Military AI Works

Hi all,
I have been involved with FSX for several years, but am now just getting into placing AI packages (courtesy of your fantastic developers), as well as building some AI traffic files of my own (courtesy of rpp_fpgen, Traffic tools, and AIFPC). I have tested both the MAIW packages, and some test files I created. For now, I have only one question that I hope someone might assist with: That is, where the aircraft end up parking- is it completely random? I ask this because I have Jim Dhanens fantastic Fallon (KNFL) addon scenery that has some VFC-13 F-5 statics parked on the flight line down in the NSAWC area. I have found several of the MAIW aircraft (and mine created in test) that end up being parked on top of them. Is there a way (either using ADE - which I use for AFCAD changes and development) or in building the traffic file to preclude that from happening? I guess I could try to just delete those "mil combat" parking spaces where the F-5's are located, but was wondering if there is another method.

Thanks in advance and nice work to all involved!
Cheers,

Deke
"Navy81"

Hi and welcome to the forums.
have you tried naming each parking spot IE, VFC5, and then in your F-5 folder adjust the ATC_PARKING_CODE to VFC5
then when the aircraft arrive they will park there first ?
hope this helps you.

Welcome Deke.
OK I shall try to explain simply but there are some complications, aren't there always. I will be speaking about parking in FS9 but I believe that the same principles are involved in FSX with one key difference.

OK simply put for an AI plane to appear in a parking spot there has to be an available big enough for the plane to appear. No parking spot big enough, no plane. That is the simple bit.
Now the size of the spot is dependent upon the radius of the model, in FS9. The radius of the model is dependent upon the size of the mdl file. What size circle is required for the mdl to fit inside, i.e. legth and wingspan. This should be simple but over the years some very clever blokes have added things like cargo pallets and towed targets and refuelling hoses which actually increase the mdl radius but are not important, for the most part, for a parking spot.
Now you can override the radius of an mdl with various freeware proggies so that the plane will actually park in the correct size spot.

Now there are two parms in a fltsim entry, in an aircraft.cfg, that help specify exactly where a plane will park. atc_parking_types defines the type of aircraft operation for this aircraft. If you have an aircraft with atc_parking_types=MIL_CARGO then it will try to find a parking spot with that type defined in an AFCAD, and that the aircraft fits in. If it does then it checks the atc_parking_codes parm. This is where you specify what the code for a particular airline or sqn. For example if a parking spot is coded as MIL_CARGO and 9ARS and 36m then any aircraft that has the type of MIL_CARGO and code of 9ARS and is no great greater than 36m radius then it is eligible to park there.

Now the big difference in FSX is that it does not use the mdl radius to determine the size of spot that it can go in. It uses the wing_span parm in the [airplane_geometry] section of the aircraft.cfg . It is important to remember this as quite often somebody doing an AI fde will manipulate various parms away from the real world figures to make the aircraft fly better.

Now for your specific problem. None of this is relevant. The problem is that you have parking spots on top of static models. You have to remove those spots to avoid the problem, or if you absolutely must have them there for you own reasons then make them smaller than any aircraft that go there.

I hope this helps.

Navy81, I have the same scenery from my Navy based VA and moved the parking types around to put all NSAWC 18's and 16's on their respective ramp, and have all visiting aircraft on the other ramp with ADE9x. I have not removed the static F-5's yet, but removed the AI parking for them so the AI are not on top of the statics.

After getting his Sheppard AFB scenery, JD mentioned he doesn't really set them up for accurate AI placement, so as long as he uses ADE9X and not AFX, it should be pretty easy in FSX to move spots. Highly recommend you visit the Owl's Nest site and change all your MAIW aircraft wingspan, as Firebird mentioned. There is also a thread strictly for MAIW packages in FSX, I have most US stuff install with little issues.

Using Win 7 Pro, FSX w/accelerator, ADE 1.50.4402 and AIFP 2.1.24. Downloaded MAIW_89th_AW.zip from here.
Problem: No AI viewed.
Quickly, in the aircraft.cfg: parking code shows AF1; I also added 929. I also tried changing wing span to 7.5 or other odd size. 126.46 is default wing span. No luck. Also see heavy= -1 as default setting. Is that correct??

Questions:
1) After saving and compiling ADE, it loads the bgl file directly to FSX Addon Scenery/scenery. But when I start FSX, I do not see the white window that loads up with the black bar showing updating or whatever.
Is this a problem?

2) AIFP Flightplan shows desired AI and no error messages. Save File Set and also Compile Traffic File & Save. No error messages.

Lastly, after FSX is loaded, the AI does not show in the Traffic Explorer. Is there a .Net Framework I need?
Some AI's show - and some don't. Any help would be appreciated.

Ray, Steve, and Dustoff -
Thanks for the thorough explanation - learn something new every day.
Glad to be aboard with all of you.

Cheers!
Deke

flynby,
You have two issues here which I don't have first hand knowledge off, Win7 and FSX so I can't help outright here.

However I am trying work out exactly what your problem is. The afcad that i presume you are altering is KADW. The spots are currently set to 44m, and the aircraft requires 32m. In FSX though with the wingspan it only requires 20m so its fine. The heavy =-1 I don't see at all in my aircraft.cfg, in fact heavy is not specified at all. May be a default that FSX adds???

If AIFP isn't showing any errors then that is good enough as far as flightplans go. Can I take it that you are using AIFP to convert the flightplans to FSX standard? There are many reasons why traffic won't show up. You have covered the first, the parking spots and I will assume that you have double checked the time that it should be at KADW.
This leaves the obvious problems of something wrong with the fltsim entry, wrong texture, wrong air file, wrong name etc. and the age old FSX problem of having an FS9 traffic bgl nearby. This will mean that your FSX traffic is ignored.
Try using the standard FS9 traffic bgl and see if you get any AI.

Anything more specific than this somebody with FSX will have to help you.

The answers to you questions, I can't answer 1. As I don't have FSX. Question 2 seems to be fine as far as I can see. I don't believe that any .Net framework is required by FSX. Maybe somebody else can help here.

FireBird, thank you for the reply. The afcad that I am altering is KCNW TSTC in Waco, TX.
You stated: "The heavy =-1 I don't see at all in my aircraft.cfg, in fact heavy is not specified at all."
I kept looking at that same issue. Have never seen it before. I removed the minus with no luck. I used the
// on the line: atc_heavy= -1 and that did not help either.
Out of disgust; I deleted all the AIFP files. KCNW is my experiment airport. I went back to Ttools and created new files. Out of 10 aircraft and flightplans, 9 showed up in FSX.
The MAIW_AAI_VC25A_92-9000 does Not show.

I will use AIFP to convert the Ttools flight plan. I should get twice as many aircraft if I do not remove the original plans.
I do not get error messages from AIFP. Has this particular aircraft textures been changed to mipmaps?
It works perfect in FS9.
Thank you so much for the help. Been fighting this issue for a week.

flynby, I'll look at it as I was going to do my local airports in ADE, including TSTC and ACT, I'm based at TPL for my GA flying real world. AIFP2 can be more strict on faults that most, but AI to continue to work. I have the 89th package in FSX and working fine, as I just saw 29000 at KMSY recently.

I thought the heavy line should read : atc_heavy=1, as all my big iron WOAI aircraft show, obviously AF1 doesn't need to have ATC call "heavy".

Are you looking to release your KCNW?

flynby, have you checked your installation using ACA2007? It will show up errors in your aircraft.cfgs such as model, texture, sim not found.

***EDIT***
I have just had a thought. Does the other VC-25 show up, you would probably call it 828.

To FireBird: I used the ACA2007 and got no error messages. This same download worked perfect in FS9,
needless to say.

I thought you might say that. I have a theory, but can't test it out, maybe an FSX dude could investigate this little issue. I was wondering whether it was the fact that the VC-25s use the reflective version of the model.

Anybody have any idea whether this holds water or not?

flynby, try altering the mdl to the one for the E-4B from the same package, the ge_no_refl. If the E-4s show up then the model is good, so try altering the VC-25s to use that model and see what happens.

Otherwise its over to wiser FSX people than myself.

Confirmed on my FSX system my VC-25's are the "ge_refl" version.

Gentlemen, this morning I tried another airport; KDFW. The aircraft shows perfect. Went back to ADE and entered same parking spot info and everything else. Started from scratch in AIFP using only this aircraft. Saved and Complied in both AIFP and ADE. Results: Nothing in the Tools Explorer and no AI at KCNW.
Did notice a lot of "texture flickering" on rooftops of buildings at KDFW while parked.
I will try one more time using Ttools at KCNW. Let you know what happens.

Today, 02/07, I installed the E-4B into the Simobject\Airplane folder. It did not show up in FSX.

I would like to bring this up again from my original post dated Sat Feb 04, 2012 11:20 am: Lastly, after FSX is loaded, the AI does not show in the Traffic Explorer.

I feel this could be the culprit; but I have no idea how to correct it. I find it odd that this particular airport has no ai's at all.
I just loaded FS9 and there are a few AI's showing at the default time zone.
Is anyone experiencing this problem?
Appreciate all the help. Think best if I just forget KCNW!!

The only other question I have to ask is does anything else park in that spot?

flynby,
My stock FSX set up for TSTC has AI. I have seen weird issues with having non-converted FS9 traffic.bgl's in the FSX traffic folder, at times only a destination airport is causing the problems, in this case for you KCNW. I can add a leg in the FP for the 747 to hit CNW to test on my system. A little side note, I got to do this mission real world when "W" came to Crawford.