AI Parking Spaces in FSCOF (FS2004)

[Guest]

It would be nice if Microsoft could change the way the parking spaces (Used by AI Aircraft) are defined. Currently, in FS2002, only one parameter defines a parking space - its radius. Getting an AI aircraft to go to a specific parking space with only this one variable is difficult.Schemes such as RAFCAD (which I use) have come along that use this one parameter. This technique works fairly well (at least as can be expected working with only the aircraft

[Guest jkramer51]

I've been thinking about that myself. I was thinking putting 2 lines in the aircraft.cfg. One would be aircraft_type=, then have ie: p for pasenger, c cargo, g general aircraft, b business, m military... Then the other line would be airline_name= then a 2 or 3 letter designation. f9, ual, aal.... Then with the AFCAD have a place for the aircraft type, then you could have up to 4 airlines at a particular gate, or put in all for all airlines. Then use the radius for the aircraft types. A300, B733, B744.... That way if you want upto a B763 in a gate it won't put a B764 or higher in there, but it would put smaller, and only the airline you designated. This would be better than RAFCAD since some airlines share the same gate you can't use 2 radiuses at the same time. Just my 2 cents worth.John

[Guest]

Since ATC like to direct planes to park at empty spots, it might be hard to create the whole terminal idea (ex. United Airlines only go to certain terminal). Unless, MS doubles or triples the default parking spots. Of course as a user it can be done but the overall problem is without extra gates AI traffic will just disappear once they've cleared the active since there might not be any parking spots left open on the certain terminal that they are designed to goto. However, what might be a great happy medium would be to designate where an aircraft will park under the following caterogries of GA, Cargo, Military, and Commercial. If we had that then we could add gates along with ai flight plans and see the airports more realistically. You might have different carriers at wrong gates but at least you wouldn't see cessnas at the gate. You could also now enjoy having cargo planes seen only in the cargo area. The only way I could see the idea of being able to label an ai plane to park at a certain gate would be to designate an area (like a taxi lane) as a hold area until spots became available or make the ai be forced to leave if at the gate to make way for landing traffic. Either way doesn't look like its a possiblity MS would do based on the workload to results.Another idea that would go along with this would the ability to state what terminal or area you would like to end your flight at when filing an IFR Flight Plan using the flight planner. When you create an IFR flight using the planner you can pick where you want to start at but you can't say where you want to park at once you've reached your destination. I say that MS considers having a list of the terminals as an option along with Cargo area and GA. So if your landing in Boston you could have these choices:Terminal A (I know its being rebuilt)Terminal BTerminal CTerminal DTerminal ECargo Area NorthCargo Area SouthGA AreaThat way your now able to get to park at the terminal or area you want to park at. I'm more interested in where I park than where AI parks. By just doing a ** area instead of an actual gate then you won't have to worry if an AI plane is in your spot instead, you would just park at an empty spot available at that terminal or in the area. This idea seems like it should work perfectly a high percent of the time but as a fall back maybe when you file this flight the sim parks an invisble plane or does something to hold your spot when the flight starts. That or once your on final it removes an ai plane from your desinated area if there is no spots open so that you would have a place to park.Kilstorm

[KevinAu 441]

>>That way your now able to get to park at the terminal or >area you want to park at. I'm more interested in where I >park than where AI parks. >>Kilstorm If you're using rafcads, do realize that the radius settings are not strictly for AI. They can be applied to user aircraft also, so that when you arrive at your destination, the user can also be directed to selected parking spots.

[Guest]

where do I get this RACAD? I did a search on avsim but came up blank?Kil~

[KevinAu 441]

You can find more info at project ai. It is a system using different radius sizes to direct parking. Before doing anything with it, you should download the information packages from the utility files area.

[Guest]

>it might be hard to create the whole terminal idea (ex. United >Airlines only go to certain terminal). Unless, MS doubles >or triples the default parking spots. Of course as a user >it can be done but the overall problem is without extra >gates AI traffic will just disappear once they've cleared >the active since there might not be any parking spots left >open on the certain terminal that they are designed to goto. The number of default parking spaces won't really matter because, using AFCAD, you can create as many addional parking spaces as you would like. However, AFCAD would probably need to be slightly modified in order to edit multiple parking space parameters.

[Guest]

O.k. So I read about Rafcad and see how it works. I see that Project AI offers the planes, the textures, the flight plans, and now with the rafcad the parking spots. What I would be impressed with and willing to pay for is if project AI puts all this into a self installing program that is sold on CD. THat way instead of having to download all kinds of files. I really want to use this for the next version and probably will use FS2k2 as my testing grounds before putting into the next version. But till then the idea of having a vast amount of different a/c, covering all kinds of airlines, flying to the correct destinations and departing and arriving to the correct terminal or parking area without using over lays (since the next version will allow multipule runways to be used) sounds like it could market itself quit easily if sold on a cd.Kil~

[Guest Captain Barfbag]

When I started looking at RAFCAD, I'll admit that it looked like an awful lot of work to get it started. However, once I took the plunge I realized that it really isn't that much effort, and the results are well worth it. It took me an hour or two to set the radius on my fleet of hundreds of AI planes, using AITM. After that, you can do a few airports every now and then. The radiused aircraft will work with non-radiused airports just fine, although they may end up at different places. PAI has a lot of downloadable RAFCAD files available for the taking, which speeds up the process.

[Guest]

Thanks Capt. Yeah I think I'm going to spend the next rainy day messing with this. What is AITM? So am I correct in saying that first I would back up my flight planes and a/c files. Then I would use the commercial airline remover. Next download all the a/c files. Next add the PAI flight plans which will also install the a/c textures? Then modify the a/c radius MDL files. Next install the new airports that have been modified with the RAFCAD. Compile and all that and I'm in busniess. Did I miss anything?Kilstorm

[Guest jkramer51]

I'd also like to designate gate ie. A15a. Right now you can that the different terminals A, B, C... but for the gate number you can only put numbers. And many airports like KLAX will also have gates with letters.John