I've been having a ball with the latest edition of FS Camara!So far, I'm up to SEVEN aircraft flying in formation - each one having been hand flown and recorded as AI traffic.Is it possible to make payware aircraft much more frame rate friendly for the AI portion of the flights? I've been using WW2 types for bombing raids etc, also with fighter escorts like the RealAir Spitfire.It really is SUCH FUN flying like this :( Thanks

I've been having a ball with the latest edition of FS Camara!So far, I'm up to SEVEN aircraft flying in formation - each one having been hand flown and recorded as AI traffic.Is it possible to make payware aircraft much more frame rate friendly for the AI portion of the flights? I've been using WW2 types for bombing raids etc, also with fighter escorts like the RealAir Spitfire.It really is SUCH FUN flying like this :( Thanks

Nope, the best thing you can do is decrease the texture size, but it won't help much and you lose the quality in the textures. For true AI performance aircraft you would have to open the source files in the design program and reduce the quality of the mesh/delete parts/add LODS to make it viable as an AI aircraft.It's to bad payware companies don't offer an AI model along with the normal one, would be very beneficial.

You might want to try this for your formation flying, there's a utility that will let you set formations up for FS: http://www.mudpond.org/If you download some freebie aircraft of a lesser complexity and reskin them like your main aircraft, that will probably help too, but I've had five A2A B-17Gs (including me) in formation in FSX with that utility and it's still okay on frame rates.Al

There are ways to remove the virtual cockpit from a model, so maybe you would want to do that when setting a high quality payware airplane as an ai model. Also use other flight dynamics from other similar ai models, the ai isn't that great a pilot especially with heavily tuned fde's from addons that strive for realism

There are ways to remove the virtual cockpit from a model, so maybe you would want to do that when setting a high quality payware airplane as an ai model.

Would you care to share how this can be done (without access to the source code) ? Something I am very interested in !Thanks

Thanks for the link, Chock!

Would you care to share how this can be done (without access to the source code) ? Something I am very interested in !Thanks

It's probably pointless removing the VC as this wouldn't be loaded in external view but if you want to try it go into the aircrafts model folder. If it is a native FSX model then there should be two .mdl files and a .cfg file. Edit the model.cfg file (after making a copy) to remove the interior line. For example: With the default C172 you will find the following in the model foldercessna172sp.mdlcessna172sp_interior.mdlmodel.cfgThe model.cfg will look like this:[models]normal=Cessna172SPinterior=cessna172sp_interiorChange it so it looks like this:[models]normal=Cessna172SPThe interior model (VC) will not be loaded.

It's probably pointless removing the VC as this wouldn't be loaded in external view but if you want to try it go into the aircrafts model folder. If it is a native FSX model then there should be two .mdl files and a .cfg file. Edit the model.cfg file (after making a copy) to remove the interior line.

Thanks. I already tried that, and it didn't seem to make any difference, perhaps for the reason you state.

Thanks for answers so far, and thanks for the link Al. A nice little application, but only if you want to fly around in circles or straight lines :( The kind of formation flying I'm trying is WW2 bombing raids requiring some low level flight (80ft) under bridges etc, with the wonderful Accusimed B17, the Lancaster, Liberator and various others.It's brilliant! I fly each run separately with a new bomber aircraft. What I do for the climb and cruise portion is to use the autopilot on the very first run, then for each subsequent flight, I copy by free flight, sticking as close as I dare to the previous a/c. I then start the whole shebang over again for the fighter escort.Up to 9 aircraft now, but things beginning to stutter :( Great fun