[Skiathos X] Autogen and Compatibility in general - please read!

[Lars (29Palms) 385]

Hi there,

this is a general topic about Skiathos' compatibility with other add-ons that use custom-autogen.

What is custom autogen in general and which add-ons use it?

It's possible to add custom-made buildings and vegetation as autogen to a scenery in FSX/Prepar3D. But we have to edit two files that contain certain information such as groupings, regionalization, size, GUIDs etc.: default.xml and autogendescriptions.spb which can be found in "FSX/Autogen".

The default.xml can be edited without problems since it's a non-encrypted code. This makes it possible for multiple add-ons to write their definitions into this file IF it hasn't been corrupted by another installation process. This can happen and resulted in some support requests for Skiathos where the installer wasn't able to edit the default.xml properly.

The autogendescriptions.spb is an encrypted file format and Microsoft's EULA prohibits the inclusion of SDK programs in installers to edit this file.

So what most add-ons do is to switch off the original file and place a modified file instead. But this can't work with multiple add-ons and here's the big problem.

ORBX simply deactivates the current files in the Autogen folder and moves their own in when FTX Central is set to a certain region such as "FTX Europe".

This is why most non-airport add-ons aren't compatible with ORBX FTX regions. But ORBX is open to include autogen definitions from other developers into their files. This is what we're planning to do within the next couple of days.

-> Conclusion for ORBX compatibility: Patch within the next days. Now Available: http://forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?/topic/68354-skiathos-x-mykonos-x-orbx-ftx-eu-compatibility-patch/

The problem with other add-ons such as Earth Simulations or FlyTampa Grenadines remains.

There's a utility available by EarthSimulations called "MergES" which makes it possible to merge different autogen files and allowing compatibility with any other add-on that uses custom autogen (buildings as well as vegetation). However there's a bug that lets most merges fail. I'm currently in contact with a developer who found a fix for that issue and I'm really hoping to solve it pretty soon.

-> Conclusion for general compatibility: Manual merging, hopefully possible within the next days as well.

General important notes when installing Skiathos X:

FTX Central must be set to "Default FSX".

Run the set-up as administrator. Otherwise it hasn't the necessary rights to edit the default.xml.

If you followed these two steps but still don't have autogen on the island, please zip the folder "FSX/Autogen" and send it to support@twentynine-palms.de.

[altstiff 28]

I have been asking for a utility like this for AGES and hope one comes full circle Lars.

http://forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?/topic/56214-autogen-merging-tool/#entry390680