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neile avatar image
neile asked sirlemonaids answered

Feedback on Bvars/external device access from SDK Q&A

Hey guys!

During the recent SDK Q&A there was some discussion about the request to provide better access to sim events from external devices. Yay!

It was great to hear there's been a lot of internal discussion about it, and also to get insight into why there hasn't been any movement on the request yet. I had a few suggestions for the team based on what was mentioned:

1. Reach out directly to the core people behind the apps that would greatly benefit from this work and ask for their thoughts. Axis and Ohs, MobiFlight, and SPAD.next are the three that immediately come to mind. I know for sure that people involved in MobiFlight would be happy to share some thoughts directly with the team to help bring clarity to the product requirements, and I'm guessing AAO and SPAD.next people would also be thrilled to provide direct insights.

2. Don't worry about trying to build a unified list of events across planes. What we're missing is a way to trigger events (Bvars specifically), not a unified list of events. Bvars are a beautiful solution to the problem of clearly defined inputs for a given plane and we already have all the tools we need via the in-game developer tools to look them up. What we're missing is the ability to trigger the Bvars from SimConnect.

Hope this helps!

simconnect
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flightlevelrob avatar image flightlevelrob ·
AGREE! We aren't asking for a generic list (well anytime soon). We just need access to the existing Bvars through simconnect right now! We can see what the variables are in tools, we just can't read/write to them over sim connect.
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The_Paid_Actor avatar image The_Paid_Actor flightlevelrob ·
Pardon my ignorance... what are Bvars?
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sirlemonaids avatar image
sirlemonaids answered

Hi Devs,

Thanks for your continued efforts to create the best Flight Sim possible.

I'd have to agree with the above. There appears to be some confusion that we need to have every aircraft's bvars, etc to be the same across all aircraft. For a very small number of developers this might be important, but for the majority, we are happy to lookup these values via the Developer Tools as we do for LVars, etc, and we are able to make databases for each of the planes individually. The important part is being able to read and write to these values.

It is on the basic functions of the plane which have generic values. For planes like FBW and the CJ4, they are already using their own nomenclature.

Access is especially important for Home Cockpit enthusiasts who are needing to replicate every knob, switch, display, etc to make as an authentic experience as possible.

Hope this clarifies why it is that we are asking for access.

Andrew Morison.

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