Until SU11 it was possible to offer the PC and XBOX users to select a
plane/weather/datetime for each leg when having additional FLT/SPB in the
mission folder. According to
<https://devsupport.flightsimulator.com/questions/12583/su11-bushtrip-saving-
behavior-change.html>, Boris told us, it was never planned to be able to
change planes after a leg. As a user, I want to select the plane when I start
a leg or mission. It is boring to fly always the same plane, especially when
it goes over sea/desert with a stol or slow flying plane. Let’s have a look,
how we can bring back this feature. I’d like the feature with the multiple
FLT, because we could also change the weather and other thing. But let’s
concentrate to the aircraft selection and how it could be. Alternative 1:
Currently we can define multiple aircrafts with the [Sim.n] chapters. [Sim.0]
is used for the user aircraft, the others for AI Aircrafts in combination with
containers and Waypoint definitions in the XML. With adding a
“isUserSelectable = 1” (or true, I picked the 1 from the aircraft.cfg to keep
it the same) to other [Sim.n] chapters in the FLT file, the authors can define
which specific airplanes are allowed. Adding a similar suffix to other
aircraft specific definitions in the FLT file can assign this to the
aircrafts. The user itself should be able to select the planes defined by the
author in the briefing-screen (the screen, where the user can select the leg
in bushtrips). Default for [Sim.0] is 1 / true Default for [Sim.n] is 0 /
false, where .n is != 0 to keep the compatibility. So it could be look like
this:
[Sim.0}
Sim=Asobo XCub
....
[Sim.1]
Sim=Mudry Cap 10 C
isUserSelectable = 1
...
[Payload.0]
PayloadList= 170.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0
[Payload.1]
PayloadList= 190.0, 0.0, 50.0, 0.0, 0.0
The advantage is, the author can limit the planes, but he can only limit to
specific ones. The disadvantage compared with the old system until SU11 is, it
is limited to planes and the weather/time is fixed again. Alternative 2:
Add a plane selection to the FLT file. This could be
[Aircrafts]
AircraftList=Asobo XCub,Mudry Cap 10 C ; Comma-separated list of allowed specific aircrafts
; This list in aircrafts is like the alternative 1. Just the other sections should be named [Payload.Asobo XCub].
; The Aircraftlist has most priority and when set, the other parameters are ignored.
EngineType=Single Engine Prop,Twin Engine Prop, Rotorcraft,... ; A list of possible typeroles of the aircrafts allowed
; This list reflects to the ui_typerole parameter in the aircraft.cfg. This gives more flexibility than the AircraftList, becuase the user can chose also payware aircrafts he already bought
; if EngineType is set (and AircraftList is not set) the following parameters are ignored.
; For this option, the other aircraft related sections can be named like [Payload.Single Engine Prop].
MinMaxRange=400,600 ; Allow all aircrafts within this maxrange
MinMaxEngins=1,2 ; Allow only aircrafts with 1 or 2 engines
MinMaxMTOW= ; Allow only aircrafts within this MTOW
; an "AND" combine list about some min max parameters.
; I have no idea, how to handle the other aircraft related sections ;)
Alternative 3: Just add a parameter “AllowAircraftSelection=true |
false” to the [Options] section. This allows the user to choose between all
installed aircrafts, but then there is the issue with payload, engine-
definitions and so on. Let’s start a discussion an aircraft selection could be
designed for the user and which ones are the most relevant issues for us
authors and our users. BuffyGC