Challenge guides

1st Official Post
    • Official Post

    The missions in that file are are considered challenges and all challenges now have the arrows to guide the user.

    You could change the altitude to be below ground and set the alt_cst property to true for each waypoint. But that might cause issues later. But for now that might work.

    To finish a challenge correctly you have to set the tags correctly, so for example full_flight, etc. and you can define a finish line in the air as well (see the code for the c172 silicon valley tour).

    • Official Post

    My recommendation would be to copy the applicable tags from similar default missions. Adding a tag can increase the complexity of the mission which puts it further down in the mission list. Missions that are easy have fewer tags and should be set to a lower difficulty level so that they appear higher in the list.

    Ah, I just found (among some other new properties) the extra cloud level. This is excellent.

    I also found the finish property:

    Code
    <[tmmission_target_plane][finish][]
    <[vector2_float64][lon_lat][-122.0 37.3617]>
    <[float64][direction][270.0]>
>

    How precise do I need to hit this spot and its direction? And is there an altitude property as well, or dos the plane reach all altitudes?


    As of yet the number of tags and/or difficulty does not seem to order the custom user missions. They are just put in random order at the bottom of the custom missions list.

    Jet-Pack (IPACS) I checked the new cloud properties in the custom missions and found a strange behavior:

    Code
                        <[float64][cloud_cover][0.25]>
                    <[float64][cloud_base][1500]>
                    <[float64][cirrus_cover][0.8]>
                    <[float64][cirrus_base][14500]>

    …sets the clouds correctly, but for the cirrus_base, which will be still 0 after loading the mission.

    ---

    Are there any plans for being able to remove the green arrows from the challenges? Like:

    • Having a property per mission which makes the arrows disappear.
    • Having a user setting like the approach guide toggle which makes the arrows disappear on all missions.
    • Have a checkbox at mission start whick makes the arrows disappear.

    Currently I found no viable way to have the arrows disappear but for removing the waypoints, which defeats the purpose of the Missionsgerät as well as my landing pattern generator.

    Or is it planned to have separate files for user-created "scheduled flights" or user-created "tutorial flights"? Or ist there any other option planned to load shared flight plans into Aerofly?

    • Official Post

    Why would you not want users to know where to fly in your challenge is the question? We might be able to offer customization options for the guides in the future like color or transparency of the gates. But this isn't planned at the moment.

    I think if you set the scheduled property to true the user defined missions should already appear in the flights per aircraft but not be visible as challenge. So far the only missions where this applicable to are the Concorde missions.

    Right now I don't think it's necessary to support custom tutorial flights but if you tell me a good reason for why this would be of interest we could perhaps add it in.

    Quote from Jet-Pack (IPACS)

    Why would you not want users to know where to fly in your challenge is the question?

    It's more the idea of having the user rely on onboard means of navigation. For me it's always a thrill to have my Cessna or Baron line up perfectly on a runway when I clear the fog and I had the correct ILS frequency dialed in. It is less of a challenge when markers show you the way.

    For the Mach Loop flights the guides are actually quite handy for first flyers, but to memorize the course obviously the guides may be too helpful. ^^

    Quote from Jet-Pack (IPACS)

    I think if you set the scheduled property to true the user defined missions should already appear in the flights per aircraft but not be visible as challenge.

    I will try that and report back what happened.

    For the additional community tutorial flights: I found a pretty good YouTube channel of a former RAF pilot who instructs on jet flying. (Actually this guy made me build the Mach Loop missions.)

    And than there was this great series of tutorial flights by the Flight Simulation Association.

    Come to think of it, having tutorials for using VORs, ILS, pattern entry and stuff like this could really be a fun thing to do. (I have to admit, I tend to avoid GPS when airborne. ^^)

    But I know that my usage of AFS4 is rather special, so nevermind my ideas and questions. ;) Maybe later I will ask for a special Cessna variant, a special livery, or a 3d model for my favourite small town airfield to blend in with the crowd. :P

    Aerofly Wettergerät - Load live METAR weather data into Aerofly FS 2 and Aerofly FS 4

    Aerofly Missionsgerät - Convert flight plan files into an Aerofly FS 4 custom missions file

    Edited once, last by Armitage: Fixed link to cgaviator (October 4, 2024 at 7:58 PM).

    Having tutorials in the simulator would be awesome! I'll be waiting for them.

    By the way, I liked the new 3D visual guides for the challenges, and the information message that displays the progress in the challenge.

    OK, here is what I found out:

    1. Missions from custom_missions_user.tmc only show up in "Challenges". They cannot be seend in "Totorials", nor in "Scheduled flights", nor in the plane filter for flights.
    2. Adding tutorial_name only adds the link to the mission description, nothing else.
    3. Adding is_scheduled does nothing at all for user custom missions (see 1).
    4. All missions will keep the green guides (as obiously they are all considered "Challenges").

    …which breaks the little hack for importing flight plans from outside sources. :(

    Jugac64 If we are really desperate, we can still hijack the offical Aerofly FS 4 Flight Simulator\missions\custom_flights.tmc. Putting a mission there will remove the guides, but will always spawn your aircraft right on the runway, ignoring the starting position given in the mission. Oh, and when there is an official update to the file, it can be overwritten. Obviously not a good idea to mess with the official files.

    For my landing practices this is still no way to go, as the aircraft is supposed to start up in the air. :(

    Maybe it is time for my idea to load the flight plan (as well as the time, date and weather) directly into the main.mcf. I already found free APIs to get access to (even historical) weather (so no more need for API keys, and even more information than currently in the Wettergerät), and have a simple formula to convert UTC time and date to local nautical time and date to be able to tell the local time before launching the flight. I only need to figure out how the flight plan in the main.mcf is supposed to be formatted, and we are off to the races. Would be even simpler than replacing the custom user mission file all of the time, and actually this could be build to read all the file formats the Missionsgerät was able to read.

    Well, if I only had the time to build that… ;)

    I keep thinking about the guides :) In VR they look awesome, visually I have the sensation that the "guides road" is about 100-200 meters wide, you feel a lot of space between them and their transparency is great.

    However, when viewed on a monitor, the perception of space changes—they appear slightly stretched. To improve this, it might be worth reducing the guide density by using fewer guides along the flight path. The width of the guide road, however, seems fine on the monitor.

    I finally evaluated some methods of hiding the virtual guides in challenges and came up with two working solutions (with one being proposed by Jet-Pack (IPACS) some time ago):

    • You can either lower the altitude of any checkpoint below terrain niveau for them to disappear,
    • or you can place a target plane right in front of the aircrafts starting position - on passing the plane the guides disappear, but the mission continues.

    The Missionsgerät now supports both ideas, while the Landegerät uses the second idea optionally - so you are still free to enter the landing pattern with the guides visible if you want to (cheating on guessing the position of the pattern correctly ;)).

    But I have a question that maybe Jet-Pack (IPACS) or other custom mission authors may know the answer to:

    • Has a way to set the livery of the aircraft used in the custom mission appeared? In my opinion this could be the same string as used in the main.mcf. (I am building a HEMS mission generator, and flying these in a police helicopter breaks the immersion somewhat.)
    • Does anyone know how to start a custom mission in cold and dark? I tried coldAndDark, colddark, coldanddark and some other ideas, but none seemed to work. (The HEMS mission generator should be capable of starting in cold an dark to make the race against the time more challenging.)

    As usual I am very grateful for help, and will repay with custom missions. ;)

    HEMS Missions Generator

    Quote from Jet-Pack (IPACS)

    To set cold and dark try "cold" as the present name.

    Jet-Pack (IPACS) "cold", "colddark" and "coldanddark" do not seem to work. Any other ideas? I also tried the San Francisco VA medical center, but there it did not work either.

    Jugac64 For the Missionsgerät? Good idea, manually placing a target plane or setting the altitude to -1 is quite tedious. I see to the checkbox on the weekend.

    I implemented it quickly, it is now a hidden option under "Navigation" > "Hide guides" if you have the expert mode enabled. It exports all checkpoints with the altitude set to -100 without altering the flight plan in the Missionsgerät in any way.