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Airport Design Editor Question (Read 6653 times)
Feb 14th, 2008 at 5:15pm

Brando14100   Ex Member

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Why is it that when, on a small airport ( all General Aviation except in summer when theres private jets) when I move the traffic scalar all the way up, there is still no ground traffic and there is only one aircraft flying? This is a modified (so modified it might as well be new) stock airport.
« Last Edit: Apr 14th, 2008 at 5:47pm by N/A »  
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Reply #1 - Feb 15th, 2008 at 3:23am

commoner   Offline
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...not sure what you have modified but if the airport name and location are still the same then any ai that has flight plans to land from this airfield in the  FlightPlans030528.txt file should be seen.........

open this file and look for the airport code in the flight plans........if not too many then you will have to redirect a few to your airport. Wink.......choose ones which have appropriate a/c for your field.

Also check the AFCAD file to see if there are plenty of parking spaces...and that all are properly linked to the runway for take off and landing........

SAY which airport and I'll have a look Smiley

This, all of course if you are into this sort of stuff....otherwise  sorry..dunno.............commoner Wink
 

..."In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is."
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Reply #2 - Feb 15th, 2008 at 11:26am

Brando14100   Ex Member

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The airport is 5B2 Sratoga County.
 
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Reply #3 - Feb 15th, 2008 at 2:12pm

commoner   Offline
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..OK....well the Stock AFCAD is just fine...BUT it only has 4 parking spaces so you won't ever get more than four a/c there whatever your flight plans say, unless you know how to add more using the AFCAD utility.

The flight plans (default) show that there are only 5 flight plans for this airfield one of those is a 12 hour interval and one a 24 hour interval, the others are shorter but unless you are there on the apron looking for these planes they are few and far between so that is why you rarely see more than the odd one........the a/c in those plans are a Cessna Caravan amphibian...two different Grand Caravans and a Piper Cherokee........

You will have to learn to use (if you don't already) TTools to add more flight plans or change some of the default ones to include 5B2 instead of ones you never go to.........change or add different aircraft too to get more variety.........it's a FAIRLY easy thing to master if you are prepared to read the tutorials and experiment, but if not then your airfield is only programmed for minimal ai at present.........

  Hope this helps...commoner Wink
 

..."In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is."
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Reply #4 - Feb 15th, 2008 at 3:45pm

dave3cu   Offline
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As you mention ADE (Airport Design Editor) and 'ground traffic', I'll guess your using FSX. In any case.....

Simply modifying an airport does not increase the traffic.

As Commoner advises, to get more ai air traffic, you have to program new  flights to use the airport. The FSX SDK has a program to this but alas, I don't have the SDK so can't advise on it's use. I use a program (free) called AIFPC that does not require the SDK. AIFPC by Peter van der Veen at FSDeveloper.com. (the link is in message #57)

For FSX airport vehicle traffic, the little I've learned about it so far is: This is auto generated depending on your airport design. You must have Gates or Cargo ramps. The more Gates and/or Gargo ramps you have, the more vehicles are running around. There are no ground vehicles generated if you only have GA parking.

Also each Gate or Cargo ramp has the associated tug and cargo/baggage handlers. With the addition of a 'vehicle parking' spot and 'vehicle paths' a fuel truck is available to any parking to which it is connected to, via the 'parking connectors'.

Dave
 

At that time [1909] the chief engineer was almost always the chief test pilot as well. That had the fortunate result of eliminating poor engineering early in aviation.          Igor Sikorsky

I intend to live forever....so far, so good.         Steven Wright

You know....you can just rip up a to-do list.
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Reply #5 - Feb 15th, 2008 at 4:46pm

Brando14100   Ex Member

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It is just a small airport as I have said before. The most action it gets is with Lears and Challengers at track season, so I don't need vehicles running around. But I would say I did a fairly good job at making it more realistic:

This is stock:
...

This is modified:
...

This is real:
...
 
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Reply #6 - Feb 15th, 2008 at 5:25pm

Brando14100   Ex Member

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In that program, where are traffic BGL files located?
 
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Reply #7 - Feb 15th, 2008 at 7:50pm

dave3cu   Offline
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For AIFPC?..

The FSX default traffic file is ......\Scenery\World\scenery\trafficAircraft.bgl.Make sure you back it up before working with it.  

If you haven't worked with the TrafficTools program before, download it for the excellent help file to help in creating the source .txt files for AIFPC. You'll find it in the Utilities>FS2004 downloads here at SimV.

Your airport mod looks nice.  Smiley

From your first post..'all General Aviatioon except in summer when theres private jets'.

As far as I know, there is no way to program 'seasonal' traffic other than to make a seperate traffic file and move it in and out as needed.

Dave
 

At that time [1909] the chief engineer was almost always the chief test pilot as well. That had the fortunate result of eliminating poor engineering early in aviation.          Igor Sikorsky

I intend to live forever....so far, so good.         Steven Wright

You know....you can just rip up a to-do list.
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Reply #8 - Feb 15th, 2008 at 7:59pm

Brando14100   Ex Member

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I don't mean I need seasonal, I could just change it at the time. I was just givinng a reference to the size and traffic of the airport.
 
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Reply #9 - Feb 15th, 2008 at 8:05pm

Brando14100   Ex Member

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When I decompile, nothing happens. Sorry but I'm not good with developing and modifying yet. Boy I can't say that enough around here.
 
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Reply #10 - Feb 16th, 2008 at 2:47am

commoner   Offline
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...mmm sorry Brando didn't know it was fsx...don't have that so not sure whether the flightplans are done in the same way or not...........if it is, then decompiling the traffic.bgl will give three text files ..aircraft..airports and flightplans...these are simply opened in notepad then when any changes have been made to any one of them are re-compiled in TTools to make the changes work in the sim.............

The pic is the result of changing the few flightplans having 5B2 to have  5B2 both as the destination and home airports..in effect they take off then fly around some and land again............all sorts of combinations can be done this way with a little thought........

It's fs9 stock AFCAD (looks very much like the ADE) and these are the FS9 aircraft in the default AI for 5B2.....

   Three parked up and one just taxiing when I got there........

  ..Keep trying with TTools...and read the excellent tutorials around...you'll get there....commoner Wink

     ...
 

..."In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is."
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Reply #11 - Feb 16th, 2008 at 8:35am

dave3cu   Offline
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...

As Commoner says, the output of  the decompile is 3 .txt files. You can then use or edit these files to add your new traffic.

Here I have decompiled the  
1
'trafficAircraft.bgl' and
2
directed the output to my  ....\AIFPC\ folder.

If you haven't done so yet, download and unzip Traffic Tools v2.02. Though you won't use the TTools program (it will not decompile or compile FSX traffic files), you need the help document (Readme.htm) to understand and create/modify the 3 .txt source files.

Make sure you have backed-up the original traffic file should things go awry.

If your creating a new traffic file for your ai flights, rather than adding the flights to the default, remember to rename the 3 .txt source files before compiling. TTools Help explains the (re)naming 'rules' for the source .txt files.

Dave
 

At that time [1909] the chief engineer was almost always the chief test pilot as well. That had the fortunate result of eliminating poor engineering early in aviation.          Igor Sikorsky

I intend to live forever....so far, so good.         Steven Wright

You know....you can just rip up a to-do list.
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Reply #12 - Apr 14th, 2008 at 11:47am

Brando14100   Ex Member

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I started messing around with this again. I've decompiled, but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do from there.
 
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Reply #13 - Apr 14th, 2008 at 2:39pm

Brando14100   Ex Member

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Re-modified. Counted all the spaces and put them all in:

...
« Last Edit: Apr 14th, 2008 at 5:56pm by N/A »  
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Reply #14 - Apr 14th, 2008 at 3:01pm

dave3cu   Offline
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Have you thoroughly read through the TTools Readme.htm document?

It explains each of the source files, the data they contain,  and how to edit or add that data.

It also explains how to create a new 'source file set' if you would prefer to keep your new 'flightplans' seperate from the default traffic file, which I recommend for a couple of reasons.
1)no chance of messing up the default plans.
2)if you later decide to disable the default flightplans in favor of add-on plans you won't loose your plans.

For the 'airports' and 'aircraft' source files, you can just make copies of the files that decompiled from the default and rename them to fit your new source file set. (If you will be using add-on ai aircraft you'll have to follow the instructions on adding new aircraft) 

For lines in your new 'flightplans' source file you can copy and paste a line or 2 from the from the default to use as templates. (If you use the 'find' function in Note pad you can even find the 2 lines for '5B2' and use them as your templates.)

Dave
 

At that time [1909] the chief engineer was almost always the chief test pilot as well. That had the fortunate result of eliminating poor engineering early in aviation.          Igor Sikorsky

I intend to live forever....so far, so good.         Steven Wright

You know....you can just rip up a to-do list.
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