Having thoroughly enjoyed all of the included bush trips, and there being little official sign of new trips being added anytime soon, I thought I’d try to create my own.
Using SkyVector to create the flight path, then importing the flight path into SimBrief works well enough.
SimBrief then generates the .PLN file which can be loaded into the sim ready for flying.
With the NavLog window open it shows all of the headings and distance times just like in the official bush trips, it even shows the stopwatch timer.
Plan G and Little Nav Map will both let you rename the waypoints, then you can just save the plan and open it in MSFS. Both navigation programs are free and excellent IMHO.
You think it’d be easy to do something as simple as add text, but it isn’t afaik. I believe the waypoint descriptions come from the mission spb files. Nothing in the flight affects it and the description tag in the xml plan file doesn’t do ■■■■ either. So far microsoft has refused to provide a sample mission with the sdk so we can reverse engineer it and figure out how to do something as simple as add text to a flight plan.
alright for those interested i finally figured out how to do this. It’s not hard but I’m too tired to explain it here right now… you have to make a flight plan, open it, save a flight, delete some ■■■■, then edit the flight file. In the morning I’ll post a picture of what to edit if anyone is interested. I think I also figured out how to turn the VFR map off like you see in bush flight mode. I’ll probably post a test bootleg bush flight on the nexus to see if this works as a distributable flight
That’s excellent news! please let us know how when you can.
I also looked into the spb files and saw the original bush trip waypoint descriptions in them, and I also tried adding text to a custom flight plan file but nothing I tried worked, and I don’t have the programming skills to really delve any deeper into it. But I always hoped someone would eventually work it out.
Being able to turn off the VFR map would be a great added bonus. Would you mind posting the test bootleg bush flight on this thread so I can also give it a test?
alright update on this method, I’m not going to bother posting how to do it because the argument only takes 64 characters, which isn’t enough to write VFR directions. It might be a limit on the argument, so if there’s a way to get a string into that argument it might work but I have no idea how flight files grab strings from the localization files. I’m quite tempted to give up on this and wait until documentation comes out, if it ever does.
that said I am 100% certain now that the directions you see in bush flights are created in the mission file (spb or whatever it is). In the mission object there are descriptions on the sublegs and that’s probably where the directions are. But there is currently no information on how to create and run a mission… The FLT file has bush trip specific stuff which leads me to believe there is a mission/FLT editor we don’t have access to
D@mn… That’s a shame. Thanks for giving it a go though.
It does make me wonder if MS deliberately made it difficult to add text descriptions to the waypoints, maybe so only they can sell additional bush trips in the marketplace. I hope I’m wrong on that.
Hopefully some helpful documentation will be made public in the future.
well there’s good news i’ve made very good progress on making bush trips, i figured 90% of it out just that 10% to go. Keep crashing on start for some reason. the bush trip functionality is basically hidden in the SDK, you have to right click on a strange place to generate the mission, and then somehow make an FLT file manually… very strange implementation but whatever. You also have to specifically name things to generate the mission otherwise it doesn’t work
I did notice that each bush trip has a single large flight plan file, so I guess the sim then splits the waypoints up for each leg. I would have thought each leg would have its own .pln file.
I’ve been researching and trying to emulate they way the original trip waypoints were positioned throughout the various routes, with the eventual aim of creating a continuation of the Patagonia trip northward, with it hopefully ending at Alaska. So it would be great to create the trip with the in-built SDK, even better with a tutorial if possible.
alright I figured the text and image situation out. I’m not 100% certain I can craft my own bush trip now, who knows what I’ll run into, but I’m 95% confident I’ll hve one in a few hours. I’ll upload it along with the project file and maybe we can finally get some meaningful community content besides liveries!
update; i have encountered a bug that makes it so bush trips can’t be more than 1 leg long… It seems the SDK is broken. It is not constructing the mission correctly; it cannot progress to the next leg. it does not update the waypoints. If any devs see this it’s the LANDING_REST flowstate, its start action is linked to somethng that doesn’t exist…
I do find it quite odd that it’s apparently only yourself that’s trying to crack this nut.
I would have thought the flight sim dev community would be all over this bush trips issue like a rash.
Here’s hoping someone sees these posts and can help out…
I decompiled one of the official mission files and I THINK I found what asobo left out of the SDK… Gee I wonder why we could only do 1 leg when using the SDK to make bush missions… I wonder if it has anything to do with BUSHTRIP_LEG_COMPLETED being completely left out
well anyways I need to get some sleep, I’ll get back at it later today and hopefully figure this out once and for all. Either way I’ll post the tutorial
That sounds like a promising find, hopefully it’ll be the missing piece to the overall puzzle.
I’ve been looking for the best route north from where the Patagonia bush trip finished, there’s a lot of options, now I just need to find the best one.
One of my favorite quotes from an engineer “I’ve been banging my head against the wall and it’s finally starting to hurt.”
You’re trying to hack something that may be intentionally unhackable (for now).
What if a user could load a .pln and then click on a link that starts your audio recording which you created using your mobilel? Play/Pause on the mobile like those players you rent when you go to a museum. You narrate throughout the flight and would be limited only by the length of the flight. Much more interesting than text especially for folks where it’s easier to speak english than write it.
I have done 2 1/2 of the current ones and the text can be confusing and ambiguous and it’s my native language. The text for the one in the Sierras could be much more interesting if you could talk about history etc as you fly.
