Where Is My Plane

[lorenzoj]

OK ! So I thought I would get my feet wet in the FMB by saving an existing mission under a new name and making a simple modification. The mission is a simple takeoff and landing circuit. The player aircraft is parked far from the takeoff point. I want to start ready to roll with no taxi time. I open the mission and I can see the waypoints for the circuit just fine. But damn if I can find the player aircraft anywhere near where I know it to be parked. ? ? ? ? I thought it should be just a simple matter of dragging it to a new start location. But I can't see it. I have all on in the filter too ?

[bolox]

You can't 'place' planes directly where you want them, - airfields have their behaviour coded.

You say your planes are a long taxi away from runway. This leads me to believe 'spawn parked' is ticked in the properties box?
If you want to start on the runway 'ready to go' untick this check box.

If you want to use spawn parked but want to move plane(s) to a different place you must 'cheat' by placing static objects over the 'parking places'- this includes inside hangars on some airfields.

Have fun with fmb

[lorenzoj]

Thanks. That's the kind of information I was looking for. Now to see if I can find that properties box.

Is there a comprehensive manual somewhere for the Mission Builder ?

Edit: OK. I assumed correctly that I had to first select the flight path. After that it took me a minute to figure out I had to right clic for the properties instead of looking in the top menu bar. I found and unchecked the Spawn Parked box. That did exactly what I wanted except I would like the engine to be off at the start. Back in for another look. At least these are the kind of little projects that can get some of us introduced to the FMB without feeling immediately overwhelmed.

[lorenzoj]

"If you want to use spawn parked but want to move plane(s) to a different place you must 'cheat' by placing static objects over the 'parking places'- this includes inside hangars on some airfields."

If I understand that correctly, you are saying that the program will still auto-place the aircraft but just not where you have placed static models ?

[bolox]

Yes, your plane is 'auto placed' on airfields.
I've never unnderstood the logic of how it does this but if you place statics over some of the grey circles on the airfields you will spawn in one of the unoccupied ones. if you fill them you will spawn on the edge of the airfield.


There's no comprehensive manual, but this is a good start
http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3423371/IL2_Cliffs_of_Dover_Full_Missi#Post3423371

This might be a good start with AI levels
http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3720343/Re_Some_of_the_best_AI_I_ve_ex#Post3720343
This is something that trips up alot of people

[lorenzoj]

Thanks. I have seen numerous things from HeinKill and appreciate what he does for the group. I read something in this forum in which the game creators were touting that they had given the public these "great tools" to create missions with. But then they do essentially nothing about supplying some usefull technical docs on how to use the tools and commands.

I've worked with large CNC machinery and I can imagine the reaction if I had said to a potential user... "this is a great machine, capable of doing amazing things. By the way there's no manual but keep poking away at it and eventually you might figure some of it out." To me it shows a kind of disrespect for the end user.