Airport Design Editor Question

[Brando14100]

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.

[commoner]

...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. .......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

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

[Brando14100]

The airport is 5B2 Sratoga County.

[commoner]

..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

[dave3cu]

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

[Brando14100]

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:

[Brando14100]

In that program, where are traffic BGL files located?

[dave3cu]

For AIFPC?..

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

[Brando14100]

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.

[Brando14100]

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.

[commoner]

...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

     

[dave3cu]

As Commoner says, the output of

[Brando14100]

I started messing around with this again. I've decompiled, but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do from there.

[Brando14100]

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

[dave3cu]

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