The following picture shows the original architecture from 3.1.
There was two different kind of simulation setup. One for SweatBox server, and another one for the standalone simulation where EuroScope itself had a built in FSD server. The second one had some restrictions like: Only one trainee was able to connect. This two way simulator caused a lot of extra work. Therefore we decided to terminate the support of the internal FSD server of EuroScope and keep only the SweatBox model. This setup has many advantages like: Multiple trainee, multiple pseudo pilot, etc. But we know that many of you used the simulator on your own without connecting to VATSIM. This feature is still available in v3.2 as the originally built in FSD server is now available as an executable installed by EuroScope.
The following picture shows the newl architecture from 3.2.
The architecture changed in two ways:
The first one is easier. This help us cleaning the code by not supporting two different kind of architecture. The EuroScope FSD server is the same lightweight server that was originally inside EuroScope. No permission checking, nothing special is built inside. Be sure to use it for your own environment, and not too often as public. But this way the structure is completely the same as the SweatBox version. It also made us possible to built the tower simulator – see below.
The second improvement makes it possible to run the scenario itself in a dedicated EuroScope session and meantime connect several other EuroScopes as pseudo pilot. The pseudo pilot only connections does not simulate plane movements at all, but sends instructions to the scenario runner one. The pseudo pilots can get /driver/ access and transfer of it like tracking the AC in a normal session. It is still possible to connect to teh server as normal trainee client.
The server is installed in your computer along with EuroScope. You can run it from the start menu. It looks like this:
There are not too many things you can do with the simulator itself. Just run and minimize. Yo may check the messages if something is not straight.
The EuroScope FSD simulator is free to be used by the VATSIM community. But as it is a central item of a commercial product, it has an active license checking. The server will connect to EuroScope WEB site and downloads licence information from there. The license is time limited (we will update the validity time to time), and also connection number limited. The VATSIM licence allows 2 controller and 2 P3D/FSX connections. That is more than you were able to do with the built in FSD server, but still not enough to build a complete 360 degree tower simulator. The server has limited number of restarts without accessing to EuroScope servers for licensing data. Even it is not planned, but we still keep all the right to cancel the licence upgrade of EuroScope FSD server any time without prior notice.
Note: Session value is always 0. The server is capable running multiple sessions parallel, but it is not utilised from EuroScope.
Note 2: If you would like to give access to your FSD server to external clients you need to open (and/or forward) the following ports:
- 6809 – Standard FSD port for EuroScope client connections. This will be used by the simulated planes as well.
- 6811 – This port is used by the FSX/P3D connector. The connector itself should run on the same machine as the FSX itself.
- 9988 (or any other specified in the dialog) – For TeamSpeak client connections.
Using the EuroScope FSD server it is possible to connect multiple FSX /P3D sessions that show the simulated traffic from tower view. It is a completely different solution than the Tower View from EuroScope session:
Using the FSX connector program, you can connect the FSD server and a running FSX session. There may be as many FSX connector uses as needed for the size of the view. Note that it is limited to 2 in VATSIM licence.
To enable the most from the tower view you need an AI plane package like Ultimate Traffic (http://ut2.flight1.net/) or MyTraffic 2013 from Aerosoft (http://www.aerosoft.com/). These packages has several thousands of different aircraft types and liveries.
Once a connector is connected to the FSD server, the scenario runner is informed about it. That increases the position update from 1 update/5-6 seconds to 1 update/1 second. That enables a real smooth movement of the planes in tower view.
The connector is installed in your computer along with EuroScope. You can run it from the start menu. It looks like this: