AI Worlds

[NigelC]

OK, now I'm fairly au-fait with creating AI traffic. Create the flightplans, aircraft, and airport files, compile it and away we go. However, as I fly classics and also modern, I am getting to the point where I want to seperate my AI worlds, a retro era and a modern era.

What's the best way of doing it?

Nige C

[DanKH]

Depends on whether you are on FS9 or FSX, as there are different approaches. (Personally I find the FSX way easiest, but then again ;-) )

[NigelC]

FS9

[DanKH]

Well if you have all your AI aircraft in the Aircraft folder, including both "eras" it would only be a matter of having either two different traffic.bgl's one for each era, or two set's of traffic.bgl's (in case you have one traffic bgl for each airline)

The different between these twos would be firstly a difference in titles of course to avoid conflicts, and a set of flight plans from the era (preferably from either CalClassic or RetroAi.

You should actually build up two different set-ups traffic wise, but have all your AI present in the correct textures.

Another approach would be to have a packed set of aircraft/textures you could paste in depending on the mood you were in.

The reason I like the FSX style, is that you can as many different folders placed where ever you like, named whatever you like. If they are not referred to in the general FSX.cfg file they won't be taken into consideration, hence not put strain on the system.

We all know what a voluminous Aircraft folder in FS9 can do to slow down performance....

[NigelC]

Think I'm with you so far. That's what I had in mind, 2 seperate bgl files

So let's say I now have traffic-retro.bgl and traffic-modern.bgl.

I'm at work at the mo but if memory serves me correctly these sit in the scenery folder.

I get home from work tonight, sit down in front of the pc and decide I want to fly BUA VC10 from LGW to PIK. How do I get my retro AI world activated and the modern one to not show?

Can I use ttools or do I need to pull one of the bgl files out and sit it on the desk top temporarily or what?

N

[Fodda]

Yes

Just rename the file you don't want to see so that it says something like traffic-modern.bXX so that FS doesn't see it as a scenery file, or as you say drag it to the desktop whilst you fly. FS can see and use more than one traffic bgl file at once, so you could use both simultaneously if you like. Don't forget to change them again if you want to modernise though.

[DanKH]

Exactly ;-)

[RAF_Quantum]

Hi,

If the traffic.bgl is in a scenery folder, you could seperate them completely to their own scenery folder for the era and then use the scenery library to activate/de-activate the era you want to use.

Regards

John

[DanKH]

Yes, that's another approach, actually when you begin to think about it, there are actually many different ways.

Same for different versions (eras) of airports... say one of Wolfgangs 60'ies airports for your "oldie" set-up, and the defaults or others for your "newer" set-up...

Once you get going there are so many possibilities.

Some even have multiple fs.exe files in order to have multiple FS configurations .....

[petermcleland]

I would have two files with a simple Batch file to execute the renaming to disable the file to be inactive and re-enable the file to be active...The Name of the Batch file could be Era.bat and you could have a shortcut to it on your desktop. Executing it from your desktop would present a choice then when you have input your choice it would do the renaming as necessary....I have nine of these batch files on my desktop and the simplest is the Sharks or No Sharks one. Here is its syntax:-

@ECHO off
cls
ECHO This allows you to remove the Sharks.
ECHO --------------------------------------------------------
ECHO.

ECHO 1. Quit without changing anything
ECHO 2. Remove the Sharks
ECHO 3. Replace the Sharks

set choice=
set /p choice=Enter 1, 2, or 3 :
if not '%choice%'=='' set choice=%choice:~0,1%
if '%choice%'=='2' goto SHARKSONE
if '%choice%'=='3' goto SHARKSTWO
goto end
HARKSONE
if exist GBMcLeland_FieldNS.bgl goto end
ren GBMcLeland_FieldNS.BGL.dis GBMcLeland_FieldNS.BGL
ren GBMcLeland_Field.BGL GBMcLeland_Field.BGL.dis
goto end
HARKSTWO
if exist GBMcLeland_Field.bgl goto end
ren GBMcLeland_Field.BGL.dis GBMcLeland_Field.BGL
ren GBMcLeland_FieldNS.BGL GBMcLeland_FieldNS.BGL.dis
goto end
:end

This could easily be adapted to rename your two files instead of the two files it works on here. The Batch file can be made in Notepad to produce a .txt file and then to make it active you rename it from Era.txt to Era.BAT...You place the BAT file in the same folder that contains to two files to be worked on...I always add three z characters to the beginning of a BAT file name like this "zzzEra.BAT" and this ensures that it always shows at the bottom of the folder listing. You can also see that to disable a .bgl file you can simple rename it to place ".dis" on the end of it name...It will then be ignored.

The BATCH file must be executed with FS9 not running...If it is executed when FS9 is running then no effect will be seen till FS9 is restarted.