As Tower Simulator 3 continues to gain more community-created airports, schedules, and modifications, a developer mode that allows selected text-based assets to be reloaded without restarting the simulator would significantly improve the content creation process.
Many edits are simple changes to CSV or text-based configuration files, such as schedules, gate assignments, airline data, taxiway names, speech files, or other non-compiled assets. Making these edits is often quick, but validating them requires:
Exit the simulator
Edit the file
Relaunch the simulator
Wait 5–10 minutes for startup
Wait several more minutes for traffic to develop
Test a single change
Repeat the process
A simple syntax error or minor schedule correction can therefore require 15–20 minutes of testing for what may only be a 30-second edit.
It would be extremely helpful if a Developer Mode included options such as:
Reload schedules
Reload airport text/configuration files
Restart the current airport/session without exiting the application
Reload other supported text-based assets where practical
I’m not suggesting live editing of the simulation engine or aircraft already in motion. The goal is simply to reduce the time spent repeatedly shutting down and restarting the simulator while testing small text-based changes.
Farming Simulator is one example of a title that provides console/developer commands to reload XML files after editing, greatly reducing iteration time for mod creators. A similar workflow in TS3 would make airport and schedule development much faster while encouraging more community-created content.