Payware airport addons, parkingspots, taxiways and AI Traffic.

[simmerhead 885]

I've been buying several high quality airport addons lately, and to my surprise the "AFCAD" files are terrible. I've never used larger payware airports before (just a few ORBX GA airports), so I wondered if this is the norm.

 

Taxiways are left out, parkings are missing and badly coded. This means that AI traffic on the airport will not function properly. airlines will not park where they're supposed to, international flights will park at the domestic terminal, military aircraft will park at the gates, and so will general aviation aircraft. If you fly into these airports you will be assinged an unrealistic parking sport by ATC as well. Anyone else share this experience?

 

What's the point of all the realism these airports offer if the aircraft on the airport behave irrational. After all, they're there to serve the aircraft?

 

PS. I've used some Ray Smith AFCADS from the AVSIM library, and they were almost flawless in this regard.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,924]

I raised a similar post recently after finding that running the Fault Finder in AFX shows lots of 'faults'. I don't know how you've discovered all these problems. Did you use AFX or something similar?

 

I was told that designers do fancy things with the AFCADs to make Ai taxi more realistically. That will fool AFX into thinking there are faults when in reality things work reasonably well.

 

Can't comment about wrong gates as that side didn't bother me. Do you have a specific airport you can share with us? And have you raised these problems with the supplier of the airport(s)?

[simmerhead 885]

Thanks for the reply Ray.

 

I'm not talking about bugs or errors, but about leaving the "invisible" taxiways out of the AFCAD entirely. My faults are observed by normal use of the airport, but I did open the bgl in ADE to check what was there and found things missing.

 

I haven't heard from the developers yet (complete silence from them after several days waiting for support), but I will give the developers a few days more to answer in case the faults are mine.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,924]

Hi simmerhead,

 

Different situation to mine but more important as actual Ai taxiing is affected. I could see no such problems with mine.

 

Hope you hear from them soon. But if they fail to respond it's reasonable to identify the airport affected.

[Capt Speirs 52]

I've been buying several high quality airport addons lately, and to my surprise the "AFCAD" files are terrible. I've never used larger payware airports before (just a few ORBX GA airports), so I wondered if this is the norm.

 

Taxiways are left out, parkings are missing and badly coded. This means that AI traffic on the airport will not function properly. airlines will not park where they're supposed to, international flights will park at the domestic terminal, military aircraft will park at the gates, and so will general aviation aircraft. If you fly into these airports you will be assinged an unrealistic parking sport by ATC as well. Anyone else share this experience?

 

What's the point of all the realism these airports offer if the aircraft on the airport behave irrational. After all, they're there to serve the aircraft?

 

PS. I've used some Ray Smith AFCADS from the AVSIM library, and they were almost flawless in this regard.

I was told that sometimes the AI Traffic itself is at fault. I have spent hours adjusting Jetways in AFCAD files so that the planes park correctly, not having their butts hanging out, off center, or worse, nose into the terminal. The generic labeling of most addon airport's gates are done to keep FSX native ground vehicles from getting in the way. I stopped that problem by getting rid of the FSX ground vehicles. I think we spend more time Fixing, Tweaking, and adding on, then flying. I know I do. I have said it before and I should say it again "Forget it and fly, darn it."

[N60JBravo 27]

It is also important to remember that RW airports are living, breathing things that constantly change, so what you see in the sim may have been accurate when the file was created, if not now.

 

Also, the sim has a lot of limitations that can prevent AI from operating the way we think it should.

 

This is a flight simulator, not an airport simulator and it was not designed to handle RW levels of traffic.

 

Lastly, nobody is perfect.

 

regards,

Joe

[simmerhead 885]

I was told that sometimes the AI Traffic itself is at fault. I have spent hours adjusting Jetways in AFCAD files so that the planes park correctly, not having their butts hanging out, off center, or worse, nose into the terminal. The generic labeling of most addon airport's gates are done to keep FSX native ground vehicles from getting in the way. I stopped that problem by getting rid of the FSX ground vehicles. I think we spend more time Fixing, Tweaking, and adding on, then flying. I know I do. I have said it before and I should say it again "Forget it and fly, darn it."

 

I expect to be able to forget it and fly when I buy a $30-40 airport addon. It's a lot of money. The problem in this case is incomplete AFCAD files, and for the short type of flights I do, I spend half of my sim time around airports, so why wouldn't I want them to behave in a realistic manner. Why wouldn't I want to be assigned to the GA area when I land in a Cessna, and not taxi to a gate? A freeware version of the same airport works flawlessly in terms of parkings and taxiways.

 

I have very few payware airports, so my question is this: Is this normal, or have I just gotten a bad one? I see no reason to buy airport scenery if I have to make the AFCAD myself. In this case I can't because the AFCAD is in a locked format that can't be edited. Twice the insult in my opinioin.

It is also important to remember that RW airports are living, breathing things that constantly change, so what you see in the sim may have been accurate when the file was created, if not now.

 

Also, the sim has a lot of limitations that can prevent AI from operating the way we think it should.

 

This is a flight simulator, not an airport simulator and it was not designed to handle RW levels of traffic.

 

Lastly, nobody is perfect.

 

regards,

Joe

 

The sim handles real world levels of traffic with ease where I fly. AI was and is a a huge part of FSX.

[Dave_YVR 968]

  Less that stellar afcads or airport files and payware scenery is very common..   What kind of "locked" format are you referring to?

  I think it mostly stems from the fact that everyone has their own wants and needs from an airport as well as everyone has their own setup. My "perfect" airport file might not work at all in your setup and vise versa. I often check out the airport file before even testing out any new payware airport, just to see and most often adjust what I might expect when I do fire up the sim.

[simmerhead 885]

  Less that stellar afcads or airport files and payware scenery is very common..   What kind of "locked" format are you referring to?

  I think it mostly stems from the fact that everyone has their own wants and needs from an airport as well as everyone has their own setup. My "perfect" airport file might not work at all in your setup and vise versa. I often check out the airport file before even testing out any new payware airport, just to see and most often adjust what I might expect when I do fire up the sim.

 

The developer uses a format that if you open it with any of the freeware AFCAD editors (like ADE) it will make a complete mess of it if you try to recompile it in bgl-format. It is a known way for developers to preotect their work from being edited or modified. I think that's pretty lousy when they haven't bothered to even complete the product with taxiways, GA parkings, military parings, airline parking codes etc - all things that have been part of the real airport for 20+ years.

[F70 4]

The developer uses a format that if you open it with any of the freeware AFCAD editors (like ADE) it will make a complete mess of it if you try to recompile it in bgl-format. It is a known way for developers to preotect their work from being edited or modified. I think that's pretty lousy when they haven't bothered to even complete the product with taxiways, GA parkings, military parings, airline parking codes etc - all things that have been part of the real airport for 20+ years.

 

The developer don't use "protected" format,open the .bgl one time make your changes and compile the file.

The next time you want make changes open the ad3 or the new ad4 file (for ADEX) and work from this file and NEVER open the bgl again.

I open always the bgl if i have a new airport and made changes to everything,parking codes,radius of the parking and more.

If you don't want vehicle traffic round your airplane or on your taxiway make vehicle links with a width of 0 Meter or 0 Ft you can't see the vehicle links but the vehicles follow the links.

 

Jan

[simmerhead 885]

The developer don't use "protected" format,open the .bgl one time make your changes and compile the file.

The next time you want make changes open the ad3 or the new ad4 file (for ADEX) and work from this file and NEVER open the bgl again.

I open always the bgl if i have a new airport and made changes to everything,parking codes,radius of the parking and more.

If you don't want vehicle traffic round your airplane or on your taxiway make vehicle links with a width of 0 Meter or 0 Ft you can't see the vehicle links but the vehicles follow the links.

 

Jan

 

When I open the bgl file all the buildings change position inside Scruffyduck's ADE and make a mess of the entire airport (the nodes and parkinspots however are fine). I've had confirmation from other sources that the bgl files from this develoepr is protected from editing and recompiling.

[Capt Speirs 52]

The developer uses a format that if you open it with any of the freeware AFCAD editors (like ADE) it will make a complete mess of it if you try to recompile it in bgl-format. It is a known way for developers to preotect their work from being edited or modified.

 

We wouldn't have to modify it if they did it right.

 

I think it mostly stems from the fact that everyone has their own wants and needs from an airport as well as everyone has their own setup. My "perfect" airport file might not work at all in your setup and vise versa. I often check out the airport file before even testing out any new payware airport, just to see and most often adjust what I might expect when I do fire up the sim.

 

 

I think most just want aircraft to follow Taxi ways, Park centered and not way over the designated stop for that aircraft and so on. I have been involved in gaming for decades and I can tell that the Aircraft Sim developers are the most lazy when it comes to programming. Simple things like Mip Mapping are omitted and documentation. If I can edit AFCADS to correct their mistakes, why didn't they do it before releasing them? For what they charge per addon they need to be a little more detail oriented and not let's get this thing out and rake it in.

 

Maybe developers should look up to other developers like PMDG, I would gladly pay more per airport if it meant I didn't have to waist precious flying time to make them right. Yes FSX has its limitations, but that excuse doesn't hold water anymore, others have found work arounds, start looking.

[Dave_YVR 968]

 

 

The developer uses a format that if you open it with any of the freeware AFCAD editors (like ADE) it will make a complete mess of it if you try to recompile it in bgl-format. It is a known way for developers to preotect their work from being edited or modified.

 

 Any examples? I've got scenery from nearly every developer and have never seen or heard of any kind of locked format. If you are missing objects and or buildings after compiling with ADE it's most likely because YOU don't have those scenery objects included in your ADE setup. The Library Object Manager is a VERY powerful tool in ADE and can make a big difference in your work.

[simmerhead 885]

Since the developer hasn't bothered to give any kind of feedback to my support request since december 9th I might as well disclose that one of the airports are Aerosoft's Mega Airport Oslo v2.0. If anyone know how the AFCAD can be edited, please let me know because it does need a lot of work.I thought I would tank up on Norwegian airports since ORBX FTX Norway is right around the corner, and feel like a fool, since I also bought Trondheim, Stavanger, Bergen and Tromsø from the same developer assuming Aerosoft airports were top notch. Blinded by good branding and forgetting that old "caveat emptor" wisdom.

[Dave_YVR 968]

 Oslo is an easy one. The file is ENGM_AFX, you can edit it with AFX from Flight1. I think every Aerosoft airport uses the same file type.