Sorry, I just don't seem to get over here often enough lately.
Frank,
Good to know Team SDB is working on a new version of the Big E. I've been working on a new vLSO version too, and one of its new features will be support for Sylvain Parouty's RFN gauge, which automatically will mean support for the Big E in both Acceleration and custom FLOLS versions.
If it helps with concerns about compatibility between the Enterprise (current offering and next release) and the RFN gauge system, Sylvain Parouty is our "shipbuilder".
I'd like to ask you a couple of questions, if you don't mind.
On your facebook page I can read that your shipbuilder is re-doing the flight deck. Will these changes affect the current deck geometry or not? First of all I mean the deck elevation and the runway angle.
The original FSX version was made using the Alphasim FS9 ship hull as a starting point. So any dimensions or angles, right or wrong, were left alone. But from the hanger deck up it was nearly a complete rebuild to bring it into FSX. Definitely not a simple portover. For this next version Sylvain found a very good resource of photos and engineering drawings. Once the completely new island structure was completed the process of applying this new information to the rest of the ship began. During that he discovered that several dimensions were not correct and so those will be corrected. That is the reason for
the image on the facebook page showing the different colored areas. It remains to be seen if that includes deck elevation but I do expect it may effect deck angle (a degree or two wide in the current version caused by using Carl Edwards' original FS9 version as a starting point).
Another question regarding XML settings. The latest RFN gauge glideslope/frequency settings for the Enterprise differ from those specified in the manual. Which one is correct?
That depends on which RFN gauge you are using. When the Enterprise was released Sylvain let us include the beta of RFN Tacan gauge v3.0 in the package. Since then the gauge has progressed to v4.2 and Sylvain has added a lot of ships to the listing. Back with v3.0 the distribution of frequencies was very liberal with the Enterprise using 115.00, 115.50, 116.00, and 116.50. To keep the four together and free up frequencies within that range the Enterprise in about RFN v4.0 was re-assigned to 110.50, 110.55, 110.60, and 110.65. It is unknown what will happen when the next version is released and how many frequencies it will take up. We intend to include 1968 and 1972 WESTPAC cruises (unlike the current version each will have a unique mix of aircraft as deck eye candy, not just different textures). Whether or not there will be empty deck versions (feedback please) is unknown as this point but I'm hoping to convince the "shipbuilder" to include an F-14 mix as it appeared in the final cruises with the beehive radar array.
Hope this helps.
