Hello,

So I think I have a great working combination of AI traffic with AIG AI Manager, MAIW, and modification of the default P3D traffic.bgl file (by using AIFP3, and removing all the fake commercial traffic).  At last, I have commercial, freight, military and GA together.  Stupendous.  And it all looks fantastic.

However, at first glance the traffic level seemed kind of light, so I started to use AIFP3 to adjust the traffic levels.

It seems I can't get a nice equilibrium, i.e. an approximate level of traffic at a large commercial airport that I would expect.   I'm trying the randomize function with numbers such as '10-99' and settings like that.  Usually either I see way too little traffic, or so much that double planes are flying together in the air.  Also, it seems like at cruise altitude there are fewer planes, and near the airport there is a lot of saturation (at high settings). 

Is there a happy equilibrium somewhere? What have others used for traffic settings?  I don't understand at all what these AI traffic percentages mean (i.e. 40% of what?) in the bgl file.  Also, I'd like to stick to one setting for all types of traffic, and not have to micromanage (If possible!).  It doesn't have to be perfect, but somewhat similar to real world would be excellent. 

By the way, in P3D I have the traffic sliders at 100% and I try to manage all traffic levels using AIFP3. 

 Best off to use AIFP to randomize traffic between a number of your choice and 100, from there it's up to you to set the sim's traffic slider to what you find good for you. It becomes a mix of your pc's capabilities, your sim settings as well as your own desire on how much traffic you want. 

 If you have everything set from 0-100% for instance and then your traffic slider at 40, you of course will then see 40% of what is available. It's when users go changing numbers like randomizing from say 10-90 or whatever that 40% on the slider is no longer a true 40.

I also use a mix of AIG, MAIW and ai I have installed with AIFP. Ihave all my ai set to 1% and to 75% in P3D's ai settings, and that gives me a very good mix of ai in all airports.

3 hours ago, jlund said:

Ihave all my ai set to 1% and to 75% in P3D's ai settings

Doing it that way means you are getting 100% as all of the AI is set to display at 1%. If you want 75%, then use AIFP to randomize to 100% and then set 75 in your sim. Whatever the flightplans are set to percentage-wise is the percent that they will show up in the sim.

I know that this does not specifically help the OP, but I have my traffic settings @ 100% because I want to see all of the AI planes that I have in my database. Granted I do not have GA planes active, but (IMO) there is no point in having a full suite of civilian and military flightplans installed if half of them are never used.

Edited August 7, 20196 yr by Christopher Low

I haven't tried adjusting the 1% to a higher number, as I find I have lots of traffic everywhere, 

AC#20,PH-BVI, 1%, Week, IFR (1)    1/20:55, 2/16:20, 370, F,   835, WSSS

I guess we're talking about the 1% in traffic activity, as seen in the example above? 

I just checked several flightplans, and they're all at 1% and as mentioned, I have lots of ai traffic all around.

 

5 hours ago, jlund said:

1% to a higher number, as I find I have lots of traffic everywhere

Of course you have lots of traffic as being set at 1% is effectively the same as 100%.

Edited August 7, 20196 yr by Dave_YVR

At 1% I am getting light AI traffic (i.e. large number of open gates at a major airport on a rush hour afternoon), and at '20-99' for all bgl files in P3D traffic.bgl, AIG and MAIW I do have a good amount of saturation around and on the airport, but strangely a very sparse level of traffic at cruise altitude. The traffic separation (and AI traffic loading) seems extremely uneven.

With '20-99', at flight level 330 for an average flight I'll barely encounter any AI traffic, but when on approach to a major airport, there could be 2 dozen planes in the air.  With default ATC go arounds are certain, so clearly my AI traffic setting must be too high.  But I don't understand why it is so empty at cruise altitude.  I can't seem to find a balance.

What does the 1% actually mean in the bgl file? 

My traffic sliders in P3D I left at 100%, because I am thinking that it is better to only control the AI traffic interface at a single point (i.e. though AIFP).  I could set everything to 100% in AIFP and then use the P3D traffic sliders, but first I would like to understand what all these percentages of AI traffic mean.

Setting traffic sliders correctly appears to be an acquired talent.  I'd like to get a reasonable level of AI traffic on the ground and in the air, similar to the level that I would find in the real world.  Maybe I am asking too much from the interface.

6 minutes ago, hockey_fan said:

What does the 1% actually mean in the bgl file?

 The traffic percentages of the bgl's and the slider in the sim go hand in hand with each other. If your traffic is compiled with everything set to 1%, then it really doesn't matter what your traffic slider is set to in the sim as long as it's at 1% or above where you will be getting 100%. Similarly, if you have it set to 20% in the BGL, then NOTHING will show up until you have 20% or above selected in the sim. If you want adjustability, you need to ensure that your traffic bgl's have been randomized so that the traffic % slider in the sim can do it's job.

But is it correct, if I set the P3D sliders to 100%, I am effectively disabling the sliders (i.e. making all traffic available according to the BGL files)?  This is what I believe I want while I investigate this AI traffic issue, but it doesn't explain why I would see different traffic levels at 1% or say 30% in the BGL files.

It would really all depend on what your bgl's are set to percentage wise. How much traffic are you expecting to see while enroute? Realistically, you shouldn't be seeing all that much as it is depending on where you are of course.

Have a related question on traffic/flight plans. I use UT2 for much of my world traffic (updated schedules and native AI). Recently I've started migrating away for my larger carriers, using either AIG or UTT flight plan packages and creating bgl's after randomizing the traffic for control in P3d.

To make a long story longer, I first decided to start leaving UT2 based on Alaska's presence at KSEA when using UTT's flight plans via UT2 (power pack import, etc). It seems that UT2 was spawning an outrageous amount of Alaska aircraft there, enough that every parking spot was filled and blocking out other airlines. UT2 didn't/doesn't seem to respect activity levels in the flight plans as the slider had no fine effect. I found that even when Alaska was set to random btw 1-99% in the flightplans.txt file, UT would either display all (at 46%) or none (at 45%).

When I compiled the very same flight plans from UTT using AIFP the result was immediate, with the traffic levels looking much more like what I see when transiting KSEA in reality. I understand they won't be flying actual routes, but for me this is the lesser evil vs the ridiculous overcrowding I was seeing. Since adding other majors I realize how over the top UT2 could be at large airports in terms or AI present. 

My question is what differences in-sim result from using AIG vs UTT flight plans (if any beside the subtle ones in authorship)? The UTT plans appear to have a unique AC# for each aircraft in the fleet along with a corresponding plan. AIG seems to use fewer AC#'s, but does this have any effect in the sim in terms of aircraft spawns, gate sits, etc, or is it just a different method?

3 hours ago, sddjd said:

AIG seems to use fewer AC#'s, but does this have any effect in the sim in terms of aircraft spawns, gate sits, etc, or is it just a different method?

The biggest difference is that UT2 and UTL may spawn whatever amount of aircraft that is required to fulfill its schedule. It might spawn aircraft at a gate even though the arriving aircraft hasn't yet, but will arrive shortly. You can see how this can cause a crazy amount of extra aircraft in your sim. TG on the other hand while it doesn't spaw aircraft like UT2/UTL, has its schedule set to every aircraft flying one single return flight a day (7 days a week) and then sits dormant for the duration of the day which creates a staggering number of dormant aircraft much more than UT2/UTL does.

 AIG's plans and to the most extent UTT as well, plans are based on accurate fleet numbers current during the time of sampling for the schedule created and then massaged to balance the schedules to minimize dormant aircraft. It's a fairly impossible task really as in the real world you have aircraft constantly being taken out of the rotation for maintenance or being ferried etc to fit the needs of the airline etc. 

I used UT2 for a long time (with all of my flightplans custom imported via PowerPack), and the number of aircraft at various airports was never more than expected. However, I suspect that flightplans imported via PowerPack work differently to the default UT2 flightplans. For example, I never saw aircraft "spawning in" with my flightplans. All of the aircraft that were supposed to be at an airport at a particular time were visible.....whether they were scheduled to depart in 5 minutes, or sit there for another 6 hours.

Edited September 4, 20196 yr by Christopher Low

Thanks both for the input. Dave, I'm seeing exactly what you describe in that UT2 seems to be spawning aircraft at numbers exceeding the total fleet. In my example of Alaska at SEA, at one point Traffic Toolbox listed approx 250 aircraft for that airline. The total active fleet today is less than that, not including whatever Alaska aircraft were traveling elsewhere in the sim (theoretically). Moving to the AIG/UTT plans has eliminated this issue for me.

Christopher, like you I've used the Power Pack for years with great success. I agree with you in that I suspect UT2 applies PPack database airlines differently. The traffic slider didn't seem to make any difference, and it clearly was spawning the add-on Alaska pack before the _Weekly traffic because AS would appear first, filling ALL the gates and blocking out all other airlines. If I disabled AS the others would appear normally. Lastly, if I pushed back as soon as I was clear of the gate another AS plane would appear parked there as part of UT2's effort to show all AS traffic. 

I'm wondering if somehow I have an internal error in UT2's SQL databases and/or flight options. The huge number of planes appearing for AS suggests that it is displaying both the built-in and the add-on traffic even though they are checked/unchecked correctly. Unfortunately the Flight1 forums have long since been abandoned by all actual support staff (tho still a good user-to-user resource). I'd reinstall UT2, but as a long time user I'm not terribly interested in reassigning the thousands of native aircraft I've installed.

No great loss, UT2 served me well for a LONG time, and the AIG/UTT packages have many obvious benefits, not least of which being current 😎

Edited September 4, 20196 yr by sddjd