All gates named RAMP_GA - how do I find a suitable gate?

[Ray Proudfoot]

I have just about all your airports and enjoy the realism they provide in P3D v3.4 and FSX before that. But I have one question / complaint about the naming of the gates.

You make it impossible to select one suitable for my aircraft type. I fly Concorde so it can fit into either a medium or large gate. I particularly want to use gates that have jetways for the realism. But you have a naming convention that makes it impossible for me to select an appropriate gate either for departure or landing.

Let's take two examples of your airports and the game names. LSGG (Geneva) has properly named gates - Medium, Heavy so it makes choosing one easy. But JFK is all but impossible to identify a suitably sized gate for my aircraft. They all have a standard name of RAMP_GA. Why? I believe you do this so the default airport traffic won't interfere but that doesn't appear to be a problem at LSGG.

Can you at least provide an alternative BGL with more helpful gate descriptions so I can find suitably sized gates, thanks.

[virtuali]

This has been discussed so many times already, and it's a COMMON technique used by many other developers too, in order to get rid of the default airport ground vehicles, which are ugly and not optimized at all, so they lower the fps with not so much visual benefit, and might also clash with the airport apron details.

Of course, with GSX, the issue of naming is moot, since you can use GSX menu and select the "Warp me there" option to go on a gate.

Selecting a gate with the GSX menu is WAY easier to use than the default "Go To Airport" menu, because the default menu will list all gates at an airport in a single list with potentially hundreds of entries, while with GSX the list is shorter and more intuitive, because the gates will be presented grouped by terminal.

In addition to that, GSX will tell you exactly if your plane will fit in a parking, in a way more accurate way than the default Go To Airport menu, because GSX will compare the actual parking radius against your plane wingspan, while the default Go To Airport menu will only tell the parking type be either Small/Medium/Heavy.

And, on many of our airports, that come with a special GSX customization, they terminals and gates will be named using a more realistic naming conventions, instead of being limited by the limitations of the default names in the AFCAD. So, for example, you'll see the "Tom Bradley International Terminal" at KLAX named as such, instead of having just a generic name, which cannot suit every possible situation. Naming a parking as "Terminal 4 Gate A31" is NOT possible with the AFCAD, but it can be done with GSX.

That's why, by using the GSX menu to go to a gate (and the default "Go To Airport" menu ONLY to switch airport), there wouldn't be any issue finding a suitable parking just because they are all named as ramp_ga in the AFCAD.

[Ray Proudfoot]

Hi Umberto,

Thanks for the explanation. I'll have to change my procedures for selecting a gate I guess. 

I've tried the GSX menu selection and it is very quick at listing gates and relocating the aircraft. I can adapt to that method.

But I would like to bring one other thing to your attention and I have asked about this before.

When I first bring up the GSX menu it's far too small and not all options are visible. So I have to resize it to make it usable. I don't know whether others also have this problem but there's nothing special about my setup. 1920x1080 display and using a Virtual Cockpit. Can you please give us the option to make the window larger by default rather than having to manually resize each time? It does get a bit wearing, thanks.

[Ray Proudfoot]

Hi Umberto,

I've just completed a flight from KDEN to KDFW and all went well. I selected my gate (A23) when 15 miles out and the FollowMe guided me to it. There was an aircraft there but I just zapped it with Pete Dowson's FSUIPC4. 

Thanks for explaining the situation again to me. All that remains is my request for the GSX menu window to be made larger automatically instead of manual intervention each time.

[virtuali]

All that remains is my request for the GSX menu window to be made larger automatically instead of manual intervention each time.

This has been discussed many times on the forum: that's not the "GSX Window", it's the standard Simconnect window which is used by all 3rd party applications with a menu. An application doesn't have *any* control on its size or position.

This thread here gives some pointers about where this information is stored:

http://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php/topic,16247.msg116058.html#msg116058

Nothing in the GSX program code ever read/writes/access that file, it's done entirely by the sim.

[Ray Proudfoot]

Hi Umberto,

I'm always last to the party! ;-). Thanks for the link. That looks like the ideal solution.

[dc10boy]

I have a couple of questions about the AFCAD naming. In the  new LAS and DFW with the new installer  I noticed the gates are back to the old  Heavy, medium, small gates with airline codes. Does this bring about the unwanted vehicles? If so should we redo and go back to the  RampGA method?
If using all RampGA gates does airline code become the principal way to get AI to park in the proper spots, or must radius be changed to make larger? Most of my AI use the  sm=31 Med.=38 Hvy=44  for parking radius.
Thanks
Stan

[virtuali]

In the  new LAS and DFW with the new installer  I noticed the gates are back to the old  Heavy, medium, small gates with airline codes.

Nothing to do with the new installer. They have always been like that. Not all our sceneries use this method, only the ones that needs it.

Does this bring about the unwanted vehicles?

Yes, but of course you can always controls them by turning them off with the Traffic density slider. At KDFW, for example, we used a new method to create ground vehicles that, even if they are static, they can be removed by GSX automatically so, they won't conflict with GSX vehicles when you select a parking.

If so should we redo and go back to the  RampGA method?

The AFCAD works fine as it is.

If using all RampGA gates does airline code become the principal way to get AI to park in the proper spots, or must radius be changed to make larger? Most of my AI use the  sm=31 Med.=38 Hvy=44  for parking radius.

The general rule for AI, is they will go into the smallest parking that can fit them, and THEN the airline code will be used.

[BrianT58]

Hi Umberto,
I've just completed a flight from KDEN to KDFW and all went well. I selected my gate (A23) when 15 miles out and the FollowMe guided me to it. There was an aircraft there but I just zapped it with Pete Dowson's FSUIPC4. 

Ray, there is a utility out there by LORBY-SI called Where are my aircraft (WAMA) it has many features but the only one I currently use it's it's ability to reserve your gate in advance for departure and arrival. it costs about £5.

Apologies Umberto if I shouldn't have posted this here but I used to have the same issue with full gates at arrival until I got this and I though it might be useful. please feel free to remove if it breaks any forum rules.

[Ray Proudfoot]

Thanks Thomas. I'll have a look at it.