Simple Traffic

Hi Casualclick Yes, whilst Ground Traffic > 0 results in random liveries for static parked aircraft, there are also 2 other scenarios where this may sometimes happen (depending on the AI mode): In Real-Time Online mode, if an online AI flight is an airline for which ST does not yet include a livery, then MSFS will select a livery at random. In AI Offline mode, default MSFS offline traffic (both airliner and GA) is still present alongside ST offline traffic. The default MSFS offline traffic is not airline-specific, so MSFS will select a livery at random. You can tell whether an offline AI aircraft's flight plan is ST or default by looking at its Registration in LittleNavMap: ST flight registrations are always prefixed with the 3-digit airline code (e.g. RPA for a Republic Airways flight), whereas default registrations won't be (e.g. LZ-TKV). There is a way to disable the default offline traffic completely with a manual hack, but in that case you'd lose both default airliner and default GA traffic (since both types of traffic are generated by the same default file).

Hi steku Yes this is already reflected in v1.2.1.

V1.2.1 includes offline flightplan updates for many of the airlines covered by ST. There were also livery updates for the following airlines (for online and offline traffic): Air Algerie "Air Algerie" [DAH] Air Malta "Air Malta" [AMC] Air Serbia "Air Serbia" [ASL] Batik Air "Batik" [BTK] Brussels Airlines "Beeline" [BEL] Bul Air "Bulgary" [BVL] Bulgaria Air "Flying Bulgaria" [LZB] Cargojet "Cargojet" [CJT] Cargolux Airlines International "Cargolux" [CLX] Cargolux Italia "Cargo Med" [ICV] Copa Airlines "Copa" [CMP] Copa Airlines Colombia "Aerorepublica" [RPB] Croatia Airlines "Croatia" [CTN] El Al "Elal" [ELY] FlyDubai "Flydubai" [FDB] Go First "Go Air" [GOW] Gulf Air "Gulf Air" [GFA] Icelandair "Iceair" [ICE] ITA Airways "Itarrow" [ITY] Kalitta Air "Connie" [CKS] Kenya Airways "Kenya" [KQA] Malaysia Airlines "Malaysian" [MAS] Middle East Airlines "Cedar Jet" [MEA] Nouvelair Tunisie "Nouvelair" [LBT] Oman Air "Oman Air" [OMA] Pakistan International Airlines "Pakistan" [PIA] Regional Express "Rex" [RXA] Royal Brunei "Brunei" [RBA] Scoot "Scooter" [TGW] Sun Country Airlines "Sun Country" [SCX] SunExpress "Sunexpress" [SXS] Tunisair "Tunair" [TAR]

One thing you could check is whether that add-on is configured to override other AI models as the generic AI model for that type of aircraft. If you locate and open that add-on's aircraft.cfg file, and look in the [GENERAL] section, make sure that it doesn't contain the following entry: icao_generic = 1 If it does, then you could change it to icao_generic = 0 and then it won't act as a generic anymore.

Hi Aaron Aardvark Thanks for your question on Ground Aircraft Density and GA AI traffic. Setting Ground Traffic Density to 0 instructs the sim not to display any static (=permanently parked) aircraft at airports. It affects both static aircraft types (Airliner and GA). The only reason we recommend a setting of 0 here is because otherwise the sim will select totally random liveries for all the static aircraft it generates at airport gates, whereas most ST users prefer to see geographically-correct liveries only. If you are OK with random liveries parked at airports (like me), then feel free to set a higher value here. The Ground Traffic Density only affects static aircraft levels. It has no effect on the levels of 'moving' airliner or GA AI traffic, either on the ground or in the air. How much 'moving' GA AI traffic you will see depends on the AI mode (Aircraft Traffic Type) you have selected: In Real-Time Online mode, the presence of live GA AI traffic is governed entirely by the internal live traffic data being fed into the sim from FlightAware. So if you don't see any GA aircraft listed at an airport on the FlightAware website, then you won't see any in the sim either. FlightAware generally only includes GA data for the US region. In AI Offline mode, the presence of offline GA AI traffic is governed by the internal stock traffic BGL file instead, which is located in the Official fs-base-ai-traffic package. The stock traffic file generates GA AI traffic at most GA airports globally, so if you don't see any then make sure no other addons have deactivated the stock traffic file on your system (for example, AIG permanently disables all stock traffic). ST doesn't change any of the behaviour described above. ST only adds liveries for the generic Airliner AI models, and additional offline AI traffic schedules alongside the stock offline AI traffic. Hope that clears things up!

There are 3 scenarios where generic liveries may (rarely) appear: In AI Offline mode, default MSFS offline traffic (both airliner and GA) is still present alongside ST offline traffic. The default MSFS offline traffic is not airline-specific, so MSFS will select a livery at random from the ST liveries and the generic liveries. In Real-Time Online mode, if an online AI flight is an airline for which ST does not yet include a livery, then again MSFS will select a livery at random from the ST liveries and the generic liveries. If you set Ground Aircraft Density greater than 0, then MSFS will populate the gates with static aircraft, and here again it will select a livery at random from the ST liveries and the generic liveries. In all cases, there are hundreds of ST liveries but only 4 generic liveries, so the chances of MSFS selecting a generic livery are relatively slim. The random livery selection in the above scenarios is due to the way the sim is designed. Currently, nothing can be done to prevent it without modifications to the internal MSFS files and unlike some other AI solutions, it is our policy not to modify any internal sim files without telling you - we believe it's in your interest that we only to add to what's already there. However, since the generic liveries can be completely disabled with a quick and simple modification to a couple of the default MSFS aircraft files, we'll post some how-to instructions shortly in the Tweaking forum section, for anyone who wants to do it themselves, so watch this space...

Hi LH067U. In Multiplayer mode (i.e. Multiplayer set to either 'Live Players' or 'All Players'), MSFS occasionally takes a few moments to work out which of the available aircraft models is the best match for mutliplayer aircraft as it places them into the sim environment. While the internal MSFS model-matching engine is doing its thing, you may briefly see a multiplayer nameplate and nav lights around an "invisible" multiplayer aircraft, before the aircraft model itself finally appears. It's particularly noticeable if the other player's online presence is intermittent (presumably when the other player is repeatedly restarting a flight, or if their internet connection / latency is choppy). It is likely that the same thing occurs with multiplayer model-matching via Vatsim. I have only ever seen this affect multiplayer traffic (i.e. traffic controlled by other players). I have never seen invisible 'Real-Time Online' AI traffic, nor invisible 'AI Offline' traffic. You will notice that the same thing happens in stock MSFS with no-addons, so it is not related to Simple Traffic, nor something we can control unfortunately. P.S. You can prevent it by disabling multiplayer completely, but then obviously you will only see sim-generated AI traffic and no other player controlled traffic.

Hi fungaming The main issue is base data availablility. For commercial airliner traffic, routes are known and flght tracking data is published, but there's not much flight tracking data available for private GA traffic. Of course, we could always just generate random GA traffic flightplans between smaller airfields, but Asobo has already done that in the stock sim. The default Asobo trafficAircraft.bgl already includes plenty of random C172 and C152 offline AI flights (as long as you haven't disabled it), so there's nothing much we could add to what's already there to be honest. Let us know if you have any ideas though, we're open to suggestions.

Yes you can, but you'll need to edit the add-on aircraft's config file manually. Each aircraft add-on has an aircraft.cfg file, normally to be found in a sub-folder within the add-on package: [...]\SimObjects\AirPlanes\[...]. If you locate and edit that file, you will find it contains a config parameter: IsAirTraffic=0. If you change that parameter to IsAirTraffic=1, then that model will be eligible for selection as Ground Traffic even if Generic mode is on. It will also be eligible for selection as airborne AI traffic, but only for real-time AI flights with a matching ICAO aircraft type code. Make sure to take a backup first though!

Hi Flieger1974 Please see this MSFS forum post for details relating to this issue with the ATC, and to vote for fix: AI traffic repeatedly being told to expedite - Bugs & Issues / ATC & NAVAIDs - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums AI piloting and ATC comms are controlled internally by the sim, not by Simple Traffic, so it's not something we can influence ourselves unfortunately.

Hi tribejagd In AI Offline mode, parked traffic will populate the gates according to the Simple Traffic flight plan data, so Ground Traffic Density can be set to 0. In Real-Time Online AI mode, MSFS controls which airlines appear according to its own internal live datafeed. That live datafeed doesn't include data for parked aircraft, only live departures and arrivals. You can set the Ground Traffic Density > 1 in that case and MSFS will populate the gates with planes in advance, but be aware that it will just assign liveries at random to the ground traffic, not according to any actual data.

Hi Garry The 'Use Generic Plane Models (AI Traffic)' setting is important because it determines whether the sim can use generic AI models as a fallback or not. Simple Traffic AI models are configured to be generic, so if you set 'Use Generic Plane Models (AI Traffic)' to 'Off', then the sim will not select the Simple Traffic planes correctly. For example, let's say the aircraft type ICAO code of a real-time flight is a B747. If you set 'Use Generic Plane Models (AI Traffic)' to 'On', then MSFS will give precedence to selecting an exactly matching B747 AI model if one is installed, otherwise it will fallback to selecting an appropriate generic AI model (in this case, the Simple Traffic Quad-Jet) instead. Whereas if you set 'Use Generic Plane Models (AI Traffic)' to 'Off', then MSFS will only display that real-time AI flight if you have an exactly matching B747 AI model installed, otherwise it won't display that AI flight at all. That's probably not what you want. In AI Offline mode, the setting works in a similar way. If you want the sim to be able to select the generic Simple Traffic AI planes as a fallback for other offline traffic plans (e.g. default MSFS offline traffic), then it will only do so if you set 'Use Generic Plane Models (AI Traffic)' to 'On'. And lastly, since the offline traffic plans included with Simple Traffic call the Simple Traffic AI planes directly, the sim will only ever display Simple Traffic models (and not AI planes from any other add-ons) for those offline AI flights.

Thanks Fjordkatt, good spot. Yes, Norwegian Air Shuttle and Norwegian Air Sweden both changed their ICAOs on 31st October. They've also been updated in the FlightAware datafeed used for real-time AI mode in MSFS, so yes the Simple Traffic codes are out of date now. We'll get that changed straight away and it will be fixed in the next update. Note: AI Offline mode is not affected, as the flight plans reference the aircraft name, not the airline ICAO code. So only Real-Time AI is affected.

Hi fenflame AI piloting and ATC comms are controlled by the sim, not by Simple Traffic. Please see this MSFS forum post for details relating to this issue, and to vote for fix: AI traffic repeatedly being told to expedite - Bugs & Issues / ATC & NAVAIDs - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums

That's right part121, MSFS only has one version of each generic AI plane type (one generic Twin-jet, one generic Quad-jet, etc). The MSFS generic Quad-jet does resemble an A380, but like all the MSFS generic AI planes, it is really meant to be a generic representation of any type of Quad-jet. Out of the box, the default MSFS 747-8i doesn't function as an AI aircraft, just as a flyable aircraft. However, you could always install a dedicated 747 AI add-on aircraft, alongside Simple Traffic. As long as an add-on aircraft is correctly configured to function as AI, and is correctly configured with the UPS ICAO code and livery, then MSFS will display that model in precedence to the Simple Traffic generic AI model (but your frame rates will probably tank unless the add-on model is optimised for AI, of which there can be hundreds in the sky at the same time, depending on the time and location).