AI?

[Guest Tom EverittAFG]

Hi, I finaly made time to start tweeking my AI aircraft but have come across a problem. Whilst setting up flight plans for EGCC, I ended up with aircraft parked at all the wrong terminals, BA on T2, jmc on T3 etc. If it wasn't for the fact I work there and know its wrong, I could live with it! I was just wondering if there is anyway to get the correct airlines at the correct Terminal?Any help/suggestions greatly appreciated :-zhelpTomAFG.

[Guest]

Tom - this is back to the old case of AFCAD overlays or radius AFCAD files.I understand the former quite clearly, although the latter are something of a mystery to me.Overlays are basically new AFCAD files that sit alongside the existing 'parent' AFD data. So if you've got an EGCC AFCAD file, you'd delete some of the gates, for example all bar T1, then save that as EGCC. Then take the original AFCAD file, delete all the gates for T1 and T2, and call that EGC2, and so on on until you have separate AFCAD files for each terminal - plus extras for cargo and/or biz jets.That's all well and good, but then you need a utility like AITM by Thomas Molitor to edit the flightplans, so BA flights go to T3, Britannia to T2 etc etc. It's quite time consuming, and can become something of an addiction. I've also found it extremely frustrating, so am leaving this to the experts.There are loads of people on this forum, including edetroit (Edward Cox), Misha_K and DJPrev who are masters of the overlay file - and I'm sure Ed has mentioned EGCC in the past.I expect they'll respond to your post shortly.Robhttp://www.btinternet.com/~rob.corp/images/sig.jpg

[Guest Tom EverittAFG]

Hi Rob, Thanks for the reply, at least now I know that it is possible :-)TomAFG.

[Guest]

Hi, for what it's worth (& I'm not an expert)- using AFCAD export your EGCC file.copy the exported file 3 times & call them 1GCC, 2GCC, 3GCC according to terminal designation (& maybe a 4th copy (4GCC) if you want to separate the cargo side.) open each file in turn and delete the parking spaces that are not part of that terminal. (& maybe some taxiways too) Using Ttools, edit your traffic.bgl so that each airline uses the correct terminal by changing EGCC in the flightplan to 3GCC for BA, 2GCC for Britannia /Air2000 & long haul US airlines, 1GCC for JMC / MyTravel, Lufthansa, SAS, Iberia etc. You may have to fiddle with the text inside the AFCAD file to prevent the AI aircraft from calling out for clearance to "1GCC" instead of "Manchester" - I did this successfully with Heathrow but it was trial & error. You also have to add the Airports "1GCC, 2GCC" etc to the top of the Ttools Airports file (copy the EGCC entry with Lat.& Lon. & re-name it) before you recompile the traffic.EDIT...Oh yes - then import all the AFCAD files including EGCC (so that you fly in & out of EGCC rather than one of the others).BE WARNED- I have so much U.K. traffic that I decided I needed an upgrade to improve the frame rates, I went from a P3-833 & Matrox G400 grapics(512mbRAM) to an Athlon 2100+ & GeForce 4 Ti4600 graphics (512mbRAM). I get faster frame rates but my Computer now locks up entirely when I approach Manchester or LHR due to the amount of AI on the ground (& that is without every real world gate being added)I think this is hardware related as I didn't get the lockups on the old machine.Aidan.;(8

[Guest]

Tom,You don't need an overlay. Instead, go to Project AI and check out the "radius method" stuff. There is a new system called "Radius AFCAD" in which gates are assigned to airlines, not particular sizes of planes. The planes are broken up into International, Domestic, and Regional groupings so a United ERJ won't park next to a United 747. But each major airline will get its own place at the airports. I believe an explanation is available in the "unoffical downloads-utilities" section of Project AI. If you need to, join the forum and ask for more information, you will get an answer.Michael Hartshorn"Cygnus X-1"Project Airlift

[Guest jase439]

There's nothing really mysterious about Radius AFCAD. You simply assign a radius to all the MDL's for a given airline using a tool like AITM. Aircraft are sized according to this little table which Matt Fox and Kevin Au put together in Excel (i.e. Southwest = 19 meters). Then, using AFCAD, you designate gates as "Southwest" (instead of "Gate Large" or "Gate Small"). In this example, choosing Southwest will size the gates to also be 19 meters. When the AI engine is running it will match 19m aircraft to 19m gates - voila...controlled parking. None of the funny voodoo and airport reassignments you have to deal with when using overlays.

[Guest Tom EverittAFG]

Hi Guys, Thanks for all the advice :-) I can see this is going to take me a while to set up..........TomAFG.

[ckukmale 30]

Yes Tom it does get very addictive but then when you have done it and you sit back and watch your airport come to life and see the planes go to the right places it is very satisfying and also I just become amazed about how far things have come. The next step I think that might happen with the AI is that they will hopefully have better AI control by the PC when landing so that they will space out more and also maybe have ground AI airport traffic which after a while people will be able to edit. Makes it even more addictive. Also would like AI planes to fly more realistic routes instead of flying direct but thats not a neccessity but its amazing how things are moving on so much.I posted a picture of my AI traffic so far ..I havent got alot of airlines so far but am getting addicted to getting planes and adding planes and spent the last day or so implementing this new Radius Afcad technique to my AI mdl files to LAX so now the aircraft park in their correct places. The Afcad file for this I got from Project AI's website and was made by Matt Fox. Here are the links to the relevant pictureshttp://ftp.avsim.com/dcforum/DCForumID47/13573.htmlhttp://ftp.avsim.com/dcforum/DCForumID47/13520.htmlCraig Kiltie