Selfridge ANG Base - MSFS

[Firebird]

OK here is my initial post.
I decided to take the step of acting like somebody that didn't know what they were doing, and in the process I think I may have hit on the problem that Woogey has come across.
It did help that I had to completely reinstall MSFS last week for this task.

I installed the 3 folder, unaltered, into one of my active folders - I use MSFS Addon Linker - and ensured that I created the links for the 3 folders.
I started the game and went straight to KMTC with my trusty Hunter and parked in a spot out of the way.

No aircraft. I thought that I had done something wrong but the shelters were there which meant that the base itself was actually there and active. As the aircraft folders were in the same place they had to be active too.
So read the manual.
AIRCRAFT TRAFFIC TYPE set to AI OFFLINE. Did that.
AI AIRCRAFT TRAFFIC DENSITY set to 100. Did that.
GROUND AIRCRAFT DENSITY set to 0. Did that.

Went back into game and it made no difference. In case a game restart was needed, I did that.
Still no aircraft. It had to be another setting. I went back into the Traffic settings and right at the bottom there was a TRAFFIC VARIETY parm. I figured that as each aircraft was individual it needed to be set to Ultra rather than Low. This I did.

Restarted the game to ensure the parm change was picked up and lo and behold there was an apron filled with aircraft. Success. i would suggest that the manual also includes setiing TRAFFIC VARIETY to ULTRA to ensure full visibility of all aircraft.

One weird thing of note was that there was also a P-51D on the front of the flightline as well. How the hell that got in there I have no idea.

One other observation I made. With no aircraft showing, other than mine. I got 59 fps on my system, which is CPU limited. With all the aircraft there from the same spot I got 32 fps. So even though John has worked hard to create low impact models there is a big hit.
Now it should be mentioned that my settings are set to Ultra for all due to the GPU I have. I think that it might be prudent to have a look at including a little note that there is a fairly big impact with the traffic and if you start to get stuttering then turning your graphics settings down one notch might be a good idea.
If they want to keep their current settings they should find and save a copy of their UserCfg.opt file BEFORE making the change, so that they can recover later.

I did see 1x KC-135 taxy out in front of me with flaps down. Will investigate traffic further later.

[Woogey]

Thank you Steve, I am going to try your "Fix" now. Your write up is exactly in line with what I did. As John said installation seems like it should be very straightforward. I'll keep you all posted.

-Preston

[Woogey]

That did it, Thank you Steve! Observations can now commence for me.

-Preston

[John Young]

Well done Steve.

I can confirm that my Traffic Variety was set to "Ultra", which explains why I could see the aircraft and you and Preston couldn't.

I have added that parameter to the settings section of the manual. It was a straight lift from the Lakenheath manual that Greg wrote, so he will need to make the change also.

John

[Woogey]

I really like your new KC-135 John. You are absolutely right about the texture resolution needing to be higher for MSFS. I think 2k is the bare minimum for an aircraft the size of an airliner. Would you consider making the paint template in 4k for experimentation purposes? Obviously if there is too much of a hit, we can always downsample back to 2k.

-Preston

[John Young]

Not for the KC-135 because that would mean re-creating the whole texture sheet, since up-sampling would kill the definition - about 30 hours work. We also need to remember the download size penalty with these large textures, as well as the potential impact on frame rate.

John

[Firebird]

That sounds sensible not to redo it all.

Maybe test it out on the Rivet Joints and the rest of that family
*hehehe* Just stirring.

[Woogey]

That Makes sense, I was hoping maybe in the off chance that you had actually created it in 4k and already down sampled once, that maybe you would release it in the higher resolution. You make valid points as always.

-P

[John Young]

Hurray! - with a suggestion from Pete, I have been able to kill the parked parts (engine covers, RBF ribbons, etc) on the KC-135's and A-10's before the pushback. It was actually quite easy in the end - changing "Beacon" to "Nav" in every appearance of the code in each model xml file.

I had tried that previously without success, but I don't think I changed every appearance.

The revised xml files are attached - one for each model.

John

[Firebird]

Thanks will apply the mod tomorrow.

[John Young]

Alarm Bells are ringing!

Have any of the Selfridge testers tried the addon after installing the SU11 (40th Anniversary) update please?

The upgrade went very well in about 20 minutes, but I have since been testing Selfridge for about 4 hours now. It seems that the sim will only read one of the two traffic files (A-10's and KC-135's) in each MSFS session. When it does, the same aircraft tends to depart at whatever hour or half hour of the day the sim is set to, irrespective of the times in the flight plan. I had to remove one traffic file to see a movement in the other.

In addition, the fix I applied to prevent pushbacks, that worked well prior to the upgrade, is no longer working. Slime lights are now illuminated on all parked A-10's in the cold state.

If anyone else has tried Selfridge with SU11, have similar problems been found please?

John

[Firebird]

I admit I haven't revisited it since the upgrade. Will do today though to see if anything is off.

[Joseph29]

Alarm Bells are ringing!

Have any of the Selfridge testers tried the addon after installing the SU11 (40th Anniversary) update please?

The upgrade went very well in about 20 minutes, but I have since been testing Selfridge for about 4 hours now. It seems that the sim will only read one of the two traffic files (A-10's and KC-135's) in each MSFS session. When it does, the same aircraft tends to depart at whatever hour or half hour of the day the sim is set to, irrespective of the times in the flight plan. I had to remove one traffic file to see a movement in the other.

In addition, the fix I applied to prevent pushbacks, that worked well prior to the upgrade, is no longer working. Slime lights are now illuminated on all parked A-10's in the cold state.

If anyone else has tried Selfridge with SU11, have similar problems been found please?

John

I don't have MSFS (I am a P3D user) but I have seen a thread or two over in the AIG forums about the SU11 update breaking some of the AI stuff in MSFS.

[John Young]

Yes indeed, I have read feedback on other sites saying the same thing, but nothing as specific as the problem I experienced, hence the need to test further.

John

[John Young]

Please ignore the problem I reported with pushbacks. I wasn't thinking straight - the fix was to kill the parked parts (engine covers, chocks, flags etc) before the pushback, not the pushback itself. The fix is doing it's job correctly. Departure timing though is still problematic, as reported.

John

[Woogey]

I just caught this clip early this morning, I am not sure if it will work post SU11? Some of it might be worth testing. I will also verify tonight after work your findings John.



-Preston

[John Young]

I've already tested this Preston and it creates problems of its own:

https://militaryaiworks.com/forums/topi ... nd#p210038

SU11 seems to have broken MSFS AI further, so at the moment it doesn't seem to sensible to release any packages until that's fixed.

John

[Joseph29]

It seems that every time they release an update for MSFS something with the AI gets broken.

[Firebird]

Looking at this issue from a distance it seems that the vast majority of their focus is flying, scenery and performance. I would not criticise them for these priorities. They are what the vast majority of MSFS users want.

I would go so far as to say that I wish that it would probably have been better if they had not touched AI at all. The reason that they did, I reckon, is that it falls in the category of scenery to them. It is something that enhances a users flying experience - nothing more.

They will get around to it, but it is not in their top 5 at the moment.

[TimC340]

I'm less sanguine about it. I agree that they could have left it as was and it would be infinitely better than what we have; the AI that exists in-game uses a small palette of childish liveries, uses aircraft models that are only loosely based on reality, and generally fails to do what it's advertised as doing, which is mirroring real-time airline and GA traffic in the way that UT Live tried to do. And it fails at every level.

It seems to me that Asobo hoped that the multiplayer game would substitute for convincing AI, and that the in-game AI would simply work to fill the gaps between player aircraft. I've never managed to see any player aircraft in game, and the result is a rather lonely experience that totally fails to simulate the aviation environment. There are some good player aircraft, and the scenery is nice (if you don't look too closely!), but it's sterile. John and Ian's efforts show what could be achieved if Asobo were to support proper AI, but frankly I think they're not interested.