AI traffic and their opinion of AFCADs

[tyda0501 20]

I have edited and edited this KMSP AFCAD with ADE and had pretty good results. But no matter how hard I try it seems like the AFCAD file is more of a suggestion of where to park and AI will ultimately park where they want.

The biggest (only) reason for this is that a lot of times smaller aircraft will park at a heavy gate which of course limits the parking options for heavy aircraft.

There will be dozens of small gates open but an RJ will decide to park at a heavy gate. At an airport like KMSP with it's limited numbers of heavy gates, this logic can really mess things up and defeat the purpose of an AFCAD.

Of course the logic a least works properly in reverse which is a plus ( a heavy aircraft will never park in a small gate). Any idea how to change AI logic? or are we stuck with this? 

P.S. Kinda reminds me of when the cat decides he wants to sleep in the Great Dane's bed leaving the Great Dane with the cat's bed...

 

Some pictures 

 

Edited April 24, 2018 by Jim Young
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[Dave_YVR 968]

If your Rj's are parking at larger spots it generally means that the smaller spots you have for them are too small. AI will park at most suitable spots available based on their size and coding.

 What are the sizes and codes that you are using?

[Mace 1,902]

As Dave mentions...you can tailor your parking so that the RJ's will park in the small spots, and the heavies in the larger spots.  You have to tweak your parking spot radii, AND make sure your AI aircraft wing_span values are properly set.

The above factors are a more sure way of doing it, than relying on airline codes, I found.

[Nemo 1,305]

To get more realistic ai traffic behavior, the AI engine in P3D needs a complete overhaul by LM. Good or even perfect airport files (afcads) alone cannot afford this.

Edited April 25, 2018 by Nemo

[AnkH 2,233]

There are some more cumbersome options to achieve precise parking. You can manage this via the parking code. But I would definitely do this as last option, as it might corrupt the parking of the modified aircraft on all other airports. Example: simply give your RJ an unique parking code and modify the gates you want your RJ parked correspondingly. I did that for example on Aerosofts Zurich in FSX to have the A380 sitting on the single A380-Gate.

[Christopher Low 5,332]

As far as I am aware, if an AI plane has a specific parking code assigned, then it will attempt to park at any free parking spot that is associated with that code...starting with the smallest available. If the only one available with that particular code is a Heavy gate, then even a small regional jet will park there. If that is the case here, then you could always remove specific codes from the Heavy gates. This would mnean that the heavy jets will park at any gate that is large enough for them, but it also means that those small RJs would park in more suitable locations if none of the "code associated" parking spots are available (as they would be assigned to the smallest free parking spot).

Edited April 25, 2018 by Christopher Low

[tyda0501 20]

Thanks for all the quick replies. It’s a tricky little problem. I can assure that every gate is properly sized (radius), named (gate/cargo/GA), and airline coded (DAL, UAL, SWA). The issue is that regional gates will be MOSTLY left empty. Meaning the gates work with RJs, they have proper code and radius, but I’ll still see too many RJs parked at heavy or medium gates while there’s some regional gates left empty. If you’re familiar with KMSP, I coded all of terminals A, B and half of C as “DALX” with a radius not allowing anything bigger than a CRJ-900. This works in preventing a SWA 737 or DAL 777 from parking there but I think the radius is really the deciding factor. These gates don’t do much to encourage Delta RJs to park there. Seems to me if I was an A.I Delta RJ, and I saw 9-10 open gates that say “SMALL, DALX”, I’d go park there and not the ONE open gate that says “HEAVY, DAL” 

[AnkH 2,233]

Something silly Comes to my mind: I once had some strange observation that some gate assignments only work if the code is used doubled. Means: try once in your AFCAD "DALX, DALX" instead of only "DALX" and see if this helps.

And of course, make sure that you have "DALX" in your RJ aircraft.cfg, otherwise this is useless...

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

Careful, doing that might induce stuttering.😉

Edited April 25, 2018 by jabloomf1230

[simbol 5,815]

You can also set multiple parking codes inside the AI aircraft configuration file using coma separated values.

Simbol 

[tyda0501 20]

1 hour ago, jabloomf1230 said:

Careful, doing that might induce stuttering.😉

A.I. so nice I had to name it twice! But seriously, I’ll have to try this trick and see if it works 

[Dave_YVR 968]

If your Aircraft have the proper wingspan and parking code set in the aircraft.cfg they will park at the proper spots and not take larger ones until there is no others suitable.

[Drumcode 1,892]

15 hours ago, Nemo said:

To get more realistic ai traffic behavior, the AI engine in P3D needs a complete overhaul by LM. Good or even perfect airport files (afcads) alone cannot afford this.

This along with the ATC are like a bastid children of flight simulation. 

Edited April 25, 2018 by Drumcode

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

39 minutes ago, Drumcode said:

This along with the ATC are like a bastid children of flight simulation.

True for the base sims, but either P2ATC and World Traffic 3.0 in XP11, P2ATC and UTL in P3d4 or AIG flight plans/models and VOXATC in P3d4 give realistic results. The availability of 3rd party options allows LR and LM to concentrate in improving the base sim. ATC and AI Traffic, as I pointed out in another thread, are terribly time-consuming to develop and maintain.

 

[Drumcode 1,892]

2 minutes ago, jabloomf1230 said:

The availability of 3rd party options allows LR and LM to concentrate in improving the base sim. ATC and AI Traffic, as I pointed out in another thread, are terribly time-consuming to develop and maintain.

I understand, but I've been told in the past that the lack of good SDK in these two areas isn't making things easier for the third party developers.