AI behaviour

[Heff 18]

One thing I hope is really changing from previous simulations to FS2020 is the behaviour of AI Aircraft and vehicles. I hope for AI Aircraft to be affected by the weather conditions in the same manner as Aircraft that we fly. It would be dissappointing if Our Aircraft behave realistic and AI still will be on "rails". I also really hope that the sluggish ground manouvering ability has been significanly improved so that AI Aircraft and vehicles will make proper turns instead of Direct turns from point to point as we are used to. Nothing would impress me more if MS/Asobo can present a realistic representation here. 

[flxwng 23]

+1

I have also posted some wishes about AI Traffic already.

I just really hate, how AI aircrafts do that 180 degree turn out of the gate in P3D. Also, it would be nice, if the ground vehicles (like catering and fuel trucks) work on AI traffic as well. Oh, and jetways too 

[Jazz 1,046]

Completely agree. AI needs serious work as does ATC.

[Lukamak 36]

100%

[Pastaiolo 1,688]

I understand it but... how beneficial would it REALLY be?

If you want them to react and fly like your own aircraft, that means more flight models need to be calculated by the computer. It's always a matter of resources needed to simulate things.. this is of course assuming that such calculations affects it of course.
And why woudn't they? We see how high traffic levels on FSX/P3D affect the overall performance, same for XP default AI (which, if i am not mistaken, actually does use the same flight models as the default planes and the performance hit is even greater)

[Casualcas 830]

Who's Al? I had an Uncle Al

We will have to wait and see, there are still so many answers to get yet, and no way anybody can guess

Edited February 8, 2020 by Casualcas

[Jazz 1,046]

22 minutes ago, Pastaiolo said:

I understand it but... how beneficial would it REALLY be?

If you want them to react and fly like your own aircraft, that means more flight models need to be calculated by the computer. It's always a matter of resources needed to simulate things.. this is of course assuming that such calculations affects it of course.
And why woudn't they? We see how high traffic levels on FSX/P3D affect the overall performance, same for XP default AI (which, if i am not mistaken, actually does use the same flight models as the default planes and the performance hit is even greater)

Hugely beneficial. I'm not so concerned with them being on rails in the sky as long as they fly proper procedures but as a heavy metal man nothing broke my immersion more than than AI aircrft doing jerky and jarring turns on taxiways and the way they would just drop out of the sky in front of me on short-final as if I was not there and with no care for SID's and STARS was nothing short of infuriating. I cannot stand the thought of another simulator where the AI and ATC are dreadfully archaic. There is simply no excuse for it anymore. The models absolutley do not need to be the same as the aircraft I fly and they need not be bouncing around in the wind the same way as my aircraft but they MUST behave correctly. That's a compromise I can live with.

 

And if the cost of performance is too high for some rigs then that is exactly what the slider and off button is for.

 

 

 

 

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

4 hours ago, Heff said:

One thing I hope is really changing from previous simulations to FS2020 is the behaviour of AI Aircraft and vehicles. I hope for AI Aircraft to be affected by the weather conditions in the same manner as Aircraft that we fly. It would be dissappointing if Our Aircraft behave realistic and AI still will be on "rails". I also really hope that the sluggish ground manouvering ability has been significanly improved so that AI Aircraft and vehicles will make proper turns instead of Direct turns from point to point as we are used to. Nothing would impress me more if MS/Asobo can present a realistic representation here. 

Not sure if I understand that. AI aircraft on the ESP platforms are already affected by the weather. Maybe not as much as you would like, but basically their flight model is as complex as the developer makes it, that is not really up to the sim. They aren't just 3D models being moved around on rails. They are simulated in many details - the flight model as defined in .air and cfg, and quite a few systens, like electrical and hydraulical, engines, lights, flaps, gear, control surfaces, weight and balance (when you overload an AI aircraft at a payload station in the aircraft.cfg it will no longer fly).

That they turn the way that they do on the ground is not because they can't do any better. The developers of the airport taxiways leave them no choice. The logic makes them follow a route that is defined by waypoints. If there is only a single waypoint that connects two taxiways, then the AI will have to do a 90 degree turn. If there were more points, forming a curve, that is how the AI would turn. Sure, one could write code to make them predict a gentle curve and follow it - but it is not that easy to make such an algorithm so smart that it finds the proper turn in all situations.

For example, take a look at this taxiway layout. Coming from the top, the aircraft has no option to turn left. It has to turn right and will then do a 180. Let alone the other strange artifacts like unconnected taxilinks.

And they already request jetways too - a very annoying problem, because it costs so many FPS (check T2G EDDM for example).

Other ground vehicles are often done using animations - in that case what they do is completely out of the control of the sim.

Naturally, all this accuracy comes at the expense of performance. Complex AI models with all moving parts modelled bring the simulator to its knees - and that won't change on a new platform. Everything "more" means some other thing becoming "less" - mostly the FPS. One has to choose carefully how much one is willing to sacrifice for advanced features.

Best regards

Edited February 8, 2020 by Lorby_SI

[Pastaiolo 1,688]

13 hours ago, Jazz said:

And if the cost of performance is too high for some rigs then that is exactly what the slider and off button is for.

 

Sure. Except that in XP11, the only example out there with traffic using the same flight models, the number of planes (if i am not mistaken) is limited to 10-something or so. And most deactivate it because it really cuts performance too much.
Hence why other AI had a simplified behaviour.
I have no idea if things have progressed so much as to make such calculations not performance heavy for nowadays config. But i am certain that if they are, they will be implemented as such. If not, you know why 🙂

[Brandon01110 407]

19 hours ago, Pastaiolo said:

If you want them to react and fly like your own aircraft, that means more flight models need to be calculated by the computer

I'm ok with this, thats why i'm hoping the coding will take full advantage of all the cores it can use.  i'm ok buying a 16c/32t cpu

[GlideBy 324]

Question:  If we are talking live traffic, and we get runway clearance, do we expect AI to take control of the live traffic and put it in a holding pattern?  I guess I wonder what most people expect to happen with live traffic in different circumstances, like ground taxi, emergency, altitude clearance conflicts, etc.

[Jazz 1,046]

On ‎2‎/‎8‎/‎2020 at 5:04 PM, Lorby_SI said:

For example, take a look at this taxiway layout. Coming from the top, the aircraft has no option to turn left. It has to turn right and will then do a 180. Let alone the other strange artifacts like unconnected taxilinks.

Interesting post.

Tell me, why doesn't airport developers create these waypoints on the taxiways in higher detail? That is to say that on the curves create more of them so the aircraft turns in a more real and natural way? Is it part of the AFCAD?

Edited February 10, 2020 by n4gix
REMOVED EXCESSIVE QUOTE!!! Please don't quote the entire post you are replying to!

[Christopher Low 5,354]

in my experience, the greater the number of nodes on an AFD taxiway (particularly on curves), the slower the AI plane will move. If you have ever been following an AI plane on a taxiway, you will notice that there are times when it speeds up, and other times when it slows down. The "speed up" sections are those that have a long section of AFD taxiway between two successive nodes. When it slows down (usually because it reaches a taxiway junction), it is because it has encountered a group of nodes in close proximity. The reason it slows down is because those nodes are not quite perfectly aligned, and it has to make a slight adjustment to its movement.

It is worth commenting further about taxiway junctions. If (for example) one taxiway (let's call it ALPHA) joins another taxiway (let's call this one BRAVO) that is perpendicular to it, it might seem reasonable to create two curved branches for the connection (one to the left, and one to the right). After all, this is generally what we see in the real world. However, this creates a problem for the AI system. Since these sections are all linked, the AI system sees those two curved sections as an alternative route for AI planes that are already on taxiway BRAVO. This can cause BIG problems when two AI planes end up facing each other with nowhere else to go. The solution (which is not quite as aesthetically pleasing as the split curved sections) is to create a single perpendicular connection at this point. The AI system (which is actually quite clever) will "see" this when it tries to compute a safe taxi route for the AI planes, and it will hold one of them further back at another junction (so that a conflict is avoided).

Edited February 10, 2020 by Christopher Low

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

1 hour ago, Jazz said:

Interesting post.

Tell me, why doesn't airport developers create these waypoints on the taxiways in higher detail? That is to say that on the curves create more of them so the aircraft turns in a more real and natural way? Is it part of the AFCAD?

I don't think that the old FS9 "AFCAD" even exists in that form anymore. But yes, that is what it is about.

I try to stay away from "why" questions, you would have to ask a scenery developer. Most likely it is just too much effort. Check the example above, that is the taxi layout of a payware scenery overlaid over the real airport. And it is only part of the truth anyway, the vehicles that follow the waypoint lists must be created to equal sophistication. And some things just don't work. Most AI taildraggers for example can't taxi worth a word not allowed. 

Consider for example a T-crossing: there are those that have a gentle curve onto the next taxiway, and there are others that are actual 90 degree turns. How would an advanced "taxi round a bend" algorithm differentiate between the need to run a smooth curve and the hard 90 degree turn if the developer of the taxiway layout doesn't include that information? And what should it do when the aircraft developer made it so that this aircraft can't even do 90 degree turns?

The point is, this is not a problem that a new sim can resolve just like that and on its own. If the platform shall work as openly as it did in the past, at least three things must come together: the scenery layout, the vehicle configuration and the movement logic. 

Best regards 

[andyjohnston.net 617]

2 minutes ago, Lorby_SI said:

I don't think that the old FS9 "AFCAD" even exists in that form anymore. But yes, that is what it is about.

AFCAD never existed.  That was the name of a program created to modify airfield layouts, many people then ran with the name and decided it should be applied to layouts in general.