OnCourse Software

I am looking for a way, as some may have seen (definitely including Dave M.! ) to be able to request a climb or descent when I need to, without the limitations in place as to when I can do that (the current options don't work in X-Plane, particularly when you fly VR/3D and so can't see the PC monitor). With XP11 and a VR headset, some of my requirements of PF3 are probably rather different from the majority of people here, so I don't expect updates necessarily to match what I am hoping for (though Dave does his best). In fact, with recent betas, things are getting further from what I am looking for. I therefore thought I'd try to arrange things myself...

One thing that does work in XP is that I can request a change in altitude 'due to clouds' (though no longer 'due to turbulence', as that option has been removed in the latest beta). As I never fly with clouds (they flash and move oddly in X-Plane - not one of its best features!), asking for a change of altitude 'due to clouds' is decidedly odd, and I've never used it. I therefore (and here I come to the point of my post!) located the sound files which relate to 'due to clouds' (pfchat172*.wav: the asterisk can be any letter from A to Z of course), and replaced all of them with a silent file, in the hope of being able to request a descent with no 'cloud excuse' tagged on at the end. But I still get 'due to clouds' at the end when I use hotkey 3 or 4, in spite of all the 'cloud' sound files having been overwritten with silence (I did back up the originals!).

Is it possible to get this file replacement to work as I intended somehow, does anyone know? I was careful to use a silent sound file with the same audio attributes. Not as if PF3 uses an FMOD, so I am not sure why I still get the 'clouds' reference. Where is it being generated? (I didn't rebuild the PF3 database safter overwriting the wav files - didn't seem connected with this issue, but...?)

Thanks.

It's because you edited the wrong files. The file used for those hotkeys are

pfatc70 for 'request lower altitude due to clouds'

pfatc73 for 'request higher altitude dues to clouds'

So without editing the file you can't just remove 'due to clouds'

Thank you Dave! You seem to be working harder on PF3 than ever!

No, I can't see me actually editing that many files, as you rightly imply.

However..... I could replace all the files you specify with a silent file - even better: I should then get exactly what I am after: no comment/request at all from the pilot, just a descent or climb 'response' from ATC. I'll try it out. (Not currently possible to set the chance of an 'Unable at this time" response to zero, is it?)

M.

Quote:

I could replace all the files you specify with a silent file

...

OK, that works, BUT (of course, there's a 'but'), although there's no audible request, you still get 'Centre; callsign" after the silence.. and a possible refusal in reply to the now silent request. Probably better to revert to clouds option, even if there aren't any.

I am sure, in the fullness of time, you'll come up with something better Dave