Article on SimVar use

Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2009 4:49 pm Article on SimVar use

Hi,

I'm looking for feedback on this article I've just posted:

http://www.jimkeir.co.uk/FSXME/Examples/SimVar%20Expo.html

It's supposed to be fairly advanced, but I'd welcome any comments from beginners too, on what bits seem the hardest. Hopefully it'll help people get started with the extension.

Cheers,
Jim

Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 10:12 pm (No subject)

I haven't tried to use SimVar events yet, but found the article very interesting and not difficult to understand. I see possibilities there for things I wanted to accomplish when creating previous missions.

Posted: Tue Apr 27, 2010 12:08 am (No subject)

Jim,
I'm a newbie to FSX ME, but have written 4 missions using the SDK. As you predicted, I now want to do some things that I can't using SDK, thus the interest in your ME. I downloaded the simvar examples...Is the mission itself a teaching aid? i.e. Should I fly the missions and expect to learn something or should I study the structure in ME? Maybe both, but I really need some help with the commands. I am struggling specifically with the fxtrack trying to attach and effect to an AI (f18)...totally lost re the PayloadString syntax, conventions, etc. Thanks for any advise or reference.
Jake

Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2010 2:24 pm (No subject)

Hi,

The examples are indeed tutorial missions. The idea is that you fly the missions and then use the editor to see how they were put together. There's no story in the missions, they're purely for demo purposes. Most of the common things things are mentioned in there somewhere.

The 'payloadstring' values are handled to some extent by FSXME but you don't need to buy the editor to use simvar. They're all covered in the manual starting on p.79, including examples of most of the new commands.

The FXTrack is

Posted: Sun May 02, 2010 4:49 am (No subject)

Jim, I am getting erratic results with FXTRACK after adding a ground vehicle. The effects are no longer attached to the AI planes??? Any ideas? Also I had two versions of the ME and SimVar, so I deleted the earlier one... now the SimVar Missions will not run due to an error re Simvar not installed or too old (I have V1.0.1786)...Is there a later one?

While it(SimVar Missions) was working, I noticed when you use the WHEN command your GUID is a count action??? Why not go directly to the WPT command? Does the When command support only Count actions? I could not get it to work for an AttachEffect Action.

Finally, your IF command that checks for the old version says ">= V1.0.1748.0"...should this be <= ? I changed it but got the same error.

Any suggestions are appreciated.
Jake

Posted: Sun May 02, 2010 10:15 am (No subject)

Hi Jake,

I'm not sure which mission you're using for reference but I'll try and answer the questions in general.

FXTrack shouldn't care about ground vehicles. However, if simvar isn't running then of course nothing is going to work.

If you've removed an old version you need to check that the new version is started by FSX (in the exe.xml file). It sounds as though they were installed to different locations, and deleting the old one would mean that nothing is being started.

I often used a COUNT action attached to a WHEN/IF command because unlike the built-in commands, the simvar ones only support a single attached action. By using a COUNT action with a trigger level of 1, you can attach many actions to a single WHEN/IF. There's no restriction on the type of action you call, that's all done inside FSX.

Again I don't know what the exact coding was, but I suspect that the ">=" on the version check may have been to enable something that was vital to the rest of the mission.

Cheers,
Jim

Gender: Joined: 04 May 2010 Posts: 7

Posted: Fri May 07, 2010 11:35 am (No subject)

Hi,

Yes, you can use one of the commands to get another aircraft to follow the player aircraft. There's a demo package listed at the end of the document which shows this working - it can be a bit tricky to get it to work the first time.

I don't know if it works with AI following recorded paths, but I don't see why not.