Hi all,My first post; I usually just look around and download stuff, but have found something worth sharing -- a fix for disappearing AI aircraft when they remain stationary for more than 5 minutes. AITP-X has already been released, and that's good for FSX SP1, but not SP2, as many will know.This fix brings the AI timeout up to around 15-17 minutes for FSX SP2, something which many of us have been looking for for a long time. I don't know whether this will work for FSX Acceleration.I didn't create this -- the folks at FriendlyFlusi.at (specifically GunnarMD) have already done it, but it's not available anywhere else that I could find, so I've merely interpreted the slightly-difficult Google-translated German to English and tested it on my setup.The Google-translated original is here: http://translate.goo...6prmd%3DimvnsfdBut Google Translate does not create perfect English from German, yet!So here we go.1) Back up your AIPlayer.dll (very important).2) Go on the internet to http://www.physics.o...rewett/hexedit/3) Download Hex Edit, which can run from your desktop, and is entirely self-contained.4) Open it; it will immediately bring up an Open dialogue box. Navigate to your AIPlayer.dll (in the main FSX folder), having remembered to create a backup of it!5) When you open the .dll with Hex Edit, you'll see three columns. Incidentally, make sure that the View option (under the View menu) is set as "hex".6) Using the scroll bar on the right, navigate down until you reach row 11b0 (as found in the narrow column on the far left).7) Go along the row until you see the value "72".8) Change that value (by selecting it and then overwriting) to "8f". DON'T CHANGE ANYTHING ELSE.9) Save As "AIPlayer.dll" and overwrite the original if prompted (obviously depends on where you want to save it). Don't overwrite your backup by mistake, and make sure that your edited copy makes it to the FSX root folder one way or another.10) Start FSX and you'll now have AI waiting times of around 15-17 minutes before they disappear.But be aware that your airports will still need good 'plumbing', and that you may occasionaly get stuck behind an aircraft for quarter of an hour! You may also have very large queues that make you regret increasing the timeout :) It's also possible that there may be other values that work -- for example, providing 10 minutes before disappearance. But I haven't researched those yet.Cheers,Nangua (南瓜)PS. Naturally, I can not be held responsible for any damage (real or perceived) to your FSX (or wider) setup. Back up your AIPlayer.dll in a safe place, and you should be fine. If you don't like the results with the modified .dll, put your backup AIPlayer.dll back, and things will return to normal. Hex Edit, as downloaded from http://www.physics.o...rewett/hexedit/, contains no malware, as tested by Avast! and MalwareBytes on 29 February 2012.

Doesn't AI disappear when they are stationary because they are "stuck"? I thought them disappearing was sorta good thing so that if they got "stuck" they could get unstuck by disappearing!

Answer to your question is both yes and no, but more no, than yes. The point here is that a 5 minutes holding for departure, and with a reasonably good AI flight plan and good AFCAD, that is the only point where troubles arise, is somewhat unrealistic. In real life ATC sequences approaches in a way there's enough space between two arrivals to accommodate a safe departure, while in the sim runway is locked up when arrival is on extended runway center-line. If there are two arrivals in sequence(and AI ATC approach is sequencing arrivals quite realistically) this is situation where aircraft holding for departure would need to hold for slightly more than five minutes, but not much more, I even saw situations where holding aircraft disappeared just seconds before the offending arrival left the runway. If both AI flight plans and AFCAD's are written correctly, then prolonged time before a "stuck" (and it isn't really stuck) aircraft disappears, is a good thing since it allows some more flexibility and realism in AI traffic flow.

Sounds like even less FPS for me

And a word of warning for those who will try and edit your ai_player.dll the procedure explained by topic starter is only valid for SP2 - Acceleration pack has a different ai_player.dll and editing this version will only stop your FS X from loading.@ Squishy: I don't see any relevance in modified *.dll and your low FPS on a notebook. They can't be anything but low with your hardware specs. Running FS X on a notebook should be condemned by Greenpeace as animal torture anyway :(

Sounds like even less FPS for me

Your a good candidate for MS Flight :( :(

O.K., works also with Acceleration pack :( , tested and verified. Only difference is location of "C07240". But as topic starter said: Completely on your own risk. Don't even try if you're not at least a little familiar with hex editing.

O.K., works also with Acceleration pack :( , tested and verified. Only difference is location of "C07240". But as topic starter said: Completely on your own risk. Don't even try if you're not at least a little familiar with hex editing.

Andrej can you go into a little more detail please? I looked at my Acceleration ai_player.dll and have no idea what you're referencing when you say "C07240". Where did you change the value and to what? As you noted the file being different from SP2, I can't find the value on the line the OP specified

@GaiidenI think what Andrej is saying is that there is a hex sequence "C0 72 40" which only appears once within the .dll. For Acceleration, it won't be on the same line as for SP2, but if you use Hex Edit, you can search (under the Find menu) for this sequence. Just cut it from this post, make sure the "hex" radio button is selected, paste it into the find field, click OK, and it'll take you to there. Change the "72" value to "8f", then Save As AIPlayer.dll and exit. Make sure that nothing's already selected in any columns, otherwise Hex Edit seems to not be able to find things, and will return "search string not found".I'd suggest confirming all this with Andrej, though, as I don't have Acceleration.Cheers,Nangua (南瓜)

That was just what I needed Nangua thanks! And thanks again for finding this and sharing it. Works like a charm :) *happy dance*

Nice tip, thanks, I'll try it sometime this week.

Can't find HEX editor anywhere however. Well at least the version you were using. Does anyone have the file for the AI timeout it'd help a lot (or screenshots)

Can't find HEX editor anywhere however. Well at least the version you were using. Does anyone have the file for the AI timeout it'd help a lot (or screenshots)

http://download.cnet.com/HxD-Hex-Editor/3000-2352_4-10891068.html

Does anyone know if this works in P3D?

This works fine for me in P3D V2.4