This is an interesting idea. It feels that Live Traffic caters well in terms of airliner traffic. Where the sim falls down us for us GA flyers who find the skies low down rather empty, and the small airfields are completely dead.
I wish we could make GA and military fields come alive, while maintaining the live traffic for the big iron.
there’s a free addon in fs.to called GAmod that fills that gap. I stopped using it a long time ago as I’m completely satisfied with default’s Live Traffic for big and small airports, so I can’t advise on how updated it is, but I would give it a shot for all offline GA Traffic and military traffic.
The thing with live traffic is that it, redundantly speaking, mimics traffic in real life in real. So firstly, the user’s aircraft and ATC cannot interact with the traffic being visually represented. The other is that perhaps I want to fly at 9am, sim time, at 10pm real time. The traffic at 10pm will show up at day time, and will most likely be less and different to what you would find at the correct time.
Lastly, the whole issue with livery and model matching using AI. It can be as simple as assigning an airplane with a specific livery manually and avoiding the hassle of using AI just because you can use it. I understand that maybe not everybody will beso keen to go online to have to look for specific liveries and models. But I feel there is pride in seeing an AI world you created for youself in your sim. And if you don’t want to manually set things up, there are AIG packages. And surely enough, if something like this does get developed, there will be GA and military packages also. Thims like Military AI works and Ultimate GA from back in the FSX days. Packages that would cover the whole world with this type of ai traffic without the need to look for models or textures.
But, what if I want to make flight plans for my local flight school or perhaps a virtual airline. I could create it and have the sim or whatever ai atc program I use to inject my created traffic. And lastly, we can all share our creations (flight plans, textures, and models) with everybody else for all to use. Again, just like in FSX.
just to clarify from your point above: MSFS ATC does interact with your plane in the context of Live Traffic both with default’s Real-Live Online option and with iFSLTL or AIG Traffic Controller injectors. You just have to check in with tower.
Ok yes, ATC does interact with your aircraft. But it basically has to accomodate you to fit in to whatever is happening in real life. Instead it could manage all of the traffic as one big system. All the ATC Ai programs do this with their AI traffic. The default ATC from FSX used to do it and the modern one does it also, just not very good.
I’m just not a fan of live traffic, but it still is a good alternative for some.
If my proposal will be introduced, I expect that it should work with all systems in FS2020, like ATC and others.My proposal only asks for a simple software peace that transforms the text file into a for FS2020 understandable file. Al the rest should work with the FS2020 inbuilt systems.
Did you get an answer for you proposal?
They said: "We recommend checking the release notes when new updates go live so you can check if any of the specific features you we’re talking about has been added. "
I’ve given it some more thought: perhaps the information below will make it clearer, and it will become very obvious just how easy it can be to introduce custom AI flights into FS2020. All the simmer needs to do is create a single traffic file in .txt format.
Such a text file looks like this:
AC#1,4326,30%,24Hr,VFR,08:35,10:32,150,R,0001,ETAR,16,12:15,14:28,240,R,0002,EBFS,12,15:15,17:19,110,R,0003,ETNN,19,20:15,22:28,150,R,0001,EBBL,22
This is an AI traffic file that must be compiled by the simmer and converted by FS2020 into a file format compatible with FS2020 (BGL or equivalent). It defines the complete daily flight schedule of a single aircraf t:
The simmer can make the AI traffic txt file shorter or longer, as long as the final landing location matches the initial departure location. This ensures the aircraft is in the correct position for the nex t cycle.
To create this txt file, two additional small text files must also be available. The simmer must create these manually as well.
1. Airport data file
This file contains the coordinates and elevation of each airport used in the AI tr affic f ile:
Code
EBBL,N51* 10.10000’,E05* 28.20000’,200
EBFS,N50* 14.60000’,E04* 38.74999’,935
ETNN,N50* 49.87000’,E06 * 39.49001’,382
ETAR,N49* 26.13750’,E0 7* 35.90770’,770
2. A ircraft data file
This file contains the aircraft definitions referenced in th e AI tr affic file:
Code
AC#1,250,“SC Designs F 16C Fighting Falcon”
AC#2,250,“Eurofighter Ty phoon EF White Tiger”
AC#3,250,“Anch orage C17 USAF AF0601”
For detailed information about the parameters in the TXT file, everything can be found in the TTools manual (Traffic Tools v2.02 for FS2004). The entire concept is based on the designs of TTools and several other existing models from earlier versions of Microsoft Flight Simulator. However, because FS2020 and FS2024 use a fundamentally different architecture, the process of creating individual AI traffic files must b e stru cturally revised.
Optional Waypoints — Simple, Powe rful, and Non‑Intrusive
To make AI flights even more realistic, especially for military operations, training routes, or scenic flights, the TXT format can be extended with waypoints, similar to how FS2020 ha ndles bushtrip navigation.
Bushtrips in FS2020 use a sequence of geographic coordinates that the aircraft must follow. These coordinates can be adapted for AI traffic in a s imple, TXT‑friendly format.
Proposed waypoint structure inside the AI flightplan TXT
A waypoint can be added between departure and arrival times u sing a compact format:
Code
WP,N5 1* 05.30000’,E05* 32.90000’,150
Meaning:
Example with waypoints added to your existing flightplan
Or igin al leg 1 of the txt-file above
AC#1,4326,30%,24H r,VFR,08:35,10:32,150,R,000 1,ETAR,16
Extended with waypoints:
AC#1,4326,30%,24Hr,VFR,08:35,WP,N51* 05.30000’,E05* 32.90000’,150,WP,N50* 58.90000’,E06* 10.2 0000’,150,10:32,150,R,0001,ETAR,16
Or, it can also still easier with existing waypoints of FS202 0 it self, and then the txt-file becomes:
AC#1,4326,30%,24Hr,VFR,08:35,WP,MAKON,150,WP,LNO ,150 ,WP,WERLO,150,10:32,150,R,0001,ETAR,16
Additional Note for Microsoft/Asobo
The example above demonstrates how extremely simple it can be for users to create custom AI flights in FS2020, provided the simulator includes a small compiler capable of converting a TXT‑based flight definition into a na tive FS2020 traffic file (BGL or equivalent).
This concept is not new: it is based on the proven and widely‑used TTools structure from FS2002/FS2004/FSX, which allowed the community to generate thousands of AI traffic packages — civil, military, cargo, training, and special operations. The community has repeatedly expressed interest in br inging this flexibility back to FS2020/FS2024.
A modern implementation would require only a l ightweight translation tool inside FS2020 that:
Such a feature would unlock enormous creative potential for simmers, scenery developers, virtual air forces, and training environments. It would also restore a beloved capability from earlier versions of Flight Simulator, while fitting perfectly within the modular architecture of FS2020/FS2024.
This is not a demand, but a constructive proposal base d on long‑established FS community practices.
Hi everyone,
Over the past weeks I shared a proposal for an AI‑assisted flight plan generator for MSFS. A few users have already responded positively, which I really appreciate.
To help this idea gain traction and get noticed by MS/Asobo, I’d like to kindly ask those who are interested to leave a short comment or a vote.
Community engagement is the main factor that determines whether a feature gets picked up, so every bit of support helps.
If you believe this AI‑driven tool could improve flight planning, accessibility, realism or workflow in MSFS, feel free to express your interest.
Thanks to everyone who already reacted — let’s see if we can push this idea a bit further together.
Here are some of the potential benefits:
Faster and more flexible flight plan creation
Automatic waypoint generation (similar to bush trips)
AI‑assisted routing based on terrain, weather, aircraft type
Accessible for beginners, powerful for advanced simmers
Selecting your aircraft, choosing a departure and destination, and letting AI generate a realistic, terrain‑aware route with optional custom waypoints — ready to fly within seconds.
If you’d like to see this implemented in MSFS2020, please leave a comment or a vote — it really helps.
Let’s show MS/Asobo that this is something the community would love to see.
Small update for those who might be interested:I’ve been exploring how an AI‑driven flight plan generator could also support pilots who enjoy terrain‑based VFR flying.
For example, imagine flying in the Alps:
· AI analyzes elevation data
· selects safe valley corridors
· avoids high terrain automatically
· and generates a scenic, realistic route tailored to your aircraf t
This could make VFR exploration much more accessible, especially for users who don’t want to manually study terrain maps for every fligh t.
I’m curious: would a terrain‑aware AI route be useful for your flying sty le?
Any thoughts or ideas are welcome — they help shape the concept and show MS/Asobo that the community is interes ted.
I do military flying and low level is a standard part so a terrain-aware route would be much appreciated.
However, it is a would-like rather than a must-have so it should not make the project so complicated that it derails the project as a whole.
A number of posts have been removed for being off-topic. The purpose of a wishlist topic is to provide feedback to the product managers that will help them decide if the OPs feature request should be included in MSFS sometime in the future. Thank you.