Military AI Works

I don't have any problems, just a question. What (if any) problems will happen if you don't have all the waypoints installed? I was updating the Mountain Home package yesterday and saw I did not have any of the waypoints installed from the v2 pacakage. Will the planes not take off? What would happen without the waypoints installed?

I am not sure about specific hard coded rules but, by the shear nature of things, any waypoints that don't exist can cause problems with flights, either not showing up, disappearing or not returning.
I don't believe that it has any long term problems, unlike a leg departing before the previous has finished.

So are you saying that we have waypoints in the plans that we don't include and that we don't mention where to get them from?

Thanks for the explanation.

Firebird wrote:So are you saying that we have waypoints in the plans that we don't include and that we don't mention where to get them from?

No I was saying that I forgot to install the waypoints in my sim.

In case you don't install the waypoint AFD's, the flight will still show up and do the en-route part to the co-ordinates specified in the airports.txt file of the flightplans. But it will be deleted by the sim as soon as it wants to commence the approach, as no runway data can be found.

Greg wrote:In case you don't install the waypoint AFD's, the flight will still show up and do the en-route part to the co-ordinates specified in the airports.txt file of the flightplans. But it will be deleted by the sim as soon as it wants to commence the approach, as no runway data can be found.

Thanks for the explanation! Now that I found out that I didn't install the Mountain Home waypoint AFD's I am wondering if I missed any waypoints AFD's from other packages!

Ford Friendly wrote: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.

Just in case anybody wishes to review the post by Nick Needham, here is a NEW link to his post:

http://www.simforums.com/forums/topic29041.html

The Avsim post referred to here is now missing since the Avsim hack in May 2009.
Although this post addresses FSX specifically, portions of it are valid for FS9 also, and they're the ones that interest me the most (FS9 is my preferred sim).

(Yes, with the advent of SSDs, the Defrag procedures are unnecessary, and can be skipped)

I have some MAIW sceneries, and notice that some have a "default" bgl and also a "custom" bgl. Are both of these supposed to be there, or should the "default" one be removed?

Thanks for any advice -

Jorgen

What happens to the AI planes when you don't have waypoints installed? Do you still see the planes land and take off at their home base?

I have a few waypoints that I never installed and was just wondering if the AI planes still land and take off normally. (and yes I will be finding those waypoints and installing them soon)

Hi Joseph,

The AI aircraft will always depart properly at its aerodrome of departure towards the waypoint, but whether it arrives at its final aerodrome of destination to land depends on a few factors: the distance of the waypoint from ADEP/ADES, whether you follow the AI traffic all the way to the waypoint or not,...

In short: if you don't install the waypoint AFD file, then the AI aircraft will be deleted by the sim when it starts its approach to the waypoint, but only if that waypoint is in one of the active AI sectors.

Jorgen wrote:I have some MAIW sceneries, and notice that some have a "default" bgl and also a "custom" bgl. Are both of these supposed to be there, or should the "default" one be removed?

Thanks for any advice -

Jorgen

The standard naming convention is that if the afcad is designed for the default FS9 scenery, then 'default' is added to the name. If the afcad is designed to be used with addon scenery, either MAIW or third party, then 'custom' is added to name.

This means that if we supply scenery in a package then you will find a 'custom' afcad but we may also supply afcads for the default for other airfields.
What you should not have is, for example, MAIW_AFX_EGXP_CUSTOM and a MAIW_AF2_EGXP_DEFAULT.

Does this make sense?

Thanks for the explanation Greg. I was AI spotting at KBTV and saw two F-16's from the 158th Fighter Wing just pop up in the sim. After looking around I found that I was missing the waypoints from that package and figured since the planes will disappear because there is no waypoint to fly to they would probably just pop into the sim when they land back at there home base. But I wasn't totally sure.

I am desperately searching for two UK Waypoints (EGY6 and EB4) that I'm sure originated from a previous MAIW package, but I don't know which one. They were used in a Daryl Paine Traffic file, but he has recently retired. and left a note that perhaps any questions might find answers here. If anyone can shed some light on where either of these might be found, I would certainly be grateful. Best regards, Bill

EGY6 probably came from the RAF Tutor package. RAF Cranwell is EGYD and the waypoints are usually named for the bases they serve.

EB4 would best guess be attached to EBBR, Brussels. So, probably the 15th Air transport pack.

Hi Clickclichdoh,

I most appreciate the reply and the separate files you sent me!

Best regards,

Bill

Hi Guys...... A quick question.... I was updating my packages when the website went to this newer version. I had started the United States and was working down the US package list in order and got to C or D, anyway what I was wondering is ? have all the US packages now been uploaded ? I didn't count them before so I don't know how many there were. Thanks.

Was there not a list made at one time of all the MAIW waypoints (at the time) ?

gbl wrote:have all the US packages now been uploaded ?

Yes they have. You may want to go through them again from the top as they are no longer subdivided by service branch.

Joecoastie wrote:Was there not a list made at one time of all the MAIW waypoints (at the time) ?

There was, when Graham King was still around. He had some tools that extracted the waypoints and put them on a map. Unfortunately, this page was broken after our website got hacked and Graham left us before it was ever fixed.

The rules for this thread says I cant post a new topic. So.I guess this is the closest associated area for my question.
I downloaded the Nellis base and all associated Nellis based ai ac and flight plans.
After following the installations to the LETTER (and I have been running programs and computers since the IBM 8088,Commodore 64,128 and VIC 20...so I know my way around pretty well.
NO ai aircraft showed up at Nellis.
I used Traffic Tools (and after backing up my original files there,) tried adding the ac manually to the aircraft file. I had to renumber the ac since Nellis aircraft files have a ac#10,#11 etc, and so does my original Aircraft file,and you cant have aircraft sharing the same ac# in that file. NOW..the Nellis flight plans I see had to be modified to fit the new AC # I edited.
Yada,yada,yada...
to make a long story short...
NO ai ac show at Nellis. The copy past idea for adding ac,flight plans and the like to the Traffic Tools decompiled files ,then recompiling them IS NOT the way to go.
My traffic in settings is always at 100%,so that isnt the issue.
What is the deal? This seems to widespread through out the other packages I downloaded,there MUST be something I am doing wrong and NOT a problem with the packages.
Since this is probably a common problem with us new people ( I just registered yesterday) ... who can tell me where I am goofing up?
Thanks for ANY help.
I have seen the results others have taken screen shots of and I like them,but if I cant get them to work, I see no reason not to delete the files and stick wit everyday so=so downloads.

Stephan

Unfortunately you are not the only newbie experiencing your frustrations with custom scenery not visible.

The install .exe files only places the files and folders in the desired place within the FS9 program files.

We have become accustomed to auto installers by pay-ware scenery creators that install and address the new files for you in the Scenery.cfg file.

The truth is, that in order to activate the MAIW custom sceneries you need to go to the FS9 main menu. Go to settings.

Bottom left, Scenery library.

Add area.

Search for it and then load it into you areas list.

Note: Sceneries that do not have custom buildings will load because they are placed into Addon Scenery/ Scenery which is active already.

Default military airports have no AI parking spots so no AI can show up.

I apologise if I am talking down at you but hopefully this post will assist folks, who have no experience to draw from.

Hope this solves you problems.

John