New SPAACARS 8.0 and Econ Module is Open Again

Pilots:

I've released the latest version of SPAACARS (version 8.0) that I hope corrects an intermittent error with Flight Time that is linked to the Econ Mode setting in version 7. Additionally, this version (version of SPAACARS is required for any further Econ flights (Practice area or the actual Econ flight page).

Additionally, I've made some changes again to the Cost/Revenue model and the instructions have changed slightly as well.

Highlights of these changes:

- Fly any aircraft for the econ flights that are suitable for the Orig and Dest airports.
- Additional penalty for overloading your aircraft - which really isn't necessary because you really have to under-load your aircraft to see a reduction in revenue related to payload
- Passenger or Cargo flights will be accepted (even though the main Econ Page still says "Cargo Econ Page").
- The official flights are still located in the Cargo & Freight area of Special Ops and all these flight numbers end in "CB" without spaces between numbers and letters.
- Flights generally will provide about $1000 profit per flight less any penalty charges.


I've reset my first flights using the Cargo Econ so there are again no flights showing there, but I'm currently making my first flight there.

John<br /><br /><!-- editby --><br /><br /><em>edited by: jer029, Nov 10, 2017 - 03:36 PM</em><!-- end editby -->

My goodness Jim, yet another cheery post from you. As with the last issue where you hadn't even read the instructions, which I'm sure you clearly discovered it was your failure to set your ini file, and now this latest one.

Let me help you again here publicly on the forum. Did you check the latest instruction manual in SPAACARs?

The cargo capacity shows the available cargo based on max weight of your aircraft, including fuel. If you exceed max allowable weight of your aircraft that will show as a negative number in SPAACARS capacity. As has always been the case with SPAACARS, it cannot change the payload of your selected aircraft. You must change the payload in your simulator's settings (either by adding passengers and/or cargo as listed in your aircraft's Fuel/Payload area. Only when you've set your payload to the level desired in your sim will SPAACARS show that additional payload wgt so that you can adjust passenger or cargo based on that payload. This is not new. All the old SPaACARs versions did this too.

The Cargo Capacity display in SPAACARS was changed to show the available Cargo Capacity for your aircraft relative to your max allowable wgt.

Please check these things and then let me know if you have issues. Just like the last time, I think you will find the error is likely on your end and not a problem with SPAACARs - it's just hard to tell because I get nothing but negativity from you lately and no response when I point out solutions that are often written in the instructions. In the entirely possible event that it's a programming issue I'll happily investigate it as I always do.

"Don't know why I should even run SPAACARS."

Well, that's your choice Jim. I've tried to make other options available such as FSFlightKeeper, the old FSACARS program, and you can always manually enter your PIREP through the Pilot's Office. I've also tried to help anyone having problems or questions and am generally quick to respond to such inquiries. I must say I'm really at a loss on how much more I could possibly do to please you.

Perhaps it's just me being overly sensitive, but it seems that your last two posts have had a sharp edge to them. Rest assured that if there are still problems I will happily try to fix them. "More work" - sure, I've been spending 8 hour days most of the past week working on this project and will continue to do so until it works satisfactorily for our pilots. Let's just not jump to conclusions as to whether it's a real problem until we investigate a bit.

For anyone curious, there are 42 sub routines and 1,990 lines of code that must be correct and work together in SPAACARs. There are another 931 lines of code to the server-side program that receives your PIREPs, 376 lines of code for the Cargo Econ page and 156 lines of code that displays the individual flight information when you click on a particular pilot's flight from the Cargo Econ page. And this is just the current Econ Mod project and changes to SPAACARS. Thousands of files and lines of code make up SPA - actually, currently 20,289 files in 1,534 folders and countless lines of code taking up 2.92 GB on a disk (which I back up regularly on my personal computer by the way). I do the best I can to keep the wheels to go round and round here at SPA while trying to add new and interesting things here at SPA. So...perhaps I'm getting overwhelmed and taking on too much here. Lastly, a humble reminder that I'm not Bill Gates, but a retired law dog who does computer stuff and flight simming as a usually fun hobby.

John<br /><br /><!-- editby --><br /><br /><em>edited by: jer029, Nov 10, 2017 - 10:05 PM</em><!-- end editby -->

Sorry Jim,

But your last two very public criticisms of SPAACARs program, which I do believe were unfounded, needed to also be addressed and dispelled publicly. Such criticisms may discourage other pilots from using SPAACARs when they may be unfounded, as I believe they are. As managers it's certainly better that we express such concerns and criticisms privately - by email perhaps, but it's up to the initiator to start the exchange privately then.

John<br /><br /><!-- editby --><br /><br /><em>edited by: jer029, Nov 11, 2017 - 01:43 PM</em><!-- end editby -->

Hi John,

I just made my first SPAACARS8/Econ Page flight this afternoon. I experienced no problems (except for the usual whiny passengers, who should not be allowed on bush flights in Alaska). I did find that you have to set the cargo load in FSX, before you open SPAACARS, as i could not set it on the Flight Plan page in SPAACARS. As always John, thanks for the great work.

Mike