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bmaik

decompiling VoxATC.dat files???

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In the appdata/Interlnalworkings folder Vox ATC stores a few important files I would like to be able to update. For example the file bglcenters.dat seems to contain the FIR boundary information Vox ATC uses for its handovers in flight. Intersting enough, this file is not updated by the VoxIndexer, so it seems that the FIR boundaries, frequencies and Center Names are somewhat hardcoded in VoxATC. Since these data are very old and no longer accurate I would like to manually correct the FIR bondaries data or be able to use a professional cycle update which has recently become available by fsaerodata. Althiugh the file is called "bglcenters" it is NOT a .bgl file and hence cannot be decompiled by Bgl2Xml or similar programs. However, opening the file in a text edtor reveals that it does infact contain the fir boundary information which seems to be coded according to the stanard SDK "boundary"-structure. If I could manually update the file I would ( hopefully?) finally get correct FIR boundaries, frequencies and center names correctly used by VoxATC. I think it can't be a coincidence that the developer calls the file "BGLcenters.dat", its structure  must be "very close" (whatever this means) to a .bgl file. Since the developer doesn't answer my emails for weeks (or months???? or even years???)  I would like to ask if anybody out there for any reason is familiar with the structure of these .dat-flies in the AppData/InternalWorkings/VoxAtc folders or can help me how to decompile them. Any help iis appreciated.  

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The DAT files are simple Microsoft Windows string collections. Unfortunately, without the header information for the basic structure, it would take a lot of work to decode the DAT files. I suggest that you contact the VOXATC developer and ask if he would provide the structures for each collection. Also, you must be referring to VOXATC 6.x, since VOXATC 7.41 does recompile bglcenters.dat, albeit it does it incorrectly for any file other than the stock ARTCC/FIR file, bvcf.bgl. That bug has been reported to the developer.

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Thank you once again for your valuable help jabloom, but that's exactly where the problem is! The developer does not reply any pleads for help. I really can't understand how he can leave his customers in the lurch to an extent I have never witnesses with any other support for any other add-on ever before! It's even more disappointing in the light that he is currently selling a new version (7.4) after years of no progress with only very humble improvements. I've been a vox user since the early childhood of the program and of course I also bought the new version which I soon abandoned again because of the myriad of new bugs which haven't been there in earlier versions. So as a GOOD and FAITHFUL customer I know that I do deserve a little more attention. Today, to be honest, I would suggest to any youngster who is seriously taking up flightsimming as a hobby to keep off Voxatc because he will be left in the rain anyway once running into problems.

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Actually, every so often, Tegwyn does respond to my emails. You have to consider that most problems encountered with VOXATC are not bugs, but rather caused by scenery issues. My experience has been that if an airport has any kind of serious error, VOXATC will stop working correctly, despite that fact that the default ATC in P3d (which has an IQ just north of 50) would just ignore the error. The same can be said for having multiple versions of a 3rd party airport installed. There are a myriad of add-on airports provided by both ORBX regions and My Traffic 6 and these can easily conflict  and cause havoc in VOXATC. I can honestly say that I have had three 3rd party versions of a specific airport installed and I wasn't even aware of that situation. Another big issue is when an airport is so out of date that it doesn't match the current navigraph AIRAC and fsaerodata. The airport database in FSX and P3d can only be updated to only a certain extent by fsaerodata. fsaerodata can't revise the airport geometry. But  in real life when runways and taxiways are either added or closed, this type of mismatch also causes VOXATC to choke. I noticed that the developer of fsaerodata is working on a separate add-on to correct these stock airport geometry errors for many major airports.

As to version 7.41, it is quite stable, at least for me. It works day in and day out with P3d V4.1 under Windows 10 with a whole host of HQ 3rd party voices installed. Then again, my PC is less than a year old and was high end, at least when originally purchased.

As to the format of DAT files, I have tried on a number of occasions to decode them to readable text. It is possible to do, but I've come to the conclusion that there's really no point in wasting all that time and effort, because there's nothing to be gained by doing so. It would be nice of VOXATC used a standard database format  like SQL Server Express instead, but that's just wishful thinking on my part.

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@bmaik,

Were you the person that figured out that the FSAD FIR BGL file needed to be located in ../scenery/world/scenery and renamed as bvcf.bgl?

Jay

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Yes, that was me, sorry to respond to such an old post, but perhaps you can help me once more, see my latest post.

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