Could the RTW benefit from my new addon?

[Guest metamarty]

Hi,I've already wrote to Sonar5 about this, but haven't received a reply yet. I already anounced FS Economy some time ago. It includes provisions for hosting air races that might be usefull. The main benefits are:- A complete log is kept of all flights, including Fuel usage/time enroute, etc.- Routes can be planned in advance so all pilots know where they need to go.It's basically a webbased system with a small executable that interacts with FS. I'm looking at the possibility to host more air races in the future. On of the ideas is a race based on the idea "get from point A to point B with a positive bank balance". This kind of race brings many new and interesting considerations into the equation like flying economically and landing at small fields with low landing fees.Marty

[Sonar5 3]

Hi Marty,Sorry I didn't get back to you right away, I had a pretty busy day yesterday.It may be useful to some, me I usually just watch the tanks and do the math on the fuel flow, as far as GPH, and use the internal flight planner.The Log for all flights would be useful, but we currently use a Screen Capture from the map function within MSFS showing the whole route, with magenta lines as proof the flight was flown.Routes in advance work good except in this Race, we can usually only plan the next few as something always wrenches the original plan, and the on-the-fly planning takes over. This is due to computer crashes, etc.My advice is this. Post the link here, and that will give our pilots the option of trying it out to see if it will help them.I've already grabbed the program, and promise to check it out and report back in this thread. I encourage others to do the same. Sounds like a neat little program.Regards,Joe****************Grab My FREEWARE Cessna 172 Voice recognition Profile here:[a href=http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fs2004misc&DLID=58334]Cessna 172 Voice Profile[/a].You will need the main FREEWARE Flight Assistant program to use it, get it here:[a href=http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=genutils&DLID=39661]Flight Assistant 2.2[/a]

[Guest metamarty]

Hi!No problem, I'm just brainstorming here. I think an "economical race" might be interesting somewhere in the future. If you're interested in what I'm doing you can find the beta at http://martyip.demon.nl:8080/fseconomy. Please note that this is a beta test and hosted at my home which has an unstable ADSL line (should be available 24/7 but I have bad days in which I get some disconnects per hour). You are free and encouraged to talk about this new addon, but it's not finished yet!Thanks and have fun!Marty

[Guest]

hmm, didn't know you were Dutch as well, and sharing the same ISP ;)Once things get started I'll make a section of my site available for use. My DSL line through Demon is quite stable and fast.As to your addon, I use FSBuild and Nav 3.1 for planning. Don't really need anything else.

[Guest metamarty]

Yes, I switched from xs4all to demon. Had to wait 6 months to get the connection and I have major problems with the upstream of the line. It's an 8mbit line and the modem refuses to lower the speed to get a descent signal/noise ratio, resulting in periods of frequent disconnects. It's very annoying when you're playing a multiplayer game. I've never been able to get this resolved with demon.About the addon: it's not a flight planner but aims to create an economy for flight simulator. It allows people to rent and buy aircraft and it stores the state of the aircraft in a database (fuel/engine stats), effectively creating a persistent world. The planning I was refering to is the "flight group" option where pilots can come together to form a group and staff members of this group are able to create assignments for their pilots. Flight groups can be used as teams for a race in which staff members plan the route in advance. They can research the route and plan the stops where landing fees are low and fuel is cheap. These are all ideas for "economy races" that I have.And what's important too: it's freeware and can be used online/offline or whatever you would like to use during your flying.The whole thing is java based and is currently running on a dual 250 mhz linux box with mysql and orionserver as J2EE server. I plan to release it under GPL. There are some VA's who are currently testing it and are interested to use it as a platform for their flights.

[StoneC0ld 5]

That does sound like an interesting idea to base a world airrace on, but that would have to be left up to vcaptmattsmith to determine if it fits into the race's rules, etc. :)

[Guest metamarty]

I see it as a new kind of race. Racing for speed will appeal to some people and racing by planning ahead will appeal to others. I think it would be really fun to take a plane like the spitfire that currently has a dry rental price of $300 per hour and try to get from the west to the east cost without going bankrupt!Planners would need to look where to refuel and hand over the plane to the next pilot. FS Economy also has assignments (take passengers/cargo from point a to :( to make money, so the planners would have to plan a route that ballances fuel cost against assignment income.

[Guest]

ah, sounds nice. Bit like FSMaintenance without the failures?FSD aircraft already implement things like that and so do some other commercial addons (which is what I and probably a lot of others will be using).Fuel prices and landing fees for most of the world are unavailable. In the US it's more open but once we get to Africa and Asia it'll be impossible to get that information (especially for the smaller airfields, for international airports it might be found by very deep delving).One tip for you: if you intend it for VAs you might talk with the people behind FSAcars, sounds like the two could complement each other nicely.

[Guest metamarty]

It is a bit like FSMaintenance, including the failures. The difference is that I don't check for less realistic stuff like "throttle == 100%" and "gload > 2". Passengers usually don't pay you any less if your throttle has been at 100% for some time. I check for engine wear due to incorrect leaning and store this data per aircraft. Aircraft need maintenance and a pilot should check the aircraft log to see if it's safe to fly. If aircraft owners abuse their aircraft and don't do regular maintenance I will personally send the VFAA :7.As for fuel prices and landing fees. These are hard to find, so FS Economy uses a system with regions to set fuel prices and landing fees. It's a bit like the FS scenery layers. You can specify exact values or set values for regions. The total runway lengths is also used as a factor for landing fees, so these vary per airport size.Some smaller VA's (< 30 pilots) that don't yet have all the infrastructure in place for pireps will probably move their operations into FS Economy. I will also probably make a XML gateway available to export data from a pilots log into XML.

[Guest]

What are you writing it in?

[Guest metamarty]

It's all Java. I use the basic J2EE stuff. No EJB's, but only servlets and JSP's. The backend is mysql and it runs on orionserver now. Performs great on my dual 250 mhz server.

[Guest SU531]

Hi Marty!I`m using your program well more then a year but still not interesting in Economic aspect of FS Economy and I`ll tell you why.I`m not using Time Compression.I`m flying with real timing,real weather,real ATC if I lucky to see them on my way) and I just cannot compete with others who`s flying X4-8 times faster then me.But it`s a really good tool to start explore the world.Thank You.(check my log-DCA1259 going around the World)Mark

[svenks 4]

Hi JeroenNAV 3.1 for planning, you say... Knowing you're in the software business and knowing that NAV included source code: You wouldn't happen to have reworked it so it will work with FS2004 BGL files, would you? Or you you keeping FS2002 around just for the .BGL purpose? :)BRGDSSven Sorensen, EKCH