I have created a little tool for myself to display the briefings on my smartphone and wanted to share it if someone else finds it useful too. It’s written in Python and free software licensed under the GPL.

Source and Download: https://github.com/dglava/falcon-briefing

Before I had made this, I resorted to taking pictures of the briefing screen or running a HTTP server and navigating to the files inside my smartphone’s browser. I wanted to automate as much as possible and this is as far as I have gotten convenience-wise. I don’t know if a similar tool already exists (a quick internet search didn’t yield any results). If you use the pilot-model in-game, you might want to check out the EZBoards tool. I don’t play with the pilot-model on, so I prefer to view the briefings on my phone.

How I use this utility (see GIF from above):

1. Run either:
   • falcon-briefing.py with Python
   • use the precompiled executable
2. Enable “Briefing Output to File” and “HTML Briefings” in the Falcon BMS options
3. Click the “Print” button when you are viewing a briefing inside Falcon BMS
4. Open the address shown in the falcon-briefing.py window (Example: http://192.168.1.100:8000/current-briefing.html) with your smartphone’s browser.)

Falcon-Briefing is a simple script which starts an HTTP server inside the briefings directory (it gets the directory automatically using your Falcon BMS installation path) and then watches for new HTML (briefing) files created inside. It also renames the briefings, so you can just always open the same address in your browser and get the proper briefing (the last one you “Printed”). Remember to turn on the HTML briefings option.

Update: 24.04.2022: Fixed for Falcon BMS 4.36

<p>Are there any concrete plans to utilize the voice cloning from <a href=“https://forum.falcon-bms.com/topic/21425/cloned-falcon-4-voices-add-voice-frags-in-the-original-voices-long” target=“_blank”>this</a> thread, either in the next update or 4.37? From the few related threads, it was hinted at that it could massively improve the ATC/AWACS possibilities which sounds great. Or is it considered not acceptable quality wise?<br /></p>

@Jockey said in 4.36 Screenshots:

Is that an official skin? I don’t know how hard it is to fix, but it seems like the paintjob isn’t aligned on both sides of the vertical stabilizer.

@Volksfuersorge said:

I don`t play Falcon BMS anymore - still waiting for a public mirror. No torrent, no PM, no private copy, no “community socialism”, no experts in helping or stuff like that. Click a download button, run a exe - that would be the real thing. But i can wait, see what is new and waive. No problem at all.

Greetings.

I’m sorry, but that’s a very ignorant way of thinking. It’s actually a shame, because you have been brainwashed by the media that the Bittorrent protocol is somehow illegal. You associate downloads made via the Bittorrent protocol as illegal, because people share unauthorized copies of certain files with it.

If you were consequent in your actions, you’d stop viewing any website, because it uses HTTP and people use that to download unauthorized copies of files via that. Why use HTTP then, but not Bittorrent? That makes you a hypocrite.

No one is forcing you to play Falcon BMS, but what you can take from this, is to reconsider how you process information, if you have adopted such strong opinions about other things in life you’re not really familiar with and if it is negatively impacting your life.

@airtex2019 said in How can I start an IPv6 MP session?:

There’s probably no good reason to want to do this (except to learn about IP6, I guess :).

There is a reason for people who are stuck with an ISP that doesn’t provide public IPv4 addresses during the transition to IPv6. Mine does that (with DS-Lite) and using IPv6 is the only way to play multiplayer for me (when hosting).

@jackal said in How can I start an IPv6 MP session?:

A different story, instead, when we attempted to start an IPv6 session, though. I was the host guy, so I gave my friend my IPv6 address (0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:ffff:523b:8f29) to be inserted in its Comm settings proper row. A failure, also after several attempts of different kind/settings.

Make sure that you’re sending them your actual address (look in your router’s setup page or check it inside your operating system). Also make sure that it’s not blocked by your router’s/OS’ firewall. I also had to allow connections to the ports via my router’s page (not exactly port forwarding).

Most importantly: if using Windows, this post might be relevant. I was wondering for so long why it didn’t work until I found that post. For me, the easiest way was to just disable the privacy extensions.

Also make sure that the person that’s trying to connect to you is on an IPv6 supporting connection. According to the BMS manual you can’t mix IPv4 and IPv6. So if they don’t have it, they won’t be able to join you even if you set everything up properly.

I use falcon-briefing, which displays it on my smartphone (or any device which can run a web-browser).

Apart from the above mentioned WDP, there’s also EZBoards. Both will work in VR, since it’s on your in-game kneeboard.

The city of Trieste seems to be marked as belonging to Slovenia (green) instead of Italy (blue).

I would like to access the Falcon BMS shared memory via Python. After searching online, I have found a way to access some stuff. What I’m still struggling with is the FalconSharedMemoryAreaString. I want to get the various things it exposes, like the base directory, keyfile in use, etc. Does anyone have any pointers how to accomplish this?

Here’s how far I’ve gotten with the FalconSharedMemoryAreaString:

import mmap
import ctypes
import ctypes.wintypes


class StringData(ctypes.Structure):
    _fields_ = (
        ("VersionNum", ctypes.wintypes.UINT),
        ("NoOfStrings", ctypes.wintypes.UINT),
        ("dataSize", ctypes.wintypes.UINT),
        ("data", ctypes.wintypes.CHAR)
)

class StringStruct(ctypes.Structure):
    _fields_ = (
        ("strId", ctypes.wintypes.UINT),
        ("strLength", ctypes.wintypes.UINT),
        ("strData", ctypes.wintypes.CHAR)
)
    
buff = mmap.mmap(-1, ctypes.sizeof(StringData), "FalconSharedMemoryAreaString")
data = StringData.from_buffer(buff)
print(data.data)

I have no idea how to reconstruct the stuff in data.data (no C++ knowledge and the explanation in the header file is way over my head).

What is meant by “new terrain”? Will it be higher resolution (less blocky mountains, more defined smaller variations) or will it be higher in ground detail (more objects, eye candy, no more flat textures for buildings etc.) or something completely different?

<blockquote>Anyone running this with Linux install?<br />Ok I can run all this in Linux except I am getting this:<br /><br />Traceback (most recent call last):<br /> File “falcon-briefing.py”, line 30, in <module><br />   import winreg<br />ModuleNotFoundError: No module named ‘winreg’<br /><br />I am now trying to figure out a way around this.</blockquote><p><br />Sorry, I never tested this in a Linux environment, since I play Falcon BMS on Windows.<br /><br />The “winreg” Python module isn’t available on Linux. It’s only used to find the default installation location (and the briefing folder). I guess I could make it so that you have the option to manually enter the location of the briefing files (Falcon installation folder) and add a warning when the script isn’t being run on Windows. I’ll add it asap.<br /><br /><strong>Edit:</strong> I have updated the script. Download the latest version and try it. There’s is now an option to manually specify the briefing directory and a port for the HTTP server.<br /><br /></p>

@S3NTRY
Yes, that one has been pretty helpful, I basically copied everything from there. But unfortunately that one is lacking the FalconSharedMemoryAreaString part as well. There’s an open issue regarding that, perhaps someone with more knowledge might eventually chime in and figure it out.

@Mav-jp said in 4.37 Screenshots:

Procedural doesn’t look good
Only interest of procedural is low altitude when texture gets pixelised
NT uses both

That’s actually pretty cool and solves my worries mentioned above.

Looks like 3D structures, buildings and vegetation. Nicely promising. The detailed terrain looks great, but what’s keeping my enthusiasm at bay is that the ground is just textures. Mainly because of issues like the above mentioned baked in clouds/shadows and looking bad when viewed from up close.

@Flow32 said in Keyfile for TUSBA + Warthog Joystick:

Why not use the excel file provided with BMS to generate a clean keyfile ? It is an amazing tool

Is that file still being kept up-to-date with the latest callbacks and such?

Did you hit the “Print” button on the briefing screen? I’m pretty sure you have to click that.

@Xeno said in NVG google:

In general one of the GFX aspects i’d love to e improved in the future are optical phenomena like focus for sensors/nvg, blinding by strong light sources (direct sunlight by day, hud/hmd/mfds at night).

I’d love that too. It would make the ability to adjust their brightness/contrast usable.

Before the more modern methods like Link 16 were available, was the IDM used and tied to an AWACS airplane? Basically adding the AWACS airplane to your flight and have them send you normal IDM stuff? Is that even possible in real life with IDM?

@b-s said in Print Briefing 4.37U1 CTD:

If looking here anyway, can an automation be baked in? Maybe with a user config option, that automatically writes the Brief to briefing.txt when the user clicks commit to 3d (if enabled in the config)?
g_bPrintBriefingOn3dCommit 1

Thanks!!

I would also love that feature. It would streamline getting the briefings to an external device (smartphone) even more.

@bmebr
https://forum.falcon-bms.com/post/94384

Applies to both the Pro and non-Pro versions of the X52. Again, I don’t understand why people insist on mapping their ministick to keyboard keys and experiencing this problem instead of using it as the analog axis it is and having a perfectly working radar cursor.

@sungad
I use the small slider to go into AB. The throttle is to mil-power, pushing the slider forward makes it go into AB.

For the DF/MRM buttons, the actual wheel-like buttons on the joystick are ideal.