AndyHill

You can get info on selected weapons using LoGetPayloadInfo(). Lock on must have toe brake functionality with differential braking!

MFD isn't RWR might be, I don't remember. Weapons data is available. It's in one of the tables. Lock on must have toe brake functionality with differential braking!

Phidgets are cheaper than EPIC and they seem to be pretty usable from my preliminary tests. http://www.phidgets.com. They have some sort of a software interface you can base your projects on. I'm not convinced that their servo controller would be capable of handling all the functions needed for gauges, though. There are other manufacturers out there, for example http://www.simkits.com. I don't remember the websites, but many DIY kits are quite affordable. Lock on must have toe brake functionality with differential braking!

I'm sure your friend knows enough to get the export running if he can do parallel port stuff. Your method is pretty much what all the devices designed for simulator gauges usually do. I think it is slightly inefficient to use UDP server if you don't send the data to another computer, but in reality I doubt it'll make much difference. You should be fine. You can test the export by using the built-in file functionality. MAKE A BACKUP OF THE FILE NOW. Go to export.lua and you'll see lots of good instructions on how to do it. Near the beginning you'll find something like "uncomment this function to enable data export" and the line after that is --[[. That is a "comment" which means that anything between that group of characters and the next instance of --]] is ignored by the program. Add one - into the first comment marker and it'll look like this: ---[[. Now your data export is enabled, congratulations. Next you'll notice that there are lines 1) file in a few spots in the file.You need to uncomment the lines after this line until the 2) Socket lines. The first part in the LuaExportStart function should look like this: -- Make initializations of your files or connections here. -- For example: -- 1) File local file = io.open("./Temp/Export.log", "w") if file then io.output(file) end -- 2) Socket Note that I removed the -- from every line in the file section. If you do that to the two other places that have the "1) File" in them you whould have a file called export.log in the Lock on \Temp -folder after you next time fly a mission in Lock on. An easy way to get started. If you need to send the data to a UDP client you just uncomment the "2) Socket" -parts. It's very simple to get going. The rest of the work comes from choosing what to export and how. Hmm I wonder where my sig went? Well, here it is again: Lock on must have toe brake functionality with differential braking!

It's very simple to do. In the export.lua file there are instructions for saving flight data to a file and sending it to a UDP socket. I and a friend of mine have working input/outputs (for led lights and switches) and textLCD functionality (used for displaying navigation or weapon information). We use Phidgets (http://www.phidgets.com) and I just received the first servo controller and we'll be doing gauges sometime in the near future. I'm not sure if the Phidgets' servo controller is versatile enough to do all the gauges, but some of the simple ones should be doable. Our software doesn't use UDP sockets to send data, we interface directly with the Lua export instead. This should be a more robust option and save some CPU cycles as well. Inputs, outputs and the textLCD have been tested and they work pretty well. Now if only there were separate ON and OFF functions for the laser and a cooling sequence override I'd be a little happier.

The new options are great and there are many things I asked for, thank you. I'd really like to see specific on and off -keys for things like radar, gear etc. Furthermore, I'd VERY much like to use the toe brakes on my pedals with true differential braking in Lock on. Shouldn't it be pretty simple to add? Pleasepleasepleaseplease etc. So what are we waiting for next? My life's sort of empty now that I'm not waiting for flaming cliffs any more. Is there going to be a patch that includes toe brakes? When is 1.2 supposed to be published? I want toe brake functionality with differential braking in Lock on!

Yes, without that the often used term "salute" feels so artificial. I want toe break functionality with differential braking in LoMAC!

The eject-view needs to have some camera shake. This will absolutely raise the simulator to a new level of fidelity and general excellence. I've of course never actually seen the eject-view, but my friends who happen to eject a lot told me that this would be nice. I want toe brake functionality with differential braking in Lock on!

Traditional AAA is still in use today and I bet that in lock-on era and countries there would be from about a zillion to a bazillion of those pesky little guns deployed. Their role on the battlefield is different from Shilka's, they're easy to transport and maintain and they can be deployed in numbers almost anywhere. I want toe brake functionality with differential braking in Lock on!

Oh yes the ZU-23 is a must have although it brings up some very bad memories. Especially if ED are even considering adding a helicopter they MUST include these guns. In any case it'd be great for the immersion to have lots of relatively inaccurate fire coming in instead of that shilka that never seems to miss. I want toe brake functionality with differential braking in Lock on!

Re: Demo 1.1 first impression The biggest selling point for me is the AFM and boy is it a big one. Too bad that there's still no differential (or any other) toe-brake functionality, it would really be useful when taxiing that Su-25. It's too bad that the Lua export functionality isn't present in the demo (it IS in the final product, isn't it?).

AFM to all the existing planes = 5 new flyables. Ka-50 would be nice, but 5 upgraded planes is much better.

That explains a lot. I thought the older lua export stuff on the lockon.ru pages was referring to 1.02 and only the "Lua exporting in LockOn 1.1" -part was referring to 1.1 only features. I want toe brake functionality in Lock on! And differential braking, too!

Export.lua commands 311-314 don't seem to be doing anything (at least the engines don't stop). Are there some specific conditions that need to be fulfilled before the engines can be shut down? I've tried in the air (!) and sitting still on the ground with throttle on idle. I want toe brake functionality with differential braking in Lock on!

Practically yes, I need those functions. If I for example build a warning light for ECM on I either need some way to know when my active jammer is transmitting or I need to connect the light to the switch position. In latter case I really need to make sure the switch works the same way every time. I don't remember if I can get ECM on/off, information, that was just an example. I'm working on switches for many functions and ECM is just one of them. The laser range finder is an interesting system and will require extra care as the system automatically shuts it down when it overheats. Any addition or request is ultimately for ED to consider, we just let them know of nice features we'd like to see. They've already done fantastic job with the export feature and I think they could improve its usefulness a lot with the simple improvements I proposed. I want toe brake functionality with differential braking in Lock on!

Actually I play a lot of air-start mission in quick battle builder. Tracking the state with my own variables will work ok, but it's only a partial solution. Flaps and gear for example won't lower at too high a speed and I don't know if they're automatically raised if left down until certain speeds are reached. For ECM, EOS, radar and other such devices it should work, I'll just poll every input at startup and ignore those that are set "on" when their state first changes to "off". I would still prefer separate on/off functions as they would be a lot simpler. I want toe brake functionality in Lo!

How exactly do I track the state? This would be very interesting indeed. Autopilot I can get from MCPstate, but how do I get for example radar, ECM, gear or EOS status? To ED: ME WANT TOE BRAKE AXIS FUNCTIONALITY VERY MUCHLY.

Re: Lua export requests for 1.1 Hmm this is not Lua-related, but does Lock on support pedals with toe brakes? I didn't see any options regarding that in the options menu. I'm interested in getting Simped-pedals with brakes and I'd very much like to use them in LO. Is it possible?

Since version 1.1 is almost available I think it's about time to start whining and asking for features. I've got a few Lua export requests that would be useful (for me at least) and relatively simple to implement: -Gear up -Gear down -indicator for gear up/down -Autopilot on -Autopilot off -Hook in -Hook out -Radar on -Radar off -EOS on -EOS off -Active jamming on -Active jamming off There are other commands as well, but the general idea is that there should be separate on/off options to make using toggle switches easier. Furthermore I would like to have at least three different levels of RWR info available: radar signal detected, lock detected and launch detected. RWR is one of the systems I'd like to have in peripheral vision all the time and with this data I could build a simple light system for the most important data.

Re: Lua export and phidgets, question about 1.1 That's good news. We don't have to worry about big changes and we can concentrate on working with the next devices.

The simple questio is of course if the 1.1 export.lua file published on the lockon.ru front page is still valid and the release version will be the same.

@AndyHill Can you explain how your dll can access the export.lua !? The possiblity to do i like that would be great. I've written a little program that imports data via sockets. But when Lo-Mac is sending data the graphic engine falter (~0.5sec). A dll could solve that problem. I'm not the code guru and I don't have hte sources handy so this isn't probably very helpful. However, I can tell you that our dll doesn't access export.lua, it's the other way around. Export.lua calls our dll that relays the information to the textLCD. We used advice from this tutorial: http://lua-users.org/wiki/CreatingBinaryExtensionModules

Would it be possible to publish the 1.1 lua.export file? I and a friend of mine have been working on a direct interface on a phidgetTextCLD (Phidgets are relatively inexpensive devices that can be used as text displays, lights, gauges etc. in flight simulators, check out http://www.phidgets.com ), we just finished the 1.0 version and we're starting work on an interfacekit dll. We don't use sockets or files, we have a dll (c++) file that can be accessed directly from the export.lua. I believe this is the least CPU intensive way of creating a workable interface to external devices. However, the usefulness of our program depends on the structure of the export.lua file and I'm worried about extensive changes that could spoil our efforts.

It's actually pretty simple to do. I program in JAVA, it's pretty inefficient and as I will be running physical instruments my code doesn't include any graphic output. However, the code in itself is really quite simple. I'm sure someone has already done it, take a look at this, for example: http://www.opengc.org/ "In other news, both LO-MAC and IL-2 Sturmovik (with Aces expansion pack) now support network access. LO-MAC was purchased for me by a generous OpenGC user, and I picked up IL-2 on sale, so look for support for both of these in the not-to-distant future. A word of advance caution - I can't promise that I'll have time to add "steam" gauges for IL-2 or fighter-style gauges for LO-MAC, so don't be surprised if you're using the tried and true 777 PFD for a while." Isn't that exactly what you're looking for?

I have a simple and most unelegant piece of test software (JAVA) I use for extracting data for phidgets (http://www.phidgets.com). I think the best way to do this would be to make a LUa-compatible phidgets .dll and call it from the export.lua directly. If anyone has done something like this or even remotely connected I'd be very interested to take a look. Ok I guess that didn't answer the question. The first thing you want to do is to take a look at the http://www.lockon.ru frontpage, there's good info about LUA interface. If you're a programmer that's all you should need. If not, ask on the forums and hopefully someone can help you. Basically, Lock on sends data after every simulator frame and all you need to do is to build a tcp socket program (relatively simple) to receive the data and display it on the screen. This is useful if you have another computer; you can send the data over a network. However, as I said previously, displaying the text straight from the LUA interface through suitable .dll might be a better way for those with only one 'puter. Is there any place where LoMAC-LUA export coders gather? I think there's lots of information to be shared.