Still no Live AI traffic

Do you remember the old days when you had to line up behind the heavys on the Taxiway waiting upto 15 minutes to get your turn to line-up on the runway. Or being ready on the apron but being told to let 5 Ai planes carry out their finals. Hell we even had that you couldn’t taxi from the gates due to traffic. Our only thoughts then was to ‘tone-down’ the traffic to 50% or zero if we wanted to get in the air quickly. Sniff… ‘glory days’? Perhaps…

3 Likes

I made a bit of a calculus and can easily conclude now that Live AI traffic in the sim represents virtually “zero” percent of the real world commercial airlines traffic.

Was in LA the other day, although my AI is always set at Live, I haven’t come across any birds, other than myself.

Not true, AI live traffic is 15 minutes behind FlightAware. I always see the exact flight number and airline

2 Likes

Isn’t there a difference between “AI Traffic” and “Live Real-World Traffic” or “Real-Time Online”? I usually set the AI Traffic slider to 95 which fills the sky with aircraft. I assume this slider has no effect for Live Traffic as the slider is grayed out.

According to the MSFS description, “Real-Time Online” SIMULATES real world traffic (doesn’t provide a real time traffic feed). AI Offline generates artificial traffic.

AI live traffic is ???

1 Like

Actually, the real world traffic is indeed real world air traffic. They get it from FlightAware, delay it I think 5 minutes, and send it out to those who have real-world traffic turned on.

My wife was on a flight and I found where her plane was using FlightAware, hopped in FS2020 and spawned in the general location, found her airplane, and flew with her plane to approach and landing. It was really pretty amazing to be able to do that.

From the FlightAware FAQ - “FlightAware compiles, aggregates, and processes data from over 50 government sources (in Europe, the Americas, and Oceania), dozens of airlines, commercial data providers, as well as thousands of receivers in FlightAware’s ADS-B flight tracking network.”

That last bit is the fun part - anyone can build their own ADSB receiver and increase the coverage and accuracy of tracking data. Bonus - you get a local web page you can access to see air traffic around your station in real time, no delays other than propagation and decoding delays, and no blackouts. FlightAware honors requests by aircraft owners to keep tracking data private but with your own station you see everything.

Last, it’s totally legal to set up these receivers in the US but may not be everywhere. Anyone interested should check their own laws. I don’t know that it’s illegal anywhere but I can certainly see that it could be in some countries.

As mentioned…

2 Likes

This has consistently been my experience as well. I tend to have LNM open and see the other flights and their number. I’ll often look them up on FlightAware. There’s always a 15 minute delay.

I’ve done this as well. My son flies to SoCal often for work. I’ve often tracked his flights on FlightAware and then hopped into MSFS and tailed / shadowed his plane, or watched it land at KSAN from the ramp. It’s always been 15 mins behind real time.

3 Likes

so far it seems online AI is mostly working in the US. I do my AI tests mostly in europe and there are still many voids…

1 Like

I know I am nitpicking. There are new users all the time. They do not understand much of the terminology we use in this hobby. So PLEASE, let’s TRY to keep it consistent.

AI

traffic has NOTHING to do with

LIVE

traffic !!

LIVE traffic is a representation of REAL traffic.
AI traffic is just like the cars on the road or the cows in the field. NOT LIVE.

Although it seems stupid to keep bringing this up, confusion DOES exist when using the terms incorrectly. You cannot adjust the amount of LIVE traffic using the AI sliders, is just one example.

@Alcatraz524 could you edit your title to reflect no “LIVE” traffic? This might help.

EDIT:
Just to be clear, because maybe this is where the transposition occurs,

There is no Artificial Intelligence ( AI ) involved in LIVE traffic.

3 Likes

well even online live traffic is still AI, since it is controlled by the internal AI logic within the Sim. It woul be better to use:

AI Traffic Online
AI Traffic Offline

Since both types of aviation AI are implemented within the Sim.

I fly mostly in Canada and the US. US typically has quite a lot of traffic. Nowhere near the real numbers, but enough to make the skies look populated. When flying anywhere in Canada, including the busiest hubs like CYYZ and CYUL, you’re lucky to ever see more than 1 or 2 other planes during a flight, even though there may be dozens of planes shown on FlightAware.

NO. Live traffic is simply being placed in the sim based on the position of the real airplane. No AI logic is used or required any more than the placement of a taxiway light. The 3d co-ordinates are pulled from Flight Aware and the model is put in that place. Then it is updated.

AI traffic is created by an AI logic to fly from one location to another based on random selections. The AI then calculates those 3d coordinates.

Two VERY different things. One is AI and the other isn’t.

3 Likes

I am getting live traffic even in northern BC. I am encountering all the normal regional airlines in both CYDQ and CYXJ. I even have the normal overflights from the big boys that I see when having my beer in the back yard. We are right on the northern flight path for most intercontinental Korean, China, FedEx flights from eastern US to Asia. My last trip to CYYJ, I was #3 on final and I could see lights of at least 5 aircraft behind me.

I have no answers as to why some users are not having issues with traffic/weather data but it is happening.

1 Like

I have moments where I’ll see more traffic than normal in those areas. I’ll be coming into Toronto to see 5-6 planes (in reality there should be 25+ in that area). Other times, it’s just deserted.

Like with many other issues with the sim, I think it’s a server-side thing.

1 Like

not 100% correct, example from now:

EDV5149 in my Sim is currently lineing up in KATL runway 26L incl. a full taxi from the gate (F14).
Flightaware is tracking the flight since departure in KATL from Runway 9L, listed as departure Gate is D44.

If MSFS would only use the tracking data (the AC chould only be visible shortly after takeoff, since no tracking data from taxi is included).
Live AI is fully integrated into the internal AI logic, we do not need to talk about the qulaity here.

yeah it is a server/data problem. I guess some of the problems are related to the actual data provided by FA and how they are used then within the Sim. UAE is only using 777-300ER (B77W), but Flightware is having them added as Boeing 777-300 (B773), so modelmatching is not working here as well :frowning:

It can only match to models that are in the sim, either as flyable planes or generic AI traffic models. And the number of planes in the sim currently is very limited. If it doesn’t have the model, there’s nothing to match, so it picks something and goes with it.

I know, but since I have the correct models with the correct codes it should work, but for that the correct codes should be used.

same for the E190 and E195, Flightware only has E190. Next major modelmatching issue is how to handle different engine variants… some airlines have up to 3 different engines (RR,PW,GE) for one AC Type.

You are missing the point. In the sim, there are two options, Live and AI. They are not related and there is no issue populating your airspace with AI traffic. There IS a problem with LIVE traffic showing up for some users. NEW users are getting confused because of terminology.

There may be an AI algorithm at work to handle flights on the ground but it is NOT the same as the AI system. I am just asking that we use the terminology in a way that makes it obvious which option we are discussing.

1 Like

Got loads of live traffic here. Just seen a clear multiplayer flight above NY also.
While it clearly was all live traffic, the liveries in the air were all custom generated AI. On the ground i also see some real world liveries, but almost never see those in the sky