Mixing P3D traffic with Voxatc traffic?

[Karelpatch 29]

Hello,

In my last flights, even though I had the Voxatc traffic slider to 100%, I felt that the sky was a bit empty. Same at big airports, not much action with mostly planes at gates. So I added 5-10% of traffic within the P3D settings. 

Does it make any sense? Does it interfere with Voxatc in any way? 

And is it normal that I don’t see many planes in the sky even with the slider at 100%? (I use BGL traffic files.)

 

thanks!

Edited April 10, 2019 by Karelpatch

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

It won't hurt anything too much to add more traffic from the sim's UI. AI aircraft may collide on the ground and take off and land from the wrong runways, but that's because VOXATC is not controlling the sim's AI. VOXATC also won't communicate with the sim's AI aircraft.

But you should consider the following. Except around major International airports, there aren't very many aircraft that are airborne in real life. And not that many planes take off in any given minute. Second, the traffic densities in the sim are highly dependent on what traffic BGL files you use. I recommend AIG traffic files. They have their own installer app which finds all the correct models and liveries. The AIG traffic files reflect actual RL schedules. You should also take a look at this thread:

 

[Karelpatch 29]

7 hours ago, jabloomf1230 said:

It won't hurt anything too much to add more traffic from the sim's UI. AI aircraft may collide on the ground and take off and land from the wrong runways, but that's because VOXATC is not controlling the sim's AI. VOXATC also won't communicate with the sim's AI aircraft.

But you should consider the following. Except around major International airports, there aren't very many aircraft that are airborne in real life. And not that many planes take off in any given minute. Second, the traffic densities in the sim are highly dependent on what traffic BGL files you use. I recommend AIG traffic files. They have their own installer app which finds all the correct models and liveries. The AIG traffic files reflect actual RL schedules. You should also take a look at this thread:

 

Thank you. Yes I already use the AIG traffic files 🙂

I know that in real life most small or medium sized airports are supposed to be in standby most of the time but I like to have some more action. I fly GA exclusively. 

I have a last question: when I set 100% traffic in Voxatc I feel like I don’t get as much traffic as when I set 30% in P3D settings. Is that normal?

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

6 hours ago, Karelpatch said:

I have a last question: when I set 100% traffic in Voxatc I feel like I don’t get as much traffic as when I set 30% in P3D settings. Is that normal?

With AIG flightplans, that is correct. The sim's activity level slider has no effect on AIG flightplans as all flights are set to a 1% activity level to reflect real world airline schedules. So the slider only has an impact if you set it to 0% and then you would see no AI aircraft at all. The AIG-OCI manager has a setting where you can vary the activity levels within a range and that would allow the P3d4 slider to actually do something.

In contrast, VOXATC seems to only take all the flights in a flightplan and use whatever percentage of them that is set with the VOXATC AI activity level slider. No one is really positive about this though, as how the VOXATC AI slider works is not documented anywhere. VOXATC also has a partially documented "traffic limiter" feature that is described in this post in the thread that I linked above:

I you leave all the AIG flightplans in their default format (1% activity) and increase all those settings in the VOXATC configuration file (especially the <TrafficGeneratedAtAllAirports Value="TRUE" /> setting), you should see plenty of traffic. Also, make sure that you don't have another traffic limiter active, like the one in FSUIPC5.

If you want more than real world traffic levels, the only way to do that is to add in more traffic in parallel by setting the P3d4 IFR (commercial) AI traffic to something non-zero. But doing so can create confusing ground traffic patterns, as stated previously.

[Karelpatch 29]

Amazing explanation. Thank you so much. It makes much more sense now. Will try the “true” value for sure. 

Voxatc is amazingly cool and frustrating at the same time. The advices in this forum help a lot. 

[Gridley 257]

4 hours ago, jabloomf1230 said:

 <TrafficGeneratedAtAllAirports Value="TRUE" /> setting

I had *NO* idea this was a setting!  Thanks for this, Jabloomf1230!

[tjrush 54]

Which .config file do these changes go in?

[Karelpatch 29]

4 minutes ago, tjrush said:

Which .config file do these changes go in?

It’s in Appdata/Roaming/Internal Workings/VoxATC P3D 4/VaSettings.xml

[tjrush 54]

Thank you!

 

[Karelpatch 29]

1 hour ago, tjrush said:

Thank you!

 

Edit: actually I thought I would find the value there but it Isn’t...

Edit 2: I guess we need to add it manually? Will try.

Edit 3: I think it works!

Edited April 11, 2019 by Karelpatch

[supersym 52]

Hi !

If you want to increase the ai traffic AI how can we do that ?

I've a french traffic General AI installed : the real aircratft in the right airfield...

in LFOU, I have 5-6 aircraft, but with voxatc I only have one with an other from an other airfield...

I want to increase the number of airgraft from LFOU...

 

Edited April 30, 2019 by supersym

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

Cool airport. It even has a small runway for RC aircraft.

I'm assuming that you mean that without VOXATC, but with using the sim's two AI activity level sliders, you see 5 to 6 AI aircraft at any given time. But with VOXATC, you only see one AI aircraft, even with the VOXATC slider at 100%?

The settings mentioned in the other thread probably won't help you:

Quote

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

as you are nowhere near any of the default limits in VASettings.xml for LFOU.

I would first make sure that LFOU has the correct parking types to accommodate your GA flightplan schedules. This can be checked with either LittleNavMap or Airport Design Editor. The sim itself will place AI aircraft at the correct parking types. When those fill up, additional AI aircraft will spill into incorrect parking types. From my casual understanding of how VOXATC works in that same regard, if the correct parking types don't exist for an AI aircraft, you will never see them at that airport. The stock version of LFOU has 2 ramp GA small, 2 ramp GA medium and a fuel parking spot.

Another thing to consider is the GA schedule BGL file itself. You can look at it with AI Flight Planner. An even better way to look at the schedules is with another piece of freeware, AI Companion:

https://www.alpha-india.net/forums/index.php?topic=29651.0

Lastly, you can mix sim and VOXATC AI traffic by using a non-zero value for the activity level slider in the sim. This of course, can lead to collisions and contradictory behavior between the VOXATC AI and the sim's AI. At a small airport like LFOU, this problem might not be noticeable.,

Edited April 30, 2019 by jabloomf1230

[supersym 52]

hi,

The parkings are updated by the editor of the AI GA  French Traffic 

 

 

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

There is one more thing that you can check. Search to see if you have multiple versions of LFOU active in your scenery library. Many generic add-on packages contain airports. 

As an aside, I use my old MyTraffic 6 worldwide generic AI traffic BGL file , albeit with substituting better models. I tend to have a surplus of GA traffic in VOXATC at small airports. In addition, I often see AI aircraft doing circuits/touch and goes.

 

[supersym 52]

I will check all my LFOU...bgl

may be there is a few somewhere...

BTW, where can I put my GA AI French traffic bgl at the best place ?