AI traffic now uses traffic schedules?

[mikced76 57]

Hi

What traffic density settings should I use in 7.42 to see the traffic operate according to their schedules most realisticly. By the way, why is that density switch even there if VoxATC reads and generates according to my traffic schedules anyway. In my mind 100% would mean that VoxATC follows the schedules and generate just the amount of traffic in the schedules. But when I tried 100% the airport was absolutely crowded.

Have I missed something here I though VoxATC 7.42 now read my traffic bgl and generated just that traffic on those days and on those times, so why the density switch? Before 7.42 when traffic was generated randomly I could see the need to control density and back then I used about 30-40% but that was random traffic.

Mike

 

 

 

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

It depends what schedules you are using. My Traffic 6 would be set at about 30-40% in VOXATC  (and of course 0% in the P3d4 UI). I've never played with Traffic Global for a long enough time to figure out what to use in VOXATC. As for AIG schedules, all flights are set at 1% in the file. That normally makes the sim use every flight, unless the setting in the sim's UI is set to 0%. However, it is unclear to me how VOXATC uses the information in the AIG traffic BGL files, as unlike P3d4, it seems to vary the density of traffic based solely on the VOXATC setting. All I'm sure of is that with AIG schedules, setting the VOXATC value to 100% will give you real life traffic densities.  So for AIG, 100% is real world densities, 50% is probably half that. In any case, I would use the traffic limiter from FSUIPC5, so that performance is not totally degraded at major hub airports.

One last point, the VOXATC configuration file has a setting that allows one to manually change the maximum number of aircraft on the ground at all airports:

  <MaxParkedAircraft Value="120" />
   <MaxParkedHelicopters Value="40" />
   <HelicopterTrafficDensity Value="60" />

The file is VASettings.xml and is located at:

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Internal Workings\VoxATC P3D 4

[mikced76 57]

Thanks for takng the time to reply. I use AIG schefues and my ”test” airport was Trondheim ENVA and that airport has about 30 gates. I have created realistic schefule bgl for every airline that operates on the airport in resl life. With VoxATC disabled and default GUI traffic slider set to 100% I get 4 commercial airplanes on a wednesday noon. That amount is also correct in real world. Now if I disable default traffic completely and start VoxATC with VoxATC slider to 100% every single gate is occupied looks like a madhouse, overcrowded 😀. Something must be wrong here. Should I not see the same amount of traffic as in real life, about 4 airliners parked?

[Dave_YVR 973]

When you compile AIG plans with AIFP, you can always randomize the traffic percentage to what you want as well. 

[mikced76 57]

Ok, I did not know that but why would I want to randomize it though? 😀I just want to use the actual real world schedule dates and times and that works very well with p3d default scenarios but not in Vox as per my post above.

My point is if I have every real world schedule for an airport I expect to see the appropriate airline at the scheduled time and date and I do if I use Default p3d traffic and set it to 100%. A normal weekday noon  at my home airport see about 4-7 airliners parked at the gate. With VoxATC every gate is packed with 100% on the slider. So I question this new feature a bit 😀

Edited December 12, 2018 by mikced76

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

Dave meant that even though the AIG schedules are all set to a 1% activity level, one can use AIFP to randomize the activity levels within a range of values. In other words if one selected 10-50% in AIFP, then all the flights within that recompiled schedule would then range from 10 to 50 %. This makes the sim's UI traffic level setting actually affect traffic levels with AIG schedules.

I initially thought that VOXATC 7.42 also used the activity levels in BGL schedules, but it seems more like it just increases and decreases the number of flights that are used within a traffic BGL file. In other words, a VOXATC UI activity level of 50% uses half the flights. Without guidance from the developer though, there is no way for users to know for sure. Maybe Kevin Firth can find out the answer.

 

[mikced76 57]

I have experimented with as low as 10% and in 7.41 and earler version such values gave me basically no traffic. In 7.42 it still generates a lot of traffic so something is different at least. As you say though without support from Tegwyn this remains very complicated. Its a shame for such a good product with such great potential. But we have been through this discussion a million times before on this forum so I wont go in to that again. 

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

AI traffic is different in 7.41 and 7.42. 7.41 used a snapshot at a fixed time of day for all schedules. It also did not use the flight numbers contained in the BGL traffic files. 7.42 supposedly uses the actual schedules and flight numbers.

[mikced76 57]

No doubt it is now using schdules and flight numbers. Big difference compared to 7.41 so that is great news! I still question the density slider though at least if you use your own compiled AIG Schedules. I settled with the first step (about 5%) in the traffic density slider. It seem to be most realistic for me. Every step above seem to generate more traffic than what actually should be at the Airports compared to the Schedules and my real world observations.

Mike