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Clipper Ocean Spray

AI Controller 2.0 (Gate-to-Gate Control) Open Beta Prepar3D

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Note: edited for bad file download link.

 

Here's the links to the latest update (Hot Fix 3 only):

 

HOT FIX 3: http://www.mediafire.com/file/01s3vke6qjqhi50/AIControllerV2OnlyHF3.zip

 

If anyone needs the full install (Hot Fix 1), it is available at:

 

HOT FIX 1 (full): http://www.mediafire.com/file/5vk15b44rl5vd1m/AIControllerV2FullHF1.zip

 

Again, I'm in-and-out the next week due to personal reasons, but I will try to catch up on the questions.

 

Fixed: Tear-drop procedure (when intercepting final approach fix at obtuse angles) works better. E.g., no altitude loss, less go-arounds.

 

New/Improved: AI chooses better off-ramp after landing rollout, taxiing faster and evacuating runway more quickly.

 

New/Improved: Better flight characteristics and smoother landings (due to better capabilities of autopilot to self-calibrate to individual AI flight characteristics).

 

New/Improved: Increased throttle smoothness including better speed control.

 

Changed: AI will taxi under control of throttle, brakes and steering at all times (no slew assist) is now default setting - be sure to reset options to default if unsure how to change this.

 

Fixed: Other minor items.

 

If you reported a bug or suggestion and it is not included here, I probably just haven't got to it yet. Please feel free to raise the same issue if you feel something is falling through the cracks. The next update will focus on taxi smoothness.

 

-Roland

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First, take a look at the PMDG formatted version of KALB. There seems to be a some type of SIDS entry:

 

Ahh...I see...thanks for posting that.  Unfortunately AIConverter only converts waypoint-based procedures.  So a procedure that states climb heading X until altitude Y with no waypoints is not recognized.  A work around is to program your own procedure using waypoints to approximate the general location where the AI should be at a certain altitude, then add another waypoint that causes them to turn to a particular heading.


 

 


- AI Culling is not working with option 4. All other options appear to be working.
 - I'm getting a lot of AI that seem to have issues when lining up. Happens at a variety of airports, the AI get the cue to lineup, start to move then pause half way through the manouver. 
 - I've also had a number of instances where AI are lining up in front of me on short final. A check of AI Monitor tells me that taxing and lining up A/C are not being monitored by AI Controller. This makes it hard to explain the point above.
 - I've also encountered a number of times when AI have landed and then backtracked the runway despite multiple runway exits. Happens a lot to me at Uk2000's EGLL.

 

Hopefully the first and third issues are improved with HF3.  Regarding the second issue, are you starting AIController before or immediately after the session is loaded?  If there is a delay, some AI will push-back and start their taxi before AIController can start controlling them.  Once that happens, they will not be controlled even when AIController loads.  This might be something I can improve in a later version, I'll look into it.


 

 


AI under AIController Control that repeatadly landed 5 nm from the airport (in the Pacific Ocean)
AI that nose dive towards the runway, climbing and descending to the runway.
AI that taxied on the grass
AI that seemed to pause and then accelerate and then pause when lining up
 
Far and away the most noticeable thing is the issue of approaches. Sometimes AI will land short of the threshold, other times they nose dive towards the runway, othertimes they float above the runway 3/4 of the length then slam down into it. Its very unpredictable.
 
As previously reported culling method 4 does not appear to work.

 

HF3 was targeted to many of these issues, can you give me an update using HF3?  As it stands now, the AI's wheels may clip the grass here or there but it should not be a big problem.  They should roll through the corners better.

 

Understood regarding cull method 4, haven't got to the fix for that yet, but will.


 

 


Anyways I can get this programs to install it

 

Sorry, one of the links was bad...try again and it should work.

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When I was taxiing on FAST JFKv2 to the active I could see planes taking off and landing, however I never saw them leave the active to taxi for the gate. They just kept going, also I noticed an AI just slew in front of me at ground level it seems like it landed and was just slewing around the airport with the flaps down and the spoiler.

 

I have FSDT JKFv2, but I haven't seen this.  However, you mentioned that the AI was slewing so perhaps it was one of the extreme approaches (e.g,. visual 13L or 13R) where slew mode is enabled on the approach.  If you disable the slew approaches (you can move them into a subdirectory named "inactive" and they won't be read) do you still see this? Anything better with HF3?

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Tried the HF3 and saw these issues:

1. AI loose altitude between star exit point and IAF point and sometimes reaching ground level. However they now seem to recover between IAF and FAF waypoint and continue normally.

2. Perhaps you could smooth out throttling back a little more to make it less jumpy, and keep throttle little above idle to minimize the fsx sound engine bug at idle thrust.

3. Most planes seem to require very high thrust to start moving and during taxiing, how can this be reduced? I have the ground friction lua applied but not sure if it also affects AI.

4. AIs in general are using shorter takeoff roll than when flown by p3d.

 

Aside from previously suggested runways arrival traffic distribution based on a set criteria and custom runway use based on wind direction for a future addition, would like to suggest customization of taxi routing (graphically perhaps) along with the latter to make things more realistic/streamlined.

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Ahh...I see...thanks for posting that.  Unfortunately AIConverter only converts waypoint-based procedures.  So a procedure that states climb heading X until altitude Y with no waypoints is not recognized.  A work around is to program your own procedure using waypoints to approximate the general location where the AI should be at a certain altitude, then add another waypoint that causes them to turn to a particular heading.

 

 

 

Hopefully the first and third issues are improved with HF3.  Regarding the second issue, are you starting AIController before or immediately after the session is loaded?  If there is a delay, some AI will push-back and start their taxi before AIController can start controlling them.  Once that happens, they will not be controlled even when AIController loads.  This might be something I can improve in a later version, I'll look into it.

 

 

 

HF3 was targeted to many of these issues, can you give me an update using HF3?  As it stands now, the AI's wheels may clip the grass here or there but it should not be a big problem.  They should roll through the corners better.

 

Understood regarding cull method 4, haven't got to the fix for that yet, but will.

 

 

 

Sorry, one of the links was bad...try again and it should work.

Hi Roland,

 

I'm away from my P3D PC for a month or so but will check when I'm back. Love the programs idea...keep up the great work


Kael Oswald

7950X3D / 64GB DDR5 6000 @ CL30 / Custom Water Loop / RTX 4090 / 3 x 50" 4K LCD TVs

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Tried the HF3 and saw these issues:
1. AI loose altitude between star exit point and IAF point and sometimes reaching ground level. However they now seem to recover between IAF and FAF waypoint and continue normally.
2. Perhaps you could smooth out throttling back a little more to make it less jumpy, and keep throttle little above idle to minimize the fsx sound engine bug at idle thrust.
3. Most planes seem to require very high thrust to start moving and during taxiing, how can this be reduced? I have the ground friction lua applied but not sure if it also affects AI.
4. AIs in general are using shorter takeoff roll than when flown by p3d.

 

1) will check this.  What AI set are you using?

2) good idea, thanks.

3) perhaps look for Aircraft Airfile Manager by Karl-Heinz Klotz

4) you can adjust "Throttle Takeoff as Percent of Max" downward in AI Flight Dynamics to increase the takeoff roll.

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Little Help please. I have Ai Controller v2..in a network situation. I have wide client installed and it does connect to P3Dv3. I do not have any other sims installed... What sim connects should I have installed on the Server side (non p3dv3 machine where ai controller is installed) and what sim connects/sdk installed on the P3dv3 machine. I know that ai updated the scenery etc ok but I believe its asking for the latest simconnects to be installed. Didn't want to get into side by side simconnect screw-ups and screw up my P3dv3 machine.

 

Bob, the P3Dv3 machine is the server and the client is the computer where AIController is installed.  Check out the readme.pdf file, which has some tips about how to get it up an running.  You only need to install the client installer (found in the P3D Simconnect SDK folder) on the client machine, not full simconnect.  Here's a good rundown:  http://nimbus.hifitechinc.com/ASNInfo/ASN_User_Guide.pdf#page=81

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1. using UT2, have the compatibility option checked

3. which parameters should I modify there, as a shorter takeoff roll seem to indicate there is already surplus thrust available. Also see if you could try starting off at around 50-60% as reference thrust (where most planes should start rolling, and perhaps a lesser reference thrust say around 30-40% when rolling) then adjust from there, as that might help reduce the variations.

4. will tweak that

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Bob, the P3Dv3 machine is the server and the client is the computer where AIController is installed.  Check out the readme.pdf file, which has some tips about how to get it up an running.  You only need to install the client installer (found in the P3D Simconnect SDK folder) on the client machine, not full simconnect.  Here's a good rundown:  http://nimbus.hifitechinc.com/ASNInfo/ASN_User_Guide.pdf#page=81

 

Thanks Roland....I got it running...I was just wondering about getting rid of all the extra stuff and just have ai controller run aircraft and the navdata pro sid and stars stuff. Don't know if it just reads the csv (make runway etc). Anyway thanks for a great program.

 

Bob M.


Bob M

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after trial bit further:

1. Reduced high thrust at taxi a bit by setting taxi acceleration to 0.1

2. AIs randomly loosing altitude during STAR, not just after exiting it. Reaching ground level then taxiing at ~18kts on terrain.

3. AI getting parked behind an already parked aircraft. Coming to stop at parking bit early as before.

4. Couldn't see much effect on takeoff and landing roll distances on changing rollout slowdown scalar to 0.2 and throttle takeoff percent to 0.35.

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Hi,

 

Again I feel like the lucky winner. I get following errors:

 

Error 1:

Did not find scenery file path... drive:\Prepar3d\Addon Scenery\Scenery Specified in the scenery.cfg file

 

Error 2:

As above but this time it relates to: FSGX2010\LocalMeshes\scenery\specified in the scenery.cfg. file

 

Can someone help? Please?

 

Tom Link


Tom Link

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Hi,

 

Again I feel like the lucky winner. I get following errors:

 

Error 1:

Did not find scenery file path... drive:\Prepar3d\Addon Scenery\Scenery Specified in the scenery.cfg file

 

Error 2:

As above but this time it relates to: FSGX2010\LocalMeshes\scenery\specified in the scenery.cfg. file

 

Can someone help? Please?

 

Tom Link

 

leave away the last "scenery" in the path - every Scenery folder is supposed to have a "scenery" and (mostly) a "texture" folder inside, so that "scenery" is implicit

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installed new version with hotfix and ai a/c won't takeoff. They taxi to runway hold short then turn on strobes but will not line up on runway, no planes are landing,Tried with default and upgraded scenery no luck.

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HOT FIX 4 - IMPORTANT - Lots of new stuff in this hotfix...after installing "Reset Options to Default" under "Settings"!
 
 
 
New Features
 
Added third party ATC support:  See "AIMonitor 3rd Party Output" in general options.  Also added "AIMonitor Monitor Table Update Interval" in same location to reduce CPU resources of the AIMonitor when writing to both the display table and to 3rd party program.  Also improved multi-threading in AIMonitor. 
 
Added option to "slew" AI during flight (similar to the old ver. 1.4), which some users prefer ("Provide Slew for ALL Approaches and Departures" in "Settings/Options/General Options" window).  Provides better AI flight path precision at the expense of realistic flight characteristics (the AI will not be "flown").
 
New go-around mode (based on improved detection of AI circling way points described below) that detects unstable approaches to way points on short final (e.g., the typical 500 ft way point just before touch down).
 
 
Improved
 
Much less porpoising during banks and pitch changes (for certain AI with less than ideal flight characteristics).  Improvements due to: (1) pitch and bank angle fast centering (which can be  turned off - see the "Bank and Fast Pitch" option under "Settings\Options\Flight Dynamics"); and (2) improved aileron and elevator dampening (note: not used in crosswind landings of greater than 10 knots) (note: bank and pitch dampening will gradually calibrate as AIController learns the flight dynamics of each particular AI...AI should exhibit a very stable final approach unless crosswinds in which case excessive control authority is maintained to get AI onto runway).  
 
Improved detection of AI circling way points due to the way points being poorly placed (e.g, too close together at too great an angle) and corrective action (applicable during all phases of flight).
 
Better emergency terrain avoidance added.
 

Fixed

AI not holding to service ceilings ("Flight Dynamics" options window) when there are no waypoint altitude constraints.
 
AI sometimes landed on runways considered too short according to runway length restrictions by AI type ("Approach and Final Options" window).
 
AI rarely performed straight-in approach (if generic approach patterns used) even when appropriate
 
AI push back sometimes taking too long.
 
Departing AI stall on runway (just before takeoff roll out) when jet routes are active.
 
Jetroutes option enabled sometimes causes AIController to crash.
 
"Engine Type Wrong for Landing Runway" message was sometimes repeating.
 
"Parking Found ...." message was sometimes repeating after AI finished landing roll out causing AI not to taxi in.
 
AI stopping too long after turns when using the AI turn slew assist option ("Assist AI with Slew During Sharp Turns" option in the "Taxi Performance" options window).
 
AI sometimes taxi into each other when going in same direction.  (Note: no collision detection yet for AI going in different directions, e.g., taxi out v. taxi in)).
 
AI circling sometimes around jet route waypoints.
 
AI Controller gives too many broken link warnings (e.g., "failed to build approach for...) when a large number of airports are monitored.  Fix is after five of the same type errors only summary info. Wile given.
 
AI Cull Mode 4 does not work.
 
UT2 compatibility fixed.  If enabled prevents AI not departing from or arriving at monotone during airport from being vectored by AI Controller(I.e. preserves UT2 jet Routes).
 
AI lands or takes off while other AI on runway (can't say it is completely fixed but should be better).
 
User aircraft causing AI to be deleted even when user's landing lights are off (user-AI anti-incursion option in "Additional Final Options and Anti-Incursion").
 
AI sometimes landing on nose wheel.
 
AI losing altitude between STAR exit and IAF point.
 
"Both" option in "Force Landing Runways" option not working for departing AI.
 
Enhanced generic approach improperly selected even when a NAV data based approach (e.g., STAR) was active.
 
AI too slow when AI commanded to slow down in generic pattern (causing altitude loss and lack of control authority during turns).
 
"Throttle Takeoff as Percent of Max" option under "AI Flight Dynamics" wasn't working (used to adjust length of takeoff roll).
 
Landing rollout distance too short.
 
AIController memory leak (under certain circumstances)
 
Speed loss during final approach during transition to landing configuration (e.g., deploying gear and landing flaps).
 
AI sometimes turns too late during taxi.
 
AI not descending to holding alt during holding turns.
 
Tear-drop procedure causing too many go-arounds with other AI not conflicting (this was due to the circling procedure the AI used during the tear drop).
 
Unidirection taxi links given more weighting for better effect (see "Enable Taxi Direction Links" in "Taxi Options" window) (note: must be supported by scenery or unpredictable results may occur!).
 
 
Modifications
 
Changed these default taxi values in the "Settings\Options\Taxi Options" menu (be sure to apply "Reset Options to Default"  after updating to this hot fix!).
 
  "Taxi Minimum Angle Difference (deg.) Before Possible collision Detect": 45 deg.
  "Taxi Minimum Separation (feet) Before Possible Collision Detect":  350 meters
  "Max. Bearing to Runway Exit Waypoint to Trigger Runway Exit (degrees)": 95
  "Min. Distance to Rwy Exit Waypoint to Trigger Runway Exit (feet)": 25 
 
Changes these default user-AI anti-incursion options in the "Settings\Options\Additional Final Options and Anti Incursion" menu (be sure to apply "Reset Options to Default"  after updating to this hot fix!).
 
  "Anti-Incursion Threshold Altitude": 0 (i.e., disabled - I much prefer this feature enabled myself, but I get too many questions about why AI is getting deleted on short final).
 
 
Important NOTAMS!
 
DO NOT OVERLAY a second window for an extended period of time while watching AI.  Use one of the AI view options.
 
For best results, start AIController BEFORE loading flight especially if you experience taxi issues (e.g., AI's wheels don't rotate).
 
ENTERING FINAL APPROACH COORDINATES.  Do not use FSX when entering final approach coordinates for runway positions (e.g., touchdown, rollout) as the FSX in-game coordinate display (shift-Z) lacks the necessary precision (significant digits).  Use the freeware Airport Design Editor X (or similar) instead.
 
ENTERING RUNWAY DATA.   Ensure the runway number corresponds to the FSX runway description (for whatever airport scenery you are using).  Often, the latest FMS data will reference changed runway numbers that do not correspond to stock FSX runway descriptions.  For STAR files, if the runways do not match (STAR versus FSX), AIController will choose the STAR based on the waypoint having the closest entry point to the AI’s current position (i.e., not based on runway data), which often is satisfactory, but not always.  For Final Approach files, if the runways do not match, AIController might choose the final approach file having the incorrect runway data.
 
 
Installation
 
If installing ver. 2 for the first time, be sure to uninstall all prior version of AIController before installing this version (backup first).  If installing hot fix only, simply overwrite the older files with the newer files.  After installing "Reset Options to Default" under "Settings"!
 
Read the ReadMe1st.txt file (quick) and optionally the ReadMe.pdf file (more details).
 
 Also, see the Installation and Basic Usage Video for Version 2 (below):
 
 
-Roland
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