AIG and PSXT - livery matching

[flightjunkiechicago 7]

I'm totally new to PSXT and MSFS, and have all the AIG models and liveries installed.

I spent several hours watching AI at KORD, and observed a few things that I hope you can help me with. I've read through the FAQs and the manuals, and am slightly confused.

1) AIG adds a "default" registration number to standard liveries (e.g. an AAL B738 regular livery has atc_id=N945AN, even though obviously there are many dozens of this aircraft with various registrations). Should this be blank and only those special liveries have atc_id population in aircraft.cfg? I ask because I get several of the same special livery AAL at KORD when watching planes, even though that's obviously impossible.

2) As a follow-up to question #1, I watched a QTR B77W land at KORD today. IRL, it was a regular livery, but the live one in the sim was the retro livery. Flightradar24 confirmed the registration number which matches the special livery AI model/livery and the atc_id - is this caused by #1?

Thanks in advance.
 

 

 

[kiek 1,229]

It does not matter but it is better that each livery has a (its) registration code in the aircraft.cfg so you know exactly what it is.

The matching rules are simple, first a match upon registration code is tried and if no match is found, a match upon airline and type is tried in step 3.

In step 3 all your AAL+B738 liveries are taken into account, so also the ones with a registration code. A random choice is made.

So whether you give a livery a regcode or not it may always appear "at the wrong place" unless an airline has just a few aircraft and you have all these liveries in your sim.

 

SOLUTION

If you want the paints to match perfectly, or winglets vs no winglets, or engine type  (PW, GE, RR, CFM, ..) or what have you, you need of course a livery for each version. And you should create a file in the regcodes folder (see Manual 5.1) with for each of your livery titles a list of the registration codes that match that livery.  Wildcards are allowed to ease the process.

It would be nice if someone in the community could create that file for the AIG aircraft....

 

 

Edited April 25, 2022 by kiek

[vidha 91]

11 hours ago, kiek said:

 

It would be nice if someone in the community could create that file for the AIG aircraft....

 

 

Exactly my thoughts,  as all AIGM-users should have the same names. That means it would allow for sharing this information between users per airline. 

I will post AAL.txt in a new thread to inspire others to follow 🙂

Edited April 25, 2022 by kiek

[flightjunkiechicago 7]

3 hours ago, vhaaland said:

Exactly my thoughts,  as all AIGM-users should have the same names. That means it would allow for sharing this information between users per airline. 

I will post AAL.txt in a new thread to inspire others to follow 🙂

That's incredible! But using AAL as an example, let's say I'm not very particular about which tail numbers get the red sharklet tips vs. those without etc... and really just want to configure the special liveries (Retro, PSA, Astrojet etc etc...). Can I just create an AAL file with those and specify the registration numbers for those repaints? If I do that, does that mean that all the other registration numbers not matched in AAL.txt would get a randomized "standard" livery (or as standard is acceptable to me)?

 

[kiek 1,229]

If you are using the full AIG package too you do not have to worry about these things, just use the AAL.txt file that was kindly provided by Vidar Haaland.

 

Edited April 26, 2022 by kiek

[flightjunkiechicago 7]

8 hours ago, kiek said:

If you are using the full AIG package too you do not have to worry about these things, just use the AAL.txt file that was kindly provided by Vidar Haaland.

 

Yes, I can definitely use the helpful AAL.txt file, but there aren't such files for other airlines and from my personal perspective, I don't necessarily need a full fleet file like Vidar Haaland provided given that for most airlines, especially those with very large fleets, there are dozens if not over a hundred of aircraft that share a specific livery variation (i.e. I don't really need 100 registration numbers for an airline that are assigned to one specific livery variation because that seems like a waste of time to do).

[kiek 1,229]

For other airlines these files will become available too I think. You do not have to anything for it.

Furthermore, most airlines do not have such big fleets as AAL. For those making a file is a lot easier.

But all this is only necessary for those users that care about the utmost immersion.

PSXT,  without using registration codes, performs already much better then what Asobo from MSFS provides 😉