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General MAIW Package Issues

Post all questions and problems with official MAIW Packages for FS9 in this forum. Each package has a dedicated thread for support.
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reconmercs
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General MAIW Package Issues

Post by reconmercs »

use this topic to post general issues with Military AI Works packages that ARE NOT specific to any one package.
Joseph29
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Post by Joseph29 »

Lets say I wanted to install only certaian types of planes from a MAIW package (like C-130's but not F-22's) would that effect the performance at the base? Or effect framerates?
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Post by BadPvtDan »

You would have better performance and frame rates. There may be some issues, though, with missing aircraft in the flightplan. Alternately, you could reduce the AI percentage.
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AFCAD question.

Post by swimeye »

Hi.

I was looking at some flightplans for the Topgun package yesterday and saw that some of them flew to NAS Fallon (KNFL). So i searched my system to find that AFCAD and only found the stock default version which meant that no aircraft showed up since there are no parkingspots assigned in the stock version. Same goes for KGUS for example. So when i searched Avsim for afcads for those two airports and intsalled them lots of traffic appeared. :D

So my question to you is, what happens to the aircraft that has a flightplan to a airport without parkingspots?
And, are there other stock version airports in your packages that aircraft flies to, that you are aware of?

Thanks for doing what you guys do, i discover new things everyday and also thanks for your support. :D
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Post by Firebird »

The simple answer is that if its TNG, nothing will alter, however if it is a full stop leg then when the aircraft slows down to taxi speed on the runway it will disappear.

The answer to your other question is that yes there are loads of destinations across our packages that this happens to. It is a conscious decision taken, it was either leave it to individuals to add parking to airports that they particularly wanted parking at, or use third party afcads that are available, or don't fly to as many places, or do about three packages a year. It was decided to go with the first option.
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bina
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C-130 Hercules: Little Rock AFB vs. WOAMIL24.ZIP

Post by bina »

Hello everybody!

This is my first post here so, I hope you'll like it as I do :) I only doubt this is not the right place I should post my question but anyway... hopefully, the mods will forgive my first mistake.

ok, I've two packages on my HDD: Little Rock AFB (maiw_little_rock_afb.zip) and USN & USMC C-130's (woamil24.zip) made together with WOAI. The description for the Little Rock taken from Avsim says: "This package brings to life Little Rock AFB, Home of the Hercules, in FS2004." Now, my questions are:

1) What should I do with the one from WOAI since, as far as I understand, both packages deal with C-130 Hercules' deployed in US? The only difference I can judge about is that WOAI+MAIW package "depicts most of the the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps units that currently fly the mighty Hercules" while the "Little Rock" stations only its own C-130 fleet.

2) Will I experience any repetition/duplication if I use both?

3) Or, does WOAI package cover Little Rock AFB either?

Thank you!
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MIKE JG
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Post by MIKE JG »

Welcome Bina, this is a perfect place for these questions. I will try to answer them:

1) WoAI MAIW packages vs. MAIW packages. When we first started out, we wanted to use an auto-installer that would automatically place the files in the appropriate places. Since we did not have our own installer at that time, we teamed up with WoAI to use their installer for our packages. So the first set of packages were all released in cooperation with and using the WoAI installer. For those packages (any that are WoAI/MAIW) you need to use the WoAI installer to install them to your system.

Eventually our packages outgrew the WoAI installer and we managed to find a freeware autoinstaller that would do everything we wanted. So at that point, we made the switch and from then on, all of our packages have been released under the MAIW name. So anything that is a straight MAIW package comes with its own auto-installer executable file. Simply run the .exe file and it will do the rest.

The WoAI Hercules package that you are asking about installs C-130s used by the United States Navy and Marine Corps. Those aircraft are from various bases throughout the US. The Little Rock package installs US Air Force C-130s based solely at Little Rock AFB and WILL NOT cause any conflicts with the WoAI Hercules package.

2) You will not experience any repetition or duplication as the two package cover C-130s from different branches of the US military.

3) That WoAI package, does not cover LR AFB.

Unlike WoAI packages that might cover the entire fleet of an airline, we tend to do packages that cover the actual units or wings within the various armed services throughout the world. Our packages utilize flight plans that are created from scratch, not from a schedule and mimic the real world operational practices of miltiary aircraft. Some of our flightplans have aircraft that simply operate to and from waypoints that ARE NOT actual airports. We also have aircraft that visit other bases but rarely will you see a MAIW planned aircraft at a civilian airport unless that airport is a dual use field between the military and public aviation sectors.
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Post by bina »

Mike, thank you very much!!! Your post was of great help indeed!

I liked the following statement in particular:
2) You will not experience any repetition or duplication as the two package cover C-130s from different branches of the US military.
My comment will be simple: Sorry, as a person from a completely different part of the world (UBBB), I've never served in any of the branches you mentioned :D hence my ignorance!

THANK YOU!
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Post by sprocky »

I just read this topic over at the AIG forum:

http://www.alpha-india.net/forums/index ... ;topicseen

As I have a 60GB HDD only lightmaps may occupy too much space on the drive than really needed. My a/c folder is 12GB while MAIW a/cs folder size is 4GB in total. Now I had a look into various texture folders. I can understand that the different window configuration causes different lightmaps for airliners. But how about the F-16 (e.g. MAIW_HTAI_F-16C_SEANG)? Do they really need individual lightmaps?

Just to clarify something: From my understanding FS will look into the main texture folder for a lightmap if it does not find it in the aircraft texture folder. Is that correct?
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Post by Firebird »

That is how I understand it.

On the F16 lightmap issue, generally, I would say yes its fine to have the one. I would use caution here though as there maybe some that need specific lightmaps. I would say check the local ones against the global one before removing them.
Generally, here at MAIW we are trying to ensure that all modern packs save space by using the global texture file. So if global lightmap are used then fine but if local lightmaps are used then I would advise leaving them in there as they are probably there for a reason.

On the texture front you are not doing bad, as I have just checked and found that my aircraft folder is over 26GB in size and my FS9 is currently over 135GB in size :shock: .
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Post by Ford Friendly »

Something that NickN on avsim suggested is a very specific set of defrag procedures (for FSX) which not only saves disk space but also affects file ordering and program execution due to faster load times. The procedure works for FS9 but the results are not as dramatic.

While I don't have the link to the exact post, it's easy to find - search for his name. Many have used/referenced that thread.

Essentially, he suggests using O&O Defrag, running /Space defrag 2x in a row and then running /Name defrag immediately afterwards. There are also some system tweaks, turning off certain unneeded services that are useful.

I combined the above with culling nearly all duplicate texture files, moving shared files to the main texture folder and a couple minor other tweaks and found that both FS9, when I had it installed, and FSX not only took up far less space than before, they ran faster.
***Possibly not of interest but...One weekend, I went so far as to throw 90% of my addon scenery texture files into 1 folder and found a significant speed increase - load time wise. OTOH, that would have been a pure bastard to modify/manage long term as it was impossible to identify which texture files went with what. I foudn that it's much harder to do this with aircraft texture files due to the surprising number of files that actually have the same name. Then again, some people find it easier than I do to manage large directories.
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Post by reddog824 »

Hi Guys,
I'm new here and I love the site! I know my problem isn't a new one, I have researched the entire site for an answer but can't seem to find one that helps me. The problem is that AI aircraft aren't appearing at most of the bases. I have FS9 and installed the following packages.
New England,Langley,Sheppard,Patrick,Beale,Seymore Johnson, Tomcat Sunset, USN Airlines and Eielson. The New England Package works great and the Eielson Package shows two F-16c's doing training, but none of the other packages have any aircraft. I have tried all the suggestions posted here but nothing seems to work. I noticed "knegje" had the same problem and noticed a misplaced file. I know it has to be something as simple as that but I'll be darned if I can find it.
Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated!

Regards,
Reddog824
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campbeme
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Post by campbeme »

Hey Reddog,

Whats your AI percentage set too?

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Post by reddog824 »

Hi Mark,
My AI percentage is set at 100%
I've tried setting it from 60% up.

Reddog
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Post by MIKE JG »

Try this, you need to use an aicraft .AIR file editor program to edit the .AIR files of the aicraft. For aircraft that won't show up, doesn't matter which one exactly, just pick two or three, go into their .AIR files and change the "aircraft type=2" entry to "aircraft type=0". Then boot up FS9 and see if they show up in the aircraft selection menu.

This way we can determine if the aircraft will show up in the sim in the first place.

If we can establish that, that will rule out a couple of potential causes.
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Post by reddog824 »

Mike,
I used the ACA 2005 program and all aircraft show up on that. Can you tell me where to get the AIR ED program and I'll try it.

Paul
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Post by ricktk »

AirEd can be found on a search of www.avsim.com, or as an alternate you could use the beta AI Editor from Owls Nest. Look in topic: http://www.militaryaiworks.com/forum/vi ... php?t=5654
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reddog824
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Post by reddog824 »

Okay, used the AIR Ed program and the AI aircraft do show up in the selection list.

Paul
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Post by MIKE JG »

OK, that and the fact that ACA didn't pick up on anything tells me that the aircraft are ok.

Couple questions: Are you making any changes what so ever to the Aircraft.cfg file when you install the packages?

Are you making any changes to the flightplans when you install the packages?

Are you letting the installer place the files in the root FS9 directory?

Some of the packages you are trying to install are the older ones that require the WoAI installer to work. Are you using that installer where appropriate?

Are you modifying the included AFCAD files in any way after installing the packages?
-Mike G.

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Post by reddog824 »

I haven't changed any Aircraft cfg. files or any flight plans. and I let the installer install it to the FS9 root direcrory. I did try a manual install with one of the packages without any luck.

Paul
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