Since the last update on AI Traffic in MSFS we at AIG have done some more work and I would like to get you an update on the current situation (only new stuff/changes are included).

Live Traffic (Online AI Traffic – Default MSFS)

Not much has changed (basically nothing) regarding live AI Traffic. The only positive thing since the last update is that we at AIG have been able to develop a workaround to get parked AI airplanes takeoff again.

Departure Workaround

Online AI airplanes that spawn parked at the gate will not leave the gate in the default Simulator. The AIG workaround creates a simple copy of the airplane as “offline” AI that will then depart and fly to the destitnation. The original airplane will stay at the gate, because it can not get removed.

The Workaround is added to AIG Traffic Controller and can be found at flightsim.to as standalone application.

Offline AI (SimConnect-Based)

No changes there in MSFS directly, but we are working ourselfs on some smaller improvements.

Go Arounds

In the base MSFS an airplane thats has to perform a “Go-Around” will start circling over the airport in low altitude and never lands. For AIGTC based AI traffic we added a workaround that will prevent this, by “resetting” the flightplan, the airplane will start a “new” approach to the airport directly after the go-around and hopefully land then. This is done after each Go-Around. Reports indicate that this workaround does work for offline AI as well (but we have not tested this)

Gates

We had an idea for a workaround, but reducing the wingspan on all AI airplanes by 12m and adjusting the airports as well, caused issues with the user airplanes, since they would still have the bigger wingspan. For now there is no workaround for the gate/parking usage at the airports. Airports we (AIG) and our community are currently working on will have slightly “unreal” gate radius on some gates to make sure they do not overlap.

ATC

No changes at all regarding internal ATC

Spawning at very low altitude

We identified the reason why some airplanes spawn at unrealtistiv altitudes. The actual spawn altitude of the AI airplanes is based on the users own altitude. So if the users “sits” on the ground all enroute airplanes will spawn at low altitdues as well, if the user is enroute, the airplanes will spawn at altitudes close to the users altitude.

Decend/Climb Commands

ATC identifies the actual altitude of the airplanes wrong. This is a result of using live-weather within the Sim. The airplane baromter is only set once on the ground pressure. Above FL180 no standard is used and all airplanes are on the “wrong” altitude. We tried to add a fix here for all airplanes via AIGTC, but the results have not been what we have hoped. Seems this can only be fixed by ASOBO.