pooch
Flightsimmer
Posts: 93
|
Post by pooch on Jan 4, 2006 17:15:56 GMT -5
Mick, thanks - I am adjusting some of these issues.
|
|
|
Post by mick on Jan 7, 2006 2:39:05 GMT -5
Here's a progress report. It's coming together, but not exactly like clockwork...
Slide's got his rig working again and he's repainted the Caudron. We now have all the planes in authentic ORA liveries, or as close as texture mapping issues will allow. In a couple cases that's not as close as we'd like, but I'm happy.
I'm looking for someone who knows how to make effects. We need an explosion for the tank's shells. I haven't had a reply from Chris Trotter to my request for permission to bundle his napalm effect, which I'm using now, and I'd rather have something more concentrated and smokier anyway. I posted a request last evening at SOH but nobody's come forward...
Stuart should be home from his holiday soon, and he'll have a low-poly AI version of the Caudron and maybe an AI SPAD for us. ;D
I've tweaked and tweaked and have every plane working perfectly as AI - when they're alone at the field. But when I have a bunch of planes active at the same time, they don't all work so well.
Some get stuck at hold short points until they disappear, and it's not that they're waiting for other planes to land, they're just stuck. I have normal nodes overlapping on both sides of the hold short node, so it's not that. And none of the planes has any trouble when there aren't other planes around...
Often planes won't land if there's any other activity going on, like another plane moving on a taxiway, even when the runway's clear. They just go around a couple times and then disappear. It's not a parking issue; there's plenty of parking. In all cases the spot the plane left from is still available, as well as others. I'm considering reducing the frequency of takeoffs to allow more opportunity for landings, but some of the planes don't want to land even when they seem to have a clear opportunity. It's as if they think the field is busier and more crowded than it really is. None of 'em have any trouble landing when the other planes aren't present.
All the planes are very small, with radii ranging from 4 to 6m (except the Caudron at 9m). Does anyone know if a slight increase in radius might help them get past the hold short node, or does radius only affect parking?
All the flight plans are VFR, and ORA has no ATC. Might the whole scheme work better if I added ATC and made the flight plans IFR? ATC at ORA would be bogus, but if it would get the planes to straighten up and fly right it might be worth it.
I tried fixing the arrival times, but that didn't help anything and introduced some additional weirdness. The New Standard D-25 without a fixed arrival time flies a perfect left-hand circuit to a perfect landing (when it will land at all.) If I fix the arrival time it flies a right-hand circuit and drags its approach so low that it flies through the trees instead of over them on final. The other planes also change to a right-hand circuit when their arrival times are fixed, but they don't all mess up their approaches like the D-25 does.
I have just as many planes and just as much activity at several airports in my FS 1954 installation and I don't get any of these glitches there. In that set-up the planes all behave the same whether they're alone or at a crowded airport.
I'm getting confused...
|
|
pooch
Flightsimmer
Posts: 93
|
Post by pooch on Jan 7, 2006 6:23:07 GMT -5
Hi Mick, I do not know if this matters for your problem with AI: In my opinion your scenery is sunken a bit (remember the issue with TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=20 )- comparing it with my picture, you do not have the wastboxes and the fence, the tent is less high, which could also be true for the runway. Maybe your planes consider the sunken runway as 'obstacled' so making a goaround or blocking at the short hold. I was fiddling with your first ORAAI kit and had to make some modifications in the AFCAD, and added also a small flatten of a partial area due to some floating planes. I also had to fiddle with some of the aircraft.cfg. Now my AI traffic in- and outbound is fine. If you pm me your email I could send you my Afcad file.
|
|
|
Post by mick on Jan 7, 2006 10:26:36 GMT -5
Great minds think alike! ;D
I did the same thing! Now I have the ground at the correct level for the scenery and everything looks as it should.
In fact, I plan to include an optional "ground level adjustment" file in the package for others who have the same issue. I did it with a second, invisible AFCAD file, in the manner suggested by l britton for flattening the ocean beneath aircraft carrriers in his post in the SOH forum a week ago. That way it's a simple drag and drop install, and nobody needs to edit any cfg files.
But my planes still act properly when they're there by themselves, and not so properly when there are a lot of them present.
I can understand why too much activity might make approaching planes pull up without landing, but I don't know why it should make departing planes get stuck at the hold short point.
I'm going to do some more experimenting this weekend. Maybe a takeoff every five or ten minutes is just too much activity for a little one-runway airport.
|
|
pooch
Flightsimmer
Posts: 93
|
Post by pooch on Jan 7, 2006 12:28:15 GMT -5
Have you followed visually all take offs ?
I had problems with some of the planes - when using them as AI, some planes did the takeoff run but were not able to lift off so they crashed in the woods. When this happened the runway is "not cleared" for further takeoffs or landings.
You might check this by doing the same flights several times and identify the last plane/planes taking off before the jam happens. I use aircraft labels to follow the plane better and if the plane crashes the label disappears.
The Bleriot XI is such a plane.
|
|
|
Post by mick on Jan 7, 2006 15:04:37 GMT -5
Yes, all the planes take off properly - unless they get stuck at the hold-short node.
I had to revise the flight dynamics to get the Bleriot to take off properly. In fact, I had to modify or replace the flight dynamics of 13 of the 15 planes. Only the New Standard D-25 and the stock FS9 Curtiss Jenny use their own FD files.
I'm about to try a new AFCAD with an invisible parallel runway, one designated only for takeoffs and the other only for landings. I'll let you know if it helps.
OK, adding a runway didn't help. It just made things more wierd. I think the two runways had to be too close together to work properly. But I have a couple other ideas...
|
|
|
Post by mick on Jan 8, 2006 19:41:52 GMT -5
Well, I'm getting a clue about what's going on.
If a plane is on approach and there's another plane at the hold short point, the approaching plane doesn't land. It goes around to try again. This is supposed to happen, but it's a problem with the ORA planes because they do everything so slowly.
If there's a plane at the hold short point when another plane's on approach, the plane on the ground holds and waits. The plane on approach doesn't land, but the plane on the ground waits anyway. Once it starts waiting it gets stuck and sits there until it disappears, even though the plane it was waiting for has flown away. That's not supposed to happen (the getting stuck part, I mean) and I don't know why it does. I've set up overlapping nodes, which is supposed to prevent this, but it isn't preventing it.
After a while the plane that went around returns for another approach. But before it can complete its second approach it disappears. The planes are so slow that they can't go around and complete another approach in the time they have before FS makes them disappear.
They're so slow they take almost ten minutes to float down final from the point where they become visible and where departing traffic will hold on the ground to wait for them to land. That's longer than the planes can sit on the ground before they disappear.
I'm playing around with fixed arrival times in an effort to choreograph the action so that planes won't be due to take off when another plane's on approach. This might not work out, since the planes take so long to approach and land, but I'll see what I can do.
If this doesn't work, maybe I'll adapt some different flight dynamics files to make the planes faster. I'd like to avoid having 200 mph Curtiss Pushers and such ; that could get pretty unrealistic if you try to fly formation on them in another plane with what should be similar performance. But it might not be avoidable. The alternative might be to have your AI planes disappear one by one as you hang around or fly around the airport.
|
|
alain
FS Addict
Posts: 121
|
Post by alain on Jan 9, 2006 15:25:43 GMT -5
Please, somebody can said to me where I can found the "New Standard D-25 "... Nothing everywhere... Thanks
|
|
pooch
Flightsimmer
Posts: 93
|
Post by pooch on Jan 9, 2006 16:36:29 GMT -5
|
|
alain
FS Addict
Posts: 121
|
Post by alain on Jan 9, 2006 18:02:13 GMT -5
Thanks very much Pooch. All is OK now Un grand merci to Mick for is very nice pack. Alain
|
|
|
Post by mick on Jan 9, 2006 22:54:28 GMT -5
Getting somewhere...
I've made a set of FD files that I hacked up from the stock Cessna 182 and tried them on the D-25. With them it slides down final a bit faster, shaving three minutes off the time from throttle back for initial descent to shutdown in the parking spot.
I also added a displaced threshold to the active runway so the plane makes it over the trees (just barely, with the landing gear swishing through the leaves.)
With the extra speed and reduced usable runway, landings are rather sporting, with bounces, dust clouds, and a runout that brushes the trees at the far end of the runway. I think I've reached the limit of how much can be done to get approaching planes down and parked in the minimum possible time.
Maybe tomorrow I'll have time to apply the new FD to more planes and see how they work together.
Then I'll have to figure out how to adjust take-off and arrival times to maximize the activity level without having planes get stuck on the ground or in the air until they disappear.
I see a lot of experimentation and a lot of work ahead, but I think I know where I'm heading...
Here's an aerial view of all the planes in their final liveries. I know you can hardly see some of 'em, but it gives an idea...
|
|
|
Post by jschall on Jan 10, 2006 15:43:45 GMT -5
Stupid question - Where is the AI package available? (I realize it's a work in progress, but has it been uploaded yet?) - Jeff
|
|
|
Post by Roger on Jan 10, 2006 17:37:53 GMT -5
HI Jeff, Mick uploaded an AI package but ex planes. He kindly offered with help to add the planes too for those of us daft (me included ;D) to do it themselves.
|
|
|
Post by mick on Jan 10, 2006 20:54:57 GMT -5
The package being discussed in this thread hasn't been released yet. It's still under development. Two things remain:
1 - We're waiting on a couple of specially built low poly AI versions of two of the models, and
2 - I'm still trying to get the AI flight operations working properly.
I think I've figured out the second part, but it's going to take some work to impliment and test my ideas - assuming they're correct.
I'm not sure how long it's going to take for the models. I think they may be ready before the final traffic files are.
Then I have to write the documentation. That's going to be a project in itself! There are so many contributors, the credits are going to look like a Who's Who of FlightSim developers!
The previous release Roger referred to is available at the Sim Outhouse. It's just a set of traffic files and you have to make your own AI versions of the planes you choose and set them up to work with the traffic files. The files themselves, as it turns out, have a problem. They have a take-off every five minutes, which provides lots of action, but I've discovered that such frequent take-offs don't allow time for returning planes to land, so they just go around and disappear. Also, those old, slow planes take so long to approach and land that they force departing planes to wait at the hold short point until they disappear. So the scheme works great for about ten or fifteen minutes, then planes start disappearing one by one until you're left with just a few planes.
Preventing this from happening has turned out to be the major challenge in putting the new package together. But I'm determined to make it work before I release it. I don't want to be releasing updates and enhancements all winter; I just want to release it once and have it work properly right out of the box.
|
|
monte
Flightsimmer
Posts: 3
|
Post by monte on Jan 14, 2006 0:34:54 GMT -5
This looks great! I'm new here and am humbled by the generosity of you freeware contributors. I've been a fan of the real Rhinebeck Aerodrome since I was 17 (Now 43) and last summer took a magical sunset ride in the D25. Who knew that by Fall I'd be flying the thing in a sim version! All hail Mr. Binka and his lovely scenery! Now I find that there will also be a fleet of AI planes and even shows! My thanks to everyone concerned - this is all great fun. Cheers, Monte
|
|