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Adding more functioning TACAN stations to DCS World


Ebs

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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)

 

attachment.php?attachmentid=76807&stc=1&d=1359891809

 

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.

anapails.png.9e9292cda1285422b15ca276e6bde728.png

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  • 2 years later...
  • 3 weeks later...

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

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  • 2 months later...

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.

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  • 9 months later...

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.

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  • 3 years later...

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.

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