Too Much AI?

[Guest]

Hey gang,My only previous attempt with replacing the default AI ended up with pretty crowded airports. Too crowded, maybe.I went to the website to download the real world AI schedules for pretty much every US major and got all of the planes I needed. When I tried to take off from Atlanta, though, I couldn't get a word in edgewise to ATC, and 3 out of 5 planes were told by the tower to go around.So...obviously, Atlanta is a busy airport, and the AI version was without exception. But how do I, say, tweak it so that I can fly there too? I did have a couple of overlays for Atlanta (I think "Delta-American-United" and "everone else"), and it seemed that all of them used the same tower frequency.I would love to hear how some of you out there handle it, or if you just selectively weed out several flights to get a manageable traffic level.Thanks,Matt

[Guest Captain Barfbag]

The 2-overlay AFCAD works well in KATL because of the runway configuration. If it's still too busy, you can improve on the design by closing one runway in each overlay for takeoffs, and the other for landings. That way, you'll have 4 runways in use.You can also assign separate tower frequencies to each overlay using AFCAD. Unless you're really fussy, just pick a different frequency and use it for one of the overlays. That will reduce the ATC load.Realistically, though, there's a limit to how much AI traffic the sim can support. Sometimes the bottleneck is runways, but when I'm flying I find it's more of a problem when I can't get a word in edgewise with ATC, particularly the approach-to-tower handoff.I've been pondering a theoretical question. If you have 2 parallel runways, is it better to use one for takeoffs and one for landings, or is it better to create an overlay for each? It seems to me that the throughput would be higher if you separate takeoff and landing, but you might lose more aircraft in go-arounds if the landing runway gets too busy.