Hi
My name is Gary and I have been working with the DeviceLink protocol for a few years and I believe I understand how good it is and its relative shortcomings.
First things, first; I would like to thank Oleg for adding the DeviceLink protocol. As soon as I found out about DeviceLink and SimKits I thought I would build my own Spitfire simulator and do the necessary programming to get simulated instruments working with IL2. This project has been a long and interesting pass time for me. I have created software, called the FCIProject, that fully exploits the capabilities of DeviceLink. During this project I have moved on from SimKits to use much more versatile Flight Illusion instruments;
www.flightillusion.com.
The main instruments I have worked on are the six 'Blind Flying' instruments; ASI, Attitude Indicator, VSI, Altimeter, Directional Gyro and Slip/Turn Coordinator. Programming and getting the best out of each simulated instrument has been a real challenge.
One issue I face is that I have never been in real high performance aircraft, like the Spitfire. My experience of how flight instruments work comes from IL2, FSX and a bit of GA flying. None of this prepares one for how sensitive WWII era instruments are.
If you watch this video;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11004370 you will see how sensitive the instruments, like the VSI and Slip/Turn Coordinator are. These are two instruments that have been really challenging to program. For two reasons; 1) the telemetry data for these instruments is not correct and 2) the Flight Illusion instruments cannot keep up with the rapid movement.
There are other shortcomings and missing telemetry with DeviceLink. For example, one cannot tell the state of switches because DeviceLink cannot be queried to ask if a switch is on or off. I have spoken to Oleg about these issues and he assures me that DeviceLink will be more versatile in BoB and he would consider my feature requests. Gun Camera footage is one thing I have asked for. Because I have worked with DeviceLink for so long I know it very well and have submitted a list of feature requests to Oleg.
Just to give you an idea of how the FCIProject can control Flight Illusion instruments here is a video from my Beta tester, Wiskey-Charlie;
I am positive that DeviceLink will be improved in SoW: BoB. Even if I have to add new code to work with BoB I will do this. I want to fly the best simulator in my own Spitfire SimPit.