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What is AI Traffic ?
FS2004 - How to..?
Install addons
Install AI aircraft
Install AI fightplans
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Flight Simulator Guide / Guides / What is AI traffic and how does it work?
AI - What is it?
AI (Artificial Intelligent) traffic controls the other planes you see in FS2004. The developers of FS2004 created a flexible system to add more realism to the simulation. Even better is the possibility to add AI planes and their flight plans yourself. On the page, we will help you through process of installing AI planes and flight plans.
Details and frame rates
By default, FS is using the default aircraft for AI traffic. So AI planes are just like flyable planes? Yes and no. Don't try to assign a flightplan to a highly detailed addon plane, because that will result in horrible frame rates. The default aircrafts are pretty basic, not a big hit on your frame rate. Most of the addon planes are complex and detailed, so there is a lot to process when 20 AI planes are moving around an airport.
So we have to deal with poor detailed AI planes? No, a lot smart guys have been working on a solution for that: LOD modeling. LOD means Level Of Detail. How does it work? With LOD models, there are several models of the same aircraft used, from low detailed models to highly detailed models. When an AI aircraft is far away, it doesn't need to be highly detailed, because you can't see that anyway when an aircraft is very far away. When you are very close to the AI aircraft, the highly detailed model is used. The smaller the AI plane becomes, a less detailed model is being shown. That way, your computer doesn't have that much to process anymore, your frame rate will stay fine.
Developers like Aardvark and FSpainter work with LOD models. Their AI planes are very detailed without loss of frame rate. Check their websites for more info and listings of aircraft models and repaints:
Aardvark
FS Painter
Installation of AI aircraft
The AI aircraft are usually packed in a .zip file. Some of them include the model, others only include the textures. If the model is included, the .zip usually contains a folder with the subfolders "model" and "texture" plus the aircraft.cfg and .air file. The AI aircraft will not work if either one of the folders or files are missing.
If the model is included, just copy the folder that contains the aircraft.cfg file to \Flight Simulator 9\Aircraft\ , that's all. It's more complicated when you only have the textures. In that case we call it a AI aircraft repaint. Read the readme file of the author of the repaint for installation instructions.
In general, the textures should be copied to an aircraft folder. The author of the repaint created it for a specific AI plane, so you need the model of that AI plane installed in your \Flight Simulator 9\Aircraft\ folder.
Usually, there is a "aircraft.cfg.txt" or "[fltsim.x].txt" file included. In this file, you will find instructions needed to edit the aircraft.cfg file. You can also use the repaint guide for flyable aircraft.
The fltsim section is used to tell FS important information about the AI plane. It looks like this:
| [fltsim.x] |
Starts with [fltsim.0], the next will be [fltsim.1], etc. You need a [fltsim.x] section for every single repaint you have for AI planes. |
| title= |
The name of the specific AI plane. It should be an uniqe name, because FS will use the title to connect flightplans to AI planes. |
| sim= |
Specifies the .air file, schould be located in the same folder of this aircraft.cfg file. |
| model= |
Specifies the model folder. Some AI planes use different models for various engine versions. |
| panel= |
Panel is only used if you want to fly the ai plane. |
| sound= |
Sound is only used if you want to fly the ai plane. |
| texture= |
Specifies the texture folder "texture.aal" (american airlines). In that case, the texture entry will be texture=aal |
| atc_id= |
The registration number. Irrellevant for AI planes, the ATC will use it for "flyable" planes only. |
| atc_airline= |
The callsign that ATC will use. NOTE: Not all callsigns of the real world are available in FS. Download EditVoicePack if you want more callsigns to be added. Check the callsign page if you don't know the callsign for an airline. |
| atc_flight_number= |
The flight number of the AI plane. |
| atc_id_color= |
- |
| ui_manufacturer= |
The name of the person or organisation that developed this aircraft. |
| ui_type= |
Type of aircraft. This will be visible in the aircraft selection menu if this AI plane is flyable. It will also be visible in the aircraft labels if you have it enabled. |
| ui_variation= |
Variation of the type of aircraft, mostly the livery. It will be in the sub-selection menu of the aircraft if this AI plane is flyable. |
| description= |
Description of the aircraft. It usually contains info about the real world aircraft or info about the developer. |
| visual_damage= |
Irrelevant for AI planes. |
| atc_parking_types= |
Kind of parking spot this aircraft should use. |
| atc_parking_codes= |
3-digit code that is assigned to each airline. The AI plane will park on the spot that has the same 3-digit code as the AI Plane (if not available, it will park on spots that are for all airlines). You can check the 3-digit code on the callsign page. |
How to assign a flightplan to an AI plane.
AI flightplans are downloadable on various websites across the net. It are usually .zip files that contain one or more text files that contain the flightplan.
First you need to download the program called "TTools" (Traffic Tools) by Lee Swordy. It is a freeware program that allows you to compile AI traffic files to use with FS. Search for it on google, as we do not have the file downloadable on fsg (yet). It can only read text files in a specific format. To compile a flightplan, you will need at least 3 files:
1. Aircraft file that contains information of the AI planes that will be used for the flightplan.
2. Airport file that contains information about the location of the airports used to fly to and from by AI planes.
3. Flightplan file that contains the flightplans.
Usually, flightplan packages contain allready 3 files named Aircraft_<flightplan name>.txt, Airports_<flightplan name>.txt and FlightPlans_<flightplan name>.txt. If thats the case, copy this 3 files to the folder where TTools is located. ("<flightplan name>" can be everything, depending on what the author of the flightplan choose for a name. For example, FlightPlans_American may be the name for a flightplan for american airlines ai traffic flightplan.)
Now you need to point the aircraft listed in the Aircraft_<flightplan name>.txt to an installed AI plane. You will see something like this:
AC#1,200,"Beech Baron 58"
In this case, you need to change
"Beech Baron 58" to the title of the AI plane you want to connect to the flightplan. It should be the exact name that is listed in the [fltsim.x] entry "title=" in the aircraft.cfg of the ai aircraft. Do this for every aircraft listed in the Aircraft_<flightplan name>.txt file.
Now start TTools and you will see the 3 files on the left. Select them and click on "Compile". If you don't see any errors, you've succesfully added a flightplan! If you see errors, you may have made a typo. Read the error message, correct the error and try to compile again.
Some AI traffic flightplan packages come with only one file. Most likely it will contain the lines for the 3 files. Read the instructions and create the 3 files yourself. You can also add a new AI flightplan to existing traffic files. Just start TTools and select a traffic file on the right and click on "Decompile". Now TTools created 3 text files for the aircraft, airport and flightplan entries.
You can add the aircraft entries to the Aircraft_<flightplan name>.txt file. Just change the AC# numbers, they have to increment with every AC# entry from the top to the foot.
Check if the Airports_<flightplan name>.txt contains the entries of airports you need for the new flightplan. If not, you need to add them to the Airports_<flightplan name>.txt.
Add the entries of the new flightplan to the FlightPlans_<flightplan name>.txt. Make sure the AC# numbers are correct and point to the AC# entries in the Aircraft_<flightplan name>.txt.
Start TTools again and select the 3 text files on the left and click on "Compile".
This is a quick guide for people who want to add custom AI traffic. It's a bit complicated, but custom AI traffic is the best you can get. Be sure to read the readme files of AI packages, their installation method may be different from the method described here.
If you are in the need for more information about this subject, please read the fs2004 faq or post a message on our forum.
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