[Release] Tyrant's Virtual Mission Tools (VMT)
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I hope so too!
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So, hearing that people are still using it makes it more likey that I will invest time to make it happen. That said I have to say there are a couple of factors against.
First, I am not flying. I miss it, but life has been such that simming isn’t an active hobby for me right now. Some day it will be again.
Second, the update for 4.34 was a real drag. The files that VMT uses are not in a documented format, so database updates translate into hours and hours a tedious inspection with a byte editor, and ultimately guesses about what the data means. I was already a bit burned out by the hundreds of hours that went into the original VMT. To have that somewhat invalidated by updates was disheartening.
Too, there’s the possibility that new features in BMS would demand new UI. A good example of this was the new weather features in 4.34. New system, new code required.
No criticism of the BMS team, BTW. I knew what I was getting into when I took a dependency on undocumented file formats and I don’t begrudge them for a second wanting to invest in new features over things like documentation or backward compatibility.
An additional factor is that my job now involves writing software on a daily basis. When I was a consultant that was less true, so VMT was a welcome creative outlet. Now that creation is part of my daily work, I’m less likely to want to sit down at the computer and write software on nights and weekends.
On top of that, I want to rewrite VMT. It’s written in Clojurescript, which compiles to JavaScript and the runs on Electron. But I think that was a mistake. I would much rather have it run on the JVM. From a language standpoint that’s easy enough, since Clojure and Clojurescript are 99% the same, but moving off of the browser and into some other UI framework would be a total rework from a state management and user interface standpoint. Obviously I don’t have to take that on, but it sort of weighs on me.
Anyway none of this is to say I won’t update VMT. I’ll take a look when it comes out. (Is it out? I’m so disconnected I don’t even know. I did watch the trailer - looks awesome.) But it could be any amount of effort from “Nothing at all” to “dozens of hours”. The farther it is to the other end of the spectrum the less likely I am to want to take it on. But the more people that say, “I still use this all the time” the more likely I am. Because, you know, I like y’all.
Anyway that’s the deal. TL;DR: Maybe, it depends.
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And duh: It’s out! Awesome. I’m on break this next week and a half, so I’ll take a look.
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And duh: It’s out! Awesome. I’m on break this next week and a half, so I’ll take a look.
Sent from my Pixel 4 XL using Tapatalk
Have a look at Red Dog’s interactive map. You may have some answers there.
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Have a look at Red Dog’s interactive map. You may have some answers there.
It’s cool, for sure, but I’m not sure what answers I’m supposed to get from it.
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It’s cool, for sure, but I’m not sure what answers I’m supposed to get from it.
You’re asking me what Delphi’s oracle will say, I don’t know mate, I’m not a priest :P.
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Fair enough [emoji16]
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Yeah Reddog’s interactive map is very cool and all but VMT was/is unique and very powerful for package planning!
Glad to see you’re still around Tyant and thank you for your explanation as to why a VMT update will be a fair while off/if at all.
I certainly hope you’ll find a chance to update the program as there will be many members of the active BMS communities who will be VERY lost without it! (It currently gives an error when trying to open a .35 file).
Cheers
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OK, I’ve got a beta that should work with 4.35 here:
http://org.craigandera.vmt.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/435-beta/
Would love it if people could give it a test drive and report any problems they find. This time, unlike with the 4.34 version, I promise I will finish the updates and post to the stable channel once we’re happy with it.
Welp, I guess now I have to get my 4.35 setup flyable so I can make sure the generated weather works.
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Will probablly give it a go for our weekflights next year!
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Thanks so much Tyrant!!
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Great work!
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OK, I’ve got a beta that should work with 4.35 here:
http://org.craigandera.vmt.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/435-beta/
Would love it if people could give it a test drive and report any problems they find. This time, unlike with the 4.34 version, I promise I will finish the updates and post to the stable channel once we’re happy with it.
Welp, I guess now I have to get my 4.35 setup flyable so I can make sure the generated weather works.
Well done. It seems to work for vanilla KTO.
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A happiest New Year, dear Tyrant.
Thanks a lot for releasing the updated VMT, I was almost missing it.
And also I can confirm that it runs fine on KTO, as Lorik stated.
I’m just hoping you can extend its capabilities to the other theaters, if time will let you doing so, of course.In this while, well done once again!
With best regards.
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A happiest New Year, dear Tyrant.
Thanks a lot for releasing the updated VMT, I was almost missing it.
And also I can confirm that it runs fine on KTO, as Lorik stated.
I’m just hoping you can extend its capabilities to the other theaters, if time will let you doing so, of course.In this while, well done once again!
With best regards.
Just to be clear, it should work fine with other theaters as long as they are the same size as KTO. ITO and Balkans, for instance, are the same size and should work as-is. Or at least, they always used to be.
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Thanks a lot for your explainations and attention, Tyrant.
But, well… I can assure you that now they don’t any longer. Just Balkans and ITO, I mean.
Here’s why my spoke.To be more precise, instead, because your hard work deserves it:
- KTO, emf and Korea training beta are running fine;
- Balkans, Balkans Lorik, Korea TvT (how strange that), Israel, KTO Joseon light, LorikKTO and Kuwait, don’t;
- the weather function runs fine (tested with KTO, emf and Korea training beta).
Hope it helps you.
With best regards.
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Huh, may have spoken too soon - Korea TvT theater doesn’t work. Looks like falcon4_ct.xml isn’t in the place it used to be. But then again, it’s not there for my 4.34 install either. So I’m guessing VMT has been broken for TvT in 4.34 since always.
It must fall back for some files to the ones from the normal KTO…
I’m downloading Balkans and ITO now to try them out. Will report back.
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Thanks a lot for your explainations and attention, Tyrant.
But, well… I can assure you that now they don’t any longer… just Balkans and ITO, I mean.
Here’s why my spoke.With best regards.
Ah sorry, posted before you wrote this.
OK, I will look into it and get it fixed. Like I said, downloading the theaters now.
I will say that I’ve had problems with third-party theaters in the past. There are workarounds for specific bugs in e.g. Balkans, where it has bad data that Falcon is tolerant of. Anyway, hopefully it’s something simple.
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Thanks a lot.
I just posted above the complete (well, so I hope at least) list of test I made.
Hope it’s useful for you.
With best regards.