navychief 1 Posted December 30, 2003 Ok, for months now, I have seen articles posted about "AI" aircraft, and "AFCAD". Could someone explain (in layman's terms, for this old CPO) what AI and AFCAD are all about? There are hundreds of downloads available on AVSIM for AFCAD files for military bases, etc, and they include AI aircraft for realism, etc..... But I have no clue what is involved with installing these files, or how I am supposed to configure them to work with FS. Is there a AFCAD and AI tutorial for "Dummies" available already? Heh, heh, heh,.... Navy Chief Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MadJeff 3 Posted December 30, 2003 I would love to see that as well, as I've DL'ed a few but haven't had the time yet to install them. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Top_Gun 0 Posted December 30, 2003 (edited) trust me Chief, once you start messing around with it it's very simple. http://www.jetdoc.com/HLP/helptt2_1.html that site above is an awesome bible. First you will need TTools http://www.simviation.com/fs2004utilities1.htm AFCAD is there as well but unless you plan to edit you won't need it. once you have TTools installed into a folder in FS9 directory hit the compile button. This will give you 3 text files. Aircraft, airports and flight plans and a traffic bgl. These are the default flights and what I have done for all my AI packs is created a military BGL by renaming my text files to Military_airports, Military_aircraft and Military_Flightplans. What this does is keep all the military AI flights separate so you never mess up the default bgl. In all my zips I give you the aircraft, airport data and flight plans to add to the new texts. Once you add them to the 3 new files you hit decompile and it gets loaded to MS. The biggest pain is downloading the aircraft but alot of what I use for AI I'm already flying and just rename AI_F-16, take the panel out and rename the title and UI Manufacturer stock title=F-15C Eagle ui_manufacturer=Boeing (McDonnell Douglas) AI files renamed title=F-15C Eagle AI ui_manufacturer=Military AI the panel gives the biggest frame rate hit so it really helps this way. All the flight plans are in ZULU time Give that site a read over, download Ttools and dive into 1 package and give it a try. ;) You can always PM me if you get stuck Sorry, the afcad files only add parking. You can make it plane specfic or even unit specific. Take Mountain Home AFB, the have 3 units stationed there. The F-16's are the 389th FS, the F-15C's are the 390th and the F-15E's are the 391st. I have my afcad parking set up to keep them parking in the same area When you download these bgls they go into your FS9/addonscenery/scenery folder. That automatically loads them upon start up, if you don't add the airport data to your airport.txt file then it won't recongize the added parking. MS left all the parking out of the military airports. What Afcad does is allows creators to add Military Fighters, Cargo, GA:Small, Medium, Large or Gate: Small, Medium & Large More info here http://afcad.projectai.com/faq.html and in the AFCAD readme which is very good. But if you're only interested in flying them you really don't need to learn to much on this end. Only if they are coded as you need the following information in your aircraft.cfg atc_parking_codes=A10, F15C, F15E, F-16 atc_parking_types=MIL_COMBAT OR CARGO and C5, C17, C141 again, it just takes alittle reading, then it's all repeditive so it sinks in. I can't figure out so much other stuff like tweaking AI's and light files but this was easy to learn B) Edited December 30, 2003 by Top_Gun Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MadJeff 3 Posted December 30, 2003 I knew TopGun would come to the rescue... ;) This one gets a sticky. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Falcon Six Two 0 Posted December 30, 2003 Good call Jeff!!!! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Falcon Six Two 0 Posted December 30, 2003 BTW, thanks for the clarification TG! I was having huge probs with them afcads you have. I have very big problems with BEING THE ONLY F-16 around at the stock Edwards AFB..... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
navychief 1 Posted December 30, 2003 Thanks TG Whew! It still sounds complicated to me. You know how it is when you mess with something the first time? Another question. Is the reason for AI aircraft just for added realism? AI aircraft are not flyable, are they? If so, why the reason for differentiating between AI and other aircraft? As usual, I am probably just making things harder than need be. What I would like to do, some evening, is connect with someone via RW, or TS, and discuss this. Maybe even "walk" me through this. Navy Chief Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Top_Gun 0 Posted January 1, 2004 being a civilian sim MS didn't bother with any of the military airports or AI traffic. Me, only flying military planes gets awefully bored flying Military airport to Military airport with no traffic or parked planes so I looked into this. for 2002 I just used everyone else's work but this year I was out to learn this by myself. With all the reskins of the Viper and Eagle it's much better to fly into Langley or Otis and see the proper tail codes B) It's all about emersion Share this post Link to post Share on other sites