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Guest JR Morgan

Advanced Building Helipads

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Guest JR Morgan

Dick... No; at the San Diego bldg, the landing was on the default conditions, however, I had to have 'Crash-Detect' turned-on.J.R.

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Guest JR Morgan

Dick --- More for the Journal.. I think I've tested enough now to confirm that as you've previously stated: All flat roofed AdvBldgs WITH OR WITHOUT the flashing red light are heli-landable, provided crash detection is activated.Also good news: User created flat-roofed AdvBldgs are also heli landable, even when placed on top of a user created 'Flatten Area' that varys the default terrain mesh.I re-tested your helipad with the green lights at Delavan and it works just fine with crash-detect enabled and doesn't work with crash-detect de-activated. Also, the 3 flat-roofed bldgs across the road from Delavan Rwy 18 and the bldg nearest Rwy 36 are landable.Then went to a scenery I'm always working-on and verified that all flat-roofed AdvBldgs I had made there which sit on top of a large flatten polygon are landable with crash-detect turned on.This is great news because we can now eleminate use of the elevated inv rwy for helipads as long as they're placed on top of flat roofed AdvBldgs :-). The inv rwys have a bad characteristic of not 'refreshing' fully when the scenery area is departed-from and then re-entered, inspiring all sorts of 'kluge' fixes for that.Below are 2 screenshots at Delavan and 1 at the village of Vandalia IL (KVLA) showing their hard surface capability. Now we can start saving our sheckels for "A Century of Flight" :-rotor. J.R.

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Hi J.R.Then it is true that you can make invisible ( zero height ) AdvBldgs, and set their hardening height with an absolute refpoint. So my macro will work if crash-detect is ON. Invisible helipads.I can place an invisible, crashable surface anywhere, and any size. Airport has a very easy feature for this.Here's the airport code for a 50mx50m invisible pad at 400 meters altitude.; Building invisible helipad!Area( 5 00:0.0 000:0.0 10 ) IfVarRange( : 0346 1 32767 ) PerspectiveCall( :_P0 ) ShadowCall( :_S0 ) Jump( : ):_P0 Perspective:_S0 RefPoint( 2 :_S1 1 00:0.0 000:0.0 E= 400 V1= 10000 V2= 71 ) RotatedCall( :_R0 000 000 90 ) Return:_R0 AdvBldg( NORMAL 50 50 LEVEL1 0 0 256 256 LEVEL2 0 0 256 256 256 LEVEL3 0 0 256 256 ROOF 0 256 256 ):_S1 ReturnEndAI've still got to check if these are 'stackable'... allowing multiple helipad levels. Autogen influence?And I need to check is sloped roofs can also be used this way.:)Dick

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Guest JR Morgan

>>Then it is true that you can make invisible ( zero height ) AdvBldgs, and set their hardening height with an absolute refpoint. So my macro will work if crash-detect is ON. Invisible helipads.<<**The tests I've done so-far indicate that is a YES. Usually of course, we would put the helipad's graphic and lights on top of a visible AdvBldg. The invisible hardened surface, however, would be very attractive for AC hangar and flight decks.**>>I can place an invisible, crashable surface anywhere, and any size. Airport has a very easy feature for this<<**I would assume the size would only be limited by your header and within a SCASM LatRange if using that compiler? Yep, the Apt routine is what I usually use for AdvBldgs.**>>I've still got to check if these are 'stackable'... allowing multiple helipad levels. Autogen influence?<<**The stackable feature would be very good for Flight Deck/Hangar Deck work with Carriers, Police Helis in large parking garages :-), etc. I hope that works. Presently, it appears to me that with prudent use of V2, the AGN influence would be limited to a minimal dead zone around the size envelope of the AdvBldg? Needs testing.**>>And I need to check is sloped roofs can also be used this way.<<** Yes, that would be a 'nice-to-know' thing. I will test some flat roofed units dispersed with TransformCalls (unless you've already tried that)? **J.R.

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Guest JR Morgan

Hi Dick and all. This is just another report on the quest for usable 'gimmicks' to enhance the Helicopter flying scenery experience in FS2002. As promised, I tested the ability of flat-roofed FS2000 Advanced Buildings to retain their Heli-Landable 'Hard' roof-tops when placed in scenery using the SCASM TransformCall opcode.BTW, Thanks Dick, for the previous example of simple source code for compacting code for placing multiple objects with TransformCall. To me, this is like having 'Library Call' capability without the need for the Library :-). The below macro works pretty well here. I use the term 'pretty well' because for the houses placed with the macro to be 'always hard-roofed', it seems they must be approached from a few km distant from the RefPt -- then, the 4 houses seem to always be reliably Heli-Landable.For example, If a flight instance is started in a Heli sitting on the RefPt building, then as the other bldgs in the group are approached, their roofs are not immediately hard-surfaced UNTIL the heli is rotated in azimuth until it's shadow appears on the roof top. OR, until one flys beyond the 'Most distant-from-RefPt bldg, does a 180 turn and returns toward the RefPt. This condition may be improved by finding better values for V1 & V2? I don't know yet.For 'general' use in a designer's scenery, the code below works very well because the scenery is usually started from a fairly distant airport rwy or a more prominent bldg's roof-top a few km distant from these houses. Keep in mind that the intent for this code is to add autogen-like bldgs in scenery areas that were not 'blessed' with default autogen.The code below is in macro form that should be able to placed using your favorite 'object placing scenery design program' that uses the SCASM compiler. I used Apt26 w/SCASM 2.88 to test it. Of course, you ambitious ones can make headers for it if you don't like the macro format :-). On that note, be aware that some object placing design programs, Apt for example, may change some parameters prior to compiling the source code containing this (or any other) macro.;__________________________________________;Multiple Advanced Buildings To Augment Autogen;With Flat-Roofed Buildings that are Heli-Landable;AdvBldg Type 25 is Brown 4-Plex Style house 10 M high with flat roof.;%1=Latitude;%2=Longitude;%4=Scale;Copyright SCASM - Macro by J.R. Morgan with assistance from Richard Ludowise Area( 5 %1 %2 10 ) IfVarRange( : 0346 1 6 ) RefPoint( 7 :Fail %4 %1 %2 V2= 256 ); Calls ------------------------- TransformCall( :House1 000 000 000 0 0 0 0 0 0 ); 1 TransformCall( :House1 000 000 -105 0 0 0 0 0 0 ); 2 TransformCall( :House1 090 000 -105 0 0 0 0 0 0 ); 3 TransformCall( :House1 035 000 -200 0 0 0 0 90 0 ); 4 RotatedCall( :Fail 0 0 0 ) ; DummyCall Jump( : ); Buildings -------------------:House1 AdvBldg( NORMAL 40 20 LEVEL1 25 4 256 256 LEVEL2 0 0 256 256 256 LEVEL3 0 0 256 256 ROOF 9 256 256 ) Return:Fail ReturnEndA;_________________________________________J.R.

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Tried zero height advanced buildings for my fs2002 helipads, which became unstable in fs2004 and they work great now. Don't know what I would do without this forum... Would NEVER have thought about THIS solution :-). Had a problem though, which I could solve. Don't know if anybody else has written about that, so I thought I'd share my little finding: Very large pads (my largest is 77*186 meters) becomeinstable at the borders with the same sink-in effect as with the AreaSense/SetElevation-method. The solution was to use two adjacent advanced buildings. Now the pad is stable.CheersGottfried

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