MSFS 2024 - LIVERY NAME offset

[hammertime]

With the addition of LIVERY NAME / LIVERY FOLDER in SDK 1.1.1, do we need to request a dedicated FSUIPC offset from yourselves to get this info via FSUIPC as an alternative to interfacing with SimConnect?

Had a quick read of the Offsets PDF from 7.5.1 and didn't see anything of relevance on the topic

Thanks in advance

[John Dowson]

42 minutes ago, hammertime said:

With the addition of LIVERY NAME / LIVERY FOLDER in SDK 1.1.1, do we need to request a dedicated FSUIPC offset from yourselves to get this info via FSUIPC as an alternative to interfacing with SimConnect?

First, only a subset of simvars are added to FSUIPC offsets. And I do not add any new simvars to offsets unless by request and I think it a useful addition for everyone.
Several years ago I added a new facility in FSUIPC to allow the user to add any simvar to a  spare/free FSSSUIPC offset via a file called myOffsets.txt. Please see the Advanced User guide for details on using this feature.

Note also that as FSUIPC7 is compatible with both MSDS202 and MSFS2024, it is build using the latest SDK for MSFS2020 and not the MSFS2024 SDK. However, it should still be possible to request simvars from the MSFS2024 SDK, but make sure this is only done when using MSFS2024 and not MSFS2022.

John

[hammertime]

Hi John,

Thanks for the reply. The reason why Livery Name got added to the MSFS 2024 SDK was because Asobo changed the way that native liveries are packaged.

The "title" simvar now only returns the name of the "parent" aircraft type irrespective of livery, with no insight into the specific livery being used.

I'll surely check out the advanced user guide in terms of adding custom offsets, however I raised it here as I believe the addition of a new offset native to FSUIPC will be of interest to other users/developers that need this info out of the sim

[John Dowson]

7 minutes ago, hammertime said:

The "title" simvar now only returns the name of the "parent" aircraft type irrespective of livery, with no insight into the specific livery being used.

That is interesting - I hadn't noticed that. That will at least make the profile matching easier/more reliable for most people!

8 minutes ago, hammertime said:

I raised it here as I believe the addition of a new offset native to FSUIPC will be of interest to other users/developers that need this info out of the sim

It is not possible to add MSFS2024-only simvars to FSUIPC offsets at the moment, as this would create issues when using MSFS2020. I could look into only requesting certain simvars in specific MSFS versions at some point if needed, but I don't think this one is useful enough for enough people to add this to a fixed offset at the moment.

[hammertime]

1 hour ago, John Dowson said:

That is interesting - I hadn't noticed that

It's not obviously clear from the SDK what the new (2024-native) livery structure should look like... But essentially liveries are now a child of the parent aircraft in 2024 VFS

Child liveries don't have their own aircraft.cfg (and therefore no TITLE= line). Instead, they now have a livery.cfg that defines the parent aircraft (and engine-type relationship), with a [General] section where you can give a livery a name

[Version]
major = 1
minor = 0

[General]
name="<Livery Name here>"

So in 2024 native aircraft/liveries, TITLE returns the name of the parent aircraft only, and the new LIVERY NAME simvar exposes the name in [General] from the livery.cfg

FS2020 aircraft and liveries that are "compatible" with 2024 (but are literal copy/pastes into the MS2024 community folder), still exhibit 2020 behaviour when it comes to TITLE, so aren't "problematic". But as developers slowly adopt the new 2024 livery packaging format, this will become more and more problematic to those of us who need livery info exposed.

Thanks for the clarification around which SDK you're compiling against, and appreciate that FSUIPC serves both sims simultaneously at present.

I'd have thought though, that any application that has historically relied upon livery detection would be interested in this feature potentially. As a VA we certainly have a requirement from an ACARS perspective, but appreciate this is probably the first your hearing of it.

If this thread starts the ball rolling for others to chip in, awesome. If not, we'll have to potentially consider an in-house solution as you previously advised.

TITLE has been around for donkey's years, has always served its purpose, and its frustrating that Asobo have decided to suddenly change this in 2024. Going forward, I for one certainly consider the new simvar as "core" as TITLE has always been.

Thank you for engaging with this thread, and I'd ask (if possible) to keep this in the back of your minds when it comes to your wider development roadmap. 

[John Dowson]

I have added the LIVERY NAME simvar to offset 0x2480 (128 bytes) in the attached version if you would like to try it. This offset will only b populated in MSFS2024 and not in MSFS2020.

John

FSUIPC7.exe