yes, another AI traffic thread....

[Dave_YVR 973]

3 hours ago, tooting said:

So with UT Live in P3D that VS44 will sit on the ground doing nothing and then the VS65 will spawn onto the Gate to do the VS65, but your have 2 a/c on stands when it should only be 1 because its not optimised to do a turnaround like MRAI and AIFP does.  

Now imagine easyjet  then that has some 70 a/c at gatwick doing 386 flights today in and out.  You just get an obscene amount of a/c (with easyjets stats around 386/2=196) hanging around taking up gates doing nothing until they disappear. This is one of the problems with importing a ton of data from OAG which is what they have done and not optimising it. 

Ill agree with UT live its a staggering amount of airlines theyve imported, just its not optimised like Ray here has said  

 100% agree, there's nothing close to beating BGL traffic at this time, sure realtime ADS-B based AI traffic is pretty cool and has amazing potential, but it's still got a long way to go.

 MyTraffic however, with its ridiculous schedules, crazy city pairings, no sense of aircraft fleet size along with those hideous models and liveries gets a solid "not a chance will I ever put that on my system again". You don't have to be counting rivets or spotting AI to notice it, it just hits you in the face like looking at a neglected old beat up heap of a car sitting next to a brand new "insert nice car of your choice". And no, you don't get better performance using the lesser model, you just get an uglier sim experience.

 There really is no good install and go AI setup at this time, there has never been one actually. The best option for the general user who doesn't already have a good AI collection imo is a mix of UTL but using the BVAI package. There's a good free FDX, UPS, Atlas Air, Polar Cargo etc addon for UTL as well. The next best thing but does require some more work would be using AIG plans along-side the BVAI package, that way you get more accurate (as good as it gets currently at least) turn around times, city pairings and fleet numbers so that you don't have dozens of aircraft sitting unrealistically dormant on the aprons at your airports (UTL and oh yes MyTraffic is also very bad for this too).

[fluffyflops 1,858]

4 minutes ago, Dave_YVR said:

 100% agree, there's nothing close to beating BGL traffic at this time, sure realtime ADS-B based AI traffic is pretty cool and has amazing potential, but it's still got a long way to go.

 MyTraffic however, with its ridiculous schedules, crazy city pairings, no sense of aircraft fleet size along with those hideous models and liveries gets a solid "not a chance will I ever put that on my system again". You don't have to be counting rivets or spotting AI to notice it, it just hits you in the face like looking at a neglected old beat up heap of a car sitting next to a brand new "insert nice car of your choice". And no, you don't get better performance using the lesser model, you just get an uglier sim experience.

 There really is no good install and go AI setup at this time, there has never been one actually. The best option for the general user who doesn't already have a good AI collection imo is a mix of UTL but using the BVAI package. There's a good free FDX, UPS, Atlas Air, Polar Cargo etc addon for UTL as well. The next best thing but does require some more work would be using AIG plans along-side the BVAI package, that way you get more accurate (as good as it gets currently at least) turn around times, city pairings and fleet numbers so that you don't have dozens of aircraft sitting unrealistically dormant on the aprons at your airports (UTL and oh yes MyTraffic is also very bad for this too).

with UT2 Dave you could for example untick an airline schedule , then use your own flightplans,aircraft.airports.txt that had been compiled with ttools, mrai, aifp etc and import using power pack.  

you cant do any of those 3 in UT Live.  and you and I both know the developer has done a runner again

[Dave_YVR 973]

22 minutes ago, tooting said:

with UT2 Dave you could for example untick an airline schedule , then use your own flightplans,aircraft.airports.txt that had been compiled with ttools, mrai, aifp etc and import using power pack.  

5

  You can disable specific airlines in UTL as it is now, but adding replacement schedules is a major pain. UTL is moving along, just very slowly. There has been a very recent update on its status and the powerpack is coming along. That all being said, even though I do have UTL and have re-assigned nearly every aircraft to use better models and liveries, I still far prefer to use BGL traffic for the reasons I listed above and others as well. Right now though at least, UTL and UT2 are still the best easier option for decent AI for those that don't already have a good collection to get good AI up and running.

Edited May 14, 2018 by Dave_YVR

[kiek 1,215]

On 5/12/2018 at 4:57 AM, Dave_YVR said:

A) There's actually no performance difference between simconnect injected traffic and BGL traffic.

B) It ALL comes down to the number of aircraft that your AI is adding to the sim. Using the same models and liveries as BGL traffic, Simconnect injected traffic will not perform better in FSX or P3d. On that note, the whole reason why people who say that PSXseeconTraffic performs better is solely due to the fact that it's not displaying as many aircraft within the area around the user at the time.

ad A) When you use PSXseeconTraffic there is, because ONLY position updates are sent via SimConnect to the Sim and all calculations take place OUTSIDE your Simulator or even better at a networked PC. Next to that it is possible to tune the number of position updates between 18 and 40 times per second depending on your hardware. Best evidence is what people that use as UTL and PSXseeconTraffic alternately tell ...

ad B) I don't think that that is the case while PSXseeconTraffic shows also many live and parked aircraft around you at busy airports, but even if that would be so, is not that what you want? You only want those aircraft injected in your Sim that you can see, either visually or at your TCAS. That's why PSXseeconTraffic comes with Lateral and vertical range limitation options and also with a very convenient Auto mode for pilots flying: only the aircraft that are of interest to you are injected.

Maybe you should give PSXseeconTraffic a try yourself.

Edited May 14, 2018 by kiek

[Deevilius 7]

I highly recommend psxseecontraffic. i used mytraffic, ut, utlive etc. in the past, but nothing can beat psx.

with the latest updates it got easier to setup too.

 

[Dave_YVR 973]

6 hours ago, kiek said:

Maybe you should give PSXseeconTraffic a try yourself.

 I have tried it but between the jumpy traffic due to limitations in the fr data and the ground coverage where I see and want the most accuracy in my traffic as that's where I'm the closest to the traffic is lacking. Many airports also don't have transponder ground operations or coverage on the ground. Even if they all did you would still be missing a ton of parked traffic.  I'm not willing to pay $10/ mo for those issues alone. Performance wise while ads-b  injected traffic is all calculated outside of the sim (theoretical gain I suppose) I still don't see any difference aside for less traffic overall, if anything from what I've seen is the ads-b injected traffic actually performs worse due to the above mentioned quirks in the fr data. That's just my two cents on it.

Edited May 14, 2018 by Dave_YVR

[jason99vmi 157]

While i've always kept my eyes open for programs that could provide a robust and up to date AI traffic set up, i've yet to see anything worth while or money.   Yes building from scratch takes some time but its well worth it and completely rewarding.  You can also customize it however you want.   Don't fly in Asia much then don't download and insert many of the regional Asian airlines.   Love military aircraft at near by AFBs or ANGs, then MAIW has you covered.   AIG, FAIB and many others have made it as simple as they can, but yes its up to you to do the work.  Its not a one click process.   Hell even MAIW who were clinging to FS9 up until about a few months ago have now converted most of their aircraft to P3D v4.  And are creating a program where it installs the military aircraft you want with one click.  

Just saying if you are unhappy there are alternatives but depends how much you want to put into it.  

PSXseeconTraffic is a fun program and I like it but like Dave said I didn't have any aircraft at gates so kind of ruined the immersion.   AIG updates the seasonal flightplans constantly so you can have up to date flightplans using AIFP with minimal work.  

[pmb 5,137]

11 minutes ago, jason99vmi said:

PSXseeconTraffic is a fun program and I like it but like Dave said I didn't have any aircraft at gates so kind of ruined the immersion.    

If this case I would say there is somethiong wrong. I use PSXSeecontraffic alternatring  with UTLive. Both may have thier shortcomings and I am not in a position to judge if proper planes use proper gates/ramps all over the world. However, there are definitely planes at the gates. I took off from KSFO using PSXSeecontraffic yesterday and there were definitely planes resting at the gates (and taxiing).

Kind regards, Michael

[Christopher Low 5,353]

I used Ultimate Traffic 2 for quite some time until a couple of years ago. It was a solid piece of software, and it actually eliminated some of the "issues" that affect BGL AI traffic (landing long/short, diving down from high altitude, strange approach trajectores etc). However, adding missing or updated schedules/airlines/repaints for only the UK and Ireland took a significant amount of time and effort. Then something went wrong. I decided to update a large number of airlines at the same time, and it was only when I tried to run UT2 again that I discovered that ALL of my added/updated/existing airlines had vanished! The thought of having to do all of that hard work again was too much to bear, so I switched back to BGL style traffic.

To be fair, keeping BGL airline traffic updated (and adding new airlines) is still more work than I really want. After all, who joins the world of flight simulation to spend half of their time adding/fixing/tweaking/installing stuff? Most of us want to get flying ASAP!

As for having lots of AI planes parked for extended periods of time, I really do not mind.....as long as that is realistic. If a large airliner sits at a gate for two hours in the real world, then I want it to sit there for two hours in the simulator. If it arrives early evening, and is not due to depart until next morning, then I expect it to sit there for that length of time! What I do not want to see is more aircraft than there should be. Airports like London Heathrow are almost full all of the time in the real world, so this should be reflected accurately in the simulator (assuming that real world schedules of all the relevant airlines have been added). Custom built flightplans using freeware models and repaints will do this by default, but I am aware that some payware packages inject far more traffic than they should (and I think that MyTraffic is guilty of this).

Edited May 14, 2018 by Christopher Low

[Dave_YVR 973]

48 minutes ago, pmb said:

If this case I would say there is somethiong wrong. I use PSXSeecontraffic alternatring  with UTLive. Both may have thier shortcomings and I am not in a position to judge if proper planes use proper gates/ramps all over the world. However, there are definitely planes at the gates. I took off from KSFO using PSXSeecontraffic yesterday and there were definitely planes resting at the gates (and taxiing).

 It's not wrong at all, it's just inherent in the program due to the nature of the data stream. Sure there are "some" gates occupied etc but it's still just not nearly as good of an overall representation of the traffic at the airport. What about the thousands of airports that don't have transponder on ground ops, blocked traffic or airports and whole areas that don't have nearby or less than ideal or adequate ADS-B or radar coverage? 

[Ray Proudfoot 8,954]

@Christopher Low, I also have SuperTrafficBoard so can see when Ai are due to depart. Many had a departure time up to 9 hours ahead. That is definitely not how it works in the r/w. Whether it’s the sim or MT6 doing that I don’t know but I was getting fed up with Ai sitting around using FPS and VAS.

RemoveAiSleepers removes any that won’t be departing in the next 90 mins. That is closer to r/w ops for me since aircraft sitting on the ground aren’t making money. Each to their own I guess.

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

That's why I use AIG flight plans. They follow real world schedules and ground time is minimized.

[SteveW 1,792]

Problem for the AI traffic/ATC system is that it's not the real world. And so when we start a flight and there's a departure in 9 hours it's got to be injected into the sim at some stage. We don't want it 'popping' into the sim at some point while we watch so it appears when we start the flight, it's already injected. Later, the AI system enables it at the departure time and starts the conversation. Otherwise AI traffic can be injected to arrive and later depart in realistic time for better effect. Other problems are presented to the AI system such as parking count where half or less can be allocated to departures to save slots for arrivals.

Edited May 14, 2018 by SteveW

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

That's why I use AIG flight plans. They follow real world schedules and ground time is minimized.

[kiek 1,215]

4 hours ago, jason99vmi said:

PSXseeconTraffic is a fun program and I like it but like Dave said I didn't have any aircraft at gates so kind of ruined the immersion.   

You must have missed that part in the Manual...

If you add an airport file with all the gate positions and what airlines are normally parked at those gates with what kind of aircraft you can populate your airport with parked aircraft between 0 and 100 % occupance.

Furthermore live aircraft arriving at gates will  be parked there until another live aircraft claimes the gate.

Edited May 14, 2018 by kiek