Sim Setup: X-Plane
Since you're here, you've probably gotten yourself a new simulator and want to configure STKP for use with it. This article covers setting up SimToolkitPro for use with X-Plane.
Topics Covered:
Local Setup
A local setup should be used when the simulator and STKP are on the same computer.
Click the Connect To Sim button on the STKP Dashboard, then click the X-Plane 11 logo to enable the use of the sim. A blue tick mark shows the simulator is enabled.
Now that the simulator is enabled, the Settings tab for it will be made available. Head to STKP Settings and look for a new 'X-Plane' tab that appeared at the top of the page and switch to that. Now we need to tell SimToolkitPro where X-Plane 11 is installed. It will try to auto detect the installation folder, but this isn't always possible or successful.
If SimToolkitPro was unable to find your folder, click the 'Find' button and locate the directory. This should be set to the location of the X-Plane.exe file. With the folder selected, click the Install Plugin button to copy over the required files. In the event of an error, notices will appear in the top right of the app. Errors are likely to be permissions based, so ensure that the simulator is not running and you have the required rights to place plugins in the folder. You may need to run SimToolkitPro as administrator to do this.
For a local installation you are now done. Starting up X-Plane 11 and loading into an airport, you should now see STKP-Connector in the list of installed plugins using the Plugin Admin menu.
If the plugin isn't present in the list, check your X-Plane Log.txt file for more information on why it isn't being loaded or hop into the STKP Discord to get help from the Support Team.
With the plugin loaded, you should now be able to establish a connection between the sim and SimToolkitPro. Click the Connect X-Plane button on the Dashboard or the Flight Summary page.
Visting the Live Sim Data page from the sidebar should now show information about the aircraft you are currently in as well as positional information from the simulator.
With that, you are ready to fly!
Network Setup
A network setup should be used when the simulator and STKP are on different computers. The process for setting it up differs slightly, but it's nice and simple too. SimToolkitPro for X-Plane over a network can function with any combination of devices and Operating Systems. Sim on Windows, STKP on Linux, Sim on Mac, STKP on Windows - all combinations should work just fine.
The first step is to ensure the plugin is installed in X-Plane, this can be done by either installing and configuring STKP as above locally first, or by viewing the plugin files from the X-Plane setup page in the Settings and then manually transferring it over to the simulator.
With the plugin installed the only setup required is to turn on the Network Mode switch and ensure the IP is correct for the simulator device, importantly, make sure that port 40303 is open on the simulator device firewall as required. Please consult the appropriate documentation for this!
X-Plane 12...
X-Plane 12 is still in its early days and we haven't yet gotten around to properly implementing a separate set of controls for it. However, this doesn't mean you can't use STKP with X-Plane 12. Instead of pointing STKP to the install folder of X-Plane 11, point it to the install folder of X-Plane 12 and click 'Install Plugin'. Just like with X-Plane 11, the plugin should appear under the Plugin Admin and when you click 'Connect X-Plane 11' in STKP, you'll instead be connected to X-Plane 12. This is a temporary solution, but rest assured that separate controls for X-Plane 12 are coming in a future update!