Weapons
General Overview
Weapons in X-Plane are special entities that have specific behavioral properties. Some weapons have geometry, like Bombs, Drop-Tanks and Missles, while other weapons simply have specific behaviors, such as lasers, guns, flares, etc. X-Plane weapon parameters are contained in a stand-alone, aircraft independent, human readable text file called a Weapon file with a *.wpn file extension.
Weapon files may be created and edited through PlaneMaker's Expert > Build Weapon window; however, editing a weapon file via PlaneMaker does not automatically attach the weapon to the aircraft you're actively editing. The Build Weapon window is effectively a 'mini-app' within PlaneMaker to create Weapon Files (*.wpn). Once created; however, then the Expert > Default Weapon window is used to actually attach and locate the weapon on your aircraft. If you have no need to create or edit a weapon file, then the Build Weapon window is not needed. X-Plane ships with several default weapons which may be added.
Expert > Default Weapons - Select and Place a Global Weapon
Expert > Build Weapons - Define / Build a Custom Weapon
Weapons files have a .wpn file extension and there is one file per weapon type. X-Plane comes with many default weapons available and these .wpn files are located in the Weapons directory. In addition, you can create your own custom weapons in PlaneMaker, or edit any of the existing default ones. any .wpn files in X-Plane's Weapons folder will be available to all aircraft; however, you can create your own folder called 'weapons' inside your aircraft folder and save .wpn files there, in which case that weapon is only available to your aircraft.
Default Weapons
Custom Weapons
See the Expert > Build Weapons section of the PlaneMaker manual for more information about creating Custom Weapons. Click on a checkbox for a given weapon type to see configuration info about each respective weapon type.