State of AI Traffic in MSFS
First of all, a huge welcome to Aerosoft for joining the AI Traffic party in MSFS, Simple Traffic is a great product for XBOX users and users that just want traffic in their Sim and do not care about the details provided by the current AIG AI Manager Beta.
With the release of now two major addons for AI traffic in MSFS the number of issues inside the actual core Sim are now visible to many users and some might thing that these issues are actual caused by the addons – sadly they are not and there is mostly nothing we can do as 3rd party to fix them.
In this article I will give you guys a short summary of the biggest issues in the current Version (SU6) (the total list will be longer than anyone of you would read).
Live Traffic (Online AI Traffic – Default MSFS)
We all know that the Sim provides real world flights based on the FlightAware Data-Feed and there starts the first issue. FlightAware does not cover the whole world, so you will empty spots around the world. Besides that, FlightAware is not racking all aircraft for different reasons, they will not be visible in the Sim as well. Now to some current issues with Live-Traffic:
Missing Nose-Wheel and not talking off
Online AI spawned by the Sim at the gate will have no nosewheel and will not depart from the gate. It will just sit there, and the airport will get more crowded.
Model/Livery Matching
Currently (SU6) it seems that the Sim will pick a random livery if no livery for the airline can be assigned, causing US regional airlines coming up in Central-Europe.
Offline AI (SimConnect-Based)
As you all know we no longer use BGL based AI Traffic in MSFS, since our new AIGFP format provides for freedom and advantages. All reports here are only based on this kind of Ai traffic.
Flying in the wrong direction
You will see airplanes spawn enroute and then turning back to the departure airport. Observations are showing that the airplane spawned in the correct location but gets as next waypoint the last active waypoint and not the next. This is not happening inn 100% of the cases and we at AIG are not able to pinpoint it. In 90% of the cases the airplane will fly to the last waypoint and then return to the route.
AI Logic/AI System
We at AIG are not 100% sure how the actual AI system in MSFS is working, if it is shared between live and offline AI and this makes stuff quite hard to track down, below is a list of the biggest issues the Sim currently has when it comes to AI Traffic in general:
Airports
Airports are a key to get decent AI Traffic at the ground, they provide information for parking spots, taxiways, and runways. Many Airports in MSFS have been designed by an AI algorithm based on OSM Data and Satellite images, this results in quite nice-looking airports, but for AI traffic they are horrible.
Gates
Many airports are lacking the correct gates (incl. size) to park the airplanes. Compared to FSX they all get reduced by 6m radius to handle the new ground vehicles at the spot. A spot that is in real-life 18m in radius is now only 12m and can no longer handle a B737.
Best example here is Dubai, we all know the A380 fleet of Emirates, but you will not see that in MSFS, because there are only a few spots large enough to handle the A380. This causes Ai to not spawn or get removed after landing.
This issue is not only happening at default airports but on handcrafted (World Updates) and 3rd Party (freeware and pay ware) as well.
Taxiways
In FSX there was just one taxiway node to create a junction, in MSFS there are up to 40… Each node makes it harder for the AI to follow, because they taxi from node to node. Observations have shown some strange path-findings as well, we are not yet sure how this is working.
Takeoffs
You will see some airports (Atlanta (WU) or Nice (WU)) where the AI will taxi into takeoff position but not depart and the next airplane will do the same, stacking up some airplanes. We tracked this issue down to some hold short nodes at the airports but are unable to solve this for all airports.
Landing
In case of a go around, the AI airplane will not be able to land at the airport. It will fly away from the airport, then tun back, perform a low flyover of the airport before heading away and returning.
ATC
AI airplanes interact with the default AI, but there are limitations. Currently (SU6) there is a bug that causes ATC to request climb/decent to AI even if they are on their correct altitude. In busy airspaces this will spam the ATC and might cause disconnects from Azure Text-to-Speech servers.
Flight Dynamics
Basically, the whole modern FDE is ignored by AI airplanes, they will relay mostly on the ai.cfg files with its limitations. Most common issues because of this are:
Flying on rails, the aircraft will turn left/right without banking
Slow climb phases after takeoff
Is mostly related to the issue above and below.
Spawning at very low altitude
Some of us are interested in flying Cargo and AI cargo repaints like FedEx, DHL, UPS, etc. MSFS needs work on Cargo assigned parking at practically all airports, but, especially the Hubs and Superhubs like KMEM, KIND, and Louisville for UPS. Anchorage is also lacking in correct gates and ramps. Probably many more locations.
I agree fully.
What makes me wonder is, you write “Compared to FSX they all get reduced by 6m radius”.
I would understand it in case of the default and WU Airports, but why are the (some) 3rd Party Airports are also affected?
I mean, when the designer creates a 35 m radius spot, will it not appear as a large parking for A380 in the sim?
I´m confused, i never really played arround with the SDK so far.
So, if we change aircraft size in some *.cfg file should be ok?
ive noticed that the ai tfc is departing and arriving at an airport and using the wrong rwy direction.
How about the fact of airplanes that land in front of you not exiting the runway fast enough causing you to go around. So annoying
Decades old, has been there since basically FS2004. Linked to Flight Dynamics etc. iirc; Basically after touchdown, the AI engine slows the AI aircraft to a crawl and then the fixed taxi speed. In real life, most airports have high-speed exits etc. so planes would usually exit much faster.
I hope Masobo take note of all this and start fixing stuff instead of giving us unwanted “features”.