JoinFS multiplayer

[TXHills 17]

We use a modification of the camera.cfg file in the AppData/Roming/Micosoft/FSX folder - http://www.mediafire.com/file/i4c5rng7gm3sz1a/MultiPlayerCamMod.zip

 

The link above includes the orignal camera.cfg file backed-up and the new file plus a .pdf document showing how to install (simple, just overwrite the original file since this has the original identified as a back-up already).  Right click anywhere there is nothing else to click on (the aircraft windscreen area, usually) - If there is one person on then you will see that aircraft in the menu that appears.  If there is more than one there will be a menu item call 'Traffic' (or maybe it is 'Air Traffic' - not sure because I believe that when using this with JoinFS the menu item is different than what you see if using other online connections) so you just click on this and select who you want to see.  It usually puts you just behind an aircraft but you can use your hat switch to move around and the plus and minus keys to move in and out.

 

If you have the default keyboard commands the 'A' key will cycle you through all traffic that is online with you.

 

And (again if you have the default keyboard command) the 'S' key will put you back into the cockpit of your aircraft (may need to his 'S' more than once)

 

Dan

[TXHills 17]

Peter:

 

A suggestion from the head guy at Fly By Wires - brilliant fellow and probably thinks just what you need is another enhancement so you can fill that extra hour in the day when we move off daylight saving time to standard time -

 

A drop-down "bookmark" style list for the IP addresses with a field to put a brief identifier next to the address.  So you can store several addresses for easy recall.  Something like ...

 

45.31.122.12  |  Dan's IP   

12.34.567.89  |  Phony IP  (OK, all you math wizards out there can busy yourselves calculating the number of IP addresses available if you could use numbers higher than 255)

89.76.543.21  |  Phony #2

 

etc.

 

Dan

[Peter Memmott 9]

Hi Dan,

 

An extra daylight saving hour, love it :smile:

 

Believe it or not I just started doing exactly that bookmark feature this evening. A drop down list with friendly names and an option to add a new one. With a separate dialog to manage them. Next version :wink:

 

Just a thought: the next version also supports a configurable local port. I wonder what would happen if you ran two JoinFS clients on the same machine and connected to two separate networks, but then broadcast the simulator aircraft from each one. It might actually combine the two sessions, using your simulator as a tunnel... Anyway, I really must crack on with the important stuff first.

 

Peter

[Ron Attwood 3,464]

A separate port would be great. FSX uses 6112 so it may help to keep things tidy.

[Robert455 15]

Hey Dan, thanks for the tip! I'll check that out! If it lets you get into the cockpit of AI planes, that might the ticket.

 

For now, though, to expand on the AITX/JoinFS thing, it's an amazing pairing! I have been corresponding with Oliver Binder and he gave me some pointers - AITX works great for more or less putting you in the cockpit of any AI airplane including the JoinFS ones. It's not exactly like that though - what you have to do is in the plane you want to see things from (doesn't have to be the same plane you are going to attach to) and then you attach to the plane you want to "ghost" using "pilot view". What this does is figuratively put you on a stick out in front of the plane you are attached to. Oliver has added the ability to adjust that position both positive (that was already there) and negative (the addition) to allow you to move back more in register with the plane you are attached to so you see things more from that pilot's perspective.

 

But what is important for VR users is that you have full head motion and can look around all you want while "riding along". It works great! I'm still using the 0.4.2 version of JoinFS which has the top of loop somersault bug but I was replaying the flight I did in the Pitts to look around during that flight. It works and works really well aside from getting thrown around in what looks like a Lomcovák.

 

These two programs really complement each other. You can add formation planes to JoinFS replays as well as use the AITX view system to see things from each plane's perspective during replays if you want. Great way to put people into various scenarios that don't have the skill or ability. Being able to set up all sorts of scenarios and build them out to make them interesting for people to see is just extra special.

 

@Ron - I am not sure but think Peter might have chosen 6112 since people have it set up for port forwarding already if they fly multiplayer. If you are using JoinFS you are in the Free Flight menu so no multiplayer to conflict with.

[TXHills 17]

 

 

Believe it or not I just started doing exactly that bookmark feature this evening. A drop down list with friendly aliases and an option to add a new one. With a separate dialog to manage them. Next version

 

Great minds work alike, I guess (yours and Bob's - the guy that thought of this - not mine, clearly )

 

Dan

[TXHills 17]

 

 

For now, though, to expand on the AITX/JoinFS thing, it's an amazing pairing! I have been corresponding with Oliver Binder and he gave me some pointers - AITX works great for more or less putting you in the cockpit of any AI airplane including the JoinFS ones. It's not exactly like that though - what you have to do is in the plane you want to see things from (doesn't have to be the same plane you are going to attach to) and then you attach to the plane you want to "ghost" using "pilot view". What this does is figuratively put you on a stick out in front of the plane you are attached to. Oliver has added the ability to adjust that position both positive (that was already there) and negative (the addition) to allow you to move back more in register with the plane you are attached to so you see things more from that pilot's perspective.

 

Thanks for the additional info Robert.  I'll look into this a bit more as it does sound like an interesting addition.  I presume that you are in the cockpit with respect to position only, not really viewing the instruments, etc. - as I understand it that part of any other aircraft is not 'transmitted' to other pilots so cannot be seen.  But wow, what a hoot if you could get onto another pilot's flight deck and see exactly what they see.  But on that topic ---

 

We did experiment a bit with one pilot connected to a Steam session using FSX-SE and connected to several others in a JoinFS session.  Although that pilot's plane had multiple lines in the View | Aircraft table (some 'echo' phenomenon, I suppose) we only saw one aircraft and it behaved exactly as you would expect - no evidence that the other session was interfering in any way.  So theoretically (we did not test this) someone who was in the FSX-SE multiplayer session could join that aircraft as co-pilot, trainee, etc.  Like others we are spending a good bit of time checking out the basic operation of JoinFS but will likely test this more in the future.  One test I did do was a Mach 0.74 flyby in my Lear 35 (FlySim payware) just off the wingtip of another Lear 35 - smooth, jitter-free (using frame rates locked at 31).

 

Hmmmm ... I wonder if the aircraft sharing feature could be built directly into JoinFS ???   Ohhh  Peter .....  :p0502:

 

Dan

[TheFlightSimGuy 514]

How about shared cockpit functionality? Is there any here? 

[Robert455 15]

Wow Dan! This opens up even more possibilities and maybe Peter could add the option to use a different port? Or maybe they can share a port?

 

As to what you see in the cockpit when doing pilot view in AITX, I'm uploading a video now with the instruments visible. It's a Pitts so no artificial horizon, but the others are indicating. And it's a special engine and prop that doesn't mind being oversped for a long time... :smile:

 

The upload has 2 hours and 20 minutes still to go from the post time of this message at the YouTube channel in my signature.

 

This really just keeps getting better.

[zk-bob 1]

I wonder why this is the place for discussion, when Peter has a forum of his own?

 

My recommendation, Peter, is stay with the wheel you are inventing, there is no need to start reinventing another one, Teamspeak has the Comms sewn up quite nicely. Sure, its no longer free, so? 

 

I tried to run JFS on my second computer,

Fail.

checked for net-framework 3.5, missing, installed, rebooted.

Fail

.Does a Flightsim HAVE to be installed on the same puter?

Is it the lack of simconnect in a place JFS is looking? 

Is there a required location for simconnect?

 

Keep up the good work

 

Bob  

AKA Grumpy

[Robert455 15]

Hey Dan - that reply flight in essentially first person using AITrackerX and JoinFS:

 

[Peter Memmott 9]

I wonder why this is the place for discussion, when Peter has a forum of his own?

 

My recommendation, Peter, is stay with the wheel you are inventing, there is no need to start reinventing another one, Teamspeak has the Comms sewn up quite nicely. Sure, its no longer free, so? 

 

I tried to run JFS on my second computer,

Fail.

checked for net-framework 3.5, missing, installed, rebooted.

Fail

.Does a Flightsim HAVE to be installed on the same puter?

Is it the lack of simconnect in a place JFS is looking? 

Is there a required location for simconnect?

 

Keep up the good work

 

Bob  

AKA Grumpy

 

I don't wish to implement voice or comms at all because, as you say, there are plenty of ways of achieving this already.

 

Re: other machine. You will need to install the SimConnect legacy versions from FSX:Steam or from the FSX SDK if you have it, on to that machine. There are instructions in Simconnect for installing an xml file that I believe allows it to connect over a network.

 

Regards,

Peter

[zk-bob 1]

Thanks, Peter, I am experimenting at this stage, ultimately, I want to install a version of Windows on the Rasp PI3 or, if you port JFS over to linux, I will use that. 

 

The final aim is to have a small lowcost cheap to run device. 

 

Thanks

B

[el_kab0ng 29]

I'm guessing this is a peer-to-peer style connection where the connecting client has to know the server IP beforehand. Although FSHost can be a bit annoying at times, I like being able to search for servers online to join. Will JoinFS have something similar in the near future or is this already implemented and I'm just not aware?

[Peter Memmott 9]

I'm guessing this is a peer-to-peer style connection where the connecting client has to know the server IP beforehand. Although FSHost can be a bit annoying at times, I like being able to search for servers online to join. Will JoinFS have something similar in the near future or is this already implemented and I'm just not aware?

Yes, it's completely peer-to-peer, although you can effectively turn it into a server by having a JoinFS client running permanently on a server. I've just implemented bookmarks in 1.0.1-TEST and this allows you to build up a list of known friend addresses as well as permanent servers. I suppose the question is will there be a global list of bookmarks available, effectively a server list. I'm more inclined to make JoinFS flexible enough to allow the sim community to set this up however it likes. I am currently looking at the possibility of a second level network where the permanent servers are able to connect to each other (peer-to-peer). The original intention was to make this location based, so that as you fly anywhere in the world JoinFS automatically traverses the network and you only see aircraft that are local to you. But we could use this mechanism to also create a bookmark network or something like that, so as well as everyone building up their own bookmarks, a global bookmark list can emerge from the server network.

 

I'd rather do this than trying to maintain one central master server.

 

I hope that made sense, :smile:

Peter