Ah I gotcha. Just a difference in wording but I figured it out. Yeah I can’t really tell how much of a difference there is between the different variety settings. Logically if a flight uses a specific model as well as an airline/livery and it’s available it will use it. My thinking is that the variety differences would more likely apply to non active/static aircraft. Active aircraft would of course be matched and used to what is needed. That’s if the logic holds true. I’m sure you’ve read through my postings and you can see IMO live traffic is just a jumbled mess.
The live airport activity I assume is being pulled from: LAS Harry Reid Intl Airport (LAS/KLAS) - FlightAware with the different sections of arrivals, departures, enroute/scheduled arrivals, and scheduled departures. From your example image it’s annoying you can’t order by time s everything looks a hot mess and just jumbled around. Back when I first used MSFS and used live traffic, I’d sit at an airport and use their list or the direct list from FlightAware to track everything. At that time there was probably 35% accuracy. Now using my testing, I’d say the accuracy is more somewhere around 50-60% being dependent on how many different models and airlines you have installed that the sim can actually use and match to traffic.
The biggest downside of there being more accuracy is the lack of that increased amount of traffic being able to follow proper A-B flying and everything that falls in between that. Logically in the real world that process would be clearance, push, taxi, takeoff, departure, cruise, arrival, approach, landing, taxi, gate arrival. Clearance and push just seem completely ignored. Taxi and takeoff seem to be spawned in as it’s happening. Departure works fine. Cruise is non existent except if you inject traffic as you’re cruising or are centered in a non busy airport where my testing issues occur. Arrival not really there except for same issue as departure. Approach is there, you can see that specifically from my testing. Landing is 50/50 whether aircraft actually follow the approach and land or just spawn after landing, which is the same issue as taxiing departure aircraft.
Taking me being a serious AI enthusiast aside, even if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t like what I was seeing. You don’t have to be a hardcore aviation nerd to see that even as a know nothing passenger steps within the A-B process are being skipped or just popped in, other issues aside. I’ve been doing AI stuff since FS2002. I know what I’m talking about and how a correct AI system should operate. Both FS2004 and FSX had that A-B process and it worked great. FSLTL also uses live traffic the same as MSFS and can carry out that process as well. So why MSFS live traffic can’t do that process is a headscratcher.