Hello everybody,
I have been playing OMSI 2 intermittently for several years. Recently, I got myself a Logitech G25 steering wheel in order to build a real dashboard to play the game. My idea is to hack the steering wheel to a full-sized bus one with turning indicators switch and to design and 3D-print a dashboard with all the indicators and switches and connect it to the game.
So, this post will have 2 main parts.
First one: OMSI 2 community status.
I have seen that the official Marcel's OMSI forum does no longer admit new registrations since a new game, LOTUS-Simulator, is being developed. However, I have seen that the activity on that forum as well as on this forum and on the OMSI WebDisk forum (the ones I have found to be the most important and active ones besides from Marcel's) is still going on... So my main question is: Do you think it is worth spending time and effort in developing such thing in a game not officially supported? I mean, I don't mind that the game is not supported as long as the community is still active so that I can get help and new addons will still be released... Also, am I missing any other OMSI 2 active forum?
Actually I am going to post this on the WebDisk forum as well.
Second one: Technical details and help regarding my idea.
I have done some research on how to interface a real-life dashboard with the game.
From one side, inputting actions to the game is pretty straight-forward. I can hack a USB keyboard (or use an arcade USB interface or a U-HID) to connect my own switches to the game and assign each switch to the corresponding key in the keyboard, so that it will be basically as if I was playing with a keyboard.
On the other side, pulling data out of the game to activate gauges, lights and even displays, is a little bit trickier...
Gazz did a great step on the development of such systems back in 2012 by using an Arduino and a custom-made OMSI plugin as it can be seen on his Youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcxjbphxuIE1KMpMgyqxk0w). Although his website is not working (http://www.kampenwagen.co.uk/), I have been able to read about it and download the Arduino sketch and the OMSI plugin through the Internet Archive (Gazz's Omsi Dash). I have not tried Gazz's plugin yet since I think it is for OMSI (1) only... Might give it a try on OMSI 2 anyway, we'll see...
Later, in 2014, a german guy named Lars Jobst developed KOMSI, an OMSI plugin designed to specifically do this. Plus, it is very costumizable (you can choose which variables you want to get from the game to the Arduino and it comes with some helpful tool to test your setup). KOMSI can be download from http://pulle76.de/. Actually, Gazz has a video showing KOMSI working (). I have tried it and I can not get it to work. At first, the plugin itself (KOMSI client) was not communicating with KOMSI Server. After reinstalling the game and the plugin I got them both to communicate. However, the KOMSI Server freezes as soon as I connect to the Arduino board. It happens that the official channel to get support for KOMSI (Fehlermeldung - OMSI deluxe) is also down... Anyone here has experience with KOMSI and can help with this?
Another option I have found, but not tried yet, is SimHub (SimHub, DIY Sim Racing Dash and Hardware - Bring Your Sim Racing Rig To Life) Anyone here has experience with SimHub? I will try it soon and report.
Is there any other way of getting data out of OMSI easily?
Finally, my last option is to write my own plugin.
I have not been able to find much documentation on that (even in German)... From what I've read so far, it looks that plugins can be written in Delphi (the language the game is written in) and in C++. For C++, Holmexx developed a framework to develop OMSI plugins (Programming of the plugin interface - Marcels OMSI-Forum). There is more explanations and tutorials on this framework on this website: OMSI Plugin Framework I – OMSIWiki. The tutorial is incomplete and the link to download the framework (https://omsi.sovoma.de/downloads/opf.zip)... you guessed it right: it's down! Does anyone here has the ZIP for the framework or a link to download it?
Do you know where I can find more information on how to develop a plugin or any example?
Well... this has been a long post, sorry for that. I just wanted to put you in situation of the research I have done so far.
To wrap up:
I want to build a custom dashboard. I am looking for a way to drive the lights and indicators of the dashboard. I have tried KOMSI so far without success. Anyone knows of an alternative way to get variables out of OMSI? My last hope is to write my own plugin... Any tutorial or example on this?
Thank you very much.
I have been playing OMSI 2 intermittently for several years. Recently, I got myself a Logitech G25 steering wheel in order to build a real dashboard to play the game. My idea is to hack the steering wheel to a full-sized bus one with turning indicators switch and to design and 3D-print a dashboard with all the indicators and switches and connect it to the game.
So, this post will have 2 main parts.
First one: OMSI 2 community status.
I have seen that the official Marcel's OMSI forum does no longer admit new registrations since a new game, LOTUS-Simulator, is being developed. However, I have seen that the activity on that forum as well as on this forum and on the OMSI WebDisk forum (the ones I have found to be the most important and active ones besides from Marcel's) is still going on... So my main question is: Do you think it is worth spending time and effort in developing such thing in a game not officially supported? I mean, I don't mind that the game is not supported as long as the community is still active so that I can get help and new addons will still be released... Also, am I missing any other OMSI 2 active forum?
Actually I am going to post this on the WebDisk forum as well.
Second one: Technical details and help regarding my idea.
I have done some research on how to interface a real-life dashboard with the game.
From one side, inputting actions to the game is pretty straight-forward. I can hack a USB keyboard (or use an arcade USB interface or a U-HID) to connect my own switches to the game and assign each switch to the corresponding key in the keyboard, so that it will be basically as if I was playing with a keyboard.
On the other side, pulling data out of the game to activate gauges, lights and even displays, is a little bit trickier...
Gazz did a great step on the development of such systems back in 2012 by using an Arduino and a custom-made OMSI plugin as it can be seen on his Youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcxjbphxuIE1KMpMgyqxk0w). Although his website is not working (http://www.kampenwagen.co.uk/), I have been able to read about it and download the Arduino sketch and the OMSI plugin through the Internet Archive (Gazz's Omsi Dash). I have not tried Gazz's plugin yet since I think it is for OMSI (1) only... Might give it a try on OMSI 2 anyway, we'll see...
Later, in 2014, a german guy named Lars Jobst developed KOMSI, an OMSI plugin designed to specifically do this. Plus, it is very costumizable (you can choose which variables you want to get from the game to the Arduino and it comes with some helpful tool to test your setup). KOMSI can be download from http://pulle76.de/. Actually, Gazz has a video showing KOMSI working (). I have tried it and I can not get it to work. At first, the plugin itself (KOMSI client) was not communicating with KOMSI Server. After reinstalling the game and the plugin I got them both to communicate. However, the KOMSI Server freezes as soon as I connect to the Arduino board. It happens that the official channel to get support for KOMSI (Fehlermeldung - OMSI deluxe) is also down... Anyone here has experience with KOMSI and can help with this?
Another option I have found, but not tried yet, is SimHub (SimHub, DIY Sim Racing Dash and Hardware - Bring Your Sim Racing Rig To Life) Anyone here has experience with SimHub? I will try it soon and report.
Is there any other way of getting data out of OMSI easily?
Finally, my last option is to write my own plugin.
I have not been able to find much documentation on that (even in German)... From what I've read so far, it looks that plugins can be written in Delphi (the language the game is written in) and in C++. For C++, Holmexx developed a framework to develop OMSI plugins (Programming of the plugin interface - Marcels OMSI-Forum). There is more explanations and tutorials on this framework on this website: OMSI Plugin Framework I – OMSIWiki. The tutorial is incomplete and the link to download the framework (https://omsi.sovoma.de/downloads/opf.zip)... you guessed it right: it's down! Does anyone here has the ZIP for the framework or a link to download it?
Do you know where I can find more information on how to develop a plugin or any example?
Well... this has been a long post, sorry for that. I just wanted to put you in situation of the research I have done so far.
To wrap up:
I want to build a custom dashboard. I am looking for a way to drive the lights and indicators of the dashboard. I have tried KOMSI so far without success. Anyone knows of an alternative way to get variables out of OMSI? My last hope is to write my own plugin... Any tutorial or example on this?
Thank you very much.