2010 wishlist for FSUIPC

[Bryn]

I have two huge wishes for FSUIPC in 2010.

1. Hooks into the FS9 AI sub-system to control runway selection.

I would like FSUIPC to intercept the call to allocate an AI a departure or arrival runway and then send it to me so that I can change it to whatever runway I decide before it is adopted by the AI aircraft. I could then create a program that distributes traffic across any or all runways at an airport. If this feature were implemented in FSUIPC, my plan would be to write a program that checks a simple text file for runway allocation rules for any airport an end-user wants to affect and then allocate AI when they internally choose their runway.

AFCADs with the star method can open up crossing runways, and different length runways can affect the size of aircraft allocated to takeoff, but that's it. Only a pure intercept of the function to allocate the AI a runway can distribute traffic according to whatever criteria a user might want to set. (for example, spreading some arrivals to inner runways (eg, ZBBB, KATL, KLAX, LFPG), or sending arrivals to the furthest runway from the direction the aircraft are arriving from, or sending departures to distant runways (eg, EHAM, YSSY))

Thinking about the possibilities this would open up for the simulator keeps me awake at night!

2. Writeable offset for the callsign of a user aircraft.

I would like to be able to change the callsign of my aircraft without entering the Aircraft menu because entering the aircraft menu and changing the callsign resets the panel of the aircraft. If I am doing a simulated multi-stage flight (like regional airline hops), I would love to be able to change my callsign while leaving the aircraft untouched.

Cheers,

Bryn.

[Pete Dowson]

1. Hooks into the FS9 AI sub-system to control runway selection.

Sorry, that whole area is an unknown for me and i am not going to start hacking into FS9 code at this stage.even for FSX I'd be very reluctant as I'm really too old to enjoy the many hours needs to track though convoluted code looking for things, and my eyesight deteriorates week on week anyway.

2. Writeable offset for the callsign of a user aircraft.

Theoretically that is possible for FSX -- according to SimConnect documentation, the offsets I mapped for those strings deal with "writeable" SimVars. however, I've never tried this.

Regards

Pete

[Bryn]

Pete, thanks for getting back to me.

My alternative is to try and learn how to do this myself. I've been looking at memory addressing and dll structures and so forth, but (as with many things), the challenge is interpreting general principles for a specific problem.

Could you describe the methodology you would use if you were tackling the 1st 'wish' - AI runway allocation. That would be a tremendous help to me (and, I suspect, other programmers like me).

Cheers,

Bryn.

[Pete Dowson]

Could you describe the methodology you would use if you were tackling the 1st 'wish' - AI runway allocation. That would be a tremendous help to me (and, I suspect, other programmers like me).

Well, in that area I wouldn't know for sure where to start. Working backwards from the FS ATC issuing instructions I should think, as that is the only outward manifestation, is it not? Try to find some place to trap the program when it has just issued the runway instruction, and gradually get backwards from there to its source. Find where is pieces together the actual written or spoken instruction, find where that's called from, etc etc.

You'd need a good debugger -- the one in the current Visual Studio C++ package is pretty good (I used to use Soft-Ice, but that's very very expensive these days and hard to learn).

Regards

Pete