On Payload Stations

[lordofwings]

Not quite related to FSUIPC butI wondered why it is that many aircraft model designers position all the payload stations at the same level, including those that are supposed to be passengers.

For example I looked at the 747-400 AIRCRAFT.CFG (which is then provided in the payload data of FSUIPC) and even though there are three decks (cargo, passenger, lounge/cockpit) all the payload stations are shown with the same vertical value (0.0).

[lordofwings]

- Are the payload stations available via FSUIPC read/write? or just read-only?

- If I change the AIRCRAFT.CFG of the currently selected aircraft when FS is running, does FS automatically reload it? if not, how can I have FS reload the aircraft configuration file without having to exit?

[Pete Dowson]

- Are the payload stations available via FSUIPC read/write? or just read-only?

Do you have the documentation from the SDK? There it states:

These loadings can be changed, and this does have some effect, but such changes are not being promulgated to the overall weights (offsets 30C0, 30C8, 3BFC) nor balance (2EF8), and it looks like they have to refreshed, as FS overrides them from time to time. It has also been reported that FS can crash if a lot of changes are made here, so care and full testing is needed.

As it implies, the positions and names can't be changed, only the loadings, and then such changes don't have the desired effect -- in FS2004. The facility should work better in FSX as it is officially supported now via SimConnect.

If I change the AIRCRAFT.CFG of the currently selected aircraft when FS is running, does FS automatically reload it? if not, how can I have FS reload the aircraft configuration file without having to exit?

FS most certainly doesn't automatically reload anything. There is a "reload user aircraft" control you can assign, however. Have you tried that?

Regards

Pete

[lordofwings]

Nope, I was hoping I would not require my users to "now you have to reload your aircraft" or "press the key you defined to reload the aircraft" :( but well, what can I say it is a FS limitation :'(

[Pete Dowson]

Nope, I was hoping I would not require my users to "now you have to reload your aircraft" or "press the key you defined to reload the aircraft" :( but well, what can I say it is a FS limitation :'(

You can send the control to FS by program, if it is a program you are talking about. Why would you want them to assign a key to do a job you can do directly?

They would need to expect there to be a "loading" progress bar on screen when you execute the control, however. It should be fairly short-lived, though, for most aircraft.

Regards

Pete