About the next UK update

[Guest Quaxo]

Now that new terrain is available, and many major airports and packages have been developed/upgraded, I think it's almost time to pack the update CDs. I think it would be useful to "freeze" the situation; I mean, we decide that everything that will be ready in, say, 2 or 3 weeks, will make it to the CD; other things won't be included. I think we should set up a "time-limit". Then, the developers should concentrate on fixing the eventual bugs but without adding new major things (models and such), so it's easier to clean the GEN folder and to integrate everything. Otherwise, if people keep adding models, features, packages and such, it'll be almost impossible to coordinate the things...I think we need to define an exact list of what we want to include on the new disc, and then just follow that list.What do you all think about this?Cristian

[Guest andy9164]

Cristian,I totally agree, especially if we can "compress" everything and tidy the whole package up.For my part, Lydd should hopefully be in the library for the weekend and then I have nothing else definite planned. So no more from me.As for the content, the UK South with new terrain, all the latest packages (airports, models, beacons, poi, ATC, AI and AI models.) You could go on and on........Is it also possible that we can have a combined file with UK Models, SF Models and the "repalletized for UK Seattle" models. That opens a whole new list of options when making updates.I apologise now, I have no idea of how easy or simple this is, but look forward to its release. If I can be of any help, please let me know.Andy

[Guest dcreeves2000]

Hi all,>I think we need to define an exact list of what we want to>include on the new disc, and then just follow that list.>What do you all think about this?I think that's an excellent idea! My list would be as follows:1) Add new terrain2) Add definitions of all IRL active airports as a package or FLED bookmarks file so that further development is easier (you have that from me already for the main terrain+ my extra bit).3) Decide on a list of airports that will have full ATC (see below)4) Add soundgroups for those airports (I have recorded them and can put them in fairly quickly once we've decided on (3) above).5) Specify radio frequencies for all airports that will have ATC, whether they have been developed or not yet (goes with (4, I have a coordinated list already).6) Update beacons.fld with ILS beacons/freqs for Tower controlled airports in (3) (shouldn't take too long to place the beacons as there will only be 15 airports that have them).7) Get a (nominally) working AIPLAN.TXT and AIRSPACE.TXT for airports already built (I have these already, still a couple of bugs but nothing major, and we can add to them easily after the update).8) Add all models from currently released packages on AVSIM.I think that we can reasonably expect to have the ATC coordinated enough in 3 weeks so that airports can be added easily in the future, although they will mostly have to be Unicom controlled. Here is the list of airports that I would propose (remember we are limited to 15 tower controlled airports and 24 unicom controlled airports for full functionality):Tower Controlled:HeathrowGatwickStanstedCardiffLyddPlymouthSouthamptonLyddBirminghamCambridgeBristolBournemouthFarnboroughExeterLutonUnicomNorthamptonDuxfordCranfieldOxfordWycombeSouthendLashendenShorehamGoodwoodLee-on-SolentCompton AbbasYeovilChivenorBodminNewquayLand's EndMullionThruxtonBoscombe DownLynehamBrize NortonCoventrySt Mary'sManstonThis would give us good coverage and represent all of the types of active airports extant in the UK today. Of course, it only applies to the current scenery plus my new terrain. We should find out what airports are possible in the new terrain from other people. Therefore this list should be subject to change.Thanks for reading this far :)CheersDave

[Guest Quaxo]

I think that the order to do the things should be this:1) Decide what terrain will be added - Andr

[Guest dcreeves2000]

Hi Cristian,>1) Decide what terrain will be added Good idea I think, as we have to limit the number of airports (at least initially). I hadn't planned to make more tiles in the next couple of weeks as my work schedule has gone crazy, but I can try ;)>1) define the airports/frequencies list, even considering theAh yes, I am so excited about its impending release ;) Actually Lydd only has a tower IRL, so we should probably put it as unicom controlled, but I was making it tower-controlled in deference to the hard work of the developer! As I have already made Birmingham and Cambridge airports, the remainder is:BristolBournemouthFarnboroughExeterLuton(+1 extra for the extra Lydd) so for the yet-to-be-added terrain there are possibly 5 more big airports we could add instead of the above. I think Farnborough would be cool though as it has the famous airshow and I can imagine people wanting to do aerobatics over that countryside :)>2) Finish to develop the airports we decide to include, paying>three-decimals frequencies. The voices for the airports can be>done now, too.Once everyone has commented on the airport list I will make the script for the regional sounds. Files are cut and converted already.I will compile an excel sheet for the frequencies. I should be able to test in-game on a clean install next week.>3) Clean the gen folder by building a complete collection,Lovely.>4) Make a definitive beacons.fld file, and build a working>AIPLAN and AIRSPACE files, in an integrated manner. TheseAgreed - again needs testing.>And, Dave, are you sure we are limited to 15 tower controlled>airports? I thought we could use more - I don't remember where>I got this idea though! :-)I am pretty sure. I tried a few different things using the soundgroups that already exist. Trying to use non-airport soundgroups didn't work (ie what is already in most people's updates!) and even using airport soundgroups from SanFran really confused it. Only when I use exclusively Seattle airport soundgroups do I get a fully working ATC. I think one may add outer terrain airports with their own soundgroups, but for the basic region itself I believe it will be easier to stick initially with the 15+24 numbers, as LG clearly intended new region developers to recompile the res files (see white papers). Clever people can try to add to it later ;)>will be able to test things, integrate the files, pack the CD>and not much more... Someone else will have to do the "hard>work" of building the files! :-(Seems like plenty of people here who want to help, so thanks for your contribution!Dave

[Christopher Low 5,352]

Dave,Is this limit of 15 tower controlled airports only applicable to the UK-South region ? I have 18 tower controlled airports in my SanFran region, and they all work flawlessly.Chris Low.

[Guest dcreeves2000]

>Is this limit of 15 tower controlled airports only applicable>to the UK-South region ? I have 18 tower controlled airports>in my SanFran region, and they all work flawlessly.Good point. What are the extra three airports that you have in San Fran that I don't have? Do they operate fully with the radar controller?I think that inside the region itself, we will be limited for full ATC to the number of airports which, I guess, is defined in RESREG.RES in the ENGPILE folder. I don't understand this file though...Dave

[Guest Quaxo]

Dave, I don't know for sure, but I thought the UK was based on San Francisco... the only thing I know for sure though, is that we used the San Francisco color palette. It was Andr

[Guest dcreeves2000]

>Dave, I don't know for sure, but I thought the UK was based>on San Francisco... the only thing I know for sure though, isI am just now trying SanFran soundgroups to see if that helps - I'll post here if it works ;) I had the same thought about the palette just after I posted above (see edited post!)CheersDave

[Guest dcreeves2000]

Certainly on a first pass giving all the UKS airports SanFran soundgroups, it doesn't work at all... :( whereas using Seattle soundgroups lets me see most of the airports on the radar controller, even if she will only give me vectors ILS, not vectors direct to those...Dave

[Guest Quaxo]

I have no idea why the SanFran soundgroups don't work... Anyway, I dug out the old original zip file of the initial London region made by Andr

[Guest dcreeves2000]

>I have no idea why the SanFran soundgroups don't work...>Anyway, I dug out the old original zip file of the initialOk thanks, that makes sense. I'm not sure either why the SanFran soundgroups don't work - I don't currently have all of the original radar controllers enabled. It is possible that they rely on the original airport codes (xxx or xxxx) and that seems to be compiled into the res files - I can't find anything that resembles these in the res files, although files 5 and 6 of resreg.res do have 40 and 15 items respectively, so they may be what I'm talking about. It may be that we will have to set up all of the UKS airports as outer terrain airports, perhaps that is why the Seattle soundgroups all work because they would count as that if the game thinks we are in SanFran region. I'll investigate...CheersDave

[Guest Quaxo]

Hm, Does that mean that we will need to have Outer Terrain installed? I (and a lot of other users) prefer to use the UK scenery without the OT, to avoid seeing the ugly generic textures in the distance...Cristian

[Guest dcreeves2000]

>Hm, Does that mean that we will need to have Outer Terrain>installed? I (and a lot of other users) prefer to use the UKNo, what I mean is that FU3 currently believes UK-South to be San Francisco. When we put airports into the region, I think it treats them as if they are outer terrain airports, which is why we can't get vectors direct to them, but can get vectors ILS. That would be why using seattle soundgroups works, because in the original game, if you start in the sanfran region, then the seattle airports appear as outer-terrain airports. So we may be able to work around this by letting the actual san francisco radar controller direct us to all the airports in UKS. Also, you may have noticed that if you delete the outter terrain folder entirely from a seperate install of FU3 for UK South, then FLED will not write a new beacons file without the folder - which suggests that FLED thinks that the UK South region is itself in the outer-terrain.If this is all true, then we should have the UK airport definitions in the outer terrain folder...I'll play with it and see what happens.Dave

[Guest Quaxo]

Fled can write the beacons file for me, because I didn't *remove* the outer terrain: I just installed FU3 *without* the outer terrain.I think that, if it's possible, we should keep everything independent from other folders, because the UK users have a lot of different installs of FU3: unique install with and without OT, separate install with and without OT, and so on - if the UK relies on the presence of specific non-UK folders, maybe some users would experience problems...Maybe we will need some beta-testers before making the final version of the update, to see if it works in every system! :-)CristianP.S. We're almost turning this thread in a chat session... :-lol