New user & a few questions

[kmax59 213]

Hello there !

After several years not being able to use MCE with my old PC (never figured why but it never understood me), I've finally gave it another try and it works like a charm so... I'm finally in !

These days I'm flying the 787 from qualitywings, I already customized a bit the flows and had a few questions about it:

- I saw it does not read the Vspeeds from the fmc, is that normal? To my understanding, MCE is supposed to get the speeds from the fmc, the use data feature is enabled in the monitoring tab, tried to disable it but it does not seems to help, I guess I missed something
- Is there a way to prevent the co-pilot to open the 2D eicas panel? After all I just want him to read the checklist and it's pretty annoying to get that panel popping in a middle of a turn during the before take-off checklist

About MCE in general, after looking at the different options it seems I prefer the TTS voices as they are more flexible, is there any good quality free voice you guys could recommend? I saw there are the cereproc voices but after reading some topics, even some of those does not pronounce everything correctly when it comes to aviation.

I still have to try it with PF3 atc.
Other than that, it takes some time to configure MCE for your own usage and preferences, getting the flows exactly as you want, but when it's done... wow, what a poweful utility ! I think my virtual flights will bring much more immersion now !

Thanks by advance for the help 🙂

Edited March 2, 2020 by kmax59

[charlie130 196]

5 hours ago, kmax59 said:

Hello there !

After several years not being able to use MCE with my old PC (never figured why but it never understood me), I've finally gave it another try and it works like a charm so... I'm finally in !

These days I'm flying the 787 from qualitywings, I already customized a bit the flows and had a few questions about it:

- I saw it does not read the Vspeeds from the fmc, is that normal? To my understanding, MCE is supposed to get the speeds from the fmc, the use data feature is enabled in the monitoring tab, tried to disable it but it does not seems to help, I guess I missed something
- Is there a way to prevent the co-pilot to open the 2D eicas panel? After all I just want him to read the checklist and it's pretty annoying to get that panel popping in a middle of a turn during the before take-off checklist

About MCE in general, after looking at the different options it seems I prefer the TTS voices as they are more flexible, is there any good quality free voice you guys could recommend? I saw there are the cereproc voices but after reading some topics, even some of those does not pronounce everything correctly when it comes to aviation.

I still have to try it with PF3 atc.
Other than that, it takes some time to configure MCE for your own usage and preferences, getting the flows exactly as you want, but when it's done... wow, what a poweful utility ! I think my virtual flights will bring much more immersion now !

Thanks by advance for the help 🙂

Hello there. I think MCE William has a good pronunciation and intonation for your first officer. If you fly Lufthansa or affiliated carriers around Europe, Dieter has a great accent!

For ground mech definitely try Sven, but take care to dismiss him before you taxi, you don't want his wrath if you make him jump out of your way!

TTS? I use a couple. Katherine (USA) is a nice easy voice with good pronunciation. They have chaps as well, so worth checking out their samples. This is a strength of MCE. You have a large choice of first officers, not available from other payware.

The 787 is my go to airliner. The Jump Ahead feature beating the other (expensive add ons). I don't want to spend 5 hours crossing the pond, to land in Washington, when I can jump 3000 miles and do it in one hour. 

I think I listen to the QW in built calls at V1, flap schedule etc but MCE does the call out as well. Do you use the EFB to calculate V speeds and export them to FMC?

I get what you say re the pop up checklists. They can be intrusive, especially the landing checklist which blocks your forward view on final. If it could be actioned from the virtual screen on the CDU it would be better. 

Anyway, glad you got into MCE. They are dedicated to perfection and provide upgrades for aircraft for no charge. They also include all platforms, again for no charge. If you like to collect simulations, MCE won't cost you a wad each time to purchase an add on aircraft! I have been a MCE flyer for a few years now and can say that without it, flying multi crewed aircraft in a simulation is a hollow false experience. They covered some great older aircraft (707, 727, MD-11) with a flight engineer. Now that made flying a complex aircraft a real pleasure.

Anyway good luck with your Vox Scripts. If you want any of my older flows, they are on Avsim Library, search David herky, same for You Tube.

Regards

David

[kmax59 213]

Thank you for your answer David !
I watched your 787 videos and that's actually what gave me the idea to try MCE again 🙂 I will definitely check your avsim flows !

Thanks for the voices advice, I'll check these for my next flight 🙂

As for vspeeds and other data, yes I do that from the EFB and export them to the FMC, but entering them manually into the CDU also does not help, MCE data remains unchanged.
About the 2D eicas, there is no way to prevent this 2D panel to open at the beginning of a checklist? the FO does not even check the lines so I'd prefer to display that page myself 

 

 

 

[Chock 17,769]

Generally speaking, the QW 787 is great with MCE. In fact I was flying it from Paris LeBourget to Archangel Talagi last night using MCE's co-pilot to handle the ATC for an Air Hauler cargo trip.

I'm not sure if this is the problem, but in order for MCE to work, it usually has to rely on aircraft developers going along the recommended SDK route for things, since if they do that, MCE knows where to pick up the data from. Most of the time developers do that and MCE has no issues, but for complex aircraft with intricate systems (as the 787 obviously is), developers sometimes have to go 'off the reservation' to get things to work, a good example of this is when they have a custom flight model or autopilot mode which is running outside of the main sim and connecting to it in order to work. On occasion this can mean that MCE has no route through which to access the commands or data it needs for certain functions, and that is when you can find there are some things which may not work so well with it.

Fortunately, the MCE developer has been very clever and diligent in addressing this as best as possible, and most of the time things work out, so it's more of an occasional issue with some add-on aeroplanes rather than a regular annoyance. As such, on the rare occasion where that kind of thing is an occurrence, I've come to forgive this occasional limitation of MCE since there are so many other plus points to MCE which massively eclipse it, that it would be churlish to hold it against it!

With regard to voices, I think David's recommendations are pretty good. I have occasionally in the past bought some voices for it when there has been a sale on here or there, but frankly the ones it uses by default do well enough that most of the time I just use those.

[FS++ 708]

10 hours ago, kmax59 said:

Thank you for your answer David !
I watched your 787 videos and that's actually what gave me the idea to try MCE again 🙂 I will definitely check your avsim flows !

Thanks for the voices advice, I'll check these for my next flight 🙂

As for vspeeds and other data, yes I do that from the EFB and export them to the FMC, but entering them manually into the CDU also does not help, MCE data remains unchanged.
About the 2D eicas, there is no way to prevent this 2D panel to open at the beginning of a checklist? the FO does not even check the lines so I'd prefer to display that page myself 

 

 

 

Alan (Chock) nailed it as far as explaining the process that goes behind making MCE.

I'm not in it alone though.

Over the years, we have developed the capability to interface pretty much any aircraft, with or without SDK.

Thanks for bringing up that issue with FMC synchronization.

When QW 787 was first interfaced, roughly 6 months after it was first released, it wasn't possible to fetch those Vspeds, flex and other, without digging into memory offsets and such (which is doable, but would need to redo it when aircraft goes through an update).

After looking at the current state (aircraft recent update), I'm happy to report that it is possible via other means.

To that effect, "mcqw787.dll" in \Prepar3D v4\MCE dlls\ folder, will be updated this week.

We'll also remove the ECL 2D panel handling, as it appears it's more annoying than helpful in P3D V4.

FO can handle the ECL screen directly in VC when used in FSX though.

Will let you know when new files are ready.

 

 

Edited March 3, 2020 by FS++

[kmax59 213]

Hi guys,

Thank you Alan and Gerald !
That's a great news it's going to be updated, the 2D panel is indeed more annoying than helpful, it's great to hear its handling is going to be removed 🙂 As for the vspeeds, it was not a big deal but if it can now be read, then it's going to be perfect to use with the 787 🙂
Looking forward to this update, going back to the 737 waiting for the improvements

Thanks again for such a quick reactivity ! 

[charlie130 196]

8 hours ago, FS++ said:

FO can handle the ECL screen directly in VC when used in FSX though.

Hoping that includes P3d4.5. Would be nice for the first officer to do the electronic check lists in the VC panel.

Since this is my only go to airliner and it was so almost perfect before, I didn't think to mention the pop up ECL's!🤭

Now if you could find a way to apply a dimmer switch to that HUD I'd be well impressed. As it is, at night, with landing config, the HUD becomes bright white and completely obscures the runway lights! I've posted this on their forum and QW are aware!

We should applaud MCE for their skill to access deep states from outside the SDK. MI6 has nothing compared to these chaps!🤫

Regards

David

 

[FS++ 708]

On 3/3/2020 at 6:51 PM, charlie130 said:

Hoping that includes P3d4.5. Would be nice for the first officer to do the electronic check lists in the VC panel.

Since this is my only go to airliner and it was so almost perfect before, I didn't think to mention the pop up ECL's!🤭

Now if you could find a way to apply a dimmer switch to that HUD I'd be well impressed. As it is, at night, with landing config, the HUD becomes bright white and completely obscures the runway lights! I've posted this on their forum and QW are aware!

We should applaud MCE for their skill to access deep states from outside the SDK. MI6 has nothing compared to these chaps!🤫

Regards

David

 

😂🤣😂

Unfortunately, still no Houdini in sight.

We can't control HUD lighting until the switch is actually functional.

[kmax59 213]

If houdini can't do nothing, fsuipc may be can !
It may be a bit overkill but if you have the payware version of fsuipc and want to have control over your huds, what you could do is:

- Create a macro using mouse macro or qualitywings L:VAR for deploying your huds
- Assigning a key to it as in fsuipc key assignments
- Create a voxkey rule with that key
(- And optionally a voxscript calling the related voxkey rule for each HUD to toggle)

I personally don't feel the need for it as I already have a macro assigned to a joystick button for it but if you need help to do that, I'd do that with pleasure 🙂

Edited March 5, 2020 by kmax59

[FS++ 708]

10 hours ago, kmax59 said:

If houdini can't do nothing, fsuipc may be can !
It may be a bit overkill but if you have the payware version of fsuipc and want to have control over your huds, what you could do is:

- Create a macro using mouse macro or qualitywings L:VAR for deploying your huds
- Assigning a key to it as in fsuipc key assignments
- Create a voxkey rule with that key
(- And optionally a voxscript calling the related voxkey rule for each HUD to toggle)

I personally don't feel the need for it as I already have a macro assigned to a joystick button for it but if you need help to do that, I'd do that with pleasure 🙂

It's the brightness adjustment (night flight) Charlie130 is referring to. Unless there is a more recent version of the aircraft where the rotary switch that adjusts it is actually working, it's currently not possible, as the switch itself doesn't respond to clicks or mouse wheel.

HUD deployment/retraction can be done. 

[kmax59 213]

1 hour ago, FS++ said:

It's the brightness adjustment (night flight) Charlie130 is referring to. Unless there is a more recent version of the aircraft where the rotary switch that adjusts it is actually working, it's currently not possible, as the switch itself doesn't respond to clicks or mouse wheel.

HUD deployment/retraction can be done. 

Misunderstood that sorry !

[charlie130 196]

On 3/5/2020 at 11:15 AM, FS++ said:

It's the brightness adjustment (night flight) Charlie130 is referring to. Unless there is a more recent version of the aircraft where the rotary switch that adjusts it is actually working, it's currently not possible, as the switch itself doesn't respond to clicks or mouse wheel.

HUD deployment/retraction can be done. 

I communicated with Nick one of the QW guys. He said that they were fully aware of the HUD brightness going to max when you are in a landing config. I see the HUD going from that mid amber/green, to full blinding white. This at night approaching runway lights is unacceptable. You loose tally on the runway lights because the HUD pixel size linked with the bright white removed your sighting cues. 

A further command HUD down/up would be nice, to save you mouse clicking on the hidden hotspot.

Regarding the checklist pop ups, I thought the other day, why not just increase the pop up transparency to 100% in P3d options menu. I realise that makes all pop ups invisible, but the MCE checklist will still be actioned, it just won't obscure your forward view. I do this with the Mjc Dash 8.

Just my two penneth.

Oh, and the V2 reading from the FMC? If you go to the "monitor" section of the MCE GUI, simple enter your V2 there and you FO will know, simples?😉

Regards

David

 

Edited March 6, 2020 by charlie130
Added notam re Dash 8

[kmax59 213]

10 hours ago, charlie130 said:

I communicated with Nick one of the QW guys. He said that they were fully aware of the HUD brightness going to max when you are in a landing config. I see the HUD going from that mid amber/green, to full blinding white. This at night approaching runway lights is unacceptable. You loose tally on the runway lights because the HUD pixel size linked with the bright white removed your sighting cues. 

A further command HUD down/up would be nice, to save you mouse clicking on the hidden hotspot.

Regarding the checklist pop ups, I thought the other day, why not just increase the pop up transparency to 100% in P3d options menu. I realise that makes all pop ups invisible, but the MCE checklist will still be actioned, it just won't obscure your forward view. I do this with the Mjc Dash 8.

Just my two penneth.

Oh, and the V2 reading from the FMC? If you go to the "monitor" section of the MCE GUI, simple enter your V2 there and you FO will know, simples?😉

Regards

David

 

Thought about the 100% transparency solution but it makes the other panels invisible as well, which is not ideal either as some 2D popups always are useful when needed from time to time (like the doors management on the 787, which I prefer doing myself)

[FS++ 708]

On 3/3/2020 at 1:36 PM, kmax59 said:

Hi guys,

Thank you Alan and Gerald !
That's a great news it's going to be updated, the 2D panel is indeed more annoying than helpful, it's great to hear its handling is going to be removed 🙂 As for the vspeeds, it was not a big deal but if it can now be read, then it's going to be perfect to use with the 787 🙂
Looking forward to this update, going back to the 737 waiting for the improvements

Thanks again for such a quick reactivity ! 

There you go.

Grab the latest uploaded patch

Manually replace files as per folder structure.

By default, ECL handling via 2D panel is enabled, and item clicking should now work as expected.

For those who don't want the panel transparency workaround and would rather not see any pop-up, create a new file "mcqw787.ini" in \Prepar3D v4\MCE dlls\ folder and add these lines to the file

[OPTIONS]

UseEcl2Dpanel=0

When file is missing, it defaults to "UseEcl2Dpanel=1"

Regarding FMC data, Fo can now fetch V1, VR, VREF, flex temp, takeoff and landing flaps.

Somehow, not possible to read V2. it's derived from VR by adding a few knots, therefore, expect it to be off by some.

Commands "head up display on/off", "hud on/off" are now in

That's it for this week.

[charlie130 196]

12 hours ago, kmax59 said:

Thought about the 100% transparency solution but it makes the other panels invisible as well, which is not ideal either as some 2D popups always are useful when needed from time to time (like the doors management on the 787, which I prefer doing myself)

Yes agree there. I compromise with 50% transparency. The checklists at 50% provides a forward view. It's good airmanship practise to " hold up" your checklist with your eyes looking forward. The checklist pop up does this for you.So given our sim limitations, the 50% transparency seems a good compromise. 

Cheers