Multiple copies of same AI aircraft

From today's T360 "work"....

I don't know if it's the same with Traffic X but with T360 in addition to the Company Airlines there are specific "airlines/carriers" (selectable in T360 Flight Planning) for VFR flight plans - one for each country.

All of the Country VFR airlines that I've tried work with the "spaces" workaround. All of the Company Airlines that I've tried so far do not work using the spaces method.

However, like you freddy I find it relatively quick and easy to manually edit the aircraft registration at the same time as I'm setting the "percentage" to 10%. Dan's Textpad method is great for bulk mods, manual edits are probably quicker for custom user flight plans.

In my opinion both of these essential features should be available from the T360 GUI. After all, what's the point of creating a flight plan only to have the percentage set at 80% or more?

Bruce

starling wrote: ... what's the point of creating a flight plan only to have the percentage set at 80% or more?

Every time you compile, the percentage will "randomly" be different. First compile you might get a "10%", the second compile "64%", the third compile "28%". At least, this is how it works with Traffic X. With Traffic 360, they may have changed the way it does it by getting it to only select "higher" (or "lower") percentage values. But, as I do not have Traffic 360, I cannot be sure of that.

Suffice to say, I think this "randomness" (and possible selection of only "higher" [or "lower"] percentage values) is there to help prevent congestion at airports and to also, well, create a random feel to everything. Who really knows? It can be annoying when you're doing just one flight plan, but not so bad if you're doing lots and lots of flight plans (because it gives that random feel to everything with each subsequent compile) ... but as long as you are aware of it ... and how to "circumvent it" when you need to ... then you can work with it.

That said, I agree with you that the program should allow the USER to choose how it works, either by letting them type it in directly for each flight plan they create (with appropriate warnings about congestion), or by choosing a number setting above (or below) which the program then randomly assigns the value. Users that do not know about it, or have no idea how to manually edit/fix flight plan files will always be "caught out" by it. At the very least, the "randomness" of how it currently works now should be mentioned in the manual to avoid user confusion when they set up their own flight plans only to have them NOT appear in the sim. "I have made a flight plan but I do not see my plane in the sim" has been a common question in the Traffic X forum, and will probably be a common question in this Traffic 360 forum as well.

starling wrote: freddy - I'm not aware of any option in T360 to select higher or lower percentage value ranges - however I could easily of missed it in the manual :). It would be a useful (though not ideal) option so I'll definitely check the manual again.

In reading that, it sounds like I may have confused you in to thinking that such an option exists in the Traffic 360 program. I don't have Traffic 360 to confirm, but I'm willing to bet that such an option does not exist in Traffic 360. And no such option exists in Traffic X either.

starling wrote: As I see it, the problem with the current T360 approach of randomly allocating a percentage at the point of compilation is that (assuming sliders are not at 100%) once a flight plan has been compiled the randomly allocated percentages are fixed from that point onwards (until a recompile). For all practical purposes this means that I have to regularly regenerate flight plans otherwise those routes randomly allocated a very high percentage will NEVER be flown. If I spend time creating a multi-leg, daily flight between two airport I want it to be flown - or at the very least I want to decide the likelihood of it being flown. If necessary to avoid congestion I would much prefer that the high percentages be allocated to the routes that came with the T360 package rather than to routes that I have purposely created to add activity to specific airports by specific airlines and aircraft at or around particular times of the day. Fortunately your method of manually editing the decompiled flight plan gives me the necessary control over percentage values. Hopefully this problem will be addressed in the soon (I hope) to be released service pack for T360.

You're right. Setting up flight plans can be a time-consuming process, especially if you're setting multiple routes and weekly schedules. It gets more time-consuming if you're trying to avoid conflicts with other flight plans based on departure times and arrival times and trying to make sure that appropriate parking spots are freed up and become available. Then there's the people who attempt to mimic real-world schedules. And, not to mention folks like me who spend additional time adding new aircraft and applying repaints to AI in an effort to achieve the best realism possible. I agree 100% that a user who spends the time doing such things would want to see their hard work and time spent pay off and see their flights shown. It annoys me slightly that the program, by having this randomness built in to it, does not appear to take this in to consideration. It even appears strange in a way for the program to market itself proudly as one which allows you to add/edit your own flight plans, when it then doesn't guarantee that you will see the fruits of that work. Yes, it is fortunate that we can (manually) dive in and do our own edits and fixes. Unfortunately, not everyone is prepared to do that, or has the skills/patience for it.

That said, for all the quirks, the Traffic X product has greatly enhanced my sim and I am happy that I've been able to use it to get the exact results that I desire ... even if I have had to do some manual work to achieve it. I am sure Traffic 360 will do the same (and probably more) for anyone who wants to explore all the possibilities and potential that it might have and is willing to go a little bit above and beyond the "install it and leave it" experience.

starling wrote: Out of interest: I'm not sure if the distribution is linear or weighted in some way but just a quick glance through a T360 flight plan will see percentages from 1% to 100%. I'm new to the AI aspect of flight simulation but have found it surprisingly addictive and have even gone to the rather geeky lengths of following one of my AI flights in a user aircraft. It (a Cessna Gran Caravan) was leaving it's departure airport but never arriving at the first leg destination. I found out that it was aborting the landing just prior to final approach and continuing on to the second leg airport??

Traffic X also has percentages ranging from 1% to 100%.

Addictive? Hell yes! The Traffic program is only the TIP of the iceberg with what you can do with AI. Once you discover how to add in or modify liveries, add in new or missing aircraft models, mimic real-world schedules, modify aircraft.cfg files to set parking codes, etc etc ... you can quickly find yourself getting lost in it all and having a LOT OF FUN with it along the way. And, once you discover there are OTHER tools and utilities which are available (usually free) that take it all to the next level such as editing airports (parking spots, aprons, taxiways etc) and adding airline names and aircraft names for the ATC to use ... you will soon find yourself having EVEN MORE FUN. At least, that is how it is for me! I'm always working on something to do with AI. It is possible to achieve a level of realism in the sim with the correct liveries, the correct aircraft types, the correct parking in the correct spots at airports, and even right-on-time scheduling that you probably never knew or dreamt was possible. You can get it down to a fine art. And it's FUN!

Your Cessna Caravan probably aborted its approach and continued on to the next leg because the AI aircraft looks at the airport where it is scheduled to land and tries to find out if there is going to be an active/available parking spot for it. If no such parking spot exists, then the simulator handles that in a few ways. I am surprised that it continued on to the next leg though. Usually the sim "throttles" (deletes) the aircraft from the simulation if it cannot evaluate a valid solution for a parking spot for the aircraft. This "throttling" can happen after an aircraft has landed, or, depending on a number of factors, whilst an aircraft is in the air on approach to the airport.

starling wrote: Interesting.......how does modifying the aircraft.cfg to set parking codes work?

There's no short answer to that question. That is to say, I can answer the question, but it will lead to MORE questions ... and then we begin getting way off the original topic.

Airport AFCAD files have parking spots set inside them (obviously). Those parking spots can have parking codes assigned to them. These codes are usually based on Airline names or on other factors such as aircraft type. Each parking spot inside the AFCAD can have more than one parking code allocated to it which allows for more than one airline to park in that spot (not at the same time obviously). Parking codes are generally based on ICAO airline designators. Wikipedia has a list of these. Examples of parking codes might include "AAL" (American Airlines), "AFR" (Air France), "QFA" (Qantas airlines), etc.

Now ... the aircraft.cfg file has a line in it "atc_parking_codes". If that line has "atc_parking_codes=AAL" then that means that this plane will park in a parking spot that has "AAL" assigned to its parking spot in the airport AFCAD ("AAL" being American Airlines). So, this plane is probably an American Airlines plane, and, in the airport file (AFCAD), the American Airlines parking spots will be set next to the appropriate airport terminal where American Airlines planes would normally park in the real world. So, it is possible to get planes to park in the same/right spots that they would use in the real world.

Just like it is possible for the airport AFCAD file to have more than one parking code set for a parking spot, it is also possible to have more than one parking code set for a plane in the atc_parking_code line (separated by commas). For example: "atc_parking_codes=AAL,AALX,AA".

Note that it is not just parking codes that determine where a plane will park. That is just one part of it. Other factors apply too such as aircraft wingspan, aircraft type, (commercial jet, GA, etc), parking spot type (gate, ramp), and so on.

The Traffic 360 planes will all have aircraft.cfg files, and they will probably have parking codes in them already. You can easily modify these if you wish. The trick is in knowing what the codes are that are set inside the airport AFCAD file(s). Generally the big airline codes will always apply and be correct (eg, AAL, AFR, etc). So you can usually get those right without too much guessing or effort. But, for the more obscure airlines or for smaller airports etc, the only way to be certain of the codes is if the documentation for the airport AFCAD (if you even have documentation) tells you, or if you have an AFCAD editor program such as "ADE", "FSX Planner" or "AFX". With these programs you can edit and make changes to the airport itself; adding or removing buildings, taxiways, taxi signs, runways, etc ... and you will be able to see the details for things like parking spot codes, parking types, and so on. You can even add your own parking codes to parking spots. But those programs and airport editing etc is a whole new, different, and complicated topic.

I would suggest you do some more research on the topic of parking codes and AI parking in general using Google.

starling wrote: About the aborted AI landing....There was plenty of GA parking available - however it was VERY late arriving at the leg1 destination airport probably too late to land, park and take-off on schedule. Could that be a possible reason for aborting?

Nope, AI doesn't care about darkness, lateness, no runways lights, etc etc. If an AI plane is set to a land at an airport in the traffic BGL file, then it will land at that airport, every time, all the time. Regardless of any other factor such as weather, lights, daylight, etc.

That's some great information freddy - thanks very much. Will do further research as you suggest.

Bruce

Soaranden wrote: Approaches, over at the FSDeveloper forum, is an exceptionally informative posting about another aspect of AI aircraft behavior.

I have read that Approaches information many times. JVile, who posts in that thread, appears time and time again in numerous posts about AFCADS, AI and AI behaviour. Another name that you will see a lot when you research AI and AI parking is ReggieF5421. ReggieF5421's many posts in many threads gave me great insights in to AI and parking behaviour. Credit and thanks goes to both of them for the knowledge of AI that I have today.