Shared Cockpit

[JackRiordan]

Peter,

I a friend and I have tried shared cockpit, but the button stays greyed out. We have tried using default and addon aircraft. We also ensured we both were using the exact same configs and versions. Can you explain how to get it to work? Thank you.

[Peter]

Hi Jack,

you first need to allow the cockpit to be shared out. To do this, go to the Nodes list, highlight the person you want to allow and click on the Share Cockpit button. Then tick the box in the sub-window. That person can then click on your aircraft and join from the aircraft list.

However, the shared cockpit doesn't work well at all at the moment in 1.1.8. It should be better in 1.1.9, which is coming soon.

Peter

[JackRiordan]

I found it after a bit of searching. A friend and I will try it out a bit later. Even if it desyncs, it'll be nice to see the progress that's being made and how it's being implemented. Thank you!

[Gerard]

We are three persons associated with joinfs. 1 person with FSX and the other two with Prepar3D 3.4.
I see the person with FSX flying or standing at the airport but the person with P3D version 3.4 does not.
We are all three registered Joinfs nodes.
Any body a suggestion?

[Peter]

Hi Gerard,

which version are you running, and do you see everyone in the aircraft list correctly?

Peter

[Gerard]

I am running v 1.1.8 after my flight in one hour I wil check again. the others running v 1.1.8 as well
Yes they are listed

[Dan-TXHills]

If you see the aircraft on the View | Aircraft list but do not see it physically in the session consider the possibility of one of these two things that might explain this:

1. The aircraft that you have substituted no longer exists in your sim (I have had this occur - if you use an aircraft for substitution and subsequently remove it from your Sim Objects\Aircraft folder there is no warning or error, it simply just does not appear)
2. If you start at an airport that is several thousand NM away from where others are and you move to the airport where the others are located then for some reason you do not see all the aircraft. Not sure if the opposite happens (if someone else moves a great distance to where you are) and I cannot explain the reason that you do not see all the other aircraft if you do move several thousand NM but the solution is to exit and then restart your flight at or near the airport where others are.

Dan

[Gerard]

Peter I am conntected but I can't see the other plane who stand next to me not on the aircraft list as well
On V-pilot we can see eachother. and we use both MTL from IVAO.

We are now at EHGG and in the aircraft list we can see each other mut not on the platform.

Dan
we checked your suggestion but no changes, thanks anyway

[Peter]

Try right-clicking in the simulator window to bring up the menu. Can you see the other aircraft listed as traffic on the menu. If so, select them and it should show you where they are.

Peter

[Gerard]

I will try this tomorrow thanks Peter en let you know

[Peter]

If that still doesn't work, then look at View|Monitor from the JoinFS menu and see if there are any messages there indicating a problem.

Peter

[JackRiordan]

Peter,

I wanted to give you some feedback after successfully completing a flight with a friend in the Carenado Dornier 228. Keep in mind that I live in Arkansas (Central US) and he lives in Finland.

We both have the current version of the aircraft. Our aircrafts are exactly the same, so as far as I know there shouldn't be anything conflicting as far as the cockpits and systems go. The exception is that I do have the most up to date navigraph cycle, 1703 (which keeps the fms update), but he does not.

We loaded up the aircrafts with the same liveries at Nuuk. We have the same scenery, so no issues there. I set up the cockpit sharing, and he joined my cockpit with no issues. We started by moving the yoke, pedals, and flaps. Flaps activated for both of us ok. When one of us would move the pedal and yoke, the other person would see a bit of jerky lag. Not bad, but noticeable.

Batteries, anti-collision, panel lights, seat belt, no smoking, instrument lights, fuel pumps, crossfeed, engine starters 1 and 2, gen 1 and 2, and inverters 1 and 2 worked fine for both of us without issues. Prop pitch and throttle seemed to have a bit of lag. He was not able to see me turn on the GPS or flight computer, so he had to turn it on in his cockpit.

The main issue we had seemed that the parking brake would get stuck on his screen. When he would activate them back and forth to try and free them, sometimes it would get stuck saying differential brake. After checking and unchecking a few options in the cockpit sharing, we managed to get them free on his end, but he had no control with the yoke. I taxied us to the runway and departed. He immediately noticed a huge amount of lag on his end, and claimed it was like trying to control it at 5fps. On my end, it looked smooth, other than the small amount of lag with the yoke when he moved it.

Overall we had a good time with this shared cockpit, despite the issues. I'm very excited to see your progress, and I'm happy there's someone out there taking a shot at getting this working. If you need anymore testing done, please let me know! I will be more than happy to submit any screenshots, videos, or data logs.

[JackRiordan]

I was thinking and had a few suggestions for the future of cockpit sharing

- question mark beside each system that displays a quick tip when your mouse is over it that displays a breakdown of the systems being shared.

- ability to lock a player to a system so only that player's input, not even the owner, can control that system. Of course the owner of the aircraft can enable and disable this.

- passenger option where this persons input to control surfaces is completely disabled

- ability for a player to have exclusive control over navigation such as the gps

That last flight got my gears turning. As always, thank you for reading.

[Peter]

The display tips would be difficult, JoinFS is purely an external tool. Getting involved directly inside the sim would be quite a bit of work. I don't really want to go down that road at the moment.

What would be the advantage for locking out the owner from the controls? Could the owner just not touch the controls if they don't wish to interfere?

The passenger option is already there, you just tick the shared cockpit box and leave the shared control options unchecked.

You can currently give control for navigation by ticking the 'other' controls box. Do you think this should be separated out into 'navigation' and 'other'? Or perhaps I could rename it 'navigation and other'?

Peter

[Gerard]

Hi Peter,
If we join US Central server via the joinfs hub than we have the same IP adress.
then we disconnect network en connect again than we can se each other on joinfs aircraft.
But we cannot see each other on the platform from the airfield we stay on.
If we try right-clicking in the simulator window to bring up the menu we cannot see the other aircraft listed as traffic on the menu.

using both 1.1.8 version

[Peter]

Hi Gerard.

That sounds eerily familiar, I was just on the US Central server myself and had the same thing that you described. For me, the problem of not seeing the other aircraft in the sim menu was because I failed to notice that JoinFS was not connected to the simulator (The simulator button was red). I clicked the button and it turned green and I immediately saw the other aircraft. Could this have been the problem you had?

Peter

[JackRiordan]

The display tips would be difficult, JoinFS is purely an external tool. Getting involved directly inside the sim would be quite a bit of work. I don't really want to go down that road at the moment.

What would be the advantage for locking out the owner from the controls? Could the owner just not touch the controls if they don't wish to interfere?

The passenger option is already there, you just tick the shared cockpit box and leave the shared control options unchecked.

You can currently give control for navigation by ticking the 'other' controls box. Do you think this should be separated out into 'navigation' and 'other'? Or perhaps I could rename it 'navigation and other'?

Peter

For the quick tips, you wouldn't have to get involved directly in the sim. What I'm talking about is, on the menu where you check mark the system that another play can control, beside it add a question mark that, when you click/hover your mouse over it, a temporary window pops up that has a list of the systems that person is able to control, just as a reference.

Another idea, instead, is the ability to expand the control surface tree and to be able to check or uncheck each specific system that player has control of. If any system is not check marked for that player, it is automatically handled by the owner. If it is check marked for that player, they will be given exclusive control over that surface, so that no other player can interfere/troll them. This would also mitigate any conflicting inputs as well. Although, I do like the idea of several players' inputs at once, it's just that I think there will be many issues relating to this. I think it's nice that the owner has complete control over who drives what in the aircraft as well.

I don't know if you've ever looked into the registered version of FSUIPC, but it has a menu that has a breakdown of every single system in an aircraft and the ability to hotkey any input to control that system. I think that that, along with the option I've stated above, would give players ultimate freedom over their multiplayer cockpit sharing experience.

I didn't know about the passenger option. Maybe the ability to have the player labeled as passenger/copilot/engineer of XXX aircraft in the aircraft or nodes menu depending on what they have control over.

As always, I'm just stating suggestions based on how I would enjoy playing. I really appreciate you considering all of our, the players, input on your program!

[JackRiordan]

The display tips would be difficult, JoinFS is purely an external tool. Getting involved directly inside the sim would be quite a bit of work. I don't really want to go down that road at the moment.

What would be the advantage for locking out the owner from the controls? Could the owner just not touch the controls if they don't wish to interfere?

The passenger option is already there, you just tick the shared cockpit box and leave the shared control options unchecked.

You can currently give control for navigation by ticking the 'other' controls box. Do you think this should be separated out into 'navigation' and 'other'? Or perhaps I could rename it 'navigation and other'?

Peter

For the quick tips, you wouldn't have to get involved directly in the sim. What I'm talking about is, on the menu where you check mark the system that another play can control, beside it add a question mark that, when you click/hover your mouse over it, a temporary window pops up that has a list of the systems that person is able to control, just as a reference.

Another idea, instead, is the ability to expand the control surface tree and to be able to check or uncheck each specific system that player has control of. If any system is not check marked for that player, it is automatically handled by the owner. If it is check marked for that player, they will be given exclusive control over that surface, so that no other player can interfere/troll them. This would also mitigate any conflicting inputs as well. Although, I do like the idea of several players' inputs at once, it's just that I think there will be many issues relating to this. I think it's nice that the owner has complete control over who drives what in the aircraft as well.

I don't know if you've ever looked into the registered version of FSUIPC, but it has a menu that has a breakdown of every single system in an aircraft and the ability to hotkey any input to control that system. I think that that, along with the option I've stated above, would give players ultimate freedom over their multiplayer cockpit sharing experience.

I didn't know about the passenger option. Maybe the ability to have the player labeled as passenger/copilot/engineer of XXX aircraft in the aircraft or nodes menu depending on what they have control over.

As always, I'm just stating suggestions based on how I would enjoy playing. I really appreciate you considering all of our, the players, input on your program!

Just to clarify, I didn't mean every single system had to be labeled in an expanded tree, just more of a breakdown would be helpful to know who has control of what in a little more detail.

[Gerard]

Hi Peter,

Your Quote
That sounds eerily familiar, I was just on the US Central server myself and had the same thing that you described. For me, the problem of not seeing the other aircraft in the sim menu was because I failed to notice that JoinFS was not connected to the simulator (The simulator button was red). I clicked the button and it turned green and I immediately saw the other aircraft. Could this have been the problem you had?

This is not the problem. We have contact with the simulator. We see each other on Joinfs aircraft. Simulator is green. If I switch the squawk it change on Joinfs aircraft. Joinfs monitor it says connections established 65395. further failed to create plane C172 and simconnect exception :3
But no fysical plane. My flying partner is 0,08 nm away and I can't see him
Gerard

[Peter]

This is not the problem. We have contact with the simulator. We see each other on Joinfs aircraft. Simulator is green. If I switch the squawk it change on Joinfs aircraft. Joinfs monitor it says connections established 65395. further failed to create plane C172 and simconnect exception :3
But no fysical plane. My flying partner is 0,08 nm away and I can't see him
Gerard

That sounds as though it was unable to create the plane on your simulator. Could you try doing File|Scan For Models again. See if that helps. If not, go to the aircraft list and have a look at the Model column. If there is a letter is brackets it tells you what the model matching has done with the model name. select the aircraft and click on the Substitute button. This will show you the actual model title they are using and what it is being replaced with. It could be that you don't have their particular model, or for some reason it isn't being scanned correctly. On that substitute window select an aircraft from the lists and click OK. You should then see something appear in the simulator.

The suffix for the model is as follows:

(S) - your own substitution.
(A) - an automatic substitution has been made for you.
(D) - Your chosen default for that aircraft type has been substituted.

Peter