

[Captain Kevin]

Which airplanes ? Why is done that way, exactly ? It's clearly not a very common procedure, and it surely goes against saving precious time so, there must be a sound reason.

Here's a few ACAPS charts that illustrates this. Page 124 for the Boeing 747-400.
https://www.boeing.com/resources/boeingdotcom/commercial/airports/acaps/747_4.pdf

Page 133 for the Boeing 767-300/-300ER.
https://www.boeing.com/resources/boeingdotcom/commercial/airports/acaps/767_REV_I.pdf

Page 79 for the Boeing 777-200.
https://www.boeing.com/resources/boeingdotcom/commercial/airports/acaps/777_23.pdf

Page 93 for the Boeing 787-9.
https://www.boeing.com/resources/boeingdotcom/commercial/airports/acaps/787.pdf

Given that all four planes are primarily used for long-haul flights, the refueling takes the longest, and therefore would generally be started as soon as possible. The above charts would indicate that refueling is going on during cargo unloading and runs through cargo loading. Additionally, all four charts would indicate that the loading of the forward cargo hold starts long before passenger boarding starts. In the case of the 787, the chart would indicate that the forward and aft cargo holds are completely loaded long before passengers start boarding, as it is apparently bulk cargo that takes the longest. I should point out that the charts assume minimum turn time, and the airlines schedules would change the turn time accordingly. For instance, this video would seem to indicate that for this particular flight, the time the first jetway makes contact with the airplane to the time the last jetway is removed from the airplane is 1 hour 20 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWxIovt1nfI

[virtuali]

Given that all four planes are primarily used for long-haul flights, the refueling takes the longest, and therefore would generally be started as soon as possible. The above charts would indicate that refueling is going on during cargo unloading and runs through cargo loading.

That's not what the OP asked. He asked to decouple baggage/cargo loading from Passenger loading, nowhere he asked about refueling and nowhere I said it couldn't be done, because refueling is ALREADY a separate procedure for GSX, while baggage/cargo and Passengers are both part of the single BOARDING/DEBOARDING procedure and that's why I said THIS would require a massive rewrite of the whole GSX logic.

Refueling and Loading cargo can be done in certain cases, depending which side the refuel is located, but it's mostly a matter of preventing conflicts between the vehicles, so it might be more feasible to do, but that's not what the OP asked.

Additionally, all four charts would indicate that the loading of the forward cargo hold starts long before passenger boarding starts. In the case of the 787, the chart would indicate that the forward and aft cargo holds are completely loaded long before passengers start boarding,

But that's only because in real-life the number of pallet is higher than GSX, which has a variable number of items, which never exceed 5 items so, it's unlikely cargo loading would take much longer than boarding 200+ passengers and, since they already work in parallel, the issue of having to start cargo loading because it will surely take longer than passenger is not happening in GSX.

That might change in the future, should we eventually made a product dedicated to cargo operation, with a more precise representation of the exact number of pallets, like we do with passengers, but it's not really useful in the context of how GSX currently work.

[Justinthomas7]

That's not what the OP asked. He asked to decouple baggage/cargo loading from Passenger loading, nowhere he asked about refueling

It was there in the second paragraph. Refuelling is the “why” I asked for the loading to be decoupled, due to certain situations where boarding or deboarding can’t occur until refuelling is complete or vice versa. 

I don’t have access to the sim at the moment but from memory, with the PMDG 747-8, you don’t get the refuelling truck until pax deboarding is complete, even though the baggage unloading was complete a long time ago.     I think also if you request fuel during boarding, you have to wait for the pax loading to be complete.  However if you are already refuelling and request boarding, It’s smart enough to load the pax and the bags will start when refuelling is complete. 

The problem is when it’s not smart and one action holds up the other, which is very unrealistic.  I know it’s a minor gripe, I’m surprised I was the first to bring it up.

[virtuali]

It was there in the second paragraph. Refuelling is the “why” I asked for the loading to be decoupled, due to certain situations where boarding or deboarding can’t occur until refuelling is complete or vice versa. 

And that's not what I replied to. I only replied about the decoupling between cargo/luggage and passengers, that is difficult because they currently are part of the same service that is Boarding or Deboarding.

Decoupling Boarding/Deboarding from Refuel is a completely different thing, which is not affected by the ability to decouple Pax from Cargo/luggage *IN* the Deboarding/Boarding service.

I don’t have access to the sim at the moment but from memory, with the PMDG 747-8, you don’t get the refuelling truck until pax deboarding is complete, even though the baggage unloading was complete a long time ago

It depends by the SIDE the refueling point is configured. If it's on the Left, a long refuel will block passenger loading, while if it's on the right, it will block cargo loading. You must realize the main reason of these constraints is to prevent vehicles to clash into each other, mainly.

[Captain Kevin]

However if you are already refuelling and request boarding, It’s smart enough to load the pax and the bags will start when refuelling is complete.

In addition to what Umberto said, if the refueling point is on the left and you're using a jetway, you can have the passengers board during refueling AND have the cargo get loaded at the same time. Thus, if you time it right, you can have refueling and boarding completed at the same time.

[Justinthomas7]

I don’t think you understand my issue.  Pax deboarding via jetway will block refuelling even after the baggage loading is complete.  Same issues occur on boarding, if you want to top up the fuel after the bags have been loaded, you have to wait until the pax have finished boarding even though there’s no vehicles left.  I stick with the default refuelling on the right

[jgoggi]

Hi,
 I take the opportunity to once again ask for the "hand signal will be on the left/right" feature in MSFS, still missing in GSX for P3D.
Thanks.