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FSXA Mission compass and aircraft failure problems

Messages
6
Country
australia
Hello all,

Sorry if somebody else has posted about these problems before, but I have two problems with a mission I'm creating.

Problem One
I wish to have a Point of Interest at the arrival airport (EGLL), however, I have added one using the OPT, but no mission compass displays (despite having selected the compass and pointer to display in the Settings>General menu). The compass and pointer display perfectly well in the missions that come with FSX: Acceleration by default.

Problem Two
I wish to have an engine fire and NAV1/NAV2 radio failure as the aircraft passes a specific point (a VOR in the flight plan).

I have the following linked: RectangleArea > ProximityTrigger > ObjectActivationAction > FailureAction. However, the engine fire doesn't activate as the aircraft passes through the RectangleArea.

I have attached my XML to this post so you can see what I've done (or rather, what I haven't done). The mission is incomplete in other areas, so other parts of the mission may not link together. It's just the problems above that I need help with at the moment.

I have received help from a friend (‘ollyau’ on this forum), but we haven’t found a solution so far.

Thanks in advance,

Adam Johnson.
 

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  • TheLuckoftheIrish.xml
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ollyau

Resource contributor
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Try RectangleArea > ProximityTrigger > FailureAction like I suggested as you wrote the post :p.

And are you sure you're going through the RectangleArea :p?
 
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Horst18519

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If the pointer doesn't show the mission most probably didn't load correct because of an error. So strip it down to a minimum and test it. If it runs ok add only few items at a time and test the mission. ;)

ad 2: this is indeed wrong. Simply trigger the failure action, not an objectactivationaction.
 
Messages
6
Country
australia
Thanks for the advice fellas. I took a few days off development to clear my head, and started back today.

@Orion - That's how I have it set-up, but it still won't work.

@Thorston - I stripped it all down to the core essentials, and things started to work better, as I had a better idea of what was going on where. The problem with the compass was I didn't attach it to a RectangleArea. Now that I have, it works fine.

But I'm still having trouble activating the engine failure trigger. I created a RectangleArea, attached a Proximity Trigger to it, and the (engine) FailureAction as a entry action. When testing it, I set the sim speed to x16 (to save time), then set it back to normal about 2-5nm from the start of the RectangleArea, and it won't trigger.
 

Horst18519

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Whenever you use such an action also use a text message so you know if and when the trigger fires.
Keep in mind that you might have to specify the engine and the percentage of health (normally 0).
 
Messages
6
Country
australia
That's a good idea - I'll add a DialogAction to see if it works. But I think I know why the failure isn't triggering. As you can also see in the attached screenshot, the RectangleArea, and its accompanying components, have somehow moved to the coast of Western Africa (even though I locked them into position). This has happened the past few times, and probably explains why the failure won't trigger. I want the failure to trigger as the user's aircraft passes the CPT VOR near Heathrow (EGLL).

I also have another strange problem. As you can also see in the screenshot, when I click on an item in All Items, the descriptions don't match the name. In the attached screenshot, DialogAction3 shows the Failure Action 1 description, and vice versa. ScenarioMetadata1 also shows the DialogAction3 description.
 

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    Problems.jpg
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Horst18519

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Normally this sorts out as soon as you move the cursor up and down. If they're permanently false you got a problem.
I also never experienced an area being shifted like that, but with OPT you never know...
 

ollyau

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I don't even see any RectangleAreas in the screenshot you posted :p. I don't see why they'd end up at 0,0 lat/lon, though.
 

Horst18519

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Good point. :D Don't you press "goto location" if you highlighted action objects, that might not be a good idea! ;)
 
Messages
6
Country
australia
You guys were right; I think the 'Go To' function was the cause. Everything in the mission itself is working fine now; all triggers are firing, and the compass and pointer are displaying. However, I can't get the JPEG mission incomplete image to display in the FSX missions list. I added the filename in the ScenearioMetadata, but it's not showing.
 
Messages
6
Country
australia
Yes, you're quite right. I made a typo in my last post. I actually meant BMP but wrote JPEG instead by mistake. The image is in BMP format, but it's 32-bit, and I'm not sure how to convert it to 8-bit.
 

ollyau

Resource contributor
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us-california
The SDK says that the mission preview images should be a 24 bit bitmap in the 5-6-5 format, but when I tried that for the mission preview completed image, the checkbox I had would get messed up, so I wound up using an 8 bit bitmap for the completed preview image and 24 bit 5-6-5 bitmap for the incomplete preview image :p.

You can convert the image to a 24 bit 5-6-5 bitmap or a 8 bit bitmap using the Imagetool included with the FSX SDK.

By default, the Imagetool will be installed here: \Microsoft Flight Simulator X SDK\SDK\Environment Kit\Terrain SDK\ImageTool.exe.

P.S. Was this the problem you wanted to ask Steve and I about over Live Messenger :p?
 
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Messages
6
Country
australia
I used the Image Tool to convert the BMP from 32-bit to 24-bit, but there's no 24-bit 565 option.

The format options are: 1-bit, 8-bit, 16-bit (555), 16-bit (565), 16-bit (444), 24-bit, 32-bit, DXT 1, DXT 3, DXT 5, and PTC.

And yes, that's what I wanted to ask you and Steve about. :p
 

ollyau

Resource contributor
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1,026
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us-california
I used the Image Tool to convert the BMP from 32-bit to 24-bit, but there's no 24-bit 565 option.

The format options are: 1-bit, 8-bit, 16-bit (555), 16-bit (565), 16-bit (444), 24-bit, 32-bit, DXT 1, DXT 3, DXT 5, and PTC.

And yes, that's what I wanted to ask you and Steve about. :p

Must be 16 bit 5-6-5 :p.

I just re-read the SDK and it says "The images should be 380 pixels wide by 232 pixels in height and either 256 color or 5-6-5 format (use the Imagetool utility to convert 24 bit bmp files to 5-6-5 format.).".
 
Messages
87
Country
spain
You can use any image editor, such as photoshop, corel photo paint, etc. Yo just need to take the image and resample it to the appropiate format.

The best way I've found to get good images for FSX is converting them to 8 bit-optimized.
 
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