Context: FSLTL - AI aircraft injection via SimConnect
Similar MSFS 2020 issue: n/a Works as expected with MSFS 2020
Bug description:
With MSFS 2024, when AI aircraft are injected with AICreateParkedATCAircraft & AICreateEnrouteATCAircraft, the sim appears to avoid using any scenery taxiway parking spots that have parking codes assigned. Instead, the sim continues to only use parking with no parking codes, often removing existing aircraft to place new ones, over and over.
The same SimObjects, with the same atc_parking_codes in aircraft.cfg along with the same scenery work as expected in MSFS 2020.
Same experience whether using default MSFS 2024 scenery or custom 3rd party scenery.
Using the in-sim MSFS 2024 live traffic, all gates appear to be utilized.
Is this a case of MSFS 2024 not reading the atc_parking_codes from the aircraft.cfg file correctly? Or the airlineCodes from the scenery? Or something else?
Repro steps:
Inject AI aircraft using AICreateParkedATCAircraft & AICreateEnrouteATCAircraft. Aircraft have atc_parking_codes populated in aircraft.cfg. Scenery parking also configured with airlineCodes do not appear to be used.
Attachments:
Private attachments: Send a PM to @PrivateContent with the link to this topic and the link to download your content
After additional testing, the issue appears to be more extreme than just parking with no airlineCodes only being used.
If I remove the airlineCodes from 10 taxiway parking objects, all the same size (radius), when AI traffic is injected, it still seems to lock onto one parking spot, adding and removing traffic over and over. Only if that aircraft starts preflight or pushback does the sim then use another spot.
If larger aircraft are injected also, this same sequence of events can occur at the same time, only with larger parking.
This is a major break point for us (FSLTL) right now (besides the constant sim CTDs).
From the looks of it and a basic understandic of how “parking-scores” worked in previous flight simulators it looks like that the function to decide the parking spot has the following issues:
Not reading the atc_parking_code from the fltsim-sections (this is a new issue)
Not taking already used spots into account, selecting always the best spot based on the score (this is a new issue)
The isue with the usage of an already used spot was already in MSFS2020, but there it was only happening when all other spots have already be used. We suggested in that report that the Sim should not replace already injected airplanes with newly injected stuff when no other spot is available, but should return an Exception - like it has done in FSX.
Any response? Should we assume this is a sim bug? If so, has it been logged? Or has there been a change in AI cfg or scenery design that is at fault here?
@FlyingRaccoon
Apologies for reaching out to you directly, but any chance we can get some feedback on this issue? Is this something known to the team? Already being worked on? Much appreciated!
Any dev response, please? Should we assume this is a sim bug? If so, has it been logged? Or has there been a change in AI cfg or scenery design that is at fault here?
We have made a fix to the parking spot selection algorithm when using AICreateParkedATCAircraft. According to our tests, it will fix this:
However we need further testing to ensure this one is fixed too:
The fix will be in the mid-December patch but if it doesn’t fix the second issue, we may run out of time to slip that in the same patch - we will let you know as soon as we know more.
I’d like to add to this conversation that of the “Piper Cub at Jetways” issue.
Authors often use atc_parking=ANY because, maybe they don’t know any better? Or…
I had to edit many of the aircraft.cfg’s of the aircraft I purchased because I’d constantly see GA aircraft parked at jetways.
Could we please remove the “ANY” option, or ignore/don’t place aircraft that have atc_parking=“ANY”.
And, while we’re at it, on a completely different but related issue non-SDK issue, but I might as well say it to illustrate the problem further, can we please change the F-5 Freedom fighter and PC-21 AI aircraft to be MIL_COMBAT. I’m getting tons of those planes at my GA airports.
