> It's>even more laughable to think online ATC will be manned all>around the world 24 hours a day when and ware ever a simmer>decides to fly (remind me to thank the guy who proposed this>one)... You don't really seem to understand the concept they are going for with the online portion. You should go back and read the interviews again.

>Before you all get too pessimistic, I believe one of the>features of the FSX SDK is a method of giving instructions to>AI aircraft, including airspeed, altitude, heading, etc. I'm>not directly involved with that stuff, so I hope I'm not>misrepresenting it, but I think it's true.>>-AdamIf this is true Adam, I'm hoping this is something that can make a big difference to FS Tweakers, all be it payware or freeware. Reggie, is the above much different from what we have now (SDK), since I am ignorant about such things.Also, I nominate Reggie for President!Oh, and Jim Vile for CEO!LOLBrian S.

>Currently in FS2004 there are a significant number of>commands to AI aircraft which can be given by external>programs.If this is so then it begs the following question - is something like RC4 or any other ATC add-on potentially able to control all the AIs even today and they simply don't do it due to complexity and necessary effort to make it all work flawlessly? Instead they chose to "tweak here and there" and avoid getting into comprehensive solution which they fear would overwhelm their resources.Michael J.http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/for...argo_hauler.gifhttp://sales.hifisim.com/pub-download/asv6-banner-beta.jpg

>Currently in FS2004 there are a significant number of>commands to AI aircraft which can be given by external>programs.This got me curious too. There is certainly nothing documented in the SDK for this. FSUIPC provides offsets to read AI aircraft positions, but I believe these offsets are read-only. Does anyone know exactly if and how RC4 can influence an AI aircrafts track or velocity?Thanks

Yikes, I haven't played around with ATC in the demo. Does this mean that we are doomed to continue to get such inane messages as "Report aircraft in sight" when you are at 20,000' on an IFR flightplan with pea soup all around and the interloper is on your six and five thousand feet below you? I have little enough hair left, please say it isn't so. ;(

AI Smooth orders AI aircraft to change course and has something like a modified hold capabity.Radar Contact orders AI aircraft to stop ground movement - so I've been led to believe buy the various posts - it also apparently has the ability to keep AI aircraft away from your aircraft on final.Armando Di Francesco wrote a utility which would slew the AI aircraft trying to pass you on final backwards by five miles.AI Aircraft can be moved and their behaviors changed by other programs - today in FS2004.The TrafficToolBox SDK Explorer has a whole menu of options of what can be done to AI aircraft. Once those were identified, it was a matter of using FSUIPC and other tools to find the threads, and what the actual commands are.We also have the Map from the TrafficToolBox SDK which shows that AI aircraft have target altitudes and speeds, how they are assigned to intercept the approach and much more.No it's not written. But it is there to find if you look hard enough.I'm not the expert at understanding the programming - that Jim Vile.My real world job makes me well prepared to replicate, test, make modifications, retest and accurately record behavior and how it is changed, and sometimes find unwanted consequences.The SimConnect API if well documented will be a wonderful new tool.One other point - FS is a very complicated product with many parts interrelabed.Scenery design influnces AI behavior, and some very good scenery designers have totally destroyed air spaces. When they touch Navaids or runways or parking or taxiways.It took all of us a while to learn we can totally destroy the approach system, greatly increase the conflicts and flocking of AI aircraft - all by changing the runways designation numbers to the "correct" ones. We have to change all the approaches.We have to learn. The days of little specialization fields within FS ended in 2003 when FS2004 was released.

[lie on]It isn't so.[lie off]Sorry.

"Does this mean that we are doomed to continue to get such inane messages as "Report aircraft in sight" when you are at 20,000'"Yep that's exactly what this means, exactly the same in FSX as was in FS9... :-rollReggie you make some great points but the problem I see with what you stated is accepting more of the same. All that you mentioned sounds like a hug clunky mess that could have been resolved on the back end by Aces this time around. AI could have performed better without outside interference from a third party add-on, same goes for most other examples you mentioned. As far as the SDK goes, if the SDK can't get what's asked in this thread then something should be presented to developers that would help them build a program that improves issues like what 'yellowjack' just pointed out above. If Aces has no desire to fix glaring issues in Flight Simulator, use this new version to bring out better tools so the community can fix and build upon these problem areas. Maybe something more is needed from Aces than just the SDK to make Radar Contact (for example) interact better with the default ATC system and therefore give FSX a light years better ATC experience. We shouldn't see the same menus from Radar Contact that we saw in FS9 unless Radar Contact's developers are lazy. What we have here is the possibility of Aces not providing the much needed info on a system they just left hanging.Bill Leaming, your in the camp that is just happy a new version of Flight Simulator is about to be released. I'm in the camp that's very frustrated that nothing much has changed in this new sim with the exception of graphics (which in all honesty doesn't look that much better than a FS9/Flight1 Ultimate Terrain/ASV6 combination). I can't even throw in the innovations of GE PRO in this combination (Aces took away any cloud shadow effect on the ground so once again the condition of the sky has no barring on the ground). You expect us to presuppose the new sim is better on all fronts even when the official info states otherwise

I agree about cloud shadows... disappointed that its not in. It would have added a lot of atmosphere to see the ground and water "darken" under an overcast sky. At the moment, the ground and water still look like they are under bright sun even when the sky is overcast. That's a shame.Maybe ACES are putting cloud shadows in for the DX10 patch. Gosh it would be just amazing visuals to be sitting on wet runway, overcast sky, and truly gloomy looking ground and water.Come on ACES please add cloud shadows for the DX10 patch. I mean isnt FSX meant to be the showcase game for Vista showing off the glory of DX10. Make clouds (and overcast) shadow the ground and water. Please!:)

With all due respect, how many have actually developed something for FS9 that requires a good understanding of a SDK that is FS9 compliant.I am not talking about all the areas in FS2004 that are a holdover from FS2002. Those older file type written SDK's have a few enhancements in design but have been backward compatible now for 3 to 4 generations of FS. Some FS9 SDK's don't give us all the answers so why do we think the FSX SDK's are going to be a hand holding open source of newer information.Before anyone jumps to conclusions just think for a moment about how much has yet to be discovered in FS9 and what has been discovered is still not in use by many designers. This thread is about ATC and some AI Traffic added. If that is what we want more of, then why do Users/buyers in the past three years accept all the exoctic payware plus the additonal freeware airport scenery that was designed based on old style coding.There are 2 FS9 SDK's that deal with such areas as ATC, flying the User Aircraft in a world of AI Traffic, developing Flightplans for both the User Plane/AI Planes, designing and properly placing of airport scenery files in specific folders, purchasing 250 page documents that add additional realism to the GPS default receivers, proper coding of new ILS plus renumbered runways, transistional coded approaches, adding STAR/DP's to User Plane FP's, STAR arrival's to AI Planes, updating very complex instrument runway landing approaches with inbound procedure holds all under the watchful eye of the default ATC, and the FS9 default Flight Simulator list goes on.I look at all the airport scenery available for the last 3 years and it is not about what I just listed but its about what looks good. Go purchase FS9 EHAM, KMIA, KDEN, KIAH, LEBL, KMCO, EFHK, KDCA, KATL, KLAS, KMSP, and/or freeware that adds new runways with ILS transmitters or renumbers runways that have approach data in the AP*.bgl's. All of these and more look real real good but airport scenery extends many miles in all directions in FS9. Try to explain this to scenery designers and watch how defensive they become. MS made it very clear 3 years ago when they said "Both facility and scenery information may be contained in a single .XML source file and this practice is encouraged. Scenery should no longer be created with BGL opcodes or the BGLC compiler from previous versions of Flight Simulator. The older BGL opcodes are supported for backward compatibility, however, we cannot guarantee their support in future releases."Ask a designer what the difference is between facility vs scenery information and why it should be in one single XML file compiled with BGLComp. Many continue to (Reggie's words) use the little specialization fields within FS which ended in 2003 when FS2004 was released. How can we expect ATC and AI Traffic including the User Airplane to work correctly when the current 3rd party airports being sold are pieced together. The FS9 compliant SDK's that reference the basic's from my list above are not used and yet if the airport scenery looks good it must work ok and that is what sells. There is a three year history that to me is saying ATC and AI Traffic is not important because there is also no emphasis or pressure put on designers to fix their airports. I have said it before that most buyers of 3rd party scenery which corrupts and destroys ATC/AI Traffic don't understand enough about FS9 and how it works. How can someone ask to fix something when they don't know it's broke or blame MS for what they see. Do you know how many times I have been told by payware that the problems are based on the limitations of FS9!!!!! Go read their forums.Now three months before FSX is released we are screaming to ACES to fix what we don't like. That should have been done when payware EHAM was released or any of the others I listed above.SDK's are not WYSIWYG like a AFCAD program and that is what it sounds like many want. We have only scratched the surface with the SDK's that are FS9 compliant. They are a basic foundation to the areas I listed above. I introduced multiple runway usage that you find in many AFCAD 3rd party airports. Many say it doesn't work right but they won't read the updates that I have posted over the last two and half years that improves the technique. Designers don't update the approach database when they add a instrument runway or change a runway number which I post help on and I still see forums that say this can't be done in FS9. I write approach code for AI Traffic so any type approach will be flown regardless of visibility including STAR arrivals when the plane enters the visual zone and controlled by ATC. Some airports such as LOWI, PHNL and Kai Tak (VHHX) uses my curved approach technique for the ILS or LDA/IGS that AI fly as per ATC. Just in the past 2 weeks with Reggie's logical minded testing thoughts and working with Shez's on KONT I discovered some SDK coding that now opens all multiple parallel runways at major airports. AI Planes are now landing on all 5 parallel runways at KATL and others like KLAX, EHAM, KDFW as insrtucted by ATC. Yes, some of it is trickery applied in the XML coding but if you work with the FS9 compliant SDK's long enough you find those areas that are much deeper then the basic foundation. I agree that there are issues that could be addressed with the default ATC system. If ATC/AI Traffic/Airport usage is still in FSX but not enhanced to any degree then at least some of the complaints that have been listed by others should be addressed. I have seen where the ACES group want to keep conversations like this open so my request is as follows. Review the FS9 ARINC 424 coding in the dll files. Some of the graphical typeLeg= statements can't draw the leg symbols correctly. The default EHAM airport is one good example including the "type=PI" 045/180 Procedure Turn. That defines a course reversal starting at a specific database fix, includes Outbound Leg followed by a left or right turn and 180 degree course reversal to intercept the next leg. A Maximum excursion Time or Distance is included as a data field. Left turns draws fine but Right Turn have by default to much rho value coded causing additional looping. This is just one example because after the XML is written it looks correct but when you send it through a dll for Flightplan "LOAD" ACTIVATE" it becomes distorted and unusable.

the problem I see with what you stated is accepting more of the same.Currently the majority of the AI community, and much of the FS community still flies FS2004 by FS2002 and previous version concepts. I would very much like "more of the same" if people would learn, develop and use the capabilities in FS2004.Because the VAST MAJORITY of hard core simmers on these forums are not using FS2004 to it's potential by the very nature of their questions and requests.The FS2004 ATC system for the user aircraft has two very different modes of operation. The Novice vectors to final, and a very real world system of real approach procedures.Just an example is the reliance upon PMDG and Level-D "realistic" aircraft. Two developers who have thrown the baby out with the bathwater, never attempting to work with the approach system and use it's advanced capabilities. Now that is a marketing decision they have made - and I'm not criticizing them for it. They have to do what they think if best to make a living.But having purchased and flown the PMDG B737NG series for a couple hundred hours, it is frankly much more personally enjoyable for me to fly different aircraft. I'm a GA man at heart - or BIG prop planes.RBV J230 SAAME J6 HVQ J78 FAM J98 SGF LBL J134 CIM J96 DRK J231 TNP SEAVU1 Something very important is missing from this real world flight plan of a B762 which needs to be added to the Level-D B767 FMS before the flight plan is complete - what happens after reaching the final intersection - which Rwy 24 or Rwy 25 approach will be used?There is absolutely nothing wrong with choosing to fly the PMDG and Level-D way. That's great - but don't complain that MS has not revised the entire program to the standards of your favorite payware developers.How many people use the Advanced ATC options?Yes it does take some work in planning the flight. You have to use things like charts and approach plates and SID/STAR plates. Also not being able to enter waypoints in a flight plan from a keyboard is a real pain that needs to be fixed. However, there is no flight plan you can put in an addon FMS you cannot put in the default flight planner and fly in FS with the default ATC. New approaches not yet programmed being the only exception.The date of the data is an issue - one which MS has provided a path to update but very few people, and no addon developers, work on that.The FS2004 AI approach system as two very different modes of operation (VMC and IMC) - and that is something which needs to be fixed. Or maybe it has, and we haven't learned how to write scenery and flightplans correctly to take advantage of it.nothing much has changed in this new sim with the exception of graphicsWhy should they?They see flight simmers enthusing over visually stunning scenery, which totally destroys the ATC system of an airport. Cloud9, FlyTampa, Islands of the West Indies, SimFlyers World Airports, Lago's Sceneries, SamSoft - and those are just ones I own.There are many more - payware and freeware.This "hard core simmer" community has voted very strongly with their wallets that (1) visuals are more important than operation, and (2) we don't care how much MS/ ACES improves - we are still going to use FS2000 and FS2002 concepts because that's how our favorite airplane or scenery is designed.One thing I believe MS now regrets is the tag line "As real as it gets"Which I now believe means - "This is as real as this program is capable of handling" not "This program will duplicate the real world".Give developers the tools to bring the other features of FSX up to the standards of the new graphicsMany of the tools are there in FS2004, we sincerely hope more will be available in FSX. Sorry to rant, but it is disheartening to have spend three years working hard to get the most out of FS2004 - and still having a long way to go - yet see many people who are unwilling to do the basic learning groundwork - whine about not having everything handed to them on a platter.FS2004 has some big holes we have not yet learned how to fill.Separation control is one. We can see that AI aircraft have target speeds - we don't know how to access that control yet.That is just one of the challenges of FS2004 we have yet to unlock.Now, I'm not criticizing your statements personally. There is very much which I do wish the ACES/MS team had worked.Things which there is absolutely no way we can determine from the demo if they have been improved or not. Things which are stated in the FS2004 BGLComp SDK which plainly do not work as advertised.When I get the real product, I will be diving into it - doing my best to take it apart and find out what we can do to get more than the NOVICE level of performance from FSX.Unfortunately, I feel that history will repeat itself with most people not willing to go beyond the novice level and rushing to the payware vendors for "realistic" addons.

> The SimConnect API if well documented will be a wonderful new tool.Indeed. I have high hopes.ThanksRich

"How can we expect ATC and AI Traffic including the User Airplane to work correctly when the current 3rd party airports being sold are pieced together."When reading forums like PMDG's in which they explain how involved upgrading their products to the new standard, there's no better time than the present for all scenery vendors to address the issues you mentioned above if ATC was given the ability to be fully expanded upon.For the record Jim (and hopefully I can make this point far shorter than yours above) with the new direction Aces is taking with airport scenery we won't need allot of generic third party scenery as much as we did in the past. Every generic airport in FSX will have ground vehicles and jetways among other things which is hands down better than the static unrealistic buildings we have today. For any prospective scenery developer trying to sell their product, they will need to get the ATC issue straight among other selling features to get entice people to buy. I say this because I no longer need programs like Lago's FSE or Simflyer's over bloated airport scenery plastered around my FS world. A product will have to be as good as Cloud9's work or FlyTampa's in order for me to purchase it for FSX. I will give Aces credit that they've given us a gold mine when it comes to generic default airport scenery. Right out the box we'll have every

Dillon give it up... These guys are in here writing thesis against any improvent to the FS9ish ATC system in FSX... :-lol That's why I say it's a hopeless cause to even mention anything at this point. With this kind of blind support for 'zero effort' that's exactly what we're going to see come October/November, 'NOTHING' in this area. Great points as always Guys and a great thread topic. Like I said above, enjoy the water and chirping birds flying around even though most won't be able to see the effects with the various sliders turned down... :-roll

Wow Reggie! I love your posts ...so informative! :)I wish I could be as articulate as you about 2D panels :)

regardsEdaka Capt. P[/font color]i[/font color]c[/font color]a[/font color]s[/font color]s[/font color]o[/font color]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v640/edetroit100/eddd2.jpgMy FS9 Videos] 2D panel lovers are gonna love FSX ...[/font color]NOT![/font color]AMD Athlon 64 3500+, 1024Mb PC3200 DDR, 300Gb HD 256Mb DDR Nvidia 7800 GTX PCI-E, Audigy 2 ZSCH Products Yoke, Pedals and Throttle Quadrant[/font color