Please, more videos instead of GSX files

[RALF9636 1,902]

Ben, it's great to see you back in this business! Having enjoyed your complete Q400 program I am very much looking foward to your future releases, in particular the A320 training program. Also the Airport2Sim product line is a great idea and I am looking forward to more airports, in particular hopefully EDDF also is somewhere on your list.

 

The one thing that is worrying me is your ambition to provide a GSX correction file for every airport of your Airport2Sim series. For large airports with several hundreds of gates / parking spots that must be a massive task. It will also lead to a larger support effort, when users still find some imperfections at particular gates, maybe even making you responsible for imperfections of GSX itself.

 

I very much doubt that it is worth this massive effort, for these reasons:

 

1. Not everyone uses GSX V2 at all or all of its features. Furthermore there might eventually be a competitive software like Ultimate Ground Crew X available soon (I know it is "soon" since several years, but maybe one day it will be for real ...😉) which will make more users turn their back on GSX. Personally I don't care too much for catering etc and I would happily focus only on a high quality Cockpit / Ground – interaction regarding pushback and engine start.

2. Not every GSX user is bothered too much by inadequate GSX positions. And even if you correct all the GSX positions (which - including all vehicles - easily are more than 1000 on large airports!) that won't guarantee that GSX vehicles won't still run into each other, into the user's or AI aircraft or into Airport objects, because you can't control the – sometimes surprising – paths of the GSX vehicles.

3. Only a few users will need corrections at every single gate of a large airport. Probably most users fly for one or two airlines, thus always using only the same one or two terminals with only a handful of possible gates.

   If you just provide a list of gate usage by airlines and aircraft types every user can easily pick the few gates that are interesting for him and make the few GSX corrections there himself within a few minutes as far as relevant for him.

4. There already is a sharing area for GSX correction files with a growing number of files available.

5. GSX might come up with an update which makes all your work obsolete.

 

 

Personally I am not interested in your GSX files. I don't need them. Instead I pick two or three gates per airport which I will always use and take about ten minutes making the relevant GSX corrections there myself.

 

So I don't really like that I am forced to eventually pay for the GSX file (due to the massive effort to create them they will surely be incorporated in the pricing) when I am only interested in the videos.

 

But more than that I would very much prefer you to spend your precious time on making more of your great videos instead of fiddling around with thousands of GSX vehicle positions.

 

Thanks for considering and keep up your great work!

 

And it would also be interesting to see how other users think about this.

 

Regards

Ralf

Edited March 12, 2019 by RALF9636

[Airline2Sim 489]

Hi Ralf, thank you for your kind comments and your constructive feedback. 

We made Airport2Sim Amsterdam as a test bed, to see whether people would be interested in learning about these complex airports. From the response, I'd say the answer is a resounding yes. The GSX file is a bonus feature but as you say requires a lot of work, and indeed not everyone uses GSX or even GSX Level 2. There are already user customised files around and we don't know what the future holds in terms of it potentially becoming obsolete, agreed. 

However as I showed in the teaser video, using the airport out of the box can lead to a lot of frustration and the idea behind the tweaked file was to give users the opportunity to always find a gate that will work for them. So if you want to do a long haul cargo op to Dubai in your 747 freighter, use Gate S90 and it'll work perfectly. If you want to fly new BEA livery A319 back to LHR then use D4 - one of BA's gates. It's optimised for the 737-800 but with the exception of the nosewheel perhaps being a fraction off the number then it will still work fine. A lot of people find having the pushbacks worked out, labelled, nonsensical pushes removed and the SODE jetways and Safedocks make the airport much more usable and realistic. The customised files that I found already available for Amsterdam elsewhere were not that great either, with our good friend the marshaller still very much in evidence and often not doing a great job. So I don't plan to stop providing the GSX files for these big megahubs at this time.

But, all that said, we do need to find a way to make the GSX files faster, and I'm working on that. And of course as you know, Airport2Sim is about much more than just the positions of the GSX vehicles. Airport2Sim Greek Islands concentrates on airports with tiny GSX files such as Skiathos that only has two stands, so there will be much more focus on the procedures here. And we plan to do other challenging airports such as Gibraltar, Funchal and Innsbruck, none of which have much in the way of customisation to do.  

I know this is perhaps not quite what you wanted to hear, but I'm giving you the view from my side. 

Cheers,

Ben

Edited March 12, 2019 by Airline2Sim

[vc10man 732]

Ben, I endorse your GSX re-working and want you to carry on with that side too. There are two different aspects to this. Bet if you did a poll the majority of your users will support your GSX re-works..

To me GSX is pants. What sort of nonsense is it when it asks, repeatedly, as in the case of the PMDG 737NGX to 'open the L1 door' when the that door is already open? Sooner UGX replaces this piece of nonsense, sooner a lot will be happier.

[RALF9636 1,902]

2 hours ago, Airline2Sim said:

Hi Ralf, thank you for your kind comments and your constructive feedback. 

We made Airport2Sim Amsterdam as a test bed, to see whether people would be interested in learning about these complex airports. From the response, I'd say the answer is a resounding yes. The GSX file is a bonus feature but as you say requires a lot of work, and indeed not everyone uses GSX or even GSX Level 2. There are already user customised files around and we don't know what the future holds in terms of it potentially becoming obsolete, agreed. 

However as I showed in the teaser video, using the airport out of the box can lead to a lot of frustration and the idea behind the tweaked file was to give users the opportunity to always find a gate that will work for them. So if you want to do a long haul cargo op to Dubai in your 747 freighter, use Gate S90 and it'll work perfectly. If you want to fly new BEA livery A319 back to LHR then use D4 - one of BA's gates. It's optimised for the 737-800 but with the exception of the nosewheel perhaps being a fraction off the number then it will still work fine. A lot of people find having the pushbacks worked out, labelled, nonsensical pushes removed and the SODE jetways and Safedocks make the airport much more usable and realistic. The customised files that I found already available for Amsterdam elsewhere were not that great either, with our good friend the marshaller still very much in evidence and often not doing a great job. So I don't plan to stop providing the GSX files for these big megahubs at this time.

But, all that said, we do need to find a way to make the GSX files faster, and I'm working on that. And of course as you know, Airport2Sim is about much more than just the positions of the GSX vehicles. Airport2Sim Greek Islands concentrates on airports with tiny GSX files such as Skiathos that only has two stands, so there will be much more focus on the procedures here. And we plan to do other challenging airports such as Gibraltar, Funchal and Innsbruck, none of which have much in the way of customisation to do.  

I know this is perhaps not quite what you wanted to hear, but I'm giving you the view from my side. 

Cheers,

Ben

 

Thanks for your reply.

No doubt, to have your GSX files is better than not to have them. It's just that I' d like to avoid videos' releases being delayed just for the sake of the GSX files. I agree that this is not an issue for small airports (great to hear you plan for the challenging airports you mentioned! Any word on EDDF btw?). Hopefully you succeed finding a way to make the GSX files faster when you come to your next megahub.

 

Edited March 12, 2019 by RALF9636

[Airline2Sim 489]

1 hour ago, RALF9636 said:

 

Thanks for your reply.

No doubt, to have your GSX files is better than not to have them. It's just that I' d like to avoid videos' releases being delayed just for the sake of the GSX files. I agree that this is not an issue for small airports (great to hear you plan for the challenging airports you mentioned! Any word on EDDF btw?). Hopefully you succeed finding a way to make the GSX files faster when you come to your next megahub.

 

Well Germany is the third biggest consumer of our products behind the UK and the USA so for sure FRA, MUC, DUS and CGN are definitely on the radar, so yes. 😎

[johnnycrockett 43]

14 hours ago, vc10man said:

Ben, I endorse your GSX re-working and want you to carry on with that side too. There are two different aspects to this. Bet if you did a poll the majority of your users will support your GSX re-works..

To me GSX is pants. What sort of nonsense is it when it asks, repeatedly, as in the case of the PMDG 737NGX to 'open the L1 door' when the that door is already open? Sooner UGX replaces this piece of nonsense, sooner a lot will be happier.

If you haven't already, you can disable 'door checks' within the 'customise aircraft' section of GSX in the sim. That way it won't matter if it is open or not, GSX will hook up and just start loading.

[johnnycrockett 43]

Appreciate that every customer is going to have different views but I'll chime in too and give a big thumbs up for the GSX files. There are two parts for me, the complete rework of the airport so everything works as expected and secondly the gate guide so I can pick a gate that will just work!

[virtuali 4,419]

14 hours ago, vc10man said:

To me GSX is pants. What sort of nonsense is it when it asks, repeatedly, as in the case of the PMDG 737NGX to 'open the L1 door' when the that door is already open? Sooner UGX replaces this piece of nonsense, sooner a lot will be happier.

And of course, this issue has been discussed, and answered on our forum, with an extremely easy solution, thanks to the flexibility of the GSX airplane configurator:

http://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php/topic,19329.msg134051.html#msg134051

It's was caused by PMDG having changed the variable used to check the front left door since we made the configuration that comes with GSX. We'll surely include the variation it in the next update but, of course, the whole point of having an airplane configuration utility, is that is not required to wait for an update, if anything the airplane needs a change.

Edited March 13, 2019 by virtuali