Xplane 10 newbi - some questions

[Andreas Stangenes 1,628]

Hi guys. I just decided to try Xplane 10 out for real. Bought the full version of that, skymaxx pro 3 and IXEG 737 classic so I have something to start with.

I have a few questions in setting the sim up the way I would like it. I was hoping maybe someone here could help me. I will probably add to the list of questions as I go along

 

1. The sound options is quite limited as far as I can tell. Is there a way to mute Xplane when it looses focus?

 

2. I looked through all the button binding options, and I cant find an AP disengage fuction. Searching for answers with google the best I found was Buttons advanced-> autopilot -> Servos toggle. This doesn't look logical to me since xpx has so many mappable functions, but shouldn't have one for ap diseng. Well, strange things have happen, I guess But when I now disengage ap, the trim wheel spins uncontrollably, and I cant for the life of me belive this is how Im supposed to disengage my ap..! What am I doing wrong, or what settings have I not seen?

 

3. I installed XAddonmanager, and it's such an easy tool to use. I downloaded some freeware scenery for my home town airport ENCN, but I notice that the airport doesn't have any terminal buildings. Still it's better than the default which had a forest sitting where the terminal bulidings were supposed to be. Now it's just the parking lot... Is there an easy way to fix this?

 

4. I think I like the view system in xplane, but I haven't totally figured it out yet. Is there a way for me to adjust the smoothness of the right click and hold movement? I find the free movement to be a little bit jerky and I would like to smooth it out a bit (like the ezdok setting in fsx/p3d).

 

5. Is there a way to hide the mouse cursor when using right mouse button view?

 

More to come Im quite sure

Thanks alot!

 

 

Andreas

[jcomm 5,927]

Regarding 2), please test again making sure your Art-Stab slders in the joystick configuration menu are set full left = No Art Stab

 

Otherwise the SAS in X-Plane 10 will try to "stabilize" your aircraft...

[Andreas Stangenes 1,628]

I will have to look into that, Jose!

 

I have a problem now, which is that I can only get 1 throttle to move inside the sim on my 737 from IXEG. I'm such a noob at xplane lol

I have a CH flight sim Yoke with 3 levers for things like throttle, mixture etc, and I want to only use 1 of those axis for the throttle - so 1 lever on my yoke for 2 throttles in the sim. Is that possible?

 

The issue is that I have selected 1 lever for "throttle" (is that both?). When I push it forward, the left throttle functions normally, while the right one goes into reverse. Needless to say I wont get very far like this I also notice that when I move the right throttle with my mouse to push it forward (it has locked in idle reverse), instead of moving forward, the reverser throttles up. I cannot get the throttle itself to move forward. Is this a problem with my settings or with IXEG 737? EDIT: Seems that the problem only occurs when I set the cold and dark panel state. I just a "ready to fly" panel state, and both throttles work fine. Seems like an awkward error to have on a product for 74 usd...

 

The other thing is that I have mapped a reverser toggle on a button on my yoke. That on the other hand does absolutely nothing...

[jcomm 5,927]

Yes "throttle", "prop" and "mixture"  commands all at the same time multiple levers under joystick equipment / axis.

 

Other axis can then be mapped to th1, th2, th3, th4 through that menu. Same for prop, mixture and reverse. No more than 4, although I believe there are plugins that allow to assign further th/prop/mix/cl axis for engines up to 8. Buttons / Advanced allows for further joystick buttons for controlling incremental adjustments of up to 8 engines.

[Old_As_Dirt 160]

In addition to what Jose has said, while in the axis assignment area, look at the "bars" and see if any "bar" other than the one you have assigned to throttle is moving when you move the assigned control.  If it is, usually because of "dirty" pots in the controller, make sure that that line is set to "none".  I do not own the 737 as I opted for the PMDG DC-6, but some designers use prioritized assignments within their programming over which your controller has no effect.  I have never seen that in the "throttle" assignment however. 

 

John 

[flightskyc 257]

Regarding 1)

 

I too haven't found an option to do that. If you're using Windows open up the volume mixer and just drag the X-Plane application sound down to 0 or a low number. There may be a better solution, but this is what I do.

 

[Andreas Stangenes 1,628]

Thanks for your input guys.  I guess the Ixeg 737 has some bugs that hit me as I was setting up the throttles. Nevermind, the topic of this thread isn't really the 737, but setting up xplane for the first time

 

So onwards! I have a new question: How do I change the livery of an airplane at the startup screen. Again, with the 737 from Ixeg (it's the only addon airplane I currently have), I installed several liveries. I can find them when i go into the aircraft menu when inside xpx, but I'd like to be able to change to the correct livery from the startup screen. Is that possible?

 

Further more, on the topic of start up screen, I am not able to select any gates when choosing the airport I want to spawn at. A guide somewhere on the net was talking about global airport or something, but I cannot find that at the startup menu..?

[airlinejets 709]

Hi Andreas,

 

Liveries are set in-game. Choose open aircraft and from the pop-up screen, you'll see them listed in the right pane. On setting up your CH yoke (I have the same one), make the throttle axis--throttle 1, the prop axis--throttle 2 and the mixture set to reverse thrust. Map the left yoke handle button to autopilot disconnect and the right one to set TOGA thrust. Works a charm...

[downscc 1,327]

 

 

1. The sound options is quite limited as far as I can tell. Is there a way to mute Xplane when it looses focus?

 

I can not find a way to do this either, I usually pause the game to kill the sound for a phone call or turn the sound down altogether.

 

 

 

2. I looked through all the button binding options, and I cant find an AP disengage fuction.

 

PMDG had to create custom bindings for their autopilot.

 

 

 

4. I think I like the view system in xplane, but I haven't totally figured it out yet. Is there a way for me to adjust the smoothness of the right click and hold movement?

 

I still have not gotten used to the pan and zoom with mouse/trackball.  I have gotten used to the quick views using numberpad keys and have all ten assigned haha.

 

My biggest complaint with XPlane is the rendering system.  No such thing has a shinny aluminum airplane I guess, and the best airports look cartoonish for the lack of surface treatments.  I'm sure this is going to improve with updates.

[Andreas Stangenes 1,628]

What got me hooked was the absolutely stunningly gorgeous night lighting and atmosphere in xplane 10, and also the placing of the autogen. It was pretty obvious that xplane is getting some sort of vector information, because my little home town was quite well rendered in xplane!

And as the sun was setting, the northern lights were dancing over the water, and street lights came alive and shon quite beautifully. I have never ever seen such a thing in a simulator before, and I knew I had to get this.

 

Then reality kicked back in after spending around 250 usd on xplane, ixeg 737, Xcamera, Skymaxx pro and more. People are calling the ixeg a "pmdg killer", and I cant help but laugh. They charge nearly 80 usd for the plane, and it is not even complete systemwise. The airports are none existant, and my country's major airport is basically a huge parking lot. Talk about immersion breaking! However, I did manage to "make my own airport" for ENCN, but I cant see myself doing that for every airport I want to fly.

Xplane seems to have both the best and the worst going on at the same time, but I am quite sure that LR will step it up and get it right. It makes no sense that they place this much thought into autogen in the cities etc, and leave the AIRPORTS empty, so I'm looking quite forward to the famous autogen update.

 

I am at a point where I love my prepar3d v3.2.3, and it looks gorgeous. The best bits of prepar3d is the whole, I think, while Xplane is more uneven. The shinier bits are more shiny, and the bad bits are worse. In my opinion of course.

I will keep xplane on my pc for now, but I will probably not being flying it much untill it gets updated.

[saed45 38]

What got me hooked was the absolutely stunningly gorgeous night lighting and atmosphere in xplane 10, and also the placing of the autogen. It was pretty obvious that xplane is getting some sort of vector information, because my little home town was quite well rendered in xplane!

And as the sun was setting, the northern lights were dancing over the water, and street lights came alive and shon quite beautifully. I have never ever seen such a thing in a simulator before, and I knew I had to get this.

 

Then reality kicked back in after spending around 250 usd on xplane, ixeg 737, Xcamera, Skymaxx pro and more. People are calling the ixeg a "pmdg killer", and I cant help but laugh. They charge nearly 80 usd for the plane, and it is not even complete systemwise. The airports are none existant, and my country's major airport is basically a huge parking lot. Talk about immersion breaking! However, I did manage to "make my own airport" for ENCN, but I cant see myself doing that for every airport I want to fly.

Xplane seems to have both the best and the worst going on at the same time, but I am quite sure that LR will step it up and get it right. It makes no sense that they place this much thought into autogen in the cities etc, and leave the AIRPORTS empty, so I'm looking quite forward to the famous autogen update.

 

I am at a point where I love my prepar3d v3.2.3, and it looks gorgeous. The best bits of prepar3d is the whole, I think, while Xplane is more uneven. The shinier bits are more shiny, and the bad bits are worse. In my opinion of course.

I will keep xplane on my pc for now, but I will probably not being flying it much untill it gets updated.

 

 

 

did you download any airports from the airport gateway? i think alot of the major airports are done in airport gateway and they look better than fsx/p3d

[mmerelles 78]

 

2. I looked through all the button binding options, and I cant find an AP disengage fuction. Searching for answers with google the best I found was Buttons advanced-> autopilot -> Servos toggle. This doesn't look logical to me since xpx has so many mappable functions, but shouldn't have one for ap diseng. Well, strange things have happen, I guess But when I now disengage ap, the trim wheel spins uncontrollably, and I cant for the life of me belive this is how Im supposed to disengage my ap..! What am I doing wrong, or what settings have I not seen?

 

xplane includes a default standard autopilot, but this will not fit complex aircraft simulations because the way you engage, dissengage, arm, lateral, vertical, ap1, ap2, ap3 etc is WAYYY different manufacturer to manufacturer and also model to model.

 

The Boeing 737-300 classic from IXEG mimcs its real life counterpart, so you can not use default xplane AP TOGGLE ON/OFF because this doesn't even exist on the aircraft.

 

A/P disengage on the real thing is a separate function that takes 2 clics, on to disengage + warning sound, and one extra clic to confirm.

 

So, to map A/P dissengage for the 737 classic:

1. go to joystick and assignment

2. go to keys or buttons tab (depending you are willing to map a key or a button)

3. select the button/key of your choise, then clic top right corner (custom commands) then navigate the tree to "ixeg/733/autopilot/AP_disengage" and map.

What got me hooked was the absolutely stunningly gorgeous night lighting and atmosphere in xplane 10, and also the placing of the autogen. It was pretty obvious that xplane is getting some sort of vector information, because my little home town was quite well rendered in xplane!

And as the sun was setting, the northern lights were dancing over the water, and street lights came alive and shon quite beautifully. I have never ever seen such a thing in a simulator before, and I knew I had to get this.

 

Then reality kicked back in after spending around 250 usd on xplane, ixeg 737, Xcamera, Skymaxx pro and more. People are calling the ixeg a "pmdg killer", and I cant help but laugh. They charge nearly 80 usd for the plane, and it is not even complete systemwise. The airports are none existant, and my country's major airport is basically a huge parking lot. Talk about immersion breaking! However, I did manage to "make my own airport" for ENCN, but I cant see myself doing that for every airport I want to fly.

Xplane seems to have both the best and the worst going on at the same time, but I am quite sure that LR will step it up and get it right. It makes no sense that they place this much thought into autogen in the cities etc, and leave the AIRPORTS empty, so I'm looking quite forward to the famous autogen update.

 

I am at a point where I love my prepar3d v3.2.3, and it looks gorgeous. The best bits of prepar3d is the whole, I think, while Xplane is more uneven. The shinier bits are more shiny, and the bad bits are worse. In my opinion of course.

I will keep xplane on my pc for now, but I will probably not being flying it much untill it gets updated.

 

 

you can download ENCN here

 

http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/22090-encn-kristiansand-norway/

 

There is huge airport base for free to xplane, use the search bar for your desired ICAO

[downscc 1,327]

 

 

There is huge airport base for free to xplane, use the search bar for your desired ICAO

 

Tried that.  The free airports are worth every cent.

[Jimmy RFR 406]

 

 

Then reality kicked back in after spending around 250 usd on xplane

 

Considering that the majority of that money spent was on addons (IXEG 737 & SMP), I'm not sure why you would make such an investment before determining whether the platform was going to work for you.

 

I really think an introduction to X-Plane demands a slow and careful approach: Buy the platform, spend some time learning about what you can do to make the platform shine with what is mostly freeware (airports, OSM data, HD mesh), get it so it performs well on your system, then if you are pleased with it, start determining what you want to add via purchases.

 

And even then, it's not going to be everything for everyone, and that's okay.  But really, it's not a platform that you need to rush out and spend hundreds of dollars on before you even fly in it.

[Andreas Stangenes 1,628]

Thanks again for your input guys, and please do not take what I say as a negative. I'm well aware of the fact that I only tried it a few days. Hardly any time at all to see what it can and cannot do. Oh and thank you for finding ENCN for me, Manuel. I searched in scenery for ENCN, and the only thing I found was a 2d scenery - which I promtly downloaded. It had the runway and taxiway coordinates ok, but no buildings and trees where the terminal was supposed to be. I dont know how I could miss the scenery you are pointing at - I will check it out!

 

Jim, you are of course quite right. I did try the free version first just to see the basics. The basics were simply awful. I was put in the default 747 and took off after 20 minutes of setting my inputs up. I thought it looked quite ok. I decided that I had some cash I could blow away. Worst scenerio: I would have lost a few dollars, but I could always pick xplane up again later (for free since I already bought it now). I've been doing flight simulation for more than a decade, and it's probably something that's gonna stick with me for the rest of my life (I hope). I know the passion for airplanes have not lessened after almost 40 years For me the simulator is just a shell, a blank slate that I need to fill with things I think are meaningfull and fun. The sim doesn't really give you direction - you have to do that yourself. I enjoy heavy metal, and deep system simulation. I also enjoy airport scenery, and city scenery (the latter is wonderfully rendered in xplane). I couldn't really evaluate xplane without some of that on the table. It costs money, and I can live with that. I didn't really loose anything, because I would have picked up xplane sooner or later if I know myself correctly.