Ok, I’ve done some more testing and I’ve compared the AI traffic contrails respective behaviours FS2024 with that of FS2020.
FS2024 definitely has a LoD problem with contrails.
In summary: In FS2024 you can get long contrails from other AI traffic, but they will only appear from other AI aircraft which are within 10 nm from your own viewpoint ie. less than 10 nm from your own aircraft’s position. (I’ve checked this using LittleNavMap)
By comparison, in FS2020, contrails on other AI aircraft start to show much further away – like around 20 nm away or greater.
Also, note that for both sims, you need to have live weather set on. If live weather is turned off, then AI traffic only produces short contrails – in either sim.
So it seems the only problem is the contrails LoD.
Dear Asobo, for FS2024 please can you therefore simply increase the contrails LoD / trigger distance from 10nm to say 25nm? This will sort the problem.
Thanks, but I’m not sure that would help here.
To get the contrails sorted I’d rather focus on that, rather than ‘mix it in the basket’ with other LoD problems – which the contrails issue may not be directly related to.
i.e. I’m hoping there is a specific contrail ‘trigger-distance’ parameter somewhere that Asobo can simply increase from 10nm to 25nm
I repeat. The problem is not the missing contrails. The problem is the missing planes. Let me explain better. On the radar the planes are highlighted but outside they are not there at all. Do a test at night. You will see that the lights of the planes are not there. If MSFS 2024 does not show the planes, you will not find the lights of the planes or the contrails. If the AI planes are very close to your plane, you will see both the lights and the contrails…
I guess that’s logical – ie. you would first need to have a rendered plane before you can have any contrails coming from it.
If that is the cause, then is there any LoD control, either in the main graphics menu, or in a CFG file perhaps that could increase the render distance of AI traffic and their contrails? (I’ve tried increasing the objects LOD setting but it made no difference to the 10nm max render distance for contrails.)
That’s not entirely correct, the LOD for AI planes is even shorter than for contrails. With FLSTL I sometimes see the odd contrail (vary rare) but don’t see the aircraft (I fly GA so always distant from the airliners). It seems the aircraft are only seen at around 3 miles max while contrails show up until around 10 miles. In the last month flying with FSLTL on MSFS 2024 I’ve seen 3 contrails, all of them with no aircraft showing.
They really need to fix the LOD.
Where is the topic about the AI aircraft not being visible during day and AI aircraft lights being too faint during night?
This one is about the contrails but the aircraft are not visible to begin with. Together with not having contrails there is no point in using enroute traffic injection now. This is a big deal.
…and the wheels totally disappearing when the aircraft is a few hundred feet away. Theres some wacky LOD stuff going on for sure that will need fixing at some point.
The wheels disappear but also the aircraft after about a runway length. I don’t understand why there is no hotfix for this. The whole point of AI traffic/traffic injection is that you can see the traffic and the contrails.
