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"Adjust Activity Level" percentages clarification

PMS707

PMS707

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I'm not an idiot, but for the life of me -- even through trial and error -- I can't figure out how to read the values in the "Adjust activity levels" for any given AIFP generated flight plan in FSX. If I want to reduce the number of TWA flights in relation to the flightplan of a smaller airline (whose traffic I want to still be represented given a global value of say 50% set in the sim's general scenery settings slider), what percentages to I set the TWA flightplan for when creating it in AIFP in order not to have TWA (and all the other huge carriers) take up so much space? I'm stymied as to what the higher and lower percentage numbers mean, and how to read them.

To simplify -- I want to reduce the presence of larger carriers at major airports while maintaining the presence of smaller ones. How do I set the activity levels for the percentages when creating the flight plans for the nig airlines if my global traffics settings slider is going to be at, say, 50%?
 
I don't know how to explain it aby better than in Section 6.3 of the user manual.

I would remind you, however, that the adjustment is applied on a per flight plan basis. So, it you've got a lot of heavy aircraft, the level assigned to their FPs will have to be very small if you want to displace it with the much smaller proportion of small aircraft
 
If I want to reduce by 50% the activity of a very large airline at any given airport relative to the other airlines, what activity percentage settings do I apply to that very large airline's flight plan, and in which direction(s) given that there are both high and low percentage input options? Or does this scenario require that I somehow adjust the percentages of the smaller airlines instead?

Another question that would help me understand: Exactly what happens to a flightplan that is initally set at 100% high and then reduced to 50%? Does it reduce it's activity to 50% under all general settings, or only when the general global slider is set to 50%?

My problem is that I just don't understand how these percentages apply. If the global settings are at 100% and each flight plan is also at 100%, obviously each flightplan would operate at 100%. Reduce the general to 50% in this scenario and obviously you get 50% activity from all flightplans which are set individually to 100% in AIFP.

If I want a large airline to operate half of its full flightplan with the global slider set to 50% (one quarter of its original full flightplan) what do I do? How do I set the AIFP activity percentages?
 
As I said yesterday, I don't know how to explain it any differently than already in the user manual.

But before continuing let me admit to feeding you a bad piece of info yesterday. AIFP analyses the flight plan file, not on a FP by FP Base..

If I want to reduce by 50% the activity of a very large airline at any given airport relative to the other airlines, what activity percentage settings do I apply to that very large airline's flight plan
Click to expand...
It sounds as if you may be attempting to use the feature for a purpose it was not intended to serve. AIFP adjusts activity levels within a flight plan file relative to one another based on the file's composition. If all your heavy aircraft traffic is in a file separate from smaller aircraft, AIFP isn't going to do much. Further, AIFP does not offer any airport-specific operations.

Unfortunately, as noted above, I am unable to provide the level of service I once did and am not in a position to analyse the file for you. So, I suggest you undertake some focused experiments to see if you can produce the desired results.
 
While AIFP may have its own system, it all ends up in the flight plan files as a percent number. Let me tell you how that part works.

Let's take an example line in a flight plan file.

AC#1,ALACWC,61%,WEEK,IFR,3/17:30,@3/21:05,90,F,0402,SCFA,3/21:50,@4/03:20,100,F,0402,SPIM,4/04:05,@4/08:10,120,F,0402,SEGU,4/08:55,@4/13:00,110,F,0402,MPTO,4/21:30,@5/01:30,120,F,0401,SEGU,5/02:15,@5/06:20,110,F,0401,SPIM,5/07:05,@5/10:30,110,F,0401,SCFA,5/11:15,@5/14:45,120,F,0401,SCTI


1. This plan will use aircraft #1 in the aircraft.txt file, reg number ALACWC.
2. Then comes the number we're interested in 61%. This number is defined as "the trigger value for the flight plan to appear in FS".
3. This means that if the FS traffic density slider is set higher than 61%, this AI plane will ALWAYS appear in FS.
4. If the FS traffic density slider is set lower than 61%, it will NEVER appear in FS.

Therefore, if ALL your plans are set at 50% (for example), ALL of them will appear when the traffic density slider is set at 51% or higher, and NONE of them will appear if it is set at 49% or lower.

So, setting the activity level HIGH in AIFP may cause fewer AI aircraft to appear (see below). Since you are desiring to set this by airline, you will need to use the choice to set the level of each aircraft.

The exact activity level number you need to use depends on where your FS traffic density slider is currently set. If yours is set at 100%, then no matter what you do with AIFP or the flight plans it will NOT affect the density, since ALL AI aircraft will always appear in the sim, even if their activity level is set to 1%. Only flight plans with activity levels set HIGHER than the current FS traffic density slider will be removed from the traffic.

Now if your traffic density slider is set to 70%, for example, then you could set half of the TWA flight plans to some number higher than 70% and those would not appear. That would cut down the number of TWA flights, without affecting the smaller airlines (assuming their flight plans are set to an activity level below 70%).

As far as the min/max values, as long as you keep them both above or below 70% in the example above things will work as expected.

Hope this helps,
 
Hi Tom -- Well, sort of...

So, I've determined that I can confidently run my sim with the AI slider set to 75% in most environments without causing a crash. With that bit of info, what traffic percentage would I set my larger airlines to in AIFP and then my smaller ones -- with the goal being that lowering the slider still allows the smaller airlines to operate with a reasonable presence?

For example -- at LFPO, when I set the traffic below 85%, most of the smaller airlines don't appear at all. I am stuck with AF, UT, IT, TW and the carriers that have more than one daily trip there. I would love to calibrate this so that when the master FSX slider is taken below that number, I still see the bulk of traffic from MA, SU, OK, etc...

Not sure if that's even possible. I'm not even so sure what the global slider does in cooperation with the AIFP percentage beyond allowing the flighplan to operate at all. And if the flightplan is allowed to operate according to AIFP, is it operating at 100% or at the reduced percentage of the slider? If the slider is set to 75%, does it reduce ALL flight plans by 25% from 100% to equal 75%? I guess that's another element I'm trying to comprehend.

To summarize, if the smaller airlines need to operate at 100% under a 75% slider setting, how do I adjust their flightplans in AIFP?

Alex
 
Alex,

As far as I can tell, to attain what you are trying to achieve you will need to manually set the % value for each flight plan individually.

First, what does the global slider in FS do? It sets the threshold beyond which flight plans are used or not used. Lets create a theoretical example:

AC#1,AL-ACC,11%,WEEK,IFR,3/17:30,@3/21:05,90,F,0402,SCFA,3/21:50,@4/03:20,100,F,0402,SPIM
AC#1,AL-ACD,31%,WEEK,IFR,3/17:30,@3/21:05,90,F,0402,SCFA,3/21:50,@4/03:20,100,F,0402,SPIM
AC#1,AL-ACE,61%,WEEK,IFR,3/17:30,@3/21:05,90,F,0402,SCFA,3/21:50,@4/03:20,100,F,0402,SPIM

Yes, the times are all the same but that doesn't matter for our example. We have 3 flights all using the same AI aircraft (#1), registered ACC, ACD, and ACE.

The first aircraft will appear any time the FS slider is set to 11% or higher.
The second aircraft will appear any time the FS slider is set to 31% or higher.
The third aircraft will appear any time the FS slider is set to 61% or higher.

If the slider is set to 10% or lower, no aircraft will appear.
If the slider is set to 61% or higher, all three aircraft will appear.

Resetting the FS slider only creates a yes/no condition. Is the flight plan % value lower than the slider value? The plane will appear. Flight plan % value higher than the FS slider value? The plane will not appear.

So if your major airlines are using the same types of aircraft for the vast majority of their flights (i.e. American uses 3 aircraft types for 50 flights a week), then you will need to edit each flight plan individually and change their percent values so when you set your FS slider to your desired value, the flight plans (i.e. AI aircraft) you want to see appear. Look at each aircraft of each airline, and ask yourself "with my slider at 75%, do I want this plane to appear?" If so, set the % value in the flight plan to something less than 75%. If you do not want it to appear, set it to something higher than 75%. You can set various flight plans of a given airline to different % values so as you lower the FS slider the planes disappear one by one, in the order you desire. Thus, you will know exactly what planes will appear at any FS slider setting.

Hope this helps,
 
Alex I've been watching from the sidelines for a while, You seem to have much higher expectations for this feature than even I did.. As Tom has mentioned, whether or not an aircraft appears depends entirely on whether or not it's activity level equals or exceeds the selected threshold level. It doesn't matter by how much.

The Adjust Activity Level feature tweaks the individual activity levels within that framework, depending on parameters you choose. I don't know that it's possible to predict - on a full-file basis - the specific outcome of a given set of AAL adjustments , or to predict what AAL adjustments are required to achieve a specific result, without somehow first applying the proposed adjustments to the AAL algorithms.
 
tgibson said:
Alex,

As far as I can tell, to attain what you are trying to achieve you will need to manually set the % value for each flight plan individually.

First, what does the global slider in FS do? It sets the threshold beyond which flight plans are used or not used. Lets create a theoretical example:

AC#1,AL-ACC,11%,WEEK,IFR,3/17:30,@3/21:05,90,F,0402,SCFA,3/21:50,@4/03:20,100,F,0402,SPIM
AC#1,AL-ACD,31%,WEEK,IFR,3/17:30,@3/21:05,90,F,0402,SCFA,3/21:50,@4/03:20,100,F,0402,SPIM
AC#1,AL-ACE,61%,WEEK,IFR,3/17:30,@3/21:05,90,F,0402,SCFA,3/21:50,@4/03:20,100,F,0402,SPIM

Yes, the times are all the same but that doesn't matter for our example. We have 3 flights all using the same AI aircraft (#1), registered ACC, ACD, and ACE.

The first aircraft will appear any time the FS slider is set to 11% or higher.
The second aircraft will appear any time the FS slider is set to 31% or higher.
The third aircraft will appear any time the FS slider is set to 61% or higher.

If the slider is set to 10% or lower, no aircraft will appear.
If the slider is set to 61% or higher, all three aircraft will appear.

Resetting the FS slider only creates a yes/no condition. Is the flight plan % value lower than the slider value? The plane will appear. Flight plan % value higher than the FS slider value? The plane will not appear.

So if your major airlines are using the same types of aircraft for the vast majority of their flights (i.e. American uses 3 aircraft types for 50 flights a week), then you will need to edit each flight plan individually and change their percent values so when you set your FS slider to your desired value, the flight plans (i.e. AI aircraft) you want to see appear. Look at each aircraft of each airline, and ask yourself "with my slider at 75%, do I want this plane to appear?" If so, set the % value in the flight plan to something less than 75%. If you do not want it to appear, set it to something higher than 75%. You can set various flight plans of a given airline to different % values so as you lower the FS slider the planes disappear one by one, in the order you desire. Thus, you will know exactly what planes will appear at any FS slider setting.

Hope this helps,
Click to expand...
Tom yours is finally the explanation that makes perfect sense to me.

Using JFK as an example here…

JFK is tough because of all the LGA and EWR traffic that dilute the ability to see any meaningful, realistic level of traffic at any of the airports because of the sheer number of flights. If I want to focus flying at JFK with nice traffic, the thing it sounds like I'd want to do is isolate EA, TW, UA, AA flightplans that operate heavily at EWR and LGA (the 727s and DC9s that seem to proliferate mostly) and adjust their levels to higher numbers (above 75%), thereby ensuring that those flightplan would still be visible at other airports when traffic is allowed to be set at a globally higher level. By the same token, the smaller international carriers at JFK would want their plans set below 75% (for the fight plans that operate to JFK anyway) so that they are not diminished.

So it would appear then that anything AIFP could do for me beyond just compiling traffic BGLs ends up being more or less useless, based on my objectives here. I was hoping there was a one size fits all for this issue, but as with most things flight sim, that's obviously not going to happen. I guess the smart thing to do would be to tailor each airline's plan to specific scenarios and save them as separate BGLs to be loaded when wanting to fly out of specific airports and still have a good mix of traffic. But at least I understand it clearly now! Thanks again Tom for sharing your vast knowledge.
 
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