I am seeing loads of posts about AI traffic, stretching over a long period and I have read a lot of them, but I don’t see any advice about how to correct the problem - if indeed it is correctable at all.
I fly, mostly, low and slow, most recently from airfields in New Zealand and in the UK and I never see moving AI traffic either on the ground or in the air. I do sometimes see beacons and nav lights when airborne, but the odd thing is, whatever my altitude (and it’s usually 3,000’ or lower) they are always lower than me and there is never an aircraft attached to the lights. I used to see traffic in the past but for the last 3 months or so it has been missing.
As an example, last night I started C&D at EGOV (RAF Valley) in the DA62 with the intention of flying an IFR route to EGAA (Belfast Aldergove). Checked the ATIS and ILS Runway 13 in use was the call. Arrivals and Departures Runway 31 (no that’s not a typo). Tower cleared me to taxi to 31 and whilst taxiing Tower cleared 2 aircraft to land on 13. When I reached the 31 Hold I checked - very carefully - for traffic approaching the other end of the runway. Absolutely nothing. I then requested and was approved take off clearance for 31 although the two mystery aircraft had not landed. Absolutely no oher aircraft visible either from within or outside the cockpit. The whole sortie (about an hour) was flown without seeing any other aircraft and that is passing Mona, Ronaldsway and Belfast City - all busy airports. Landing at Aldergrove there was no traffic in the circuit or on the ground at the stands. I taxied to the military side of the airfield and there were static aircraft but, again, nothing moving.
I just opened up at EGSU (Duxford) on a flying display day. In both images all visible aircraft are part of the add on airfield scenery.
I used to see traffic at all sorts of locations but now it seems to be gone. I have AI Traffic Offline set to 90%. Live traffic is off. Can anyone offer advice as to whether this is just some sort of anomoly or is there a way to stir the pot and get some action on the ground and in the air?
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It depends on whether you use Live Traffic or Offline AI Traffic.
Live Traffic is injected into the sim from FlightAware - a commercial provider of flight tracking services - and it works fairly well in highly monitored regions - i.e., CONUS, EU, less so in other areas of the world. This can be hit-or-miss because of navigation rules and practices regarding enabling ADS-B and other technology in the real world. The best part about Live Traffic is it is the least impactful on your PC’s performance - meaning you will get higher frame rates etc., compared to any other option.
Offline AI Traffic will inject a volume of AI planes directly into the sim on a scale of 0-100. At 100, your PC will be under significant load to generate, track and maneuver these AI, so a smaller number is highly recommended. That number will obviously vary depending on how negatively impacted your flying session becomes - so use your frame rate as a rule of thumb if you need to lower that number or have enough margin to boost in.
In general, the sim will generate and maintain traffic around the player aircraft for a diameter of about 80 NM. Everything outside of that is “destroyed or despawned” and will reappear if those assets happen to enter that 80NM circle.
The good news - Sim Update 11 seems to bring a much improved volume of traffic using the Live Option. I had packed airports in places where Live would render perhaps 2 or three 3 jets.
The “eh” news - neither Sim Update 10 (current version) or Sim Update 11 really address the underlying issues around General Aviation traffic - don’t expect packed airports that’s smaller than a Class 1 / 2 jetport. There are mods to enable that, but they’re hit-or-miss.
Invisible planes may be attributed to some Community Mod in use. Emptying your Community Folder and checking to see if the planes become visible is an easy troubleshooting step.
Thanks very much for that comprehensive summary, helpful indeed. Am I mistaken though? Things seem to have become much worse, I am absolutely sure that I used to see traffic everywhere. I have always had Live Traffic ‘Off’ as I have a rather tenuous 4G broadband connection and bandwidth is sometimes an issue, so I figured less streaming the better. However, I’ll give it a go.
Thanks again.
Can you confirm Offline AI Traffic is ON and what the scale is set to (0-100)? in Options-Traffic?
Also, try running without any Mods to ensure they’re not conflicting with the AI Traffic in some way. The invisibility you mentioned is a symptom of a conflicting add-on.
Yep, off line traffic is on and was set at 90%. I have just reduced it to 50% and turned Live Traffic On’, flown 30 minutes without seeing any taffic either in the air or on the ground. I have now reduced AI Traffic to 30% and tomorrow I will empty my community folder and try again, perhaps in a more traffic dense area, perhaps John Lennon, Liverpool and scoot around the Manchester area.
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You’ll note Live Traffic disables the slider (grays it out). The level of Live Traffic is controlled from the server side and is subject to the FlightAware coverage as I mentioned earlier. Try also turning Live Traffic OFF then ON, and restarting the sim. This sometimes resets the connection between you and the server and gets traffic flowing.
90 percent is incredibly high and is a detriment to your PC performance. I get a lot of offline AI traffic at 30 percent, but I’m in CONUS where I can fly at peak hours somewhere in the country.
I have a familiar question, when I play there are a lot of generic type aircraft and I turn on nameplate mode and it has 3 sections, 1 section says “gen”, 2nd says aircraft type (i think), and 3rd says a airport code, so I dont know which aircraft is a real person and which aircraft is AI. Please help me if u can.
Thanks once more, a great help. I will get on to this a bit later. A further question comes to mind. I, quite often at this time of year, fly on preset or defined weather rather than live weather (if I were to fly live weather I would rarely get airborne - eg winds here 40 mph yesterday, gusting 60 @ 200) and often with time adjustment; does that have an impact on live traffic?
Just to say that I only got into messing with off line traffic sliders when I noticed the complete disappearance of other traffic anywhere/everywhere.
No connection between Live Traffic and Live Weather. They can operate independently or together. Or you can intermix Offline and Preset with Live (i.e. Live Traffic with preset Weather).
So, last night I:
Emptied my Community Folder (exception DA62 Improvement Mod)
Confirmed AI Traffic greyed out.
Selected Live Traffic OFF - ON & quit the sim
Restarted the sim, confirmed Live Traffic.
Flew EGOV - EGPP - EGCC (RAF Valley - Liverpool John Lennon - Manchester Ringway)
Valley: A few static GA on the ground. No Live Traffic on the ground.
Transit to Liverpool absolutely nothing seen.
Liverpool: Not one static aircraft either at the gates or on the GA ramp. No live traffic.
Transit to Manchester absolutely nothing seen.
Manchester: Several static airliners at the gates. Several static GA on the ramp. No live traffic.
I give up 
I’ll just enjoy my clutter free skies.
Although this exercise doesn’t seem to have resolved anything for me, I am very grateful for the advice and help received. It has not only been encouraging but educational as well. My thanks to @CasualClick
So, I did have something of a 
moment and I opened up a flight at EGCC (Manchester) and selected live traffic information - big red sign ‘SERVERS OFFLINE’ so I checked the server status which was - surprise, surprise - OFFLINE. The only option offered was to ‘SIGN OUT’. I resisted that option being aware of the horrendous potential consequences of trying to sign back in again (just been to that rodeo with my grandson). I thought that, before I leapt into the known, I would scout around here to see what advice was on offer. One thing that popped up a couple of times that, if Multiplayer was deselected, that would disable the server connection. Weird. However, went in and sure enough, Multiplayer was set to OFF. Selected to ON and wonder of wonders the servers are now connected -Northern Europe. Popped into EGGP (Liverpool) and Live Traffic Information:
I am re-perplexed now 
Multiplayer doesn’t enable/disable the server, if it’s OFF it prevents you from changing servers. If OFF, the server that is in the server name box is what you’re connected to.
If that is the case, and I don’t for one minute disbelieve you, why did the server screen displayed when clicking on the gamer tag display STATUS - Offline and SERVERS - North Europe only, greyed out with the only selectable option being to SIGN OUT, change instantly to that shown in my screen shot when I selected Multiplayer ON?
Also, with the Status Online now why am I seeing the SERVERS OFFLINE legend on the Live Airport Activity page?
Just trying to understand how this all works - or not as the case may be 
It usually means you’re disconnected or your session with one or more of the following needs to be cycled (i.e., logoff/login):
MS-Store
XBox Gaming Services (which handles both PC and Console users)
The sim itself
Why the heck is everything “Microsoft” so very cumbersome? My grandson had a similar issue with his gaming (not a sim) and ended up locked out of his accounts for almost two weeks. The OP of one of the threads that I read to try and get my head around my issues, suffered a similar fate. I am reluctant to go down that road until I understand more precisely what is going on.
There have been many frustrations with the sim since it first hit the streets, just another one to grin and bear.
Personal Comments
Couldn’t tell you, but there’s a reason when I signed up for the sim that I stayed on Steam. Best decision ever.
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Just a double-check: AI is set to this per the screenshot below?
Thanks. I will have a look today - hopefully. Gale force winds and thunderstorms have somewhat disrupted my broadband connection over the last 24hrs. Forecast to calm down a little bit today so with luck …
Once again you have my gratitude. Live traffic was OFF. Don’t know how I didn’t notice that.
No EZY Jet aircraft visible on the ground though.
So strange. Did you see any other traffic?
