HarryO 4 Posted August 9, 2010 Share Posted August 9, 2010 Hi there I notice that the aero tow plane is aware of thermals. The tow plane can take off from an airport and do a pattern landing. I am not sure if he is intelligent enough to avoid mountains near the airport but I think he can. This begs the question. Why not a CumulusX option to add AI sailplanes to the current airport the user sailplane is situated at? Instead of CTRL-SHIFT-Y we have some other hotkey to add and remove AI sailplanes. The AI sailplanes are added at a configurable height directly above the airport each time the hotkey is pressed up to a configurable limit. The AI sailplane(s) are removed sequentially with another similar hotkey. All the AI sailplane does is hunt for thermals and enter the pattern once a configurable low altitude threshold is reached. In order to avoid complex AI algorithms, the sailplane does not stray further from the assigned airport than the glide slope radius for the initial deployment height of the sailplane. To make it simple for the AI, the sailplane enters the pattern at a very conservative safe height and the pattern calculated for 50% flaps. There is no collision algorithm assigned to these AI sailplanes. However they should be aware of at least the prevailing wind condition. Question: Why to do this to make Peter spend endless hours writing what will be complex code???!?? Answer: Because I want to fly with other sailplane pilots that are more stupid than I am at gliding so that I can feel better. Cheers Harry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Lürkens 30 Posted August 10, 2010 Share Posted August 10, 2010 Answer: Because I want to fly with other sailplane pilots that are more stupid than I am at gliding so that I can feel better. Hi Harry, good point. I´ll put it on the list of ideas of new features. Cheers, Peter (from HTC) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bruin 3 Posted August 10, 2010 Share Posted August 10, 2010 Hi Harry, good point. I´ll put it on the list of ideas of new features. Cheers, Peter (from HTC) Peter, Be aware you will have to build a whole new AI-engine for this. Some years ago I have examined the FS9 AI-engine for possibilities to get AI-gliders thermalling and flying patterns. At the end I had some AI-gliders (with built-in Stemme-engines) thermalling in the air in particular weather situations, but never succeeded to make a succesfull concept for all weather situations. And since the FSX AI-engine is not that far off the FS9 one, I don't think it can be used for AI-gliders either. Bert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Lürkens 30 Posted August 12, 2010 Share Posted August 12, 2010 Be aware you will have to build a whole new AI-engine for this. Hi Bert, I know, and another thing is that much of the CumulusX! engine would have to run one more time for each AI glider, which could easily explode the CPU requirements. So it requires quite some simplifications, and probably an approach similar to Ian's sim_logger, rather than using FSX' AI system. Anyway, next two weeks I will be occupied with some RW gliding so don't expect to much presence on the board from my side. Cheers, Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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