ParkPosGenerator - 2 questions

[Speedbird 217 126]

Hi Nico,

Following the reintroduction of time offset in RealTraffic, I was wondering if there is any way that this could be used to speed up the creation of real parking positions? I'm not familiar with the detail behind it, but I assume that time offset is enabled by accessing a database of historic aircraft movements. Maybe there is a way to link RealTraffic time to sim time (if within 7 days of real date) and then use time acceleration to create real parking positions much faster?

My second question is whether it would be possible to define aircraft titles one would not want to see parked at the gate. I just had a quick look around LHR and with 35% parking set I spotted at least 4x Landor 747, 2x Negus 747, 2x BOAC 747 and 2x BEA A319s retro liveries. While I certainly like looking at them that kills the immersion as there's only one of each. If there was some xml file where we could add the title= field of the ones we wouldn't want to see as static parked ones that would address this issue. I.e. if the real Landor 747 was active at my location I would see it live, but I won't see it multiple times parked at airports around the world.

Thanks!

[kiek 1,212]

Hi,

It is not possible to link Real Traffic time to accelerated sim time I'm afraid.

The problem behind your second question is more generic. Any livery that it is being used as a parked livery may be used two or more times at the same time. For most liveries you will not notice it because they only differ in name of the aircraft and/or registration code but for a special livery such as Landor 747 one will notice it immediately. In theory it would be possible to work with a list of "unwanted" liveries, but it is rather complicated. Will have to give it some more thought.

Nico

 

[kiek 1,212]

I think it would easier to insert  the word SPECIAL in the title of such a livery (in the aircraft.cfg file).

Then PSXT can skip that livery as a static parked aircraft upon detection of that token in the title.

Note that it can still happen that a special livery  is seen twice or more as a live aircraft. You can prevent that by using registration codes, as well for the special livery as for the company aircraft of that type.

To be safe PSXT could be changed such that it only matches a live aircraft with a special livery upon registration code....

What do you think?

 

 

 

Edited August 19, 2019 by kiek

[Speedbird 217 126]

Hi Nico,

thanks for following up on this. I like the idea of adding “Special”. That would get around the issue in a neat way.

I also like the idea of only matching anything with a “Special” flag in the title by registration only for live aircraft.

Just taking this one step further, I also noticed I occasionally get freighters at PAX gates and PAX on the Cargo ramp for statics. I assume that’s where the ICAO code for the aircraft doesn’t have a dedicated freighter flag. Would introducing a “CARGO” flag in the title help ensure they park where they are supposed to? Or what that be too complicated to implement?

Thanks for continuing to make this an even better piece of software with each release!

[kiek 1,212]

On 8/19/2019 at 8:57 AM, Speedbird 217 said:

thanks for following up on this. I like the idea of adding “Special”. That would get around the issue in a neat way.

I also like the idea of only matching anything with a “Special” flag in the title by registration only for live aircraft.

Just taking this one step further, I also noticed I occasionally get freighters at PAX gates and PAX on the Cargo ramp for statics. I assume that’s where the ICAO code for the aircraft doesn’t have a dedicated freighter flag. Would introducing a “CARGO” flag in the title help ensure they park where they are supposed to? Or what that be too complicated to implement?

Version 15.15 is available:

If you add the word ‘special’ (all lowercase) to a livery title and add a single registration code to the  atc_id key, that livery will only be matched upon registration code and will never appear as a static parked aircraft. It can of course be positioned at a gate as live aircraft. 

[fltsim.2]
title=B744 British Airways special G-BNLY
sim=FAIB_7474
model=RR
texture=BAW Landor
atc_airline=SPEEDBIRD
atc_heavy=1
atc_id=G-BNLY
atc_parking_types=GATE
atc_parking_codes=BAW
ui_manufacturer=FAIB
ui_type=B744
ui_variation=British Airways (Landor livery)
description=FAIB 747-400, repaint by Marc Hungerbühler

Note that the word special may appear anywhere in the title; I prefer the schema shown above.
 

About Cargo vs Pax. I may come up with a solution, at least for the static parked aircraft, but it requires a change in the PPG first.

Edited August 21, 2019 by kiek

[Speedbird 217 126]

Hi Nico,

That’s fantastic, thanks for implementing this! I’m travelling at the moment, so won’t have a chance to test until the weekend.

You specifically state that “special” only seems to work if the atc_id contains only a single reg. So if there was a special livery with 2 regs the “special” in the title would not do anything and it would still get placed as static? Is that the case?

Thanks!

[kiek 1,212]

Just now, Speedbird 217 said:

So if there was a special livery with 2 regs the “special” in the title would not do anything and it would still get placed as static? Is that the case?

Indeed.

But why would you give such a special livery more than 1 regcode? You better use other regcodes, wild cards included,  for other  liveries of the same type.

[Speedbird 217 126]

41 minutes ago, kiek said:

Indeed.

But why would you give such a special livery more than 1 regcode? You better use other regcodes, wild cards included,  for other  liveries of the same type.

I was just thinking about special liveries that may be painted on 2 aircraft. But I guess there aren’t many examples of that.

[kiek 1,212]

30 minutes ago, Speedbird 217 said:

I was just thinking about special liveries that may be painted on 2 aircraft. But I guess there aren’t many examples of that.

If so, those aircraft will have different registration codes....

[kiek 1,212]

On 8/19/2019 at 8:57 AM, Speedbird 217 said:

Just taking this one step further, I also noticed I occasionally get freighters at PAX gates and PAX on the Cargo ramp for statics. I assume that’s where the ICAO code for the aircraft doesn’t have a dedicated freighter flag. Would introducing a “CARGO” flag in the title help ensure they park where they are supposed to? Or what that be too complicated to implement?

I have found a neat solution but it needs new versions of AILG and PPG.

AILG will add a parameter cargo=true/false to each livery in AI_liveries.xml. The information is coming from the atc_parking_types key. If it says CARGO PSXT assumes it is a cargo plane. (so no need to add something to the title).

PPG will add a parameter cargo=true/false to a parking position in the airport file. It is true for parking positions of type RAMP_CARGO.

Thus PSXT has sufficient info to park static cargo aircraft at cargo ramps only and static passenger aircraft at passenger gates only.

So you need AILG 5.0, PPG 11.0 and PSXT 16.0 (easy to remember 5+11 = 16 🙂 ). To be released soon.

Edited August 23, 2019 by kiek

[Speedbird 217 126]

Awesome, thanks Nico!!