Simple to use, low perf impact traffic addon for P3D?

[spilok 1,134]

1 hour ago, B777ER said:

This is a bloody pain in the you know what. Makes you appreciate FLAI and the installer they had. Thank God I have that backed up.

Couldn't agree more.  I am perfectly satisfied with UT LIve.  This program IS super easy to use and it gives me plenty of traffic in the air and at airports. It also doesn't seem to impact my sim performance at all.  AIG should stop saying it's a "one click" thing.  Very deceiving.  Watching the tutorial for AIG is just as confusing.  Just using the XML addon from P3dv4 makes it work in V5.  I sincerely hope UTL comes out with a V5 version.   If not, I'm OK.

 

[mpo910 2,112]

@Kaiii3is there a chance you add the possibility of multiselect airlines via click the first one you want to install and  "shift + mouse click" at the last Airline, that selects all those, incl. The first, between the first and the last clicked ones? And in addition deselect via "ctrl + mouse click" deselects the clicked ones from already selected ones?

And add a select box in front of all lines of every airline which can be checked and unchecked plus a box on top of the table wich: "selects all" when checked and clicking again would deselect all?

Also postponing all installs which needs am interaction from a user till all other selected installations are finished and than remind the user that some could not be installed as they need a download from site "x". Processing the user through would be great. But the benefit would be, that a user can select "n" airlines via 2 clicks, deselect those selected which he does not want to install, click download and install, the system installs all airlines which are possible to install without interactions first, than all postponed airlines come afterwards. The user downloads them and points the installer to those. Like it is now, but just postponed till everything else is done. 

Reading the comments here this would really simplify the selection and installation process. 

And this should also be possible when "updating" outdated flightplans. A function that "updates every outdated flightplans" per mouse click at a button or box. As a user I would like to update all outdated airlines with 1 click. 

I think this would be a much appreciated change.

Regards, Marcus

 

Edited January 31, 2021 by mpo910

[Pete Dowson 558]

Selecting one entry in the New or Updates list, then Ctrl+A, selects All in that list. That works well for me.

Pete

 

[MDFlier 2,031]

It does, Pete. I was faced with the unfortunate task of reinstalling them all recently. I was hoping to do them in blocks of say 25 at a time over a period of a couple of weeks. It would be nice to do as Marcus said and click the 1st one in the available list and then hit shift while clicking the 25th in the list to select the 1st 25. Our choices currently are Ctrl A and then deselect many entires, or click many entries.

In the end, I did Ctrl A at the end of the day and let install as many as it could before one required manual intervention after I went to bed. After a few nights, I had them. 

Just in case Kaiii reads this, one other suggestion i have is to put a check box that would allow the OCI process to skip any airline that needed manual intervention. Instead of popping up the box telling us to download the item, just abort the install of that one and move on. That way we could use Ctrl-A one time, and it could install as many airlines as possible in one shot overnight We could handle the remaining ones via the current method later on when we have time.

Edited February 1, 2021 by MDFlier

[Ian S 214]

For those considering AIG, firstly I can't recommend it highly enough. To be clear, the one-click functionality really refers to the install and update of airline flight plans. However to achieve, last time I looked over 1100 plans and 40Gb of material, there is obviously a bit more groundwork to it than one-click. To smooth the set-up process, there is a bit of prep work. 

Firstly, ensure you have an active account for the AVSIM and Flighsim.com libraries, and sign-in Secondly, download the P3D SDK from the P3D website and keep it in a folder somewhere, as you will need to point the interface to it. On the subject of folders, as stated, identify the location where you can store a large amount of data. There will also be some 3rd party models and textures that AIM can't locate without taking control of your computer, so it will prompt you to download them. You'll need to create a folder to store the zip files of those downloads in. 

You're then ready to go...

[Noel 4,499]

8 hours ago, simbol said:

The priority of what users want seems to be visual rendering improvements...

I have made peace with this issue for me and P3D.  I have a decent system, at least for P3D 4.5 which is what I'm using.  I've stopped trying to make P3D look great outside of the nice payware airports the PMDG 777ER will be sitting at some gate at.  MSFS has clearly completely spoiled me for day time flying dawn to dusk for visuals it's just no contest.  One is real, the other is just flat out artwork and done as good as possible, but nowhere near as compelling.  So rather than tax P3D w/ as much detail as possible I now dial back autogen to sparse, vegetation to normal, detail distance to medium, but leave cloud density maxed, and am able to run terrain and cloud shadows and render the whole thing at 8xSSAA.  I have disabled the most complex Orbx regionals.  What this has done is given me lots of processing headroom so I never have to stop and adjust.  How do I cope w/ the plain visuals?  Easy!  I fly from dusk thru dawn only now!  P3D at well done payware airports is visually quite lovely in these conditions.  When flying the 777 using FSCaptain w/ GSX II it's really a fabulous experience to conduct a perfect flight and be graded accordingly (FSC).  Departure and arrival tasks obviate the need for anything better in the way of visuals in P3D once you're off the ground under these conditions.  

[Pete Dowson 558]

8 hours ago, MDFlier said:

Just in case Kaiii reads this, one other suggestion i have is to put a check box that would allow the OCI process to skip any airline that needed manual intervention. Instead of popping up the box telling us to download the item, just abort the install of that one and move on

That's a really excellent idea! Thanks for suggesting that!

Pete

 

[Kaiii3 1,978]

9 hours ago, MDFlier said:

Just in case Kaiii reads this, one other suggestion i have is to put a check box that would allow the OCI process to skip any airline that needed manual intervention. Instead of popping up the box telling us to download the item, just abort the install of that one and move on. That way we could use Ctrl-A one time, and it could install as many airlines as possible in one shot overnight We could handle the remaining ones via the current method later on when we have time.

I can try it, but in 40% of the cases AIM does not know before the actual download if it is manual or not. For all hosts that require a manual download (we know them) I can add this, but then there is the second case when a server does not answer in time. In this case AIM tries a second time and if it still fails the manual download process will be started.

[mpo910 2,112]

18 minutes ago, Kaiii3 said:

I can try it, but in 40% of the cases AIM does not know before the actual download if it is manual or not. For all hosts that require a manual download (we know them) I can add this, but then there is the second case when a server does not answer in time. In this case AIM tries a second time and if it still fails the manual download process will be started.

Then the following process could be considered.

UseCase: Download from Site X is necessary and tried twice......and if it still fails........

• the download of this airline will be skipped
• Appropriate message about this Airline gets "listed" somewhere (message window with all Airlines listed with failed attempts) , so the user is capable to get knowledge about this
• Next Airline will be downloaded, if further downloads are "waiting"

The goal should always be:

If ANY interaction from a user is needed, postpone this, take "note" of this in a list/table where user can read this later. After the downloadable airlines are finished or after the user stops the downloads manually for some reason. He can proceed with manual actions afterwards.

The download and installation time, which is needed, can vary from seconds up to hours. If users have to sit hours at their desks to wait for a certain "needed action" which might never come, its not user friendly.

But if you can manage it to postpone ALL manual actions to "the end of the process" than a user can trust his download process, till the main work is finished and he can than manually finish all things that need his attention.

I like your product a lot. I think this would really optimize your product further and eliminate the reasons for some of us simmers that the installation process is a hassle.

PS: Don´t forget about similar behavior at outdated flightplans. 

😉

Thanks Kaiii3!

Marcus

Edited February 1, 2021 by mpo910

[Kaiii3 1,978]

Shift+(lef mouse) is comming in the next update. Regarding skipping manual download: Need to check if I can add this to a small update or has to wait till the next point-release (that would be the MSFS update later this year)

[mpo910 2,112]

2 minutes ago, Kaiii3 said:

Shift+(lef mouse) is comming in the next update. Regarding skipping manual download: Need to check if I can add this to a small update or has to wait till the next point-release (that would be the MSFS update later this year)

Many THANKS for this positive feedback!

Marcus

[Kaiii3 1,978]

Just now, mpo910 said:

Many THANKS for this positive feedback!

Marcus

thank you for the user feedback. Many of our internal AIG users are using OCI since many years and know how to handle it - so not much feedback whgen it comes to useablity or friendly UI for new users 😉

[mpo910 2,112]

1 minute ago, Kaiii3 said:

thank you for the user feedback. Many of our internal AIG users are using OCI since many years and know how to handle it - so not much feedback whgen it comes to useablity or friendly UI for new users 😉

That´s what we are here for! 

What I would really like to see is a bit more "direct" interaction between Users and Developers like you, @Rob_Ainscough, @simbol, @Damian Clark, etc.

I find this "communication per posts" a bit ineffective. Of course this is not a complain...but it can be done better with less information loose and better understanding, at least my thoughts about this.

I already thought about an online session for "some of the users" with you guys on a regular bases (1x a month for instance). 

Something similar I would suggest to LM for us Beta testers.

Also a "trackinglist" with suggestions and known "big issues" would be really transparent and user are not tapping in the dark if certain things a known or not.

But these are just ideas....which came up in me while reading the topics here and at LM Dev forum!

How do you guys think about it? I mean.....digital world......so much interactions are possible. 

Marcus

 

[B777ER 2,486]

20 hours ago, MDFlier said:

I didn't think FLAI had flight plans? I never used it. And I disagree. Downloading and installing the models, textures, and flight plans for each airline and airplane and then converting the textures and compiling the BGLs and then copying them into the sim would be a pain. Clicking the airline name and then clicking OCI is well.. so simple a caveman can do it... (if they had computers back then, of course)

. 😁

For those only interested in online AI traffic, which FLAI was meant for, you don't need flight plans or any bgl files. That's what I am talking about. Those that JUST want online AI don't need anything other than models and textures, that's it!!

This AIG OIC requires the P3D SDK to be installed. Really way to much for exclusive online Vatsim users. My hope is the people at Vatsim can get this sorted as this current way is overly cumbersome for just online AI.

Edited February 1, 2021 by B777ER

[simbol 5,819]

I think I provide plenty of time already communicating with users 😛