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New commands for Tower3D! Pro?


aoz

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I've only recently gotten this game. Is it still under development? There are a few things the developer could do to make the player's life better via some new commands and/or some extra functionality.

I find the taxiing commands very good, giving complex routing works etc but the holding short and automatic holding short functionality really is difficult to deal with. The reasoning is that you can't deal with a landed plane in one command, you have to "touch it" more than once. This is because we're lacking a "cross" taxi instruction. If we were to be able to tell planes what to cross en-route in taxi instructions it would help a lot.

"Leslie 123 taxi to apron via juliet cross 25L echo lima" or "TAB123 TAXI TO APRON VIA J CROSS 25L E L" in the game's terminology.

The automatic hold short is actually really nice because otherwise I would have made a number of runway incursions. But planes don't call up or otherwise give any indication that they're holding short. This is problematic because if they're going to hold short a lot of the times your attention is so divided on 30 other planes that you forget that little guy hanging out at C. He'll just wait there forever, with no calls to you. It would be nice if when they stopped the plane to hold short they gave you a call "Philadelphia tower, TAB123 holding short of runway 25L". And then hopefully you could just tell them "TAB123 CROSS RUNWAY 25L". Although "CONTINUE TAXI" works too, it's just not what real life requires since you require a clearance to cross a runway.

When a plane is waiting for something in real life and tower's forgotten about them, they'll usually call up a second time. It would be nice if planes waiting for taxi or holding short would contact ATC after a minute or two of waiting.

Other than new commands I really wish I could see the status of planes, maybe this is not true to the simulation but when planes are bugging out etc it would be incredibly handy to see what they're attempting to do: "CLEARANCE: LANDING 25L TAXI: VACATE RUNWAY LEFT ONTO TAXIWAY E taxi: TAXI TO APRON VIA E L". Or even maybe just a command "TAB123 say intentions" and they'd rattle back their current instruction they're following.

I think it would really make the game a lot more enjoyable if we had the cross command and have planes periodically calling up and saying things if they wait too long. The status thing I could take it or leave it. That's my feedback 😄

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aoZ,

A work around for the crossing item is to issue a hold for somewhere beyond the runaway.

Eg if a plane lands on 25L at LAX tell it to hold short of 24L after you give taxi instructions. This seems to overwrite any other hold. It will then gladly trundle across 25R without stopping. Maybe not the "done thing" but it works.

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@Salad Thanks for the advice. I did search around and found this workaround but it seemed a bit insufficient since if they're not waiting at a runway, they'll just be waiting at a taxiway and you have another version of the same problem. Does help them cross runways a bit faster I suppose, I was going to try it out with KATL tomorrow which I just picked up with the lunar sale! Thanks again.

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aoz,

Try giving them the HOLD AT command for somewhere not even on their path. The example I gave with KLAX no planes will cross 24L when they land on 25L to get to their terminal. That way they just trundle all the way without stopping.

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