Title says it all: you can either start the simulator ready to fly but only if you pop in the RWY which is really bad behaviour when an aircraft is on final, or, you can start the simulator cold & dark but only if not on the RWY.
There are times you just don’t want to go through the entire checklists and just want to fly right away but don’t want to bother other players.
Suggestion:
if starting on RAMP/GATE, you can choose spawning in cold & dark or ready to fly.
if starting on RWY Holding Position (see my other post for not starting on RWY by default), you can only spawn ready to fly.
[Update 15FEB2021]
@DrAuFinger is adding the following to the suggestion: instead of just selecting C&D or Running, it is even better being able to select which step in the checklists you’d like to start from. In other words, if you select the next item after “Preflight Checklist”, the simulator would spawn you with the preflight checklist completed.
NB: the location you’d spawn must still be open for selection. For practical purposes, you might want to spawn with the preflight checklist completed at the gates, or at the runway threshold. See Make it impossible to spawn on runway in Live mode
If we have to suffer people starting their flight on the runway (this applies mostly to Live Mode) I’d rather they were not cold-n-dark. It already takes folks long enough to get out of the way. But I agree it would be nice to be able to maybe toggle a “start with engine running” option so you’re ready to roll when spawning at a parking spot. Then again CTRL + E will get you started anyway. But regardless, probably not a great idea to allow folks to spawn on the runway & not be ready to go.
Thank you for the tip, I’ve forgotten this one. It is actually starting the aircraft procedurally, item by item in the checklist. It is not exactly the same as “everything in flying order right away” but it is better than nothing.
It would be great to start with your preflight checklist complete, but you spawn off of the runway. Whether a hold area or at a gate. Then, you can pushback or taxi when you’re ready to go. This is a bigger deal for airliners with more complex startup procedures.
Usually I start at the runway and then move off the runway to do flight prep. It’s so annoying when people spawn on the runway when you’re on approach or taking off. Having a third option might help here and would save time for those who don’t wan to be a jerk and sit on the runway prep for the flight.
The reason why I don’t like using “cold & dark” besides the cheesy checklists is that somehow the gate I chose to start at is one or two miles from the runway. Besides the time to run through the checklists, the time to taxi is ridiculous especially with the holds for other airport traffic. This is frustrating when I want to “Kick the tires and light the fires!”
I think the better solution would be another aircraft state: “Turnaround”.
That is the most common AC state when talking about Airliners. You only have a C&D-Cockpit at the “first flight of the day”, afterwards the AC stays in the “after parking checklist”-state (=turnaround).
A new crew would take over the AC for the next flight at the gate with external power and ADIRS already on, all screens working, etc.
I’m not sure whether to vote for this or not. I don’t want people spawning in on runways in multiplayer, period, unless an “Anything goes” category can be created. And by anything goes, I mean exactly that. Spawn on the runway, buzz the tower, fly by another airplane so close you can see the other pilot sweating, whatever. Anything.
I’m ok with spawning in a parking spot/gate with the aircraft running, in turn around mode, or cold & dark, just not on the runway under any circumstances, unless you’re in an “Anything goes” server.
There hasn’t been much support for this one but it is really simple to do and very convenient in practice.
In effect, the different aircraft states are already preset in a specific file already:
Apron.flt
Taxi.flt
Runway.flt
Climb.flt
Cruise.flt
Approach.flt
Final.flt
Hangar.flt
The game is automatically loading Apron.flt when starting at a gate, or Runway.flt when starting on a runway. In other words, the game logic and code is already doing this dynamically and the aircraft settings for each is already setup in external files.
The idea here is to let the user select for example Apron or Taxi when selecting a gate/ramp starting position instead of the game selecting pre-defined Apron only.
In other words this is nothing more than adding a UI interface drop down or check mark for the user, and loading the corresponding file instead of the hard-coded Apron.
A small change which might help a lot newcomers and make some place on the runway too.
PS: alternatively, adding a 3rd category of spawning point could help the same:
ramp/gate: use Apron.flt like it is doing now, or Taxi.flt with the new UI option.
runway: use Runway.flt like it is also doing now.
any taxiway point: use Taxi.flt.
And you’re done with both C&D and spawning on runways in one go!
I would like there to be an explicit cold-dark option on the trip screen on the world map page, as well as the parking spot where that will start. I would also like an explicit parking spot at the destination. I can’t tell you the number of times I have accidentally started hot on the runway because I forgot to go back to choose my starting point after loading a flight plan. I’d like to take the guesswork out of it.
