All SimObjects are drivable, to the extent their simulations support user input. P3D looks for the existence of a panel.cfg file to know whether it is "controllable" or not. Additionally, the object category found in the aircraft.cfg/sim.cfg should be listed in the Prepar3d.cfg line for "User Objects" for those objects to appear in the "Select Aircraft" UI.

That being said, the fidelity of the non-aircraft objects is of course lower than that of the aircraft. These were generally implemented for purposes of the AI Living World rather than user interaction. The ExternalSim implementation is currently the method developers have for creating more realistic implementations.

A couple additional points that may be of interest:
- aircraft.cfg and sim.cfg are the same thing. Aircraft.cfg can be renamed sim.cfg and vice versa.
- .air files are used ONLY on airplanes and helicopters. They have no effect on any other object classes.

Hope this helps,
Mike

That's an interesting question. Are you really asking for a higher fidelity simulation with tunable data? Or are you wanting the data in a binary or some other sort of obfuscated data format?

Quote from FSMP on April 18, 2012, 06:27

Quote from MikeSchroeter on April 16, 2012, 18:50
A couple additional points that may be of interest:
- aircraft.cfg and sim.cfg are the same thing. Aircraft.cfg can be renamed sim.cfg and vice versa.
- .air files are used ONLY on airplanes and helicopters. They have no effect on any other object classes.

Hope this helps,
Mike

Any plans for an equivalent of the .air file, for Submercibles ??

Mike

Maybe I can put this question another way.

Most submercible vehicles could be considered to to similar to vehicles that Fly. Submercibles fly in water, aircraft fly in air. P3D supports flying in air, but without similar modeling for flying in water, how can the underwater world be utilized, without submercibles having suitable Flight Models etc.

So, basically, I am asking, what direction, if any, is P3D going to provide support feature to the underwater environment, equivalent to those already supplied to aerial objects ?

ie Flight Models, animation, underwater-land classes, mission support (including underwater trigger points) etc etc

Then, a logical extension would be, the ability of an oblect to be both a flying object, and land surafce object, a water surface object, and a submercible object.
Geoff

Quote from MikeSchroeter on April 20, 2012, 15:50
Agreed, Geoff. One of the key premises for adding the submersible is to demonstrate how P3D is expanding the simulation world for developers to build on. The native submersible implementation has a long way to go to catch up with the decades of development that the aircraft has. The ExternalSim interface is currently being used by developers for taking advantage of this and doing the kind of things you suggest.

Mike

Mike,

So each developer will need to develop their own ExternalSim interface, and external submercible sim, and independantly catch up with the decades of development that the aircraft has, and do this externally from outside of the sim.
They will also have to develop their own Mission systems to support underwater objects.
They will also have to somehow impliment their own underwater land class system, if they want that world that is more than a underwater desert.

Is this an interim solution, while Lockhhed build these features into the core engine, or will it always be left to each developers to develop their own submercible simulation. ?

I can appreciate that some developers, with big enought budgets, could possible do this, but without some standardization, each developer will end up with their own private customized solution, and the chances of anyone else building upon their customized private work, and producing addons to these many different solutions, would probably be slight.

While the simulation within the underwater world hold many exciting Commercial and Educational possibilites, it is difficult to imagine that it will "take off", unless there is more of the basic environment and functionality, already provided within the core of P3D.

Without some basic roadmap of where P3D is heading in this direction, I am glad that I am not at the helm of any submercible projects

Geoff

I agree! More realistic driving physics would open up a lot of training possibilities! I would be very excited to hear more progress in this area.

Robert