an interesting statement by MS in the ABL SDK!

[barryward12345 0]

ABL scripts eventually may be associated with any object in Flight Simulator, ranging from player aircraft to bridges to baggage carts. For now, however, Flight Simulator will only run one instance of a script at any time.Any ideas abou this ?Barry

[Guest KChapman]

Just a guess (not a particularly educated one, btw).Not a programmer by any means whatsoever, but from renaming an .abl file to a .txt file and looking at it with Notepad, ABL scripts look to me like they hinge around If-Then-Else statements. Continuation to the next state (task in the lesson or leg of a journey) is dependent on certain criteria. If those criteria are not met, the ChangeState command initiates a different action than if they had been met, be it a failure and end of the lesson/checkride, instructor checking out to leave you in freeflight, or otherwise.Perhaps what they're saying (since they write and control the capabilities of the ABL language themselves) is that they'll enable ABL files to control the movements of other objects in the sim on a conditional basis. No pushback until the baggage carts pull away, land on a moving aircaft carrier, maintain spacing in traffic or fail an ATP checkride, etc.Who knows? I sure don't, just an amateur guess from a guy who's messed around with ABL files enough to be dangerous... :-)Happy flying,Kevin

[Guest]

They just reserve the rights to implement this but haven't at the moment.Now don't go screaming for scriptable luggage carts in FS10 please, there's enough of that crap already.

[Guest lemonadedrinker]

Crap? Shurely a baggage cart with wings has rights too, and I for one loook for ward to many of them in fs10The possibility to land with 4 wheels seems to offer hope to me as so many times with less wheels I explore,inadvertantly, many parts of fs that have no runways.Espeshially if the front ones steer. Does 'scriptable' mean there's a book on it?

[Guest KChapman]

> Does 'scriptable' mean there's a book on it?Don't we wish.:D Simply put (as that's all I know or can muster ;-) ), 'scriptable' means that you can write code - or script - that will directly control the behavior of objects or conditions in the sim.I imagine some folks would write some pretty novel "scripts" (pardon the pun) if able to use multiple simultaneous scripts. Eye candy airport movements would be a given for many developers, but it will be interesting to see if scripts can be written to control other factors in the sim. A few examples off the top of my head:* Weather (including icing conditions)* AI Traffic and ATC (movement, separation, emergencies, & priority shuffling among others)* Navaid outages* Effects (volcanic ash clouds, wildfire smoke, runway flooding, etc.)I think it's already possible to create aircraft failures, but that's another interesting area for exploration.Imagine how many valuable and downright cool adventures could be written with these and other factors at a developer's command...Kevin

[barryward12345 0]

>'scriptable' means that you can write code - or script - that>will directly control the behavior of objects or conditions in>the sim.>>I imagine some folks would write some pretty novel "scripts">(pardon the pun) if able to use multiple simultaneous scripts.> Eye candy airport movements would be a given for many>developers, but it will be interesting to see if scripts can>be written to control other factors in the sim. A few>examples off the top of my head:>>* Weather (including icing conditions)>* AI Traffic and ATC (movement, separation, emergencies, &>priority shuffling among others)>* Navaid outages>* Effects (volcanic ash clouds, wildfire smoke, runway>flooding, etc.)>>I think it's already possible to create aircraft failures, but>that's another interesting area for exploration.>>Imagine how many valuable and downright cool adventures could>be written with these and other factors at a developer's>command...YES-- this is exactly what I was thinking. I reckon that there is a clue regarding the next FS200X here .Barry

[Guest tdragger]

I wouldn't get your hopes up. ABL is an old technology that probably won't be invested in. More likely they'll come up with some other solution for scripting.

[Guest]

ABL was introduced in FS2002, and before that in CFS2.Given that the previous scripting tool had been in use for well over a decade it's got some life left in it.