AI questions

[bobbyjack]

I made an airport that uses both civilian and military aircraft.
Q 1. There are many parking spaces of the same size. Some are labled ramp_ga_small, others are marked ramp_military_combat. Civilian planes are marked(in their cfg.) to park in ramp_ga_small. Military planes are marked to park in ramp_military_combat. Just as often as not, why do these two different types of planes spawn in each others parking spots?

Q B. I downloaded a freeware plane made with the FSX SDK. I want to use it for AI. I know that not all planes are good AI candidates. Most of the textures are 2048x2048. When I have three or four of these planes at the airport,even with all textures reduced to 512x512, my frames tank to below 10. When I sub a default plane, things are fine. Is there something in the mdl. or air. files that causes this, and is there a way to change it?

Bob

 

[GrahamS]

Parking is allocated according to two entries in the aircraft.cfg file, atc_parking_types, and atc_parking_codes.

The parking type is the type of parking spot and the code is for airline/miltary unit etc. These two combined with the size of parking spot will assist you in getting the correct aircraft to park in the correct spot.

A freeware plane meant to be a user aircraft may have 30,000 polygons or more in its construction which must be drawn whenever the aircraft is on screen. A typical AI aircraft will have 5000 polygons plus several LOD models of reducing polygon count dependant on distance of the aircraft from the viewpoint. This helps to reduce the graphics load on your PC and keep the FPS up. Using a high polygon count aircraft as AI is not to be recommended.

 

[bobbyjack]

Thanks

I understand the poly count.

But, why will a ga plane park in a military spot when there are plenty of proper ga spots open? Parking spots are labled, and cfg.s are labled. Do I have to make ga planes into airlines so I can assign parking codes? I know atc tends to do what it wants.

Bob

 

[GrahamS]

You can assign parking codes to any aircraft type, just put the entry into the aircraft.cfg and match the code in the afcad. Make sure that not all spots of any one type are coded, you must have uncoded spots for overflow for all types.

 

[bobbyjack]

Thanks, Graham,

OK, I have some GA planes whose cfg. files say to park in ramp_ga. There are plenty of ramp_ga spots. Many times some of these planes will go to a ramp_military spot instead. Just wondering why.

Bob

 

[GrahamS]

Because it doesn't just rely on the parking type....

I cannot give you a better answer without seeing the afcad and the codes you have allocated for the various parking spots.

All the parking spots have a priority and ATC will allocate according to that unless the parking spot AND the aircraft are coded to over-ride that.

You mention only the parking type, what about the rest of it?

Have you got a GA aircraft parking in a miltary ramp which is coded for, lets say, F16?

 

[bobbyjack]

Have you got a GA aircraft parking in a miltary ramp which is coded for, lets say, F16?

Coded ,no, typed,yes. I use parking codes all the time, and know how they work. I don't see why a GA plane would park in a military spot when a GA spot in open. That's all

 

[bobbyjack]

May have it. Some time ago I had made all the combat spaces very small. Wheb I make them their normal size, GA stay away from them. Hopefully, military will stay out of GA spots. Thanks Graham.

Bob

 

[Frankis]

Thanks, Graham,

OK, I have some GA planes whose cfg. files say to park in ramp_ga. There are plenty of ramp_ga spots. Many times some of these planes will go to a ramp_military spot instead. Just wondering why.

Bob

Experiment with your Ga ramp parking Size ie( half wingspan -2 ) do the same with your mil_ramps.
Regards Frank

 

[bobbyjack]

Thanks Frank

Well, that's what I've been doing. So much so that I ended up with some military and GA spots being the same size. Changing everything to default may have done the trick. I can code military as I add them. But I didn't want to code all the default GA. haven't found much military that works as AI in FSX. WOAI military won't work on my system.

Bob

 

[GrahamS]

There is no real difference between WOAI airlines and military except that, in FSX, there is little parking, if any, at miltary airfields. Also you have not mentioned if you are using FSX style traffic files or transferred FS9 compiled traffic files. A mixture of types will not work, you must use one or the other exclusively. That may mean that some FS9 files would require conversion to the FSX standard.

 

[bobbyjack]

I am using airports created with ADE, so I am using my own traffic files. The WOAI military planes I have used all drop my fram rates dramaticly. Default planes in the same FPs do not.

Bob

 

[rfields]

But, why will a ga plane park in a military spot when there are plenty of proper ga spots open? Parking spots are labled, and cfg.s are labled. Do I have to make ga planes into airlines so I can assign parking codes?

Let's go back to the SDK. From the SimObject Container SDK - Aircraft Configuration Files -> there are only a few legal entries in the aircraft.cfg

atc_parking_types=
GATE
RAMP
CARGO
MIL_COMBAT
MIL_CARGO
DOCK

The entries must be ALL CAPS, there can be no deviation or customization of those entires.

But there is a discrepancy with the BGL Complier SDK - which is what we use to modify parking spots. There you have more parking types than you have aircraft.cfg codes.

Now here is your problem, Your GA aircraft should be set to:

atc_parking_types=RAMP

Which means ALL the following parking types are equal weight - the aircraft will be assigned to the parking spot closest to the aircraft own parking radius value.

RAMP_CARGO
RAMP_GA
RAMP_GA_LARGE
RAMP_GA_MEDIUM
RAMP_GA_SMALL
RAMP_MIL_CARGO
RAMP_MIL_COMBAT

Those are all ramp parking. There is no difference or priority when the aircraft.cfg is coded as atc_parking_types=RAMP

Now, how to avoid the issue. In general it is easier to assign parking codes to MIL spots than GA spots because there tend to be fewer MIL spots. But most people use way too many parking codes, and are too specific about the codes they use.

But using a parking codes in the spot will only go so far to prevent a GA aircraft from parking there. Personally I prefer to tweak the parking spot sizes.

The real problem is GA aircraft and CARGO, MIL_COMBAT, MIL_CARGO aircraft in the 15M or smaller sizes.

They need to be the same size, but separate by decimal values.

If an airport is setup with 9M MIL_CARGO spots, or 9M CARGO spots and 10M RAMP_GA_SMALL spots - any small GA aircraft with atc_parking_codes=RAMP will park in the 9M spots if they are open.

If all the spots are 10M, the GA aircraft will park in the ones nearest the top of the list.

I'd recommend setting spots like this:

7.3M - RAMP_GA_SMALL
7.5M - RAMP_CARGO
7.7M - RAMP_MIL_CARGO & RAMP_MIL_COMBAT

9.3M - RAMP_GA_MEDIUM
9.5M - RAMP_CARGO
9.7M - RAMP_MIL_CARGO & RAMP_MIL_COMBAT

12.3M - RAMP_GA_LARGE
12.5M - RAMP_CARGO
12.7M - RAMP_MIL_CARGO & RAMP_MIL_COMBAT

15.3M - RAMP_GA
15.5M - RAMP_CARGO
15.7M - RAMP_MIL_CARGO & RAMP_MIL_COMBAT

What this sizing does is make the GA aircraft prefer the smallest spots, while giving the atc_parking_codes=CARGO, atc_parking_codes=MIL_CARGO, & atc_parking_codes=MIL_COMBAT aircraft a preference for their spots.

I don't put any other parking spots on an airport smaller than 15.7M unless they have a parking code.

But leaving the sizes above without parking codes will keep the GA out of the CARGO and MIL spots. If you see GA in those spots - you need to add GA parking of the appropriate size.

If you use MIL_COMBAT parking of 9M or 8M and the smallest GA spots is RAMP_GA_SMALL 10M - you are not going to keep the GA out of the MIL_COMBAT spots.

 

[bobbyjack]

Exellent, Reggie

I understand how if my cfg says RAMP then the plane could park in any spot, close to it's size, marked military or not. However, my cfg was marked RAMP_GA_SMALL, and still parked in a MIL spot. So I guess the same lack of rules apply. So what I have done is to make all combat spots ADEs default 26m and that keeps out my GA as long as there are enough GA spots. Then code MIL to park only where I want. I realize that with MIL spots that large I can't put as many spots in, but I don't have a problem with that so far. Thanks again.

Bob

 

[rfields]

However, my cfg was marked RAMP_GA_SMALL, and still parked in a MIL spot. So I guess the same lack of rules apply.

RAMP_GA_SMALL is not a legal entry for the aircraft.cfg. It has the same impact as leaving the entry blank - which is almost the same impact as RAMP.

You don't have to make the MIL_COMBAT spots 26M. I'd strongly recommend against it.

Just make sure that type parking spots are slightly larger than the RAMP_GA_SMALL spots.

That should be sufficient to force the GA to fill the GA spots first.

I would recommend you hilight the RAMP_GA_SMALL spots and make them 7M in size. You'll be pleasantly surprised how well that helps with parking.

 

[bobbyjack]

You don't have to make the MIL_COMBAT spots 26M. I'd strongly recommend against it.

Why is that? Wil that attract airliners if their spots are full?

I had GA a 7m but also had mil at 7m not knowing parking types made little difference.

Bob

 

[rfields]

The parking spot should be near the size of the aircraft.

Yes, airliners will overflow into 26M military combat spots if those spots are empty and there are not uncoded open spots close to that size for the airliners.

Nothing except size can stop an aircraft from parking in a spot. i.e. The aircraft size is larger than the parking spot size.

Any aircraft can park in any type spot with any parking code if there are no alternatives.

That is what the whole parking process is about - making the alternatives right for the AI traffic on your computer.

If you 7M GA and 7M Mil Combat spots - the best way to keep the GA out of the Mil Combat spots is to make the Mil Combat spots 7.7M in size.

That is a large enough difference to make the GA prefer the 7.0M spots, but not so large as to distort your parking areas.

One problem in FSX with small aircraft in large radius parking spots is the fuel truck will pull to the edge of the parking spot based upon the spot radius - not the aircraft parking size.

You will have fuel trucks stopping 19M away from your mil combat fighters if you use 26M spots for 7M aircraft.

 

[bobbyjack]

Thanks, Reggie

I really like to know why things work(or don't)not just that something should be done a certain way. So it seems like all the parking types are more for the developer, so he knows what he did and where, rather than for aircraft. OK, I might be getting it now. Thank you.