Having tried many different payware airports, there is one thing that strikes me: developers very often forget some or all ground services.
The one that is usually not forgotten is the Jetway connection, but for aprons that don’t have any, the stairs are often unavailable.
More services that are often missing are fuel trucks, baggage handling, external power trucks, and catering.
I’ve seen cases in which you can request a pushback tug… but it’s not there so the request is denied.
At times some are missing, at times all.
So the point of this thread is two-fold.
1: Please, pretty please, don’t forget the ground services (all of them). I know some are cosmetic and those who aren’t can be worked around, but believe me, some people care, just as much as we care about flipping the air conditioning switch even if it does practically nothing.
2: If there actually is a practical reason why such services are often omitted, could you please let me know what that reason is? Please do it for my sanity.
Well the type of parking spot someone places at an airport in the sdk will effect which vehicles are available, often with a fuel truck not being able to be sent to a parking spot is because it hasn’t been connected up to the taxi path. Can’t remember if fuel trucks just appear or if you need to create a parking spot for vehicles and join them up to the taxi ways.
I think it’s also possible to adjust things with a services xml file but I have only used that myself to remove all vehicles from an airport that shouldn’t have any.
What do you have the slider set to for ground vehicles in the sim if possible could turn the slider up to see if it then spawns more vehicles.
Parking spots have to be above a certain diameter to get all the services. There are different levels of ground services for each size.
You can make a smaller parking spot into a ‘large’ one which still gets all the services, but the SDK will reset them to a smaller size unless you remember to change it back manually every time you update the airport file.
I expect that’s what’s happening a lot of the time.
What about gates? Because I’m fairly sure I saw “small” gates with all the services in several airports (and the other way around, medium and and large gates with no or missing services). Or there’s an additional setting besides “Small” “Medium” and “Large?”