When starting a free-flight, the user is forced to start outside the aircraft, whereas this is not always what you want. It’s probably great for career mode and such, but if you just want to fly, you just want to fly and walkaround mode is an annoyance.
As suggested by @Sal1800, to make this specific:
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Add an option, for free-flight, that puts the user in the pilot seat always, even if started on a parking spot.
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Add an option, for free-flight, that selects the starting aircraft state, as per the states available in FirstFlightState (In the “FreeFlight” section of the FLT file):
- “Cold & Dark”
This would correspond to PREFLIGHT_GATE.
- “Powered up, engines not running”
This is then PREFLIGHT_PUSHBACK.
- “Ready to taxi”
This is PREFLIGHT_TAXI.
- “Ready to fly”
And here you’re ready to go, so FLIGHT_RUNWAY.
The sim can already mostly do this but the UI is not very obvious. If you start on the runway, you will be in the cockpit with the plane running. Or if you click any arbitrary place on the map, the dropdown under the departure airport will have an option to start on the ground either cold and dark or running and with no walkaround needed.
The only missing option that your request would affect is when selecting a parking spot which currently only starts cold and dark. I would refine your request by adding some guidance as to how the UI should be presented for this option.
It would use the apronwithoutcovers flt state. It just needs some UI controls to select this.
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With @BenkeiBuddy edits, this is a pretty good request for some options that have been requested on the official forums as well. It seems that many of the conditions to start the player’s aircraft in many of these states is already present in the sim.
Another possibility to avoid adding more UI: if you spawn at a gate, the covers are off (you will never find a plane at a gate with covers on IRL), otherwise at remote stands the covers are on.
Another possibility to avoid adding more UI: if you spawn at a gate, the covers are off (you will never find a plane at a gate with covers on IRL), otherwise at remote stands the covers are on.
What I wanted to prevent from happening is yet another, well-intentioned, predetermined choice. Don’t forget it is entirely dependent on the type of aircraft, the Standard Operating Procedures, or even just the preferences of the user/player how you start. In passenger airliners it is actually pretty rare to start cold-and-dark, while for cargo this is more common, just as for GA. When you start in C&D with a larger jet, there is often work to do to start up everything, before one of the pilots goes out to do the walk-around.