Flight Toolkit Initial Observations

[jandjfrench 3]

Hi,

First, I want to begin by saying that Flight Toolkit is the beating heart of Flight.  I truly believe that Flight wound be dead and buried without it.

Despite trying to read and absorb everything I could, prior to installation, I was still unprepared when I first installed  the Toolkit.  I was disappointed that I couldn't chose the install location but that's academic; I just like to keep all related programs in a single location of my choosing.  I was greeted with some options the only one that I felt comfortable making was Non-GFWL mode.  As things seem to be working I guess I did okay.  I see now that I have a new  "Career" . I did not expect this but now it makes sense. When installing I did get several warning messages that things might not have installed correctly which I dismissed.  Without going into a blow by blow I did discover that I had to transfer my old Standard.xml to my new Career to have my modified controls.  I also see that my hangar has a bit less empty space.

I haven't checked extensively but I did notice something strange.  I arbitrarily selected the closed airbase (Bradshaw? I forget the name but the one relatively high) and found that after initially choosing the C-46 and trying to take off I had a right turning tendency that I couldn't overcome and despite whatever plane I selected it would try to head off to the right and never would climb out.  It seemed that some auto pilot was on with a specific heading and a much lower altitude selected.  I haven't been able to figure this out. No problems completing a couple of the Missions and getting a couple of Aerocaches.   While checking the Pilot Profile and selecting Achievements all I see is a dimmed screen with an Auto Login selection box and the option to Close.  I don;t know what this is and don't recall what I saw on this screen prior to installing Toolkit.  Well that's were I'm at and any advice, clarifications, explanations or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Jim F. 

[stonelance 136]

You can choose the install location for the toolkit.  There should be a button during the installation (although not super obvious).

 

As for controls it is possible that you are in mouse flight?  You can hit spacebar to switch I believe.  (Or maybe it is picking up some joystick\gamepad?).  All the GFWL UI is gone in Non-GFWL mode, which includes the Achievement screen, since achievements are a GFWL thing, and don't work in Non-GFWL mode.

 

There was a period when the Flight servers were up where if you logged in it would make a Non-GFWL copy of your profile, but that isn't really possible any more now that the servers are gone, so you are stuck with a new career unfortunately.

[jandjfrench 3]

Hi stonelance,

I don't think I responded directly to a reply of yours before, so let me begin by expressing my admiration and appreciation of what I've seen of your handiwork.  Thank you very much!

And as far as my recent posts: I've been trying to document any points of confusion that I've had not only to to get assistance but hopefully they may be of help to others returning to Flight.  I was holding off doing much with Flight but now I find it incomprehensible that the superior graphics capabilities are not being taken advantage of.by alternate developers of commercial software.  I look for an immersive feeling while flying GA aircraft and Flight has this in spades.

The strange control issues only appear to be happening at Bradshaw and am pretty sure I wasn't in mouse control mode but I'll recheck.  In GFWL mode my previous achievements are displayed.  Perhaps this is once again working as well as the ability to download previously purchased items.  And as far as the ability to direct the install location far from being super obvious, if it's there, it's super well hidden.  Not a big deal in any event.

It also wasn't obvious as to how to change between GFWL mode and Toolkit mode but it seems that the option is presented when any Toolkit option is selected.  When ever I saw the option I kept asking myself exactly what I had done.

Thanks once more,

Jim F.