Trouble With LandClass

Mick

Mick

SOH-CM-2025
I'm setting up FS9/GW in my no longer new computer and I need a couple of landclass files. Making them has me stymied and I'm becoming intensely frustrated. :dizzy:

First I tried to make them with EZ Landclass. I found that EZ Landclass uses some executable files from the FS2000 Scenery SDK, and one of them, an essential piece of the process, won't work in Windows 7.

Then I tried Sbuilder. I followed all the instructions to set it up, but I can't produce the final BGL file. I suspect that at least one of the many executables involved in the process doesn't work in Windows 7. At least, I can't think of any other explanation. I've followed the instructions and the prompts as best I can, but to no avail. It doesn't help that program's help files are very sketchy; they mostly refer the user to tutorials posted online at a web site that seems to no longer exist.

Next I thought I'd try Landclass Assistant. I found several updates to later versions, but they all require that the original program be installed first, and though I've scoured the web, I can't find the original program anywhere. (It might not work in W7 anyway...)

I considered ADE9x, but it's a very complex program that requires downloads of several additional programs, mostly from Microsoft, and I hesitate to clutter up my confuter with a highly complex program and multiple auxiliary programs, and study up to learn how to use it, without any assurance that all of the numerous components will run in Windows 7 (not to mention that it's a lot to go through for the production of two or three files, then probably never use it again.)

Does anyone know of a simple way to make landclass files that works in Windows 7?

Does anyone know where to find a copy of the original Landclass Assistant program?

Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions that might lead me to a solution?
 
SBuilder is still your best bet. To produce the final file you FIRST have to go to the selection menu and "Select All". Anything that's not selected won't be compiled - you'll know if it's selected if it has a green border or (since you're dealing with landclass) the entire area is filled in with flourescent green.
That's probably your problem... it's an annoying unintuitive step that took me an embaressing amount of time to figure out myself.
 
EMatheson said:
SBuilder is still your best bet. To produce the final file you FIRST have to go to the selection menu and "Select All". Anything that's not selected won't be compiled - you'll know if it's selected if it has a green border or (since you're dealing with landclass) the entire area is filled in with flourescent green.
That's probably your problem... it's an annoying unintuitive step that took me an embaressing amount of time to figure out myself.
Click to expand...
Thank you! I will try that this afternoon or evening. :ernaehrung004:
 
EMatheson said:
SBuilder is still your best bet. To produce the final file you FIRST have to go to the selection menu and "Select All". Anything that's not selected won't be compiled - you'll know if it's selected if it has a green border or (since you're dealing with landclass) the entire area is filled in with flourescent green.
That's probably your problem... it's an annoying unintuitive step that took me an embaressing amount of time to figure out myself.
Click to expand...

It worked! It worked! :jump:

Thank you! :ernaehrung004:
 
:ernaehrung004::ernaehrung004:

Horrible thing with sbuilder is once you do something you'll remember it forever....until you do that thing though it will bug you forever :biggrin-new:
 
Well, it sure bugged me until EMatheson posted the solution to my problem. Simple, but as he wrote, non-intuitive, and in the absence of the apparently-extinct Sbuilder tutorials, I never would have stumbled onto it myself.

It was especially frustrating because I didn't need to do much with it - just generate a few landclass files. Golden Wings left out a few historically significant airports in my local area, and all I needed was to make landclass files to get rid of the inappropriate urban sprawl around and under their locations. They were fairly simple airports and I can make acceptable rough approximations of them with AFCAD files and available scenery objects, so I just needed to make their immediate surroundings look credible.

These are things I wanted to do years ago, when GW first came out, but I let myself get overloaded with other projects and never had time to do these simple jobs. I'm doing them now (or at least, getting ready to do them) because even after a couple years away from the hobby to ameliorate my FS burnout, I'm finding it very frustrating to be setting up my sims in my current computer because of the annoyance of doing complex, tedious stuff that I already did once before. It soothes my aggravation somewhat to do things like this once in a while that I haven't already done before, especially since I wanted to do them for a long time back then and couldn't get to them. Though it wasn't very soothing to be unable to make those little LC files!

The fields I'm going to make are Bowles Airport in Agawam, Mass., the Naval Air Reserve Base at Squantum, Mass., and Hickam Field in Hawaii.

The Granville Brothers, who were based at Springfield, Mass., flew their new planes across the Connecticut River to Bowles for most of their test flying, figuring that a crash in the farm fields of Agawam would be less likely to turn into a disaster than a crash in thickly-settled Springfield. Bowles also has fond personal memories for me, since I did considerable flying there back in the 1970s and 1980s, back before the cost of recreational flying increased to the point where I couldn't afford to fly enough to maintain my skills.

Squantum played a historical role in the development of Naval Aviation from before World War One through the early years of the Cold War. It was also the only Navair facility in New England until the Navy built NAS South Weymouth at the beginning of WW2.

OK, Hawaii isn't in my local area, but Bill Lyons' Golden Hawaii, which I've permanently integrated into Golden Wings, features Battleship Row, but has no Hickam Field. Since the fleet didn't move to Hawaii until shortly before World War Two, after Hickam was built, GH/GW needs Hickam, so I will build it. Or a very rough approximation of it, anyway.

I can't even guess when I will actually get these things done, but at least now I have all my tools ready.
 
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