Nellis Air Force Base Package by MAIW: Part I

[MIKE JG]

Please post any support related issues for this package in this thread.

**Note support for this package will not be offered for FSX users in this thread. Please use the FSX support thread for all package issues in FSX.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE read the included Readme docs, ALL of them.

Many of your questions/issues will be answered in the included documentation for this package.

Due to the complexity of this package, we expect that some issues will arise and as always, we will offer as much support as we possibly can.

During testing, the majority of our testers reported no issues with the package, however several testers experienced crash to desktops related to certain scenery files. After exhaustive efforts, we have been unable to determine why some testers experienced CTD's and most others did not. We are confident that this package works without error for a default FS9 setup. Any setup that has been altered beyond a default state is essentially an "experimental" setup for which we cannot possibly test for every possible variation.

So if the package is causing you problems right off the bat, please be patient and let us know AFTER you have searched the included Readme's, both of them, for a possible solution.

Here is the first small fix required to the package. This is an updated AFCAD file for KLSV, Nellis AFB. It will prevent large AI aircraft from disappearing after landing on runway 3L.

This fix is only required for users who downloaded the package before Dec 20th, 2009.

[james84]

First feedback: no trouble at all with the scenery. I had to spend a bit of time removing aircrafts that were already installed, and there is a lot of interesting traffic, also some Brazilian F-5s.
The only thing that didn't go are some aircraft textures which are not very crisp (looks like they have not been converted to dtx3), above all some Raptors and Eagles, and I didn't see the Hummers. I'll check and let you know!
EDIT: got the Hummers.
The blurry-textured aircrafts are (at least for me - I used only one texture per squadron except for the specials and all the textures for the Aggressor Squadrons)
F-15 WA 65th Aggressor 82-0028 and 78-0538
F-22 OT 06-128

[Loedie]

Hello

Guys great package thanks a great holiday gift! Only one question why is all Arr and Dep trafic on the same runway? Sometimes there are to jets in the patren for the app and and jets waiting for dep and many go around. The second runway 03R is nut used by any trafic.

Cheers

Vincet

[MIKE JG]

Perfectly good question. The answer is that this is a limitation of the FS9 AI engine and ATC system. FS9 divides the departures and arrivals by splitting the base down the middle between the two runways to form two halves. Any arrival that is coming from the western half of the area will be assigned 3L/21R. Likewise any arrival that is arriving from the eastern half will be assigned 3R/21L. For departures, the AI will use the closest runway, which effectively splits the base in half again. Anything parked on the east half will use 21L/3R for departure and anything parked on the west half will use 3L/21R.

So the runways are naturally set up for simultaneous operations. It's just that far more aircraft are parked on the west side than on the east side so that runway gets overloaded.

There is not much that can be done about this other than to reduce your AI traffic percentage slider to a lower value to produce fewer AI aircraft or to alter the timing of your flight plans to space the arrivals and departures out as much as possible.

We have done this for the included AI traffic. What we can't do is change the visiting AI aircraft's flight plans to better space them in and out of Nellis unless we went back and reissued each package that has traffic visiting Nellis.

[garysted]

Gents,

Thanks very much for the Nellis scenery although I haven't installed it yet, but will do so. Reading the above about the runways made me wonder though - is it not possible to allocate departures and arrivals to separate runways via the AFCAD on this scenery? I don't know if that's how Nellis works in real live but when I installed the earlier Nellis scenery from one of the members here (apologises, don't remember who did it) and I did a load of flightplans for the 57th, I soon realised that the old problem of arrivals and departures all loaded onto one runway would occur so allocated the Western side for departures (with the majority of traffic that side it seemed the logical choice) and the Eastern one for arrivals on the AFCAD. Although it still gets congested at times the dedicated runways works fine for whichever end is in use.

I saw the concerns in the Scenery readme about go arounds when using the 03 end (as the mid point runway turn offs are closer to that end most traffic will need to taxi the full length causing the overshoots). A couple of alterations I did on the other scenery to get most fast jet traffic to turn off short was to extend the runway link on the landing runway (on my set up, 03R) further downwind, past the visual runway to get landing aircraft to land as short as possible, right on the threshold, and also add a taxi link from the runway (some way past the turn off) back to the mid point turn off which results in the fast jet traffic doing a 180 on the runway after roll out (not realistic I know, but it does clear the active runway quickly) and heading back towards the turn off and clear far quicker. I'll incorporate these alterations on this scenery when I install it and see if they work.

Gary

[Firebird]

Gary,
I did try this sort of amendment but it came with its own problems, which admittedly will occur anyway with the default system. That is that if you have the closest runway to the pan allocated to take offs and the farthest for landings, then if you get a glut of landings. You will find that the landing runway becomes clogged as due to the takeoff runway being busy. I get this at numerous civvie airports around the world, including KLAS just down the road.

The problem appears to be that you can't taxi towards an active runway crossing point if the active take off runway is allocated to an aircraft. I quite often get aircraft overshooting as there is a landed aircraft still on the runway, due to this anomaly. Very frustrating and a flaw in the AI engine, obviously due to the fact that MS never envisaged AI being as popular or accurate as it became. However, if you know a way of overcoming this flaw it will be greatly appreciated.

As I couldn't find a way to greatly improve the situation at KLSV, I decided to leave it alone. No point in making changes that don't fix the problem.

[garysted]

Hi Steve,

That's interesting about the taxiing. I've never noticed a problem with aircraft failing to clear the landing runway and holding on the taxiway before though and wasn't aware there was a issue. The arrangement of normal and hold short nodes on my AFCAD is slightly different to the new MAIW example, which may be a factor - I'll PM you a copy if you like. I can't remember where it came from, although I've heavily modified the parking and the landing as detailed in the earlier post. Aircraft landing clear the East runway at the mid point as planned, even if there's departures on the West runway, at which they will hold short on the main taxiway between the two runways. There's room for a couple there before queued aircraft block the Eastern arrivals runway.

Gary

[planejunky]

I've installed the exe file upon download, and added the scenery, landclass, and extra MAIW scenery library files but can't get the taxiway, runway or ASP textures to show up. I seem to remember having similar issues with the Lakenheath scenery but can't remember how I fixed it!

Any help would be appreciated please.

[xerxes]

I just downloaded it, can't wait to get it running.

Do we get a TBird airshow? Do they tour the USA?

You guys do great work!

[MIKE JG]

Hi all, here a little problem.
I've seen a strange behaviour with some aircrafts.
1) A Galaxy (from my own traffic), lands on 3L taxy to the end of the runway, exit on the left and once it's cleared for parking, desappears.
2) KC 135, lands on 3R, exit on the left and....PUFF!!!
3) Same as above but with B-1

All other aircrafts, taxies regularly. In the image, the points where the aricrafts desappear.

Ah... already checked : there are no other AFCAD interferring and there are a lot of parking spot available

Has anyone notice something similar?

Thanks in advance, Giorgio

Giorgio, we saw that in testing quite a bit, but to my knowledge fixed those issues. Maybe not, these things can be quite frustrating. Let me do some checking to see if I can duplicate the issue.

[flyboy]

Same problem as planejunky. AFCAD not showing visual items. Ton of traffic. Thanks for all the hard work.

[MIKE JG]

Hmmm.....that's a new one to me. You could try removing the KLSV afcad file from the custom scenery folder and place it into your FS9/Addon Scenery/Scenery folder.

What scenery layer do you have your "Addon Scenery" folder activated at?

[planejunky]

Hmmm.....that's a new one to me. You could try removing the KLSV afcad file from the custom scenery folder and place it into your FS9/Addon Scenery/Scenery folder.

What scenery layer do you have your "Addon Scenery" folder activated at?

I tried that trick, but sadly to no avail. I have the landclass folder set at number one, followed by the Nellis scenery at number two.

[MIKE JG]

And I take it that you DO NOT have this problem with other afcads? How about the LSV0 afcad, the Jolly Pad (Helo) afcad file, does that show the textures correctly?

[Trim_tab]

Hi all, here a little problem.
I've seen a strange behaviour with some aircrafts.
1) A Galaxy (from my own traffic), lands on 3L taxy to the end of the runway, exit on the left and once it's cleared for parking, desappears.
2) KC 135, lands on 3R, exit on the left and....PUFF!!!
3) Same as above but with B-1

All other aircrafts, taxies regularly. In the image, the points where the aricrafts desappear.

Ah... already checked : there are no other AFCAD interferring and there are a lot of parking spot available

Has anyone notice something similar?

Thanks in advance, Giorgio

Giorgio, we saw that in testing quite a bit, but to my knowledge fixed those issues. Maybe not, these things can be quite frustrating. Let me do some checking to see if I can duplicate the issue.

Thats most likely due to no available parking for that particular aircraft, i.e. no available parking spaces with the correct parking code, and-or the correct size/diameter/type... the other possibility is your timings for your ai flight plans are too short and the route can't be completed in the time frame allocated, so the ai aircraft just times out and resets.

I'm having no issues with the AI MAIW provided with their Nellis package... the only issue I'm having is whether to use Paul's version of Nellis or MAIW's... its a tough call, because they are both very well done !

[flyboy]

I think mine might be another AFCAD like KLAS, or one in the area messing up the elevations. I had this problem with Alpha's KLSV until I moved it around some. I also have Alpha's Groom Lake, Fallon and TNX working fine. I added a new KLAS that has added the Janet terminals.

[MIKE JG]

In this particular case, the parking is probably not the issue. There should be plenty of parking spots even for your own AI that you've created. Unless you've completely swamped the base with your own flight plans, in that case you're on your own.

The most likely cause is due to the fact that there are extra nodes located very near the runway hold short node. Large aircraft such as the C-5 and KC-135 with their 44m parking radius have a tendency to do this when they pull off the runway if there are unlinked nodes nearby.

These unlinked nodes are used as eye candy to enhance the visual appearance of the AFCAD file. However when we do this, if we're not careful, we can cause large radius AI to try to lock onto one of these extra nodes after it has been cleared to taxi to a parking spot.

In this case, there are extra nodes near the real hold short node that add apron edging and extra taxi lines, neither of which are required as part of the plumbing for the AFCAD. They are simply there for looks, nothing else. When an AI aircraft pulls off the runway and reaches its first hold short node, it stops and then after being cleared to taxi, looks for the next closest node in the AFCAD to guide it towards the gate.

My personal belief, I do not have proof of this, but I believe that the larger the aircraft's radius value, the further out it looks for the next available node. So in this case a fighter or something smaller than 44m can come along and successfully find the next proper taxi node in the sequence because it is not "seeing" the other fake nodes nearby due to its smaller radius value. So those smaller aircraft do not go "poof" in cases like this. However the big guys come along, and see all these extra nodes nearby. If they decide to latch onto one of these nodes that are not connected to the AFCAD's taxi plumbing system, the result is that they disappear as you are seeing in this case.

This should fix the problem and I will work on updating the package so that this corrected afcad is incorporated. Please let me know if this does not fix the issue.

EDIT: AFCAD download moved to first post in the thread.

[MIKE JG]

I think mine might be another AFCAD like KLAS, or one in the area messing up the elevations. I had this problem with Alpha's KLSV until I moved it around some. I also have Alpha's Groom Lake, Fallon and TNX working fine. I added a new KLAS that has added the Janet terminals.

There is a known issue that involves these sceneries from AlphaSim. No one seems to know why but when you have their Area 51 or KLSV scenery installed and active, they cause issues for any other KLSV or nearby addon sceneries.

I would suggest disabling the AS sceneries to see if that corrects the problem. If it does, I would try reactivating them, one at a time, starting with the one that is the furthest distance away to see if and when they start messing with the Nellis stuff again.

[Bora]

No runways and or taxiways for me either... Even after removing Alphasim Nellis scenery...

[Firebird]

To all of you that have the afcad not showing up problem. Can I ask you for diagnostics, please, as this seems to be a potentially difficult issue but one that doesn't affect most.

If you have followed the docs then you should have your scenery folder listings something like this, as seen in FS9, :-

1. MAIW Nellis AFB
.
.
. other addon sceneries
.
.
325. (if you are anything like me) lowest addon scenery
326. MAIW Scenery Library Objects
327. MAIW Land Class
328. Addon Scenery
.
.
.
. rest of MS default folders
.
.
.

Now there are some that have their Addon Scenery at number 1, there is debate as to which is better (both have issues). Do you all match either of these scenarios, if so which one?
If not, what is different about your set up?