Editing AI Flightplans

[DaveB]

Sceenry\world\scenery it is then ;-) Cheers Ben

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[DanKH]

If you want a clean 70'ies scenery of at the moment 26 airlines, I can zip it up, bgl's and aircraft-folder. Copy/paste start-up there you go. I've done the hard work for you to enjoy.

If you care to wait a wee bit longer I'll even throw in Braniff flying colours which I'll will install this evening, it takes a while because of all the various paints.....

All of them genereated from RetroAI's flightplans, and manually installed repaints.

Your call ;-)

[DaveB]

Cheers Dan. I shall keep this in mind ;-)

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[nigelb]

Hi Nigel..

Thanks for that. This is the sort of thing I was looking for though I must confess, the more I look at this little hill.. the more mountainous it looks I'll check it out ;-)
DaveB :tab:

Dave,
It is a little bit of a challenge to get started becuse the documentation has not been updated for FS2004 and a few functions don't work unless you run the 2002 version. What I did was start with a very small traffic.bgl, decompiled it with Traffic Tools and then just played around with the files to learn the programme. One tip, to load any flightplan you need to load the airports file from the "Flight_Simulator" menu heading - go to "Master Files" then "Select Airport Master File" and point to the appropriate file. The default "Use Airports Master File" appears to look for the master file in the default FS2002 location. Took me ages to figure that one out! :brick: Anyway, after that you can import your flightplan with the "Files" menu .

I always save the files in a seperate directory under AITM and then copy them to the Traffic Tools directory for compiling - I don't have AITM compile them, although it can. That way I have backups. If I am playing with a traffic file that is already 'live" in FS2004 I back that up before I start so that I can always go back if things get messy

[DaveB]

BOUNCE

A word of caution regarding 3rd Party traffic.bgl's.. nothing bad but something to consider if you deem it necessary to rid your system of World Tails e t c..

Of the traffic.bgl's Ben sent (ones I already had but thus far uncompiled), I have only installed 1.. Cambrian. While this sounds like a straight forward thing to do.. if you intend running any 3rd Party traffic file, it's worth noting that we do not all have the same naming conventions in flightsim. It may also be that your system.. if already 'challenged' when running traffic at high levels cannot, as is the case with mine, run 'default out of the box' models like DM's 1-11's without some modification. Those with 'high end' systems won't need to worry but as an example, to install the 'Cambrian' traffic file (which only contains 2 aircraft.. DM's 1-11 400 and Rick's Viscount) I had to do the following to maintain a reasonable frame rate..

Remove any unnecessary models from the 1-11 400 (this means removing the .model folder and editing the aircraft.cfg to reflect the NoVC model for each entry).. removing the panel then converting the original textures to DXT3 (from 32-bit). For the other aircraft, Ricks Viscount.. I have all of my Viscounts separated into different models thus all the 802's go in one folder, all the 810's in another and the 700's in yet another. The Cambrian paint equates to the 802 series so for a start, the panel goes. Next, the aircraft.cfg has to be edited and my 802 contains 81 entries.. this means 162 edits (for my naming convention). Finally, the Cambrian paint conversion to DXT3.. something I've yet to do as there wasn't a Cambrian at Liverpool (the airport I went to first to check the flightplan was operational).

There were only 3 aircraft present at Liverpool (after deleting the UK2000 static.bgl) and these consisted of 1 x DM Cambrian 1-11-400 and 2 CalClassic DC3's (1xCambrian and 1xBEA). While pointing in the direction of the CalClassic DC3's, my framerate stayed a steady 60+fps. When I turned to face the DM 1-11, this dropped to 30fps. Converting the textures to DXT3 gained a further 4-5fps and removing the 'full - VC' model leaving the NoVC model (after editing the cfg) gained around 10+fps more. I don't know what the addition of 1 x RP Viscount would have done but fortunately, these models are not particularly heavy on frames and I only chose to use Ricks model because I can't find a Cambrian paint in the CalClassic set.

I point this out not to discourage anyone from doing likewise.. just to show that nothing outside the default is straightforward (unless you have a pc capable of running the NSA). Two hours have just passed and the 'Cambrian' plan only had 2 aircraft to modify! :o I'll add the RAS Rapides to Liverpool in the fullness of time and the v2 Rapides are not particularly frame friendly.. due mainly to the additon of passengers! The v1 Rapides are much better but have less paints so it's 6 of 1 and half a dozen of another.

In the meantime.. I've had enough and it's bed time

Nigel.. you just posted a second before so I was able to read your post and modify this one Yes.. I agree entirely and had already found this out (Ttools will tell you when something isn't right) The easiest option for a missing airport was to find and load the default airports txt file and rename it to conform with the aircraft and flightplan file to be compiled ;-) For those of us with UK2000 (the full set of..) any minor adjustment or addition is quite straight forward as each area has it's own traffic.bgl. These are contained within each 'Part' and can be decompiled/recompiled without fear of 'damaging' any other area ;-)

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[DanKH]

Another word of warning ;-) It isn't meant to be easy....

If you use the whole shebang of airports for every flightplan you use, your traffic files will be unnecessary big, and on smaller systems size does matter...

So your better off just to have the airports used in the flightplan in the airports-file.....

Dave: My method of a separate folder containing AI-aircraft only would easily solve your problem of using the same aircraft for both AI and fly-your-self... Or indeed make a separate aircraft called eg. AI_BAC1-11 and use this one for AI traffic, and the original for your own amusement.

In FSX it is of cause so much easier where you can have various aircraft folders .... but that's a whole new story ...;-)

[DaveB]

Hi Dan,

This morning, I have eye's like pee holes in the snow I concur that creating 'eutopia' isn't easy and if done the best way.. it's probably more difficult than the way I'm doing it now. :roll:

It would certainly be more desireable to have only airports listed in the flightplan included in the airport.txt before compiling the bgl but the downside of this is that each flight would have to be read and a list made of all the airports they contain. Once that has been done, the default airports list has to be edited and the surplus deleted (of which I'm sure there is plenty). Tidier.. of course but rather more work than I'm prepared to put in at the moment ;-) If the end result isn't running well.. then I'll do it this way.

In order to try and keep my framerates as high as possible, I'll continue to use the CalClassic models which although a little basic, are ideal for the job. Many of the models come with very extensive paints and I was unlucky that Cambrian wasn't included in the Viscount as it has just about every other airline I can think of! That said.. I now have my own (RP based) AI Viscount 802 to fill in any gaps and putting the time in last night editing the aircraft.cfg means that every paint contained therein is already available for use. Bless Mr Russell ;-) I didn't have an AI 1-11 400 so making an AI version of DM's was the best option. None of the changes I make to aircraft are for versions I fly.. they're all specific AI models ;-)

Now.. which airline shall I pick on next?? :think:

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[DanKH]

Actually Cambrian IS included in the CalClassic pack...

Texture.CAM is the one...(just installed it myself) ;-)

If you can't find it, give me a notch

Regarding which airline: Which era are you concentrating on?

[nigelb]

Hi Dan,

It would certainly be more desireable to have only airports listed in the flightplan included in the airport.txt before compiling the bgl but the downside of this is that each flight would have to be read and a list made of all the airports they contain. Once that has been done, the default airports list has to be edited and the surplus deleted (of which I'm sure there is plenty). Tidier.. of course but rather more work than I'm prepared to put in at the moment ;-) If the end result isn't running well.. then I'll do it this way.

DaveB :tab:

Dave,
No need to manually edit the airports file if you use AITM. Load the master airport file with all the airports in FS2004 (I create that with Traffic Tools), and make whatever changes you need to make. Then when you are ready to save, look under the tools menu for the menu item "Create Airport File From Flightplan" This will then save only those airports your AI planes actuually use and will reduce the filesize and the corresponding Traffic_XXX.blg file significanty, unless your flying the AI to hundreds of different airports, of course. A lot faster than manually editing, that I can promise!

[DaveB]

Cheers Nigel.. that sounds like a good plan ;-)

ATB

DaveB :tab: