Third GSX Preview in MSFS: Airport Customization

[Erwin06]

That's great news. It has been a long wait since the release of MSFS, I'm glad it's finally in the final stage. I know this has been asked before and there was no answer but, since it's gonna be released in the coming days I'll try : How much will it cost ? Will there be any discount for old customers who bought GSX for P3D ? Thanks !

[SgtMav316]

Wow i cant wait for this to hit MSFS. One issue I wish PMDG would create a way to disable their Ground services to use this!

[virtuali]

One issue I wish PMDG would create a way to disable their Ground services to use this!

We already took care of that.

We have a new feature called "Aircraft Handler", which is a custom piece of code that can run only on specific planes.

The default aircraft handler, which is used by all airplanes that aren't specifically flagged to use a custom one, will just open/close doors automatically, for airplanes that use the standard doors system.

The PMDG handler takes advantage of the fact PMDG used a clever way to communicate events in their panel, by using a standard event not needed by airplanes, so we used that to act on the FMC (the secondary one) and do various things, like opening doors, or sending away all PMDG ground services, waiting for them to go away before calling the GSX vehicles. It's completely safe, because we just send a standard event, so in the end it's the airplane itself that will really send away its vehicles. We already support the new kind of Parking Brake which was introduced in the latest update.

Of course, this would normally result in having to wait for the PMDG vehicles to go away before you can call GSX, and it takes about 30 seconds. If you don't want to wait, you can fix it easily by creating a custom Panel State for GSX, which you can create by first sending away all the PMDG vehicles, than save the state, call it "GSX", and load that one if you plan to use GSX. I believe you can also configure the airplane to always load a specific Panel State at startup.

[Eleuth01]

One issue I wish PMDG would create a way to disable their Ground services to use this!

We already took care of that.

We have a new feature called "Aircraft Handler", which is a custom piece of code that can run only on specific planes.

The default aircraft handler, which is used by all airplanes that aren't specifically flagged to use a custom one, will just open/close doors automatically, for airplanes that use the standard doors system.

The PMDG handler takes advantage of the fact PMDG used a clever way to communicate events in their panel, by using a standard event not needed by airplanes, so we used that to act on the FMC (the secondary one) and do various things, like opening doors, or sending away all PMDG ground services, waiting for them to go away before calling the GSX vehicles. It's completely safe, because we just send a standard event, so in the end it's the airplane itself that will really send away its vehicles. We already support the new kind of Parking Brake which was introduced in the latest update.

Of course, this would normally result in having to wait for the PMDG vehicles to go away before you can call GSX, and it takes about 30 seconds. If you don't want to wait, you can fix it easily by creating a custom Panel State for GSX, which you can create by first sending away all the PMDG vehicles, than save the state, call it "GSX", and load that one if you plan to use GSX. I believe you can also configure the airplane to always load a specific Panel State at startup.

Wow, impressive. Really looking forward to this application.

[SgtMav316]

One issue I wish PMDG would create a way to disable their Ground services to use this!

We already took care of that.

We have a new feature called "Aircraft Handler", which is a custom piece of code that can run only on specific planes.

The default aircraft handler, which is used by all airplanes that aren't specifically flagged to use a custom one, will just open/close doors automatically, for airplanes that use the standard doors system.

The PMDG handler takes advantage of the fact PMDG used a clever way to communicate events in their panel, by using a standard event not needed by airplanes, so we used that to act on the FMC (the secondary one) and do various things, like opening doors, or sending away all PMDG ground services, waiting for them to go away before calling the GSX vehicles. It's completely safe, because we just send a standard event, so in the end it's the airplane itself that will really send away its vehicles. We already support the new kind of Parking Brake which was introduced in the latest update.

Of course, this would normally result in having to wait for the PMDG vehicles to go away before you can call GSX, and it takes about 30 seconds. If you don't want to wait, you can fix it easily by creating a custom Panel State for GSX, which you can create by first sending away all the PMDG vehicles, than save the state, call it "GSX", and load that one if you plan to use GSX. I believe you can also configure the airplane to always load a specific Panel State at startup.

Sweet, So this can be done right now. I currently have My Replacement Assistance vehicles which can work the same way I assume. Its Close to GSx but I still want GSX because it has more service vehicles and Passenger animations!

[fahdriyami]

Will the lack of SODE cause problems for GSX in MSFS when it comes to the jetways? Or will developers need to manually replace them with GSX jetways for it to work seamlessly?

Will GSX work with the default/World Update jetways?

I know that users can also make GSX profiles for airports, but I dont miss having to dig into the scenery folders to disable jetways etc. I was hoping it would be easier and simpler this time around.

[virtuali]

It's surely way easier to enable/disable jetways in this version, because the GSX replacement jetways are provided as a single .BGL for each airport. The replacement process happens by simply having the GSX Jetways Package on an higher priority of any other scenery ( SU10 will let you arrange areas without messing with the content.xml ), so you just stop the replacement for an ICAO by removing its file from the GSX Jetways Package.

But you don't have to move files around yourself: there's a Configuration panel in the GSX section of the FSDT Installer/Updater that has a page in which you can either:

- Click a button to have GSX detect all 3rd party sceneries. Or, at least, those that conform to the developer-airport-icao-name naming standard for their package. All airports that matches will be proposed as possible candidates to *prevent* GSX to replace their jetway, resulting in the GSX .BGL being moved to a backup folder, outside the Community.

- If a scenery couldn't be detected (likely because its name didn't conform to the above naming standard), you can still search its code from a list, and have the relevant GSX .BGL being removed.

Same is valid for Airport Services. We supply GSX with about 15000 custom Airport Service files, which allows to have default Ground Vehicles (the ones servicing AIs) customized by ICAO, instead of "Regions", but if you have 3rd party airports that came with their own custom Airport Service files, you can do the same search by ICAO to prevent GSX to replace their Airport Services.

[DarrianCZE]

Hi Umberto, with the release of GSX for MSFS, are there any plans for making pushback capable of towing the aircraft forward? Especially at the airport I operate from, there are custom push positions on the taxiways, which in more than half of the cases, require a pushback truck to tow the aircraft forward a few dozen meters.

Thank you!

[virtuali]

Hi Umberto, with the release of GSX for MSFS, are there any plans for making pushback capable of towing the aircraft forward?

We know this is a requested feature, and it will eventually come up. Users were asking about visible passengers for years, since the first GSX came out, and they eventually arrived.

Especially at the airport I operate from, there are custom push positions on the taxiways, which in more than half of the cases, require a pushback truck to tow the aircraft forward a few dozen meters.

Which place and position ? I would like to try that and see if is really not possible to do it with a custom route and well placed waypoints and curves using the Pushback customization.

[DarrianCZE]

Hi Umberto, with the release of GSX for MSFS, are there any plans for making pushback capable of towing the aircraft forward?

We know this is a requested feature, and it will eventually come up. Users were asking about visible passengers for years, since the first GSX came out, and they eventually arrived.

Especially at the airport I operate from, there are custom push positions on the taxiways, which in more than half of the cases, require a pushback truck to tow the aircraft forward a few dozen meters.

Which place and position ? I would like to try that and see if is really not possible to do it with a custom route and well placed waypoints and curves using the Pushback customization.

LKPR, push positions along taxiway J, for example. Pushback from stand 17 to push position 3, 5, or 1.

Other case is push position along taxiway H1, for example pushback from stand 30 to push position 3 or 2.

Both of them on the North Apron. Because of the position of the taxiway and mentioned push positions, I am not sure it can be achieved simply by pushing the plane backwards. At least not while having a serious cringe.

[hurfifx]

Hello are there newer catering trucks included or only improved 3d models of the old ones? For now on the previews I was only able to see one variant of the old truck.
See attachement below

[DarrianCZE]

Also, another question, based on what I have seen in the Youtube previews. Are you able to change the passenger amount which is disembarking at the same time, like in the P3D version? From what I have seen in the previews, there are always only a couple of passengers, so just checking.

[WebMaximus]

Wow, didn't realize GSX will soon be available for MSFS until I saw a YouTube clip. So much have been waiting for this one! Like with many of the other "must have" products out there, for a good and realistic airline simulation experience.

Great to see how MSFS2020 slowly is getting there. Having what MSFS offers out of the box in combination with all these great addons truly is a dream come true for many of us!

[airbadger]

Can you confirm that users aren't able to click on the world to place vehicles, pushback points, walking paths, etc. in the MSFS version? Is that something that Asobo needs to provide for?

[virtuali]

Can you confirm that users aren't able to click on the world to place vehicles, pushback points, walking paths, etc. in the MSFS version? Is that something that Asobo needs to provide for?

Yes, we just can't do it.

As a general rule, everything that might look "strange" or not exactly as you wanted to be, it's because of SDK limitations:

- The GSX menu has been replicated using a fairly complex coordination between HTML + JS + WASM, to overcome the fact the MSFS SDK has killed the Simconnect Menu, which has been there since FSX and, in addition to that, after SU5, Javascript code gets killed as soon the calling Toolbar panel gets closed AND, we want to be absolutely sure we are not causing *any* (ZERO) fps loss when the menu is not open.

- There's no mouse support whatsoever in add-ons that need to interact with the 3d external view, like in P3D. The simulator is obviously capable of doing it, since in Dev Mode you CAN click and drag stuff to create a scenery, but this function is not accessible to 3rd party add-on. We have been asked for it since more than a year, in addition to a proper camera API, which has been requested by many developers, but there's no telling if it will eventually come.

Maybe, if GSX would be popular enough, we might get enough traction to convince Asobo to see the value of exposing Mouse handling ( which P3D has ), restoring the missing Simconnect menu and add a proper camera API that can be used to create cameras on the fly ( like we have in P3D ) but, at the very least, knowing *where* the current camera is, which we used in P3D to improve positional audio accuracy ( your ears are the camera ).