These utilities sound very interesting. Am I correct in thinking that the AI planes now use HOLDS to improve the spacing on arrival? Are these "artificial" holds, or based on real world ones? With respect to the "AIGround" utility, does this stop those extremely annoying "stop/start/stop/start/stop....etc" messages to AI planes when they are behind the user aircraft on the taxiway?

Edited April 27, 20206 yr by Christopher Low

21 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

These utilities sound very interesting. Am I correct in thinking that the AI planes now use HOLDS to improve the spacing on arrival? Are these "artificial" holds, or based on real world ones? With respect to the "AIGround" utility, does this stop those extremely annoying "stop/start/stop/start/stop....etc" messages to AI planes when they are behind the user aircraft on the taxiway?

The holds are artificial, but from what I've observed, it seems to work exceptionally well.  I have tweaked a little to my tastes by changing the ini as follows:

AIARRIVALSPACING=10.0
AIMAXHOLDING=50
AITURBULENCESCALAR=2.0
AISPEEDSCALAR=1.0
AITURNSCALAR=1.0
AIMONITORRADIUS=200000
USERAISEPARATIONDISTANCE=2.0

I wanted to give the AI more time to do their landing and taxi off sequence before the next AI showed up.  This also gave time to AI in the takeoff queue to line up and get out before the next arrival.  Seems to work pretty well so far.

1 hour ago, Clipper Ocean Spray said:

Thanks everyone for the encouraging feedback.  

Vincent, if you want to turn off separation between the user's aircraft and AI, add this line to AIFlow.ini:  USERAISEPARATIONDISTANCE=0

The program will still separate the AI.

Regards, Roland.

 

Good to see you back Roland!

These barebones programs (start them and forget them) are awesome.  Well done.

There was a fellow on the AIG forum that was going to message you about AIGround.  The FSXPAI aircraft do not reset after control checks and have their full flaps hanging down, the spoilers up and reversers open as they taxi and takeoff.  I can confirm this, and seems to only happen with the FSXP aircraft.  All the others seem fine.  Are you able to shed some light on this?

Thanks again for these tools!

3 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

With respect to the "AIGround" utility, does this stop those extremely annoying "stop/start/stop/start/stop....etc" messages to AI planes when they are behind the user aircraft on the taxiway?

Unfortunately no, it is just a barebones utility, it doesn't get into modifying communications or anything like that.

2 hours ago, netshadoe said:

There was a fellow on the AIG forum that was going to message you about AIGround.  The FSXPAI aircraft do not reset after control checks and have their full flaps hanging down, the spoilers up and reversers open as they taxi and takeoff.  I can confirm this, and seems to only happen with the FSXP aircraft.  All the others seem fine.  Are you able to shed some light on this?

Yep, I've been able to replicate this issue with the FSPXAI 787.  The 737 NG doesn't even activate the spoilers at all during control checks.  The MD-11 seems to work fine.

I'm email the author and give him a heads up...I'm just sending standard simconnect commands to the AI (simobject).  However, the author might have some extra logic associated with the AI, so I'll also add an option to disable control checks in the next revision of AIGround (it might be good to just let the advanced payware AI models do their thing).

Edited April 27, 20206 yr by Clipper Ocean Spray

The one thing missing now to make life easier with AI is the ability to specify the runway/s in use! Is that possible?

On 4/27/2020 at 9:29 AM, Clipper Ocean Spray said:

Thanks everyone for the encouraging feedback.  

Vincent, if you want to turn off separation between the user's aircraft and AI, add this line to AIFlow.ini:  USERAISEPARATIONDISTANCE=0

The program will still separate the AI.

Regards, Roland.

 

These are great apps, and sorely needed. Thank you! 

Some feedback/ideas:

•  When I was about to push at KFLL in of those tight alleys between two concourses, an AI stopped right behind me after he pushed back. I flashed my LL's and he moved, but it felt kind of unrealistic. I wonder if there's another, "stealthier" way to get AI to keep moving if they get stuck?
• An .ini option that would be great is to have smaller SimConnect warning boxes. E.g., when I was taking off, the app ran into the SimConnect bug where it loses connection. It's a pretty big prompt to get in the middle of take-off, so an option to make it smaller (e.g. like the SODE disconnect warning) would be great, IMHO.

Just some thoughts!

Thanks so much for making these utilities Roland!

I had a rather odd moment yesterday when I encountered an airborne Hong Kong ferry which flew alongside me while I was approaching Kai Tak. Is it possible that the tool acted in the AI ships by any chance?

This looks intersting, I finally find the AISmooth successor in 64bit.

The same problem as AISmooth is the landing traffiic is so well lined up that there is no room for AI to takeoff.... I had to make a longer sepreation for that, but then he holding will pile up...

maybe devs could give it a rhythm like 3 landing with 4nm then one with 7nm for squeeze into a takeoff?

On 4/27/2020 at 2:29 PM, Martyn Pearson said:

The one thing missing now to make life easier with AI is the ability to specify the runway/s in use! Is that possible?

My earlier AIController utility did that, but it was a substitute AI movement system, which was very complicated, plus once you do that, a substitute communications system is also needed, which isn't my area (although I really enjoy that aspect of the sim and hats off to anyone who is working on something like that).  I hope LM will eventually support runway selection.  If not, maybe someone can figure out an unsupported way to do it using the existing P3D code.

Edited May 2, 20206 yr by Clipper Ocean Spray

On 4/30/2020 at 7:39 PM, Chapstick said:

These are great apps, and sorely needed. Thank you! 

Some feedback/ideas:

•  When I was about to push at KFLL in of those tight alleys between two concourses, an AI stopped right behind me after he pushed back. I flashed my LL's and he moved, but it felt kind of unrealistic. I wonder if there's another, "stealthier" way to get AI to keep moving if they get stuck?
• An .ini option that would be great is to have smaller SimConnect warning boxes. E.g., when I was taking off, the app ran into the SimConnect bug where it loses connection. It's a pretty big prompt to get in the middle of take-off, so an option to make it smaller (e.g. like the SODE disconnect warning) would be great, IMHO.

Just some thoughts!

Thanks, let me think about the first item.  The second item, I've put into the revision I'm working on, which should be out soon.

18 hours ago, C2615 said:

This looks intersting, I finally find the AISmooth successor in 64bit.

The same problem as AISmooth is the landing traffiic is so well lined up that there is no room for AI to takeoff.... I had to make a longer sepreation for that, but then he holding will pile up...

maybe devs could give it a rhythm like 3 landing with 4nm then one with 7nm for squeeze into a takeoff?

Re: lined up landing traffic not giving you room for takeoff, squawk 1234 briefly and the AI will stop landing (except for AI already established on short final).  Within a minute or two, a slot should open up.  

Interesting graphic, thanks for that.  What program did you use? 

23 hours ago, alepro21 said:

Thanks so much for making these utilities Roland!

I had a rather odd moment yesterday when I encountered an airborne Hong Kong ferry which flew alongside me while I was approaching Kai Tak. Is it possible that the tool acted in the AI ships by any chance?

Lol...thanks for the report, I'll look into it.  It is possible.  Is there any chance it was a v5 "highway in the sky" type issue?  

1 hour ago, Clipper Ocean Spray said:

Re: lined up landing traffic not giving you room for takeoff, squawk 1234 briefly and the AI will stop landing (except for AI already established on short final).  Within a minute or two, a slot should open up.  

Interesting graphic, thanks for that.  What program did you use? 

I know that trick, but watching handful of AIs line up the holding short line and occasionally disappear doesn't feel... immerse

this 3d recoading is done by Tacview.

Roland Foster you are a legend, I`ve been using this since you released v1, I was about to send you an email thanking you for doing this, It`s been gone a long time.... I have messed with the ini file and found some great settings, i sit at KSFO using chase cam and just spot, turn the wind up and watch...

Edit: I hope AVSIM give you your own forum thread here because it`s a gem and needs to be kept alive  🙂

Cheers Rick

Edited May 2, 20206 yr by RW1