Bit of Help with AI Traffice?

[TeaSea]

This is dumb....I seem to have lost all my AI traffic....

Could someone tell me what the default AI traffic is in the SIMOBJECTS folder or at least the file naming convention?

I've undoubtedly done this to myself somewhere along the way....

Apparently I need help with spelling too.

[Crusader]

TeaSea : Are you refering to the trafficAircraft.bgl in the Scenery\World\Scenery folder ? This is the default FSX file . I use MyTraffic so it disables(renames) this in their installation . If you are using only the FSX default then the only other thing I can think of is you mistakenly slid the traffic % all the way to the left and nothing is showing up now . I am not much of an expert so maybe someone else can jump in here and help you out .


Rich

[kilo delta]

If you've recently installed an FS9 traffic bgl it'll disable every FSX native traffic bgl files.

[Crusader]

If you've recently installed an FS9 traffic bgl it'll disable every FSX native traffic bgl files.

kilo delta made an excellent point . I've done this a few times . The program AI Flight Planner(Freeware) has a "Validate Traffic Files" in its menu which I believe looks for any fs9 type traffic bgl files and automatically converts them to FSX format .

Rich

[TeaSea]

I'm not aware that I've installed and FS9 BGL, although that doens't mean there wasn't one hidden in an addon somewhere.

Crusader, first thing I checked was the slider, so that's not it....and the only traffic that seems to be missing is the AI aircraft.

Other scenery objects seem to be running around doing their own thing.

I'll check out AI Flight Planner to see if I've done something weird.

What had me concerned is that in the simobjects\air_traffic\ I have no sub folders.

Thanks for your help.

[IanP]

All the default models are in simobjects\airplanes, TeaSea, so that directory must have been added by an add-on somewhere. It's certainly not a default one.

The default traffic will be in the default B737, B747, A321, C172, Baron, Maule, etc. folders, plus DH_Dash8_100 and MD_83 for the two you can't fly. Other that those two, default AI is the default user aircraft, so unless you deleted/disabled those, you should still see at least most of the default AI.

It's probably worth checking that you have the default trafficAircraft.bgl folder in scenery\world\scenery as Rich suggests, but other than that by far the most likely culprit is a rogue FS8/FS9 AI bgl file (again, as has already been suggested...)

Ian P.

[TeaSea]

Okay Ian, thanks so much. I will have to do a search and find the darn things.....

Somewhere along the line I've tweaked myself into a hole.

I've leaned so far forward that I'm eating mud....not AI mud either.

[TeaSea]

Let me toss this back up, because I'm still having an issue....self-centered, I know....

No AI traffic...none to be seen. It's like after the bio-disaster without the zombies....I'd take a few zombies right now.

So, I've downloaded AI Planner as suggested, ran a look for traffic flight plans and, executed a conversion then dumped those back into the Scenery/World/Scenery file. No joy.

I've also tried tried shutting off the shadowing, which was suggested in other forums. Again, no joy.

As an aside, I am no longer offered the "Traffic" option when right clicking and looking for external views while in flight.

Anyone have any other suggestions? I would rather not execute a re-install, and I don't think FSX does a repair. I want to thank everyone that suggested options prior....at least I've learned more about AI traffic, an area I had not really looked into.

[FAC257]

The only reason your not seeing the "Traffic' option with the right click is that there are no aircraft within view range. Even if you have fully functioning AI traffic with the sliders at 100%, you can still not have that option if your in an area of no AI traffic. The detection radius is 9-10 miles.

If you already located and disabled all other AI traffic files, with the exception of the default "trafficAircraft.bgl" and it is properly located in the "World/scenery" folder, you should have traffic somewhere.

Even if you do have the file and it is properly located, I wonder if it's possible to have corrupted that file somehow.

If you don't have access to an original copy of the default file, the FSX SDK can generate a new one for you. It's actually pretty simple to do once you get the command line figured out to batch the thing out. If I was sitting near my other computer I'd post the command line I use for doing that. It would just need to be edited a bit to match your directory locations. I'll be at that terminal later today and can post that if you like.

I have mine setup to generate a completely new AI traffic file from a desktop icon. I generate new default AI aircraft file everytime I fly into a new region or area and want to make changes in the types of aircraft and commercial airline carriers that show up during that flying session.

Edit: Thinking about AI detection and viewing ranges on the way home made me realize a little mis-info in my post. There are actually two AI detection ranges. One for being able to see the aircraft labels which is the 10 mile radius range the second is for the right click "Traffic" view. It used to be about 40NM in FS9 if I remember right. I just checked FSX using the SDK AI traffic tools and this shot clearly shows right click viewable "Traffic" at almost 100NM out.

16856

FAC

[IanP]

Silly question (based on much expleting and headbanging...)

You did remove the FS9 versions when you pasted in the converted FSX ones, didn't you?

16836

Ian P.

[FAC257]

Just in case: :)

Here's the command line for letting the SDK build a brand new trafficAircraft.bgl file. Copy and paste it in the "Run" box on the Windows start menu or you can make it the target of an icon. It takes about 90 seconds to run and the new file will show up in the Traffic Toolbox SDK folder ready to use. The only thing you'll need to do is to make sure the install folder section is correct for your install of the FSX SDK. I installed the SDK in C:\FSX_SDK" and that should be the only part of the batch line you would need to change, the rest is the generic SDK install.

-------------------------------------------------------

"C:\FSX_SDK\SDK\Environment Kit\Traffic Toolbox SDK\TrafficDatabaseBuilder.exe" /Airports=fs10.Airports.dat /AircraftTypes=fs10.AircraftTypes.csv /Countries=countries_regions.csv /Output=trafficAircraft.bgl

-------------------------------------------------------

[TeaSea]

Silly question (based on much expleting and headbanging...)

You did remove the FS9 versions when you pasted in the converted FSX ones, didn't you?

16836

Ian P.


No I did not.....how can I tell the difference? I would like to try this before I go to FAC257's suggestion.

[TeaSea]

Belay that IanP, I've figured out how to find them.

No rest for the wicked.....

[TeaSea]

Hey!!!

VICTORY!!!!

I finally figured out the issue....

I went back into the Scenery\world\scenery directory and looked through each of the .bgl files individually. I found the odd one....TrafficAircraft.bgl had been renamed and disabled.

The culprit was an add on by ORBX, which apparently I've not used correctly.

Simple rename of the file, and I'm back in business....

More aircraft out there than you can shake a stick at. No zombies though.

[FAC257]

:)

FAC

[TeaSea]

Frustrating but I learned about AI traffic....more than I want to know.

Thanks for everyone's help.