In Beacons.lua for each terrain there is a direction figure that when converted to degrees is completely wrong.

[TEMPEST.114]

So I'm looking at beacons.lua for each terrain. 

In there is a table like this:

{
  display_name = ('Batumi');
  beaconId = 'airfield22_1';
  type = BEACON_TYPE_ILS_GLIDESLOPE;
  callsign = 'ILU';
  frequency = 110300000.000000;
  position = { -355396.812500, 10.044037, 616600.500000 };
  direction = -54.415131;
  positionGeo = { latitude = 41.613985, longitude = 41.591406 };
  sceneObjects = {'t:318309567'};
  chartOffsetX = 120.000000;
};

If you make the normally correct assumption that directions in the backend are in radians, then converting '-54.415131' to degrees gives:

-3117.75734796

So, that's clearly wrong, but if we do 'degrees %360' that gives:

122.24265204

Which is wrong based on the included plates and the Mission Editor map - and the variation is somewhere around 6 or 7 so even then that doesn't resolve the issue:

 

 

 

[TEMPEST.114]

Thanks to @Chump You have to *ALWAYS* ADD 180 to this figure - it's in degrees.

 

/facepalm. Totally obvious. /smh

[winghunter]

That doesn't seem to work for TACANs

I.e. BTY should have a variation of 16°E

But the direction value says -141
Adding 180 gives 39°

 

Edited February 23 by winghunter

[Chump]

@winghunter

I'm not sure what direction would do for TACAN/VOR/VORTAC. The parameter passed into the Beacon constructor is as follows:

/MissionEditor/modules/Mission/BeaconData.lua:

-- NOTE: non-pertinent lines omitted for clarity

local function createBeaconVorFromAirdrome(airdrome)
  	local angle = 0
  	local beacon = Beacon.new(x, y, angle, frequency)
end

local function createBeaconTacanFromAirdrome(airdrome)
  	local angle = 0
	local beaconTacan = Beacon.new(x, y, angle, frequency)
end

/MissionEditor/modules/Mission/MapView.lua:

-- NOTE: non-pertinent lines omitted for clarity
local function addBeaconVORTAC(beaconVORTAC) --- BEACON_TYPE_VORTAC = 5
	local angle			= 0
	local icon			= createIcon('beaconVORTAC', x, y, angle)
end

The angle is hard-coded to zero when creating some beacons. The defined angle in the Beacons.lua file is never actually used.

Edited February 24 by Chump

[winghunter]

I did some testing, seems like they are indeed all aligned to 0° TH, unlike real world beacons

Edited March 3 by winghunter