30 minutes ago, Noel said:

Yes, that's my opinion and you can have yours which is no more valid.

Indeed. Whatever floats your goat. 

Well this thread derailed spectacularly. Y'all realise that not everyone always has to agree, yeah?

Just use the suggestions if you like them, and don't use them if you don't like them.

And it has to be said, but a great shoutout goes to @tup61 for his hard work on the AIG guide. On behalf of the ones *not* fighting about whatever on here... thank you, tup!

 

12 minutes ago, aktorsyl said:

And it has to be said, but a great shoutout goes to @tup61 for his hard work on the AIG guide. On behalf of the ones *not* fighting about whatever on here... thank you, tup!

You are very welcome! ;) 

12 hours ago, Cpt_Piett said:

We are extremely lucky to have AIG as a freeware addon with a developer that's constantly improving the product as well as keeping in touch with the community. 

Whilst they offer their products without charge their servers do not run on fresh air. There is an option to make a donation. I’ve done so twice now. It’s a superb addon that has done a lot to bring airports around the world to life.

https://www.alpha-india.net/forums/index.php?topic=29610.0

Just now, Ray Proudfoot said:

Whilst they offer their products without charge their servers do not run on fresh air. There is an option to make a donation. I’ve done so twice now. It’s a superb addon that has done a lot to bring airports around the world to life.

https://www.alpha-india.net/forums/index.php?topic=29610.0

Absolutely. I've donated before and I'm more than happy to make another donation. @Kaiii3 and others work on this as well as the communication with the community has been nothing short of stellar. Freeware development at its finest. 

6 hours ago, Cpt_Piett said:

Didn't know that, but now I see that the file is unavailable Offline AI Traffic - Stock Traffic BGL Fix » Microsoft Flight Simulator

I still have that one and it works fine. It did develop some invisible aircraft (just lights show) after a MSFS update and I reckon that's why the author decided to take it down. Simply replacing that file with the other one posted above should work just fine though.

Edited August 24, 20223 yr by Phantoms

10 minutes ago, Phantoms said:

Simply replacing that file with the other one posted above should work just fine though.

That one doesn't exist anymore, the author removed it.

Edited August 24, 20223 yr by Tuskin38

9 minutes ago, Phantoms said:

I still have that one and it works fine. It did develop some invisible aircraft (just lights show) after a MSFS update and I reckon that's why the author decided to take it down. Simply replacing that file with the other one posted above should work just fine though.

The other one is also unavailable, most likely because the author chose to sell it on SimMarket.

4 hours ago, aktorsyl said:

great shoutout goes to @tup61 for his hard work on the AIG guide

I rest my case--it takes a guide created thru hard work 😂

Anyway 🤯

I spent EUR 11 on this: https://secure.simmarket.com/simflea-offline-ga-traffic-msfs.phtml

Haven't had much chance to test it out yet, but I guess it's the same as the freeware version (that's now unavailable). It can be used both with AIG Traffic (in offline mode only), and Aerosoft Simple Traffic. 

On 8/24/2022 at 7:42 PM, Tuskin38 said:

That one doesn't exist anymore, the author removed it.

Ouch. Guess if you've got one of the two then better hold onto it.

 

Edit: Looks like the payware one may be the same as the one removed from flightsim.to.

Edited August 26, 20223 yr by Phantoms

I've made a free GA AI Traffic mod from the MSFS stock planes. You can find it at https://ufile.io/qlbzk3h7 for now. If nobody finds any faults with it then I will upload it to flightsim.to.

 

I made it by decompiling the stock traffic bgl file with AIFP, removing the commercial traffic, fixing any errors that validation showed and then recomipling with just the GA flightplans. This is basically what the author of the first GA mod did, but he broke his down into three traffic packages GA, Cessnas and Commercial. You should be able to use this to add back GA flights when used with AIG TC. It will not work with Live AI traffic.

So to follow up on this thread after a week of trying out different solutions, this is what I’ve found…

1. Live Traffic with AIG with no ground traffic. This gives you realistic models and liveries and ensures you don't see out of place aircraft, but the airport is mostly empty when I spawn in.

2. Live Traffic using AIG and some ground traffic like 25%.  This makes the airport less of a ghost town when I spawn in, but you get out of place planes at the terminal (e.g. Emirates at Vancouver - which is not an airline that flies here). It would be ideal if Microsoft just used the top country's airline for populating ground traffic.

3. AI Traffic Off with AIG TC injecting the traffic.  This is by far most realistic as it seems to populate the ground traffic with realistic planes at the gates.  However, their program is so unoptimized (takes 5 minutes to start up) and flaky (prone to crashing and all AI planes suddenly vanishing) that it's not ideal either.

For now, I’m going with option 3 as that offers the best experience and I just need to expect it to take 5 minutes to get going, which is not far off how long it takes the sim to start anyway. 

AIG is a chore, especially if you use the included app to download the liveries and flight plans. They really need to look at a better solution if they want to increase the appeal of their add-on. It has to be the most inefficient software I’ve ever encountered in my 40 years using computers. There are better ways of getting it setup out there, but not sanctioned, so don’t ask. But it does prove there’s a much better way.

I can see the appeal of Simple Traffic and the new one that’s in the works. Sometimes a decent solution in 10 minutes is better than the ideal solution in 10 hours. 😉 AIG is their own worst enemy with their inefficient software and setup process.

Incidentally, I’m surprised the default ATC is interacting with the AIG AI traffic. Not sure how that works, as AI Traffic is necessarily set to OFF in the options, but I’ll take it. I’m looking at other ATC solutions as well so a solution that can similarly interact with the AIG traffic in some way will have an advantage. I think my shortlist is down to Pilot2ATC and Pro ATC. But I’m not getting into airliners again for a few weeks yet so that decision can wait. 

1 hour ago, Virtual-Chris said:

AIG is a chore, especially if you use the included app to download the liveries and flight plans. They really need to look at a better solution if they want to increase the appeal of their add-on. It has to be the most inefficient software I’ve ever encountered in my 40 years using computers.

completely agree with you,

& the AIG team seem like really good people,

but I decided to go with Simple Traffic for its very simple install & no hit on performance…

1 hour ago, Virtual-Chris said:

AIG is a chore, especially if you use the included app to download the liveries and flight plans. They really need to look at a better solution if they want to increase the appeal of their add-on. It has to be the most inefficient software I’ve ever encountered in my 40 years using computers.

There is a learning curve to it I agree. But once you have downloaded the majority of airlines that you want there is no need to download everything else. If you want the smaller airlines install a few a few times per week. I now have over 900 BGLs.

Whilst the major airlines will include Boeing’s and Airbuses and those are invariably based on free to use aircraft models there are others behind a paywall. Unless you buy those aircraft they won’t show in the sim. They are identified as NO PAINT. I use AIFP to check each BGL and make changes where I can.

All the above is based on my experience of using AIG for P3D and with BGLs as my preferred system. That way they are read by P3D and are correctly positioned at the gate or airborne inbound or outbound within an 80nm radius of your position. I don’t know if MSFS can read BGLs setup as an addon.

I do have some based on AIGFP and those are injected by TC. I use Ai Companion to display the status of Ai within the simulator. It’s extremely helpful.

Once you get used to AIG it’s fine. Yes, it takes a few minutes to load but you can be doing other things in that time. Regular checking of Updated flight plans means there are only a few to update a couple of times a week.

The program will update itself automatically and it’s not often I have any problems with it. I’m prepared to put the effort in because it’s the finest Ai package there is and is completely free although I have made two donations exceeding what I would pay for a rival product. The efforts of all involved deserves applause.