XR Flight Operations Manual Version 3.0
Copyright 2006-2018 Douglas Beachy. All Rights Reserved.
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dimensions, and number of slots occupied are displayed right below its type name,
and a thumbnail bitmap is displayed in the right. Some XR cargo modules may not
have a custom thumbnail defined, in which case a default
Altea Aerospace
thumbnail
will be displayed.
Also, when you select a module type any existing modules of that type that are
attached in the bay are highlighted in bold. Click on a slot number in the dialog to
add or remove a module from that bay slot. If the module will not fit in the bay slot,
an error beep will sound.
Notice in the screenshot above that some of the slot buttons are disabled: that
indicates that the slot is occupied by a cargo module that is attached in an
adjacent
slot and the cargo module is too big to fit into a single slot. Note that the
Vanguard’s
centerline slots in the bay are slightly wider than the normal bay slots, so
there may be certain payload modules that occupy
two
normal slots but only
one
centerline slot.
Creating Your Own Payload Module
An XR-class payload-capable ship can carry
any vessel or module in Orbiter that can
fit in its cargo bay
. All this is required to make an existing Orbiter vessel or cargo
module compatible with all XR-
class vessels are a few additional lines in the vessel’s
configuration file. Note that most users will not need to read this section or deal
with custom cargo modules: this section is intended for use by developers who want
to create their own custom cargo modules or
modify existing cargo modules or
vessels to be compatible with XR-class payload systems.
When Orbiter loads and the first XR ship instance is created, it scans the
C:\Orbiter\Config\Vessels
directory and parses all *.cfg files in it. Each .cfg file
that is compatible with the XR Payload System is parsed and cached in a static,
shared, vessel-wide cache for efficiency: scanning and parsing many configuration
files is relatively expensive, and therefore the files are only scanned and parsed
once
for each XR vessel class. This means that if you install a new cargo module while
Orbiter is running (which is unlikely anyway) you will need to bounce Orbiter before
XR vessels can see it; in practical terms, however, this limitation is a non-issue.
The best way to create your own custom payload modules is to view an existing XR
payload module’s data section, copy it to your
new
module’s .cfg file, and modify it
as necessary. Below is a sample XR-payload-enabled vessel file named
XRParts.cfg;
this
is
installed
with
the
Vanguard
distribution
to
C:\Orbiter\Config\Vessels\XRParts.cfg
. Other payload-enabled XR vessels
include their own payload modules as well. Read the detailed comments in the
payload .cfg file for instructions on how to create your own payload modules.
; === Configuration file for standard 20-ft XR Payload Cargo container
===
; Copyright 2007-2018 Douglas Beachy
; http://www.alteaaerospace.com
