Ebs Posted February 3, 2013 Posted February 3, 2013 This is a follow on to the discussion in http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=100800 JorgeIII and Alfredo posted real-world IFR charts for the airbases found in DCS World. The problem is, we only have 5 TACAN enabled airbases in the sim so this inspired me to take a look at the game files and see if it's possible to add more. It is!, read on to find out how. If you're going to try anything in this tutorial, download a program called NOTEPAD++, it will make your modding life much easier. The main file we need to take a look at is DCS World\Bazar\Terrain\Beacons.lua This file contains a list of Navigational beacons for the entire DCS:W map. At the top of the file we see Includes (dofiles's) for other files that we may be interested in. BeaconTypes.lua and BeaconSites.lua may come in handy later. At line 983, the airbase section starts. Let's take a look at the entry for Anapa. [batumi] = { -- UGSB Batumi (Georgia) runway = { ["13-31"] = { side = { ["13"] = { [b][color="red"]ILS:frequency(110.3, 'ILU', math.rad(3.0))[/color][/b] }, ["31"] = {} } } }, airdrome = { { type = BEACON_TYPE_AIRPORT_HOMER, callsign = "ЛУ", --ОПРС frequency = 430000.0, position = coordinates("41'36'50N 41'36'24E 126"), }, [b][color="red"]TACAN(16, 'X', 'BTM', {x = -355664.4, z = 617386.8})[/color][/b] } }, Let's start with Batumi as the listing is quite short and the airbase includes tacan and ILS. Batumi contains two 'blocks', "runway" and "airdrome" The runway at Batumi is along 130 degrees and 310 degrees, ILS is enabled on 130 degrees. If you get in range of Batumi and switch ILS to 110.30, you'll hear a morse code broadcast spelling out "ILU". with me so far? :) The TACAN entry is in the airdrome block and you can tune your TACAN to 16X to get to the airbase. This is basically all we need to know in order to add working ILS and TCN beacons to airbases that don't have them. In Beacons.lua let's find the entry for Anapa [Anapa] = { -- URKA Anapa (Russia) runway = { ["04-22"] = { side = { ["04"] = { { type = BEACON_TYPE_ILS_FAR_HOMER, callsign = "АН", frequency = 443000.0, }, { type = BEACON_TYPE_ILS_NEAR_HOMER, callsign = "Н", frequency = 215000.0, }, }, ["22"] = { { type = BEACON_TYPE_ILS_FAR_HOMER, callsign = "АП", frequency = 443000.0, }, { type = BEACON_TYPE_ILS_NEAR_HOMER, callsign = "П", frequency = 215000.0, } } } } }, airdrome = {} Don't freak out! This looks a lot more complicated than it is. Within the Anapa entry we again have two 'blocks'. "runway" and "airdrome" The runway block deals with ILS and the Airdrome block deals with TACAN. Anapa has ILS marker beacons located along the approach to the runway. When ILS is enabled you'll hear a beep when passing over these beacons (just like in real life) However, there's no code for ILS at the moment so let's change that. We can take a look at the realworld aviation chart for Anapa and use the information from there to add our ILS. (http://aviadocs.net/aip/html/eng.htm) from that website table we see that the ILS for runway 04 is operating on 109.10 with a callsign ID of "IAN" so our ILS line needs to be ILS:frequency(109.1, 'IAN', math.rad(3.0)) and we'll put this in the entry for Anapa in runway 04 ["04"] = { { type = BEACON_TYPE_ILS_FAR_HOMER, callsign = "АН", frequency = 443000.0, }, { type = BEACON_TYPE_ILS_NEAR_HOMER, callsign = "Н", frequency = 215000.0, }, [b][color="Red"]ILS:frequency(109.1, 'IAN', math.rad(3.0))[/color][/b] }, Fly to Anapa and you'll see that you can make an ILS approach on runway 04 with marker beacons and everything. The morse code spells out "IAN" too. Nice! If you look at your Divert page in the A10c CDU you'll also see this frequency for Anapa in the info. (the chart also specifies ILS for the opposite end of the runway "220", however it only seems to be possible to add ILS approaches for one direction of the runway in DCS:World(as of now!)) While we're at Anapa, we may as well add a TACAN station right? right. The TACAN beacon is added to the Airdrome block. Right now, Anapa's airdrome block is empty so we'll need to rewrite it (using information from other tacan enabled bases) This is where things get a little less realistic. TACAN is like a military version of a civilian VOR beacon coupled with a DME. Military aircraft can't communicate with civilian VOR's but we can get around that with DCS World. In real life Anapa uses LOM and LMM markers (no VOR's) but it does have a DME...for me, that's close enough! :D so, let's add a VOR to Anapa, and assign that to a TACAN channel. BeaconTypes.lua contains a list of available beacons to add to DCS World and here's the list of Airdrome beacons... BEACON_TYPE_NULL BEACON_TYPE_VOR - this has a model in game. BEACON_TYPE_DME BEACON_TYPE_VOR_DME BEACON_TYPE_TACAN - this has a model in game. BEACON_TYPE_VORTAC BEACON_TYPE_RSBN - this has a model in game. BEACON_TYPE_BROADCAST_STATION - this has a model in game. As we're adding a TACAN beacon, we should probably use BEACON_TYPE_TACAN, but the VOR model is larger and has a red light on it...so let's use that. (there doesn't appear to be any difference in the type of Beacon that you add, they all operate the same way. We can glean some info from the previous Anapa table to make this more realistic, in particular the information for the DME. using this info we have a Airdrome block that looks like this... airdrome = {[color="Red"][b] { type = BEACON_TYPE_VOR, callsign = "IAN", --ОПРС frequency = 112700000, --realworld frequency position = coordinates("44'59'42N 37'20'26E 1"), --ingame position }, TACAN(28, 'X', 'IAN') [/b][/color]} Load up the game and you now have TCN and ILS at Anapa. The position coordinates are the physical coordinates ingame for the model to show up. This has no effect on how the beacon operates. Tacan will always point to the Centre of the airbase no matter where the beacon is located. Also this line doesn't match up with real world coordinates. Although it's not too far off. What I did was use the ingame free camera to locate a spot on the ground that matches with the reallife beacon position, note down the lat/long and insert that here. hence 'in game position' I hope this information has been helpful. I love the flexibility of using lua files to mod the sim. There's tons more stuff to figure out just with the beacons alone but hopefully this guide is a start. Take care, Ebs. 4 Check out my guide to JSGME for DCS World.
whartsell Posted July 1, 2015 Posted July 1, 2015 I just came across this thread after noticing the lack of navaids for the Hawk. Good stuff Arduino,EOS and Helios Tutorial Static ATC menu mod
uboats Posted July 1, 2015 Posted July 1, 2015 nice work [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC] My DCS Mods, Skins, Utilities and Scripts | Windows 10 | i7-4790K | GTX 980Ti Hybrid | 32GB RAM | 3TB SSD | | TM Warthog Stick | CH Pro Throttle + Pro Pedal | TIR5 Pro | TM MFD Cougar | Gun Camera: PrtScn |
Snoopy Posted July 1, 2015 Posted July 1, 2015 I just came across this thread after noticing the lack of navaids for the Hawk. Good stuff FYI this won't work for the Hawk, VEAO coded Tacan for the hawk themselves it doesn't talk to the ones in DCS world. v303d Fighter Group Discord | Virtual 303d Fighter Group Website
whartsell Posted July 9, 2015 Posted July 9, 2015 FYI this won't work for the Hawk, VEAO coded Tacan for the hawk themselves it doesn't talk to the ones in DCS world. yeah i noticed that but I do believe there is a file there that can be changed as well Arduino,EOS and Helios Tutorial Static ATC menu mod
goestrip Posted July 28, 2015 Posted July 28, 2015 Very interesting ! thanks for you work. Being quite a fan of navigation in DCs, that would come in handy. Now, does this mean we can add more NDB stations ? for any aircraft ? For example, i wish there were more ARC stations for the mig's
Izaiak Posted October 27, 2015 Posted October 27, 2015 Dude this is perfect ! Sad to see that IRL coordinate don't work. Let's edit all files to have real beacon and give it to the rest of people ! :)
Tarres Posted October 28, 2015 Posted October 28, 2015 The 21 uses a propietary file, and you can put a beacon (RSBNPRMG or ARC) wherever you want in the map. Fotr the 21, I use a moded file with the same beacons (morse codes and frequencies for the RSBN-PRMG) that are the same that are in the beacons.lua master file. Remenber that ED and BST modelues are the only ones that use this "master file". LNS, VEAO (I don´t known about Aviodev) uses their own files. Regards.
ESAc_matador Posted August 13, 2016 Posted August 13, 2016 (edited) repeated Edited August 16, 2016 by ESAc_matador
ESAc_matador Posted August 16, 2016 Posted August 16, 2016 Can we put a Tacan in a non airfield place?
Tarres Posted August 16, 2016 Posted August 16, 2016 Yes. Look at the NTTR mod from Gospadin. But in the Caucasus, the map uses the old definition system where the TACAN/VOR/RSBN systems seem to be binded to an airfield definition. It seems that the system, in the Caucasus map, will change to a more flexible system like in the NTTR and other future maps.
Honez Posted July 14, 2020 Posted July 14, 2020 Call me a simpleton but I just place a refueling aircraft at the field for the mission I build and block the aircraft from taking off with a static vehicle or infantry man. My not be the most elegant solution but it works for me and the small group of home boys I fly with in multiplayer.
Recommended Posts