TCAS Data from External Programs?

[BobS]

Does this mean that during a MULTIPLAYER session that --

If every player in the session was running the same EXTERNAL program, the external program could populate every players fs9 with the identical "AI" aircraft type, position,gs,hdg, pitch, roll, and vs??

Everyone would see the same AI aircraft(s), provided all of the external programs were running the same instant of time, populating/updating each players machine with the same AI data for p9osition,hdg alt, ...vs.

The "external AI populating" program could have a "script" file with the flight path for each "AI" aircraft that was going to appear in the session that night? The "script" will come from real airport arrival/departure data used for noise abatment monitoring currently available on the web. The exact aircraft path/heading/speed/altitude/.. is available for many of the major US airports. The data extends to a 40 mile radius from the airport. Only 1 person would neeed to build the script so the public web site would not feel any bandwidth "pain" from crazy sim pilots. :-)

Key question for Peter .. If I populate the AI table while in a multiplayer session will the "populated" AI aircraft be visible?

Thanks

[Pete Dowson]

Does this mean that during a MULTIPLAYER session that --

If every player in the session was running the same EXTERNAL program, the external program could populate every players fs9 with the identical "AI" aircraft type, position,gs,hdg, pitch, roll, and vs??

The FSUIPC interface for adding airraft to the TCAS tables is only a means of adding data to those tables, for other programs to read (for TCAS displays and the like). It doesn't create any aircraft in the simulation. That's done through the Multiplayer interface. This is how Squawkbox and the other on-line programs work -- those EXTERNAL programs do exactly what you say.

So, with that understanding, except for pitch and bank, yes. Those two particular items are in the TCAS_DATA2 part of the information structure, and that part is not available for externally injected MP data. As you will notice, most of the data there was relevant to AI aircraft only in any case -- I only used spare fields there for pitch and roll for use by the AIsmooth program.

Key question for Peter .. If I populate the AI table while in a multiplayer session will the "populated" AI aircraft be visible?

No, they are not "AI aircraft". They are "Multiplayer aircraft". But given that, if you injected the aircraft through the FS multiplayer interface, yes, that's what it is for.

Note that FSUIPC has absolutely nothing to do with multiplayer -- that is entirely a Microsoft documented interface. The FSUIPC interface to which you refer is merely to allow aircraft injected via the MP interface to also be seen on 3rd party TCAS displays.

This should all be clear from the description of the facilities in the Programmer's guide documentation in the SDK!

Regards,

Pete