AI Flight Planner

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

On 3/7/2019 at 9:17 PM, jabloomf1230 said:

Actually, I want to correct this. I'm not sure how VOXATC handles activity levels in schedule files. It looks like it uses them, but I don't understand how it uses them. Maybe someone else can figure out how it works. Now that 7.42 uses the actual flightplans for the AI aircraft (as opposed to previous versions, which took a random snapshot of possible flights at one time during the day) it fills up airports with AI aircraft with the intent of having them depart at some time later in the day.

I did a bit more testing and poking around on the activity levels. It seems like VOXATC will generate a maximum number of AI Aircraft (with the default settings this number appears to be 250 +/-) . The activity setting in the VOXATC settings appears to be multiplied by the maximum number of AI aircraft (not including helicopters) divided by 100. So by default, at a 50% level in the VOXATC settings, VOXATC will never generate more than 125 aircraft. 

Now for the interesting stuff. I discovered a website via the Wayback Machine, which I now can't find again, that mentioned additional settings in VASettings.xml that don't appear in the default file. I had no idea whether these settings were for VOXATC 6 and were deprecated or they actually did something. Here they are:

      <MaxParkedAircraft Value="120" />
		...
      <MaxEnrouteAircraft Value="xxx" />
      <MaxActiveTerminalAircraft Value="yyy" />
      <TrafficGeneratedAtAllAirports Value="TRUE" />

Considering that the default value for MaxParkedAircraft is included in the file and is equal to 120, the other two settings must add up to somewhere around 130. The settings do appear to work. The last setting causes VOXATC to display aircraft on the ground at airports adjacent to the location of the user aircraft. The default value is FALSE. This is similar to the trick of changing to a nearby airport's tower frequency temporarily to get VOXATC to display traffic at that nearby airport.

Anyway, all these settings potentially could severely impact performance, so I strongly recommend against fiddling around with them too much. Keep in mind that they are maximum numbers. Unless one has a ton of AIG flightplans like I do, one may never get close to the values. I'd also worry about how these settings interact with the settings in the FSUIPC Traffic Limiter. I tested the settings with all the FSUIPC limiter settings at 50% and the maximum number of AI aircraft at 150. YMMV.

Don't blame me if you fiddle with these settings and break your VOXATC installation. Well, you can blame me, at least I won't feel too guilty about it. 

Edited March 20, 2019 by jabloomf1230

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

What I've concluded from further testing of these settings is that they are redundant with the FSUIPC AI limiter settings, so I turned off the FSUIPC limiter. For most VOXATC users, a limit of 50 to 100 total AI aircraft in the user's reality bubble should be suitable. As an example, for a maximum of 100 AI aircraft, I would use:

<MaxParkedAircraft Value="50" />
<MaxEnrouteAircraft Value="30" />
<MaxActiveTerminalAircraft Value="20" />
<TrafficGeneratedAtAllAirports Value="TRUE" />

and then set the AI activity level in the VOXATC settings to 100%. What's even more interesting is that  with the last setting, AI aircraft at adjacent airports not only take off and land but also communicate with their respective ATC. Despite, my earlier warning/disclaimer, I have found no unintended consequences of using the above 4 settings and in fact, they enhance the immersion in geographic areas with a lot of airports.

[Mad_Mac 21]

On 3/19/2019 at 10:44 PM, jabloomf1230 said:

I did a bit more testing and poking around on the activity levels. It seems like VOXATC will generate a maximum number of AI Aircraft (with the default settings this number appears to be 250 +/-) . The activity setting in the VOXATC settings appears to be multiplied by the maximum number of AI aircraft (not including helicopters) divided by 100. So by default, at a 50% level in the VOXATC settings, VOXATC will never generate more than 125 aircraft. 

Now for the interesting stuff. I discovered a website via the Wayback Machine, which I now can't find again, that mentioned additional settings in VASettings.xml that don't appear in the default file. I had no idea whether these settings were for VOXATC 6 and were deprecated or they actually did something. Here they are:

      <MaxParkedAircraft Value="120" />
		...
      <MaxEnrouteAircraft Value="xxx" />
      <MaxActiveTerminalAircraft Value="yyy" />
      <TrafficGeneratedAtAllAirports Value="TRUE" />

Considering that the default value for MaxParkedAircraft is included in the file and is equal to 120, the other two settings must add up to somewhere around 130. The settings do appear to work. The last setting causes VOXATC to display aircraft on the ground at airports adjacent to the location of the user aircraft. The default value is FALSE. This is similar to the trick of changing to a nearby airport's tower frequency temporarily to get VOXATC to display traffic at that nearby airport.

Anyway, all these settings potentially could severely impact performance, so I strongly recommend against fiddling around with them too much. Keep in mind that they are maximum numbers. Unless one has a ton of AIG flightplans like I do, one may never get close to the values. I'd also worry about how these settings interact with the settings in the FSUIPC Traffic Limiter. I tested the settings with all the FSUIPC limiter settings at 50% and the maximum number of AI aircraft at 150. YMMV.

Don't blame me if you fiddle with these settings and break your VOXATC installation. Well, you can blame me, at least I won't feel too guilty about it. 

Jay, I saw your post while I was at work, and couldn’t wait to get home to try it out. Even I don’t contact each airport along the route, to wake them up. Now, there is no need. I flew a GA flight from KCMI to West Bend, which included flying near Chicago, O’Hare. I used your recommended settings. Even some private airports had flights doing circuits. I had more traffic than I’ve seen on any recent flight, and O’Hare was spectacular.  Best tip I’ve seen in a long time. Thanks. 

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

The parameters turn out to be similar to those in the FSUIPC AI limiter and using them adds a lot of flexibility as to where one sees AI aircraft (taxiing, parked, enroute). Using smaller numbers for each setting also will help out people with legacy hardware. The control of AI aircraft is also dependent on what CPU cores are assigned in the VOXATC settings.

[Mad_Mac 21]

On 3/26/2019 at 7:25 AM, jabloomf1230 said:

 The control of AI aircraft is also dependent on what CPU cores are assigned in the VOXATC settings.

Can you say more about this? For example, are there certain cores that need to be prioritized for VoxATC to gain maximum control of AI aircraft?

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

It's only a performance consideration that could be helpful in a situation where the sim is maxed out on specific cores. VOXATC is split into two pieces. The first is the main "gauge" window that appears onscreen. The second is an executable file that controls the AI aircraft. The latter has an applicable option in the VOXATC Advanced Setting utility which can be used to assign an affinity mask. This will prevent the EXE component from using specific CPU cores. On my 4 core CPU with HT active, I set the EXE to use only cores 7 and 8. 

One has to experiment with the AF setting to see what's best for a specific hardware/software mix.

.