This function assigns your installed FS2002 aircrafts (airlines) to specific AI Flights. Normally you see only the FS airlines (Landmark, Pacifica, etc.) flying around. But after you shuffled your AI Traffic with AITM you'll see lots of country specific aircrafts flying. That results in a much higher simulation experience.
How can AITM do that? The answer is quite simple as you'll see now. The build in AI Traffic can be converted to a more understandable ASCII-Text file. This step is called decompiling and can be done with a Tool called TTools-Decompiler ("TDECOMPILER.EXE"). Three files will created in the current folder:
"Aircraft.txt": List of FS2002 aircrafts used
"Airports.txt": List of all available airports
"FlightPlans.txt": List of flights that will be flown by the FS2002 AI Aircrafts
For further information concerning this files please read the TTools manuals. As they explain the formats in detail. And why should I write things twice? :)
After manipulating this files you will need to compile the whole thing so FS2002 can work with it. Because the converted files are quite huge it's a tough work to modify them. That's where AITM comes to play.
AITM divides the whole earth in Regions (Continents) and Countries (later Versions will also allow to assign airlines to Cities and Airports). Then you tell AITM where each airline should fly. This is done by modifying a special designed configuration file named "AIRLINES.CFG". There you'll find any region and country which is available under FS2002. Because the names are localized it is necessary to create this file for every available language version of FS2002. In the current version of AITM only English and German is build in ("AIRLINES.CFG" and "AIRLINES-GER.CFG") . So if you have the German version of FS2002 you'll need to copy the "AIRLINES-GER.CFG" to "AIRLINES.CFG". If you own any other language you'll need to let AITM create a localized empty configuration file. This can be done via the Tools menu. A new file "New Airlines.cfg" will be created in the AITM program folder. Then you need to manually assign airlines to the available regions and countries. A list of airlines supported by FS2002 can be found the Appendix A.
How does the configuration file look like and which things can I configure there? Look at this small shot:
;---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
;------------------------------------ R E G I O N S ------------------------------
;---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
;Airline Format: AIRLINE,PERCENT
;Tail number Format: #NUMBER
; Placeholder:
; ! - Random Number
; . - Random Char
; ? - Random Number or Char
;---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[GLOBAL]
UPS,30
Fed Ex,30
;Orbit
;Landmark
;Pacifica
;Airwave
;Soar
;American Pacific
;World Travel
;Gaia
;Global Freightways
;Emerald Harbor Air
#GLB-???[Region:Africa]
Air Afrique
Springbok
#AF-???......
[Country:Europe/Germany]
Lufthansa,70
Condor
LTU
#D-..........
The first section is the so called Global Region. That's a default region if AITM can not assign any aircraft. After the Global section all continents are listed. Following a list of airlines which you would like to fly in this region. In our example we have Africa where Air Afrique and Springbok (South African Airlines) should fly. After the airline name you can add a percentage value. This tells AITM how much traffic will be flown in the region by this specific airline. So for our example we would say Springbok should fly 85% of all Africa flights. Now to configure it you must change the line containing "Springbok" to: "Springbok,85". That's it. AITM will read this value and will give Air Afrique a value of 15%. If you exceed 100% AITM will correct this for you during reading the CFG file. Same is valid for the available countries.
What's the "#GLB-???" entry in the Global section? That's a template for the tail number that AITM can create for you during shuffling. Currently AITM supports three different placeholders:
! - Generates a random number (0-9)
. - Creates a random upper case char (A-Z)
? - Generates either number or char
If you don't define any template AITM will not change any flight tail number. You can disable this feature with a check box. But you'll see that below. In a future version it will be possible to add more than one template. AITM will then choose a random template.
OK, now we told AITM how airlines are assigned. What's next? AITM still doesn't know anything about aircraft types and their performance values. Yes, but there's still one configuration file missing "AIRCRAFTS.CFG":
;---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
;------------------------------- A I C R A F T S ---------------------------------
;---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
;Format:
; ID / Cruise speed (not used yet) / Min. Flight Level / Max. Flight Level /
; Min. Range / Max. Range / Runway Length (not used yet and can be left out)
;
;---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Micro Prop,140,0,100,0,600]
C172
C182
Mooney
Piper
Baron
Extra
PA28A
In this file aircrafts are divided into eight classes: Micro Prop, Mid Prop, Large Prop, Micro Jet, Small Jet, Large Jet, Huge Jet and Not Used. The class Not Used tells AITM not to use this aircrafts for shuffling. Each class has general performance values which is valid for every contained aircraft type. If you want to change these values for a special aircraft you can do that by adding this values separated by commas. For example we have an aircraft XYZ with a speed at 200 knots, min./max. Range of 0-200nm and a max. Flight Level of 5000 feet. You would add the following line in the desired class: "XYZ,200,0,050,0,200". The parameter runway length will be used in a future version of AITM. AITM compares the parameter atc_model=... in the FS2002 file "Aircraft.cfg" to get the correct aircraft class. You can place any substring is in the CFG file.
The CFG file helps AITM to find a suitable aircraft for a flight. The tool checks the maximum leg distance and flight level. If an aircraft meets the criteria it will taken to a list of aircrafts which can execute the current flight.
How looks the process for a flight? OK, here is an example flight:
AC#5,N49940,32%,8Hr,IFR,06:15:25,07:10:22,180,F,2478,EDDM,15:15:29,16:10:26,190,F,2477,EDDF
It's a flight from Frankfurt to Munich and back to Frankfurt. AITM now calculates the maximum distance for this flight. As we we have only two legs the distance between EDDF and EDDM is around 100nm. So MAX-Range is 100. The maximum flight level is 190. We now have our performance values for the flight. Now AITM knows that EDDF (the departure airport is always the last airport) is in Germany / Europe and it looks in Germany if we have any airline configures which could fly this flight. Let's assume we haven't configured anything here. AITM looks now in the next level which is the region Europe in this case. Still nothing configured! Hmm... Then the last chance is that we have at least configured the Global section. And yes we have! UPS and Fed Ex. Now AITM checks if there are some aircrafts available in those two airlines. We assume AITM will find some aircrafts now. If not AITM uses all those aircrafts which do not have any airlines assigned (e.g. a Piper or Cessna). If still nothing can be found AITM will remove this flight and save it to a new file named "Removed Flights.txt". There you can check why AITM removed this flight. In most cases the flight level might be wrong. But check the FAQ or the Tips'n'Tricks chapters to find some problems and solutions.
We assumed that we found some UPS and Fed Ex aircrafts. Now AITM checks if there are any aircraft where the configured performance values matches. A list is made and a random aircraft is choosen from this list. That's it. The flight has been assigned and AITM will now continue with next flight.
Note: The files "Airports.txt", "Aircraft.txt" and "FlightPlans.txt" have to be in the same folder or you'll get an error message.
AITM also offers sort of debugging feature. Via Tools -> Switches -> Debug the debugging will turned on or off. When you shuffle your traffic two files will be generated in the Flightplan folder:
"Shuffle.log": A huge file which includes some information, like range and flight level, for each flight
"Shuffle Result.log": A summary over all regions and countries and their airlines
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In this view you can see all installed FS2002 aircrafts (same view as you can see in FS2002) and the airline they belong to. Blue colored entries are the aircrafts itself. Select the aircrafts you want to use for shuffling. |
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Currently the following options are available:
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If you have finished selecting the desired aircrafts you can start the shuffle process with clicking on this button. This process can take quite a while. It depends on the amount of flights in your Flightplan, the amount of aircrafts you selected. On my machine (AMD XP 1800+ with XP Pro) the whole process takes about 15 seconds for the standard FS2002 traffic (23115 flights). |
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The status bar will display some useful information. Like count of flights or count of removed and shuffled flights, etc. |