AI Planes not departing ...... Frustrating!!!

[seshey]

Hi All - I have been pulling my hair out over the last few days trying to get AI planes to depart the ramp / gate and take-off without any success. I have trawled the forums and have found that this appears to be a common problem but I can't find any solution / changes needed to resolve. In short my issues are as follows;

When I first start FSX the planes already at the gate depart fine, the fuel truck trundles over to them before take-off and all OK. The problem arises when new planes land at the airport taxi to the gate/ramp and then just sit there and do nothing else. I have noticed the once landed the fuel truck immediately pays the AI a visit goes back to its vehicle stand and then nothing. More planes arrived and that is it!!!!

I have read that the issue may have something to do with the fuel truck getting stuck, re-planning the vehicle routes so that they are kept clear of the parking radius, inserting the vehicle path direct to the gate i.e. not connecting it to the taxi-way and nothing happens. I have also tried to amend the cfg file to '//' out the exits section (which I was told would remove the baggage truck operation and still nothing!!

In desperation I removed all of the vehicle routes hoping that this would stop the AI's requesting the fuel truck but No.

Has anyone out there been able to resolved this issue and if so any help would be very very appreciated.

Many thanks

Andy

[ReggieF5421]

You can remove all Vehicle parking spots. That will eliminate the fuel trucks. You can also just move the ground vehicles slider to ZERO.

If the same behavior continues after doing either of those, it is not the fuel truck.

As for the arriving planes, the fuel truck is part of the shutdown phase of the flight. After the fuel truck departs, the plane goes in to SLEEP mode.

It only starts the Pre-Flight mode when the AI flight schedule calls for the plane to next takeoff.

Look at one just arrived aircraft? What is its UTC time scheduled for it to depart? Does the plane pass that time without going into Pre-Flight mode? That should begin in the minute after the aircraft scheduled departure time.

I use the TrafficToolbox.dll Explorer utility to view the exact state of AI aircraft. It is part of the SDK.

[JSkorna]

The planes are on a time schedule programmed into their plan. It might not be time for their departure.

[seshey]

Thanks for the response. This is going to sound silly but I can see the Traffic toolbox file in the SDK folder but have no idea how to run it. Any help?

Thanks again

Andy

[ReggieF5421]

Find the DLL.XML file in your profile. It is located the same place as your FSX.CFG file

On Win 7 - C:\Users\__Your_LoginID__\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX

Open the file with Notepad

Edit the file to ensure the Disabled tag is changed to FALSE

<Launch.Addon> <Name>Traffic Toolbox</Name>
<Disabled>False</Disabled>
<ManualLoad>False</ManualLoad>
<Path>C:\MS_Games\FSX_SDK\SDK\Environment Kit\Traffic Toolbox SDK\traffictoolbox.dll</Path>
</Launch.Addon>

Also I prefer to use the FULL EXACT path to the .DLL rather than the ..\ pathing shortcut in the example file.

Start FSX, start a fight at an airport with AI traffic.

Pause FSX and go to the top menu. You will have a Tools option - open the TrafficToolbox Explorer.

One really good feature in the Explorer is that you can select/ deselect the various column headings.

When you have a really difficult issue with an AI aircraft, you can display the column to show you the full path and exact file name that generated that aircraft.

[seshey]

That's great all installed many thanks.

OK - I have now started to look at what the traffic is doing once it lands. I am using Ultimate Traffic 2 and I notice that the plane lands parks goes through the post landing support and then into sleep mode. However what does not appear to happen is the plane does not refresh itself which the next legs details and the from and to columns together with ETD and ETA are marked with a "?" it would appear that the next leg is not being read. I have looked at the traffic bgl file and these all appear to be in the right place but the programme just doesn't appear to read the file.

Any additional thoughts would be great.

Thanks in advance!!

Andy

[ReggieF5421]

I didn't realize you were using UT2.

Ultimate Traffic 2 does not use traffic files. It is the only AI traffic program which works that way. There is nothing in a .BGL for the Traffictoolbox.dll to read for a schedule for UT2 aircraft.

I haven't loaded UT2 for a while, but I think it has a schedule look utility available in their control program which could give you that information.

UT2 has a different type of schedule database, and 'injects' the AI traffic into the FSX session based upon the UT2 program running and selecting the aircraft to use, when and where.

You are probably going to need to ask your questions on the UT2 support forum.

[seshey]

Sorry about that!

I have now disabled UT2 and the default planes seem to be working fine!! Just one further question, if I want to add new flight plans previously these have been saved as separate bgl files in the Scenery/World/Scenery folder. Does this work or should I add my files into the default traffic.bgl file (which I can't seem to locate but could be trafficaircraft.bgl).

Thanks again

[seshey]

Just one final question does Traffic X work in the same way as UT2?

Andy

[ReggieF5421]

Ultimate Traffic 2 is a potentially great advancement in the concept of AI traffic. However with the FS product line ending with FSX. UT2 may be a fascinating stand alone. Unique to UT2 was the ability to create custom routes for AI so they would fly real world airways, not direct courses. You could modify UT2 departure routes to keep AI from flying through mountains or over restricted areas. The level of control over the operations of AI with UT2 was something we've never been able to do before.

Of course that level of control came with a price - the time necessary to define and apply those custom routings.

Traffic X - was a traditional .BGL file traffic program. It has been discontinued and replaced by Traffic 360, which I assume is also a .BGL based product.

Sorry about that!

I have now disabled UT2 and the default planes seem to be working fine!! Just one further question, if I want to add new flight plans previously these have been saved as separate bgl files in the Scenery/World/Scenery folder. Does this work or should I add my files into the default traffic.bgl file (which I can't seem to locate but could be trafficaircraft.bgl).

Thanks again

The default FSX traffic file is trafficaircraft.bgl.

Traditional .BGL files work just fine with UT2. When I was looking at UT2, I also ran many airlines from WoA FS9 aircraft and traffic files.