Military AI Works

I don't know if anyone else has thought of this, but I've asked Microsoft if I can be considered for alpha testing the SDK of the new sim. It'll be the quickest way of finding out whether or not it will offer anything to MAIW and similar developers. I suspect they'll say no to me as an individual, but it's worth a go!

You are right about that. I thought that what I read though is that the initial SDK is being released as part of the Alpha release, the next release due and therefore anybody that volunteered for the next round of testing will automatically get it.

However, I learned very early on the RAF that if you didn't ask you didn't get so you may get lucky.

It will be interesting to see what is in it and what is not. I have to believe that if they are putting a big effort into auto ground traffic on roads that they must have spent some time making AI rules more realistic.

Indeed Steve, but they also mention this in the last development update:

Only 3rd party development partners will have access to the SDK in which they will be able to create and edit airports, sceneries, planes and missions. (..) If you are a 3rd party developer and have not been in contact with the team, please send an email to x for more information.

So it looks like if you're not a "partner", you don't get access. I've been thinking about sending them an "official" email from MAIW.

It has to be worth a try. Especially if you explain what we are specifically interested in because I don't think that a lot of testing has been done in our area.

Absolutely agree. Better a no than a missed opportunity.

From mobile hence short

I haven’t had a reply, but you guys might with your ‘official’ hats on!

Not sure if it matters but one of the members of our flying club is an Alpha tester and he has it running on a pretty nice setup, he keeps inviting me over to check it out which I might do this weekend. Not sure how much he knows about the SDK side of things but I will see him Saturday so I will ask.

I don't know if Alpha India are represented on the SDK alpha testing panel, but perhaps a joint approach to Microsoft for representation might be useful. You can make the case for expertise then in both civil and military AI. The knowledge between the two parties must be phenomenal.

John

John nailed it. I second that as the ideal approach.

from mobile hence short

Kai did already contact them directly, but as far as I know he hasn't heard anything back although Asobo mentioned somewhere that they are aware of AIG.

Good Evening Gentlemen.

I was accepted for round 2 of the Alpha testing and installed the new sim today. I only had time to check out three air bases before I had to go to work today. First was MCAS Miramar, then NAS Pensacola, followed by NAS Whiting Field. Having satellite imagery everywhere is really nice, plus the grass and is more immersive than ever before.

A couple thoughts that I might pose to the scenery developers here, as this will probably have to be the start of a new chapter altogether for MAIW. Everything is now PBR, buildings, aprons, runways, aircraft, everything. Also we finally have sloped terrain following runways and aprons which Ai will operate from. Since it’s all ortho photo scenery now, any new airbase scenery will need to be aligned to reality. Also I think the big sceneries with all the extra buildings essentially can become a thing of the past. It seems to me like a good workflow would be to only model the first “line of site” hangers and buildings that are part of the airport itself. Using AirNav airport charts might be a good way to encompass the scope of future sceneries. All the secondary and third line buildings are already populated by Microsoft with perfectly exceptable structures. As far as the existing building and object libraries go, I’m sure that PBR Textures could be added with an export to 3DS, and a recompile. This new platform could serve as a good opportunity to finally update some of the extra out of date stuff?

I am crossing my fingers that some of you guys are as excited as I am about this new Sim as MAIW is a huge part of my life!

I know of at least 4 Military oriented dev’s that are jumping at the bit to get the new SDK, 2 of which have been in official communication with Microsoft. I can not say any more than that. I am going to take a look at the file structure tonight when I get home from work, and see if any experimenting with older scenery can be done.

-Preston

Thanks for the early overview.

When you have had time to play with it more we would be interested to here about what standard of aircraft models it will or won't accept. Also what effect the new system has, if any, on the existing textures.

Two other things that I would particularly be interested in is what changes have been made to the AI engine. What can it do now that it couldn't do before, also has any capability been removed. Anmy change to the AI ATC?

Of course most significantly the traffic file it self. Does it still the same make up? Does it add capabilities like waypoints? Can existing traffic files/raw text files be used? If not what takes their place?

Oh how I wish I was legally allowed to show screenshots of this simulator! What I found is most Airbases have all the buildings in real world locations, especially in the US and Europe. For the most part the only surface that isn’t satellite imagery is the main runway itself, so aprons and taxiways will need to be created by the artist developing his or her scenery of choice. While the buildings are represented by an extrusion of the footprint, and have accurate roofs textures based on the Satellite imagery, the walls and faces of the buildings/hangars are nothing like reality. Aircraft shelters/carports are represented by generic block buildings. Traffic for Aircraft and Ships appear to use standard FSX/P3d traffic .bgls, although the Ai that is in the sim currently is network generated based on live Real world feeds. Also all users that are running the simulator are always visible online in real time as traffic with their user name being the call sign provided on the world map.

This simulator is AMAZING and checks off so many of the wishlist items that we have had for a long time. The flight model is better than any FS Franchise before. It feels really good. Try to track down the center of the runway on a strong crosswind take off....... it is not easy. The prevailing wing with lift first and aileron input in addition to rudder is required. Wheel brakes will hold you at full throttle now.

I am open to fielding questions and will answer whatever I am legally allowed to. You guys need to believe the hype, because MSFS is the real deal!

-Preston

Have you had time to get deep into the workings of the AI engine yet?
Especially where new features have been introduced, such as waypoints, pairs take offs/landings. Where we have some really smart people here it would be nice if there are features that have not been able to be produced yet or make their lives easier.

From my point of view, can the automatic connection of you being connected to the world be switched off?

Are there more detailed airports in the vanilla sim? For instance, LHR or JFK - place that the majority of the intended audience are likely to visit. These would give us some idea of what can be achieved and how it’s done.

As an ‘Insider’ (no Alpha invite yet, but I’ve recently constructed a new PC so still hoping!), I’m aware that there is a fully-offline mode. Users on that will not be tracked, of course, and it would be very interesting to see what level of detail exists as standard, and how well the more detailed airports stand up in that mode.

I know from speaking with my friend that is also on the A testing team, the high def scenery has limits just like in previous version of MSFS. That being the case it would be nice to know how and where they decide to terminate the satellite based high def scenery and switch to generic autogen scenery.

I would also like to know what terrain resolution they are using. Will it make all those terrain producers redundant? If not what impact will there be when you add on higher res terrain.

Have new Airports been added that have been built since FSX came out.
I’m thinking Beijing and Istanbul initially but there are many more.

petebramley wrote: ↑19 Feb 2020, 18:04 Have new Airports been added that have been built since FSX came out.
I’m thinking Beijing and Istanbul initially but there are many more.

As the basis for the sim’s scenery content is current satellite imagery and terrain modelling, I cannot see how any current airport could fail to be included.

That makes sense but I have seen evidence myself of mil airfields being blanked out in Google Earth so I could see that these may not be included in game. One of the ones I found was in Israel and i did find a European mil base brushed out as well, can't remember which one now but it did surprise me.