Beta 7.2 Taxiway guidance lights out of alignment?

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

This isn't something that I just discovered with the beta 7.2, but I've been meaning to ask about it. For addon airports, it seems that the taxiway center line guidance lights are occasionally mispositioned and when I checked a few 3rd party airports, I found that the guidance lights follow the default airport's taxiways. This is immediately after using the VOXATC Indexer. Has anyone else noticed this? This worries me as I was wondering if there might be a bug in the Indexer. There's no point in sending bug reports as I haven't gotten a response in months.

[jaybird1nyc 24]

Jay

Yes, I noticed the same behavior in some, but not all, addon airports. I also reported this to Tegwyn very early on in the beta and, as you note, never received a reply or even an acknowledgement. Once my 60 days ran out I just gave up and re-installed v6.52. I was just having too many problems with the beta, especially while on GA flights. Just wasn't worth the effort anymore, especially with the ZERO contact from the developer...

 

Jay

 

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

Thanks. The whole flight sim "industry" seems stuck in the mud over the uncertainty  caused by all the new flight simulators. I know that I haven't bought  an addon in months, which I suppose is a good thing.

[Mad_Mac 21]

On ‎3‎/‎23‎/‎2017 at 11:26 AM, jabloomf1230 said:

This isn't something that I just discovered with the beta 7.2, but I've been meaning to ask about it. For addon airports, it seems that the taxiway center line guidance lights are occasionally mispositioned and when I checked a few 3rd party airports, I found that the guidance lights follow the default airport's taxiways. This is immediately after using the VOXATC Indexer. Has anyone else noticed this? This worries me as I was wondering if there might be a bug in the Indexer. There's no point in sending bug reports as I haven't gotten a response in months.

I have noticed this as well. One solution is to turn off the green lights and use real world taxi diagrams, which work on all of the airports I have purchased. I have a Foreflight app I use for flying, but it also works well for simulating. The annual subscription is $75.00, but it pays for itself in terms of the documentation it provides including: VFR, IFR, flight charts, METARs, TAFs, Airport Info, Taxi diagrams, SIDs and STARs plates, etc. Also, there is an app that allows you to hook it up to P3d and it reports your simulated position on the map. This only works on the Flight Charts, you still have to figure out where on the runway/taxiway you are.

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

Thanks. Many of the planes that I fly have the GTN 750 which has all the airport charts and taxiway network maps built-in.

I'm actually doing some tinkering around with Airport Design Editor to see if the problem stems from how some 3rd party developers use" excludes" to prevent items from the stock airport showing up. It may not be a VOXATC issue at all.

[jaybird1nyc 24]

That would a very interesting discovery indeed. I'm far from an expert using ADE, but I am quite familiar with it. I've also been a steady user of VoxATC since FS9. I'd be happy to try anything you might find. Just PM me anytime.

Jay

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

Here's what I've noticed so far. Some developers just use one or more additional airport flattens to extend the airport's outer boundary. Others use one general exclude polygon to kill everything in the stock airport and then add back an expanded airport flatten and any stock objects required from the stock airport.

The latter approach works perfectly with VOXATC's taxi lights. The former works if the taxiway network has not been modified from the stock airport. I'm still looking  at more airports. 

 

[kevinfirth 1,392]

14 hours ago, jabloomf1230 said:

Here's what I've noticed so far. Some developers just use one or more additional airport flattens to extend the airport's outer boundary. Others use one general exclude polygon to kill everything in the stock airport and then add back an expanded airport flatten and any stock objects required from the stock airport.

The latter approach works perfectly with VOXATC's taxi lights. The former works if the taxiway network has not been modified from the stock airport. I'm still looking  at more airports. 

 

the default taxi network will rarely if ever match up with an addon airport I think.

 

I suspect good practice for devs would be a total exclude of default data before recreating the airport with an afcad, ground poly et al

 

On topic, I've noticed that UK2000 airports have the vox lights slightly offset from the GP taxi centreline, in a manner which I believe reflects the underlying afcad taxi lines.

[cannonplug 126]

5 minutes ago, kevinfirth said:

On topic, I've noticed that UK2000 airports have the vox lights slightly offset from the GP taxi centreline, in a manner which I believe reflects the underlying afcad taxi lines.

I'm wondering whether this is something that's done in real life to keep the nosewheel off the lights as much as possible (at least during daytime). I've never paid enough attention to notice.

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

59 minutes ago, kevinfirth said:

I suspect good practice for devs would be a total exclude of default data before recreating the airport with an afcad, ground poly et al

Yep, but think about the large number of airports are added by My Traffic  6 just to accommodate bigger gates and more parking. The author would have had a lot more work if he made those airports with the proper exclusion polygons. Over time I've gone through with ADE and "fixed" a bunch of the MyT 6  US airports for my own personal  use and the "proper" way of doing it is somewhat  tedious. I trace my general exclusion polygon using the stock boundary fence. Then I copy that poly to a 2nd poly and change it to the new airport flatten. Then I load all stock objects.

In any case, the taxiway guidance light issue doesn't  appear to have anything  to do with VOXATC as I suspect these kinds of 3rd party airports with altered taxiway  networks even affect the default FSX taxi guidance  arrows also.

 

 

[Mad_Mac 21]

Another, but I suspect related side effect of some of the new airports is having to choose your parking spot carefully so as not to spawn inside of a building, or some worse spot resulting in a crash. 

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

Just by chance I ran across this topic about GSX having the same issue with what the GSX developer calls "partial AFCADs":

http://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php/topic,15383.msg111276.html#msg111276

The only way that some of these 3rd party addons like GSX and VOXATC will work correctly, is if the 3rd party airport excludes the stock airport and is complete on its own. Of course, that only applies to items like taxiway paths and parkings spaces, so if the 3rd party airport hasn't updated those items, then VOXATC should work okay.

[kevinfirth 1,392]

very interesting Jay, I havent come across partial AFCADs in any scenery I use - but it may explain why vox doesnt work in some situations...

It may help if anyone having probs can specify exactly the airport, the scenery version in use and any multiple AFCADs apparently being used, so that others can duplicate the scenario.

Good find :)

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

I haven't found partial AFCADs in any of the better large payware airports (FSDT, Drzewiecki Design, Latin VFR, FlyTampa, etc.) so my guess is that the problem is confined to freeware AFCADs and the AI package, My Traffic. But I don't have a ton of payware airports installed. I think that the problem doesn't show up that often because VOXATC is probably utilized more at big airports. The stock airports are not a problem and the better payware airports are not a problem.