FSP and the ATR

[Bud]

This may be a bit long - forgive me. I've really looked forward to this release and greatly admire the work put into it. I bought it at once,
however, I do seem to be having problems. I have two main areas of concern. Firstly FSP itself - I understood that it would work with any
add-on plane and other add-on progs. This has been emphasised many times. I wonder if it has been tested with a prog called
Key2mouse. I don't use keyboard or mouse but have built a number of panels - whose switches, knobs and buttons simulate
keypresses and communicate with FS via Key2mouse. As an eg, I press a switch on my panel which sends 'shift j' to my plane;
Key2mouse locates the keypress to the correct pixel and the plane's battery switch is turned on. When I try with FSP, it works but is
accompanied by a voice .wav file - short, just one word. This happens with a number of different keypresses. There is no hot key conflict
so I'm not sure why this happens.

Secondly, I was surprised when I tried to load my favourite plane - Flt 1 ATR, to find that there was a problem - it was necessary to alter
the plane's .cfg file in order for it to work. Fair enough, tho' it would have been nice to have been aware of this possible problem before I
bought FSP. I just wonder if the changes made could have an effect on the plane itself. On the one flight I tested, I did notice a number of
differences, the biggest being on final approach, where the ATR had a very nose down aspect. This has not been present on previous
flights in the plane.

When I started the one engine in 'hotel' mode, I seemed to get the full sounds of two engines starting up - a considerable roar!! There
were a number of other issues, but these could have been probs of my own creation - more testing needed.

Finally, when I came to load passengers etc, the button allowing timed entry was grayed out - maybe 'cos the ATR has a rear entry?
However, when I tried using the load immediately button, nothing happened - no passengers boarded. Eventually I got frustrated and
left 'em on the ramp.

Can anyone make any sense of this and maybe offer a ray of hope. If I can't get this sorted out, FSP is going to be unusable for me.

Bud

[John_Krist]

Regarding boarding of passengers, you have to move the passenger slider to the right to decide how many passengers you want
onboard, same with cargo. When you do this the Timed boarding button is clickable, and the pssengers will board.
Hope this helps

[laudey1]

Perhaps that we could find normal that the first release does not match all the possible addons and specially the most sophisticated
ones.
Some problems with LEVEL-D B767, ATR 72, PMDG 737 and ERJ not tested yet.
We have to wait for the first patch. Do you know yet a program which would work 100% at the first release? For a first step, the product is
really good.
If i make the count of the releases of Microsoft......be patient...
Philippe

[Bud]

John - Many thanks for your help - I eventually worked this out.

Philippe - Thank you for your response too. May I say with the greatest of respect that I do not need to be told to be patient. As I said, I
have much admiration for the work which has been done on this program - that is the reason I bought at once without trying out the
demo. I am simply making the point that as it stands at the moment, the prog is not usable for me and, therefore, from my perspective, it
is not 'really good'.

I do not enjoy raising issues in public, but this appears to be the only medium available to report problems. What I would now like to
know is are the problems capable of solution - if so, I am happy to wait.

Bud

[DanSteph]

hello,

1-what does FsP say ? (short wav) something like "altitude" or such ? it seem you press a key that FsP
recognise as being one of its command (SH-J is one of them if I recall well ??)

2-it doesn't "alter" really your cfg, obviously your aircraft is missing some payload point
FsP add only empty payload point in the aircraft.cfg so this doesn't harm at all your aircraft
in fact without FsP it simply do nothing.

About being aware of "change" you have a full working version to test for free so I really can't do better...

3-obviously you forgot to move the passengers slider.

Sorry I wonder why it's "unusuable" appart that you miss how to load passengers ?

Dan

[Bud]

Hello Dan

Let me repeat again, I admire this work greatly - to demonstrate my confidence I bought the prog immediately without trying it as a demo.
Please accept that I am in no way being critical, I am quite simply putting forward a number of problems as they affect me and the aircraft
I most like to fly. It is not, for me, usable mainly because of no. 1. Clearly there is some conflict somewhere - FSP recognises some
of 'my' commands as its own. However, having scoured the manual I can find no apparent conflicts - had I done so I could have made
changes. Possibly I've missed something - for eg I cannot see SH-J as an FSP command in the list of Hotkeys.

It is quite possible that some of ther other issues with the ATR are caused by these conflicts - it is hard to say. I shall do some more
testing tomorrow but a full list of keys used by FSP would be most helpful.

Bud

[DanSteph]

Hello Bud,

sorry if my tone appear as rought with is not my intention, it's
only that I don't have much time so I cut in the reply and go straight on target...
(also I'm not an english specialist )

Perhaps you may have a look at the "Keyboard setup" dialog of FsP, all the
key are listed here and you can also change them.

please try that and let me know if it doesn't work.

Dan

[Bud]

Hello Dan

Absolutely no need to apologise - I know exactly how you feel. I've been up all night dealing with 'unfair' criticism of just about the best set
of AI routines ever written - Ha Ha Ha - well I think so <G>

Just now I played around a little with the Keyboard setup and have been able to identify some, if not all of the conflicts. The problem
remaining there is that the 'unset' key does not seem to work in all cases.

I'm rather hoping now that the odd flight characteristics of the ATR on the test flight were down to the fact that I chose to leave the pax on
the tarmac!

I'm drop dead tired now so it's off to bed for a couple of hours or so, then I'll do some more testing.

Bud

[DanSteph]

Hello Budd,

Yes this bug of "unset" is already in my database I'll work to clear that
for the next update.

While waiting you can perhaps put the annoying function on strange key that
noone use, this way you'll get your key back.

Hope it help ?

Cheers

Dan

[Bud]

Hello Dan

I woke up - at last. I've now tracked down all the conflicts and handed odd combos to the default keypresses. The only probs remaining
are the ones I see others are having, ie full throttle penalties and such. I can live with those by simply editing the Pens. file. I did add one
or two voice commands to some functions - works v v well.

Latest test flight was superb - all I can say Dan is you have great skill. Congratulations.

Bud

[jboweruk]

Okay, it seems some ppl have probs with the ATR, have to admit I didnt' have any. Engine sound is easy, I turned that off in FSP (Sorry
Dan but my turboprops sounded like jets with it on). The nose down attitude, is this the only addon you tried since last time you flew the
ATR or do you have ActiveSky V installed. I know there have been issues with that and the Vertical Air Simulation which caused the same
issue, if you are then disable random VAS in the ASV screen.

Other than that I'm afraid I can't be a lot of help without having seen the probs. I think it's always going to be a case of what works for one
won't for someone else.

[Bud]

Hello John

Thanks - have to admit I too turned off the engine sound. In general, I think this type of complex turboprop is always going to be a bit of a
pain to take into account. There are so many things about it which are non-standard. The odd thing about this is that as things stand
now, the landing profile of the ATR is much more like the r/w plane, ie very nose-down on final. Previously, at least when using the a/p
final app had been very much level flight.

I have the feeling that the difference in aspect may be weight-related but who knows - one good thing is that it is now easier to get a good
landing - even for me.

Bud

[fruitfly]

jboweruk wrote:
I know there have been issues with that and the Vertical Air Simulation which caused the same
issue, if you are then disable random VAS in the ASV screen.

There'a patch that deals with it by automatically disabling random VAS below 3000ft. :

http://sales.hifisim.com/pub-download/ASV-SU2.ZIP