[Release] Tyrant's Virtual Mission Tools (VMT)
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Right. Extra steps are required for OS X/Linux installations and I forgot to write them down somewhere visible.
For Linux, you’ll need to create a file at ~/.config/craigandera.org/VMT/settings.edn. (On OS X, this should be at ~/Library/Application Support/craigandera.org/VMT/settings.edn)
The contents should be as below. Obviously you will need to change the path to be correct for your system.
{ :installations {"Falcon BMS 4.33 U1" "/path/to/falcon/4.33.3" ;; ;; Some people have more than one install pointing to the same directory ;; "Falcon BMS 4.33" "/path/to/falcon/4.33.3" } }
The reason for this is that under Windows (which 99.9% of the users are using), we get the BMS location from the registry. We don’t have that on the other operating systems, so we simulate it with this file.
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Nice App, first off. I have a request in the annotations. i am wanting to put a box with a text label and also have it able to brought to front on the map. currently it is displayed behind all my steerlines for my flights. Is this possible?
Also i have a question on the weather tab. i was trying to figure out how the forcast is projected. i wanted to create a map update fmap file and use it but it doesn’t seem to pick up that update file for the forcast.
thanks for your help
Jambo
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i am wanting to put a box with a text label and also have it able to brought to front on the map. currently it is displayed behind all my steerlines for my flights. Is this possible?
That’s not currently possible due to technical limitations, but I’ll think about it and see if I can figure something out. Sorry.
Also i have a question on the weather tab. i was trying to figure out how the forcast is projected. i wanted to create a map update fmap file and use it but it doesn’t seem to pick up that update file for the forcast.
I’m not sure I understand, but I’ll try to answer the question I think you’re asking.
Basically, there’s a model for the weather that VMT maintains. You can do a few things with this: you can show it on the VMT map, you can generate one or more FMAPs to have that weather show up in your sim world, and you can create a forecast. They’re all generated from the same info, which is maintained by VMT. What you can’t do is go the other way: from an FMAP to any sort of info inside of VMT, including forecasts or wind stability regions, or whatever. All the weather has to start in VMT and flow out to BMS.
Hopefully that answered your question. If not, please clarify and I’ll be happy to try again.
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So, I’ve run into a bit of an Error with VMT, Specifically with the New Somalia Theater. When loading .cam files into VMT From it I get this Error
✗Preparing views
✗Error: Failed to open file
at new cljs.core.ExceptionInfo (file:///C:/Users/owner/Desktop/VMT-win32-x64-v058-stable/resources/app/mission.html.js:3144:47)
at Function.cljs.core.ex_info.cljs$core$IFn$_invoke$arity$3 (file:///C:/Users/owner/Desktop/VMT-win32-x64-v058-stable/resources/app/mission.html.js:3147:200)
at Function.cljs.core.ex_info.cljs$core$IFn$invoke$arity$2 (file:///C:/Users/owner/Desktop/VMT-win32-x64-v058-stable/resources/app/mission.html.js:3147:88 )
at cljs.core.ex_info (file:///C:/Users/owner/Desktop/VMT-win32-x64-v058-stable/resources/app/mission.html.js:3146:162)
at weathergen.filesystem.file_buf (file:///C:/Users/owner/Desktop/VMT-win32-x64-v058-stable/resources/app/mission.html.js:5874:294)
at weathergen.falcon.files.images.read_image (file:///C:/Users/owner/Desktop/VMT-win32-x64-v058-stable/resources/app/mission.html.js:6168:73)
at weathergen.ui.common.get_image (file:///C:/Users/owner/Desktop/VMT-win32-x64-v058-stable/resources/app/mission.html.js:7894:497)
at file:///C:/Users/owner/Desktop/VMT-win32-x64-v058-stable/resources/app/mission.html.js:12078:246
at a.thunk (file:///C:/Users/owner/Desktop/VMT-win32-x64-v058-stable/resources/app/mission.html.js:3186:224)
at javelin.core.propagate_STAR (file:///C:/Users/owner/Desktop/VMT-win32-x64-v058-stable/resources/app/mission.html.js:3178:699)What’s Stranger though, is some .tac files load fine with no Issues into VMT, But others give me the error above. Not sure if it’s on VMT’s Side, or the Theater’s side. In which case, I’ll go drop this into their bug thread if it is.
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Hey, thanks for the bug report. My best guess is that it’s a combination of unusual theater data and VMT not handling it well - that has happened before, especially with the less-common theaters. The only thing I can tell for sure is that it seems to be failing to open a .rsc file, and that I should fix the error message so it tells you which one…
Unfortunately my dev setup is pretty busted right now, but once I get that fixed I’ll look into this issue.
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Hello Tyrant,
currently we are working on the redesign of our website. Only a few details are missing.
One of them is the briefing. Since we often offer CTTs (Combined Tactical Training),
we would like to present the content of the training to the event. I hoped to be able to read the .vmbt file
to import into the website. Unfortunately the file seems to be binary. Would it be possible for you to implement
an xml export? Maybe there are more Squadrons who want such a feature;).Best Regards
MadDoc
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Hello Tyrant,
currently we are working on the redesign of our website. Only a few details are missing.
One of them is the briefing. Since we often offer CTTs (Combined Tactical Training),
we would like to present the content of the training to the event. I hoped to be able to read the .vmbt file
to import into the website. Unfortunately the file seems to be binary. Would it be possible for you to implement
an xml export? Maybe there are more Squadrons who want such a feature;).Best Regards
MadDoc
It’s an interesting suggestion, and one that I’m open to. I would probably use JSON, not XML, since it is, after all, 2019. Although I have a whole “JSON is just a worse XML” rant I could bore you with some time.
I’ve recorded the suggestion. I am unlikely to implement it any time soon, however, just because a) I have had hardly any time to put into VMT lately, and 2) there are a ton of other features I would also like to implement, and it’s not clear to me that this one is the most important.
All that said, the best outcome would therefore be for someone else to do this. The format is indeed binary, but the source code is open source. https://github.com/candera/vmt. It’s written in a somewhat uncommon language called ClojureScript, but I’m happy to answer questions about it. More concretely, a VMTB is just a Transit file that has been gzipped. Transit is a dialect of JSON that solves a lot of the shortcomings of JSON. So you can gunzip it and then parse it either with a JSON reader directly or a Transit library - there are implementations in many languages available at https://github.com/cognitect/transit-format.
If you do decide to do something with the files, please let me know - I’d love to hear about it. It would also help me decide not to break any existing tooling as I make future changes, although as it is not documented, I make no guarantees about the VMTB layout.
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What a quick answer and thanks for that.
Sometimes it’s good to live in different time zones.
I followed your advice and unzipped the .vmtb and loaded it into Notepad ++ (incl JSON plugin).
The result is a file with over 2.6 million lines:shock:. Reading and interpreting is a huge challenge. I think it’s better if I wait for a solution from you.
My programming skills are not good enough to develop something myself. I would have a tool that opens the .tac files and creates a list with the required data.
I think your tool would be perfect for that. I hope you will find time soon:pray2:.
So long we will probably have to enter our data by hand …Regards
MadDoc
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Tyrant:
I have an error in Lorik’s Korea 1.10 and 1.11 (signature). I have a clue of the reason, but I wouldn’t be against knowing a bit more.
✗Reading objectives
✗
RangeError: Offset is outside the bounds of the DataView
at DataView.getUint32 (<anonymous>)
at DataView.octet$buffer$IBufferInt$read_uint$arity$2 (file:///D:/GOG%20Galaxy/Games/Falcon%20BMS%204.33%20U1/VMT-win32-x64-v058-stable/resources/app/mission.html.js:5549:88)
at octet.buffer.read_uint (file:///D:/GOG%20Galaxy/Games/Falcon%20BMS%204.33%20U1/VMT-win32-x64-v058-stable/resources/app/mission.html.js:5483:109)
at undefined.octet.spec.basic.t_octet$spec$basic37773.octet.spec.basic.t_octet$spec$basic37773.octet$spec$ISpec$read$arity$3 (file:///D:/GOG%20Galaxy/Games/Falcon%20BMS%204.33%20U1/VMT-win32-x64-v058-stable/resources/app/mission.html.js:5629:352)
at octet.spec.read (file:///D:/GOG%20Galaxy/Games/Falcon%20BMS%204.33%20U1/VMT-win32-x64-v058-stable/resources/app/mission.html.js:5569:475)
at octet.spec.AssociativeSpec.octet$spec$ISpec$read$arity$3 (file:///D:/GOG%20Galaxy/Games/Falcon%20BMS%204.33%20U1/VMT-win32-x64-v058-stable/resources/app/mission.html.js:5577:305)
at octet.spec.read (file:///D:/GOG%20Galaxy/Games/Falcon%20BMS%204.33%20U1/VMT-win32-x64-v058-stable/resources/app/mission.html.js:5569:475)
at octet.spec.AssociativeSpec.octet$spec$ISpec$read$arity$3 (file:///D:/GOG%20Galaxy/Games/Falcon%20BMS%204.33%20U1/VMT-win32-x64-v058-stable/resources/app/mission.html.js:5577:305)
at octet.spec.read (file:///D:/GOG%20Galaxy/Games/Falcon%20BMS%204.33%20U1/VMT-win32-x64-v058-stable/resources/app/mission.html.js:5569:475)
at undefined.octet.spec.t_octet$spec37659.octet.spec.t_octet$spec37659.octet$spec$ISpec$read$arity$3 (file:///D:/GOG%20Galaxy/Games/Falcon%20BMS%204.33%20U1/VMT-win32-x64-v058-stable/resources/app/mission.html.js:5597:354)</anonymous>I added objectives to the saveX.cam files, this is certainly the starting point. Are there too many objectives? Is an objective or several obj parameters being a problem? I’m trying to find if something in particular could be fixed, or if just adding the objectives was the problem. And if so, if something can be done to avoid this, or either it’s just a matter of “space”.
Thank you!
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What a quick answer and thanks for that.
Sometimes it’s good to live in different time zones.
I followed your advice and unzipped the .vmtb and loaded it into Notepad ++ (incl JSON plugin).
The result is a file with over 2.6 million lines:shock:. Reading and interpreting is a huge challenge. I think it’s better if I wait for a solution from you.
My programming skills are not good enough to develop something myself. I would have a tool that opens the .tac files and creates a list with the required data.
I think your tool would be perfect for that. I hope you will find time soon:pray2:.
So long we will probably have to enter our data by hand …Regards
MadDoc
I just had another thought: VMT can now export CSV. You do it via the export button on the Tools tab.
That might have the info you need. It doesn’t include absolutely everything, but augmenting it to include the data you’re looking would probably be easier than a JSON export and all the filtering of data you’re implying would need to be done.
What data exactly are you trying to get at?
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Tyrant:
I have an error in Lorik’s Korea 1.10 and 1.11 (signature). I have a clue of the reason, but I wouldn’t be against knowing a bit more.
I added objectives to the saveX.cam files, this is certainly the starting point. Are there too many objectives? Is an objective or several obj parameters being a problem? I’m trying to find if something in particular could be fixed, or if just adding the objective was the problem. And if so, if something can be done to avoid this, or either it’s just a matter of “space”.
Thank you!
How did you add them? The data file formats are quite complex, and because I don’t have access to the BMS source code, I had to guess a lot about the layout. So it could either be a bad assumption in VMT or a corruption in the data files that VMT isn’t handling gracefully. I’ve seen both.
I’m not sure if there’s a limit on objectives, but I wouldn’t think sheer quantity is the issue. More likely it’s that some relationship was not recorded correctly.
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How did you add them? The data file formats are quite complex, and because I don’t have access to the BMS source code, I had to guess a lot about the layout. So it could either be a bad assumption in VMT or a corruption in the data files that VMT isn’t handling gracefully. I’ve seen both.
I’m not sure if there’s a limit on objectives, but I wouldn’t think sheer quantity is the issue. More likely it’s that some relationship was not recorded correctly.
Added them with Mission Commander. They display and interact correctly when affected in 3D. Thanks for your interest whatever the outcome
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Added them with Mission Commander. They display and interact correctly when affected in 3D. Thanks for your interest whatever the outcome
Hmm. OK, I’ll have to look into it. It’s likely something that BMS handles gracefully but that VMT doesn’t - there are plenty of examples of that sort of thing. The backlog is pretty big, but I generally give high priority to bugs. Any chance you can provide me a copy of the problematic files?
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I just had another thought: VMT can now export CSV. You do it via the export button on the Tools tab.
https://i.imgur.com/ZjdIa71.png
That might have the info you need. It doesn’t include absolutely everything, but augmenting it to include the data you’re looking would probably be easier than a JSON export and all the filtering of data you’re implying would need to be done.
What data exactly are you trying to get at?
Which version is this? I currently have version v058 installed. This is the one that is currently available for download. I have no “TOOLS”
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Which version is this? I currently have version v058 installed. This is the one that is currently available for download. I have no “TOOLS”
Oh haha - I thought that was in the public release. Whoops!
There is a not-very-secret “dev” channel on which I release more frequent (and generally more buggy) versions. It can be found here http://org.craigandera.vmt.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/dev/. Dev and stable releases can coexist without any trouble. The 058-2 dev release has the Tools option. It also has some known bugs so I wouldn’t suggest switching to it for general use.
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Hmm. OK, I’ll have to look into it. It’s likely something that BMS handles gracefully but that VMT doesn’t - there are plenty of examples of that sort of thing. The backlog is pretty big, but I generally give high priority to bugs. Any chance you can provide me a copy of the problematic files?
I can, but without the rest of the theater, I’m not expecting it to run properly anyway. Do you think you can download the theater itself? It’s either one of the saveX.cam file anyway. I’ll try to send you one in your box.
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A lot of data that needs to be interpreted first. It’s not that easy, I think.
What data exactly are you trying to get at?
To get an idea of what I need, check our website. Navigate to “Kalender” and select an event there (click on the event name).
There you will find the unfinished version of the briefing. Please look at Datacard 1 and datacard 2. I think, then you see what I need. -
I can, but without the rest of the theater, I’m not expecting it to run properly anyway. Do you think you can download the theater itself? It’s either one of the saveX.cam file anyway. I’ll try to send you one in your box.
Received, thanks. And yeah, no need to provide the whole theater - this should be enough. I’ll take a look when I get a chance.
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A lot of data that needs to be interpreted first. It’s not that easy, I think.
To get an idea of what I need, check our website. Navigate to “Kalender” and select an event there (click on the event name).
There you will find the unfinished version of the briefing. Please look at Datacard 1 and datacard 2. I think, then you see what I need.Ah, I see. Yeah, the CSV data may or may not be helpful. Again, the data format is pretty complex to understand, especially without documentation. Even after working on it for a few years I still have to go look at code to remember how to do things like find a list of flights.
Anyway, have a look at the CSV. The output is pretty weird, since CSV is one of the few data formats that’s worse than JSON. Hope it helps. If not I don’t think there’s probably a ton I can do for you in the short term. Reading the VTMB and interpreting the Transit is going to be the best option I can think of, and as you correctly observed, programming and (harder) much interpretation are required. If you decide to go that route or find someone else who will I’m happy to answer questions if that would be helpful.
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Just to get in front of the question, let me say that I will be upgrading VMT to support 4.34 as soon as possible after it ships. I don’t have access to pre-release installations, so on the day 4.34 drops, VMT won’t support it. Sorry!
I will be dedicating my free time to getting 4.34 support going as soon as I can get a working copy installed, but as the file formats are radically different, and VMT relies heavily on reading files from your Falcon install, it may take a while. I’m especially interested to get a look at the new weather features, since that’s been a central feature of VMT since it was called WeatherGen.
If this bums you out, it’s because you’re not thinking about all the cool new features you will have to play with while you wait.