AI Routing Issues

[Ripskin]

I had two things regarding the AI and their routing / visibility:

Always had a few issues, admittedly some of them are my fault where I need to hold and continue traffic as necessary but there are times when the AI seems to be unable to "see" another plane.  Some patches it seems to be better others it seems to be worse.  Airports can make it worse depending on their complexity and the plane timing.  ATL which I am playing right now for a series has been causing me some grief with planes pushing from the gate into planes on the terminal taxiways while others wait their turn properly. Departures driving into the sides of arrivals already on the taxiway / vice versa when they would have full visibility of each other or one of the other and would yield. 

Other times the planes see each other just fine and wait which is very helpful and what most pilots would do in those types of incidents.  The worst is the head on collision where (yes the situation started as my fault) but sometimes the two planes will stop and stare each other down mocking me, while others will plow into each other without abandon.  

Just curious if there is anything being looked into regarding that.  Perhaps adding a command to hold at X taxiway for crossing traffic then continue or hold for 2 planes crossing taxiway then continue would help with some of the plane accidents but it seems inconsistent which planes can see each other on the ground. As if the arrivals and departures are part of two separate AI Routing and visibility systems with those at the gate independent of both. 

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Second the last few patches for the most part has sped up the routing of traffic around the ground, I am still seeing issues with arrivals though (again specifically at ATL right now but have had a few issues at PHL as well).  The airport is complex and voice recognition hates the double / triple character taxiways most of the time but if I issue a direct route but include certain taxiways or too many the planes cannot find the route and sit there immobile even if the visual indicators and text conversion from speech show that it knew exactly what I said.  I have to shorten it down until they get on the route and then I can expand upon it a little more.

Tied into this is a request: If we issue taxi instructions to a plane as it is slowing down on the arriving runway, pulling off the runway or approaching is there a way to code it for the plane to just roll off the runway at whatever Taxi way already having looked at the route and continue moving with little to no delay.  Maybe a command to clear landing and to exit at taxiway X taxi to apron/gate/terminal via X Y C.  

For the most part with departures once they push and we issue commands for their route they find it immediately and begin rolling.  If we change the route the plane parks for a moment and then takes 5 to 10 seconds to get moving again even if they are continuing down the same taxiway just turning off at a different spot.

The main issue is the planes always have to pull of the runway and stop for a while before they begin their routing even if they have received instructions for taxiing to their gate and know which gate they are going to.  If we adjust routes planes again park each time.  If we are drastically changing routes I get it but if we simply are having them enter the runway one entrance earlier off the same  parallel taxiway the delay is a bit odd.

Thank you!

[Edwin1970]

Also if an aircraft has to cross a runway, you have to wait for it to come to a full stop which takes extra time to speed up a gain to taxi speed and cross the runway. As aircraft spotter listening to ATC I often hear commands like "cross runway xx" which are give 50 meter or more before the stop bar, so the aircraft can keep up the taxi speed without stopping.

Edited March 21, 2018 by Edwin1970

[FeelThere_Vic]

Folks,

 

The development of Tower!3D Pro is pretty much done. It was released over a year ago and we just released the latest patch yesterday proving we care about supporting it but there are things that we must leave for the next version. We are making a master list of similar requests and suggestions and when the time will come we will open a "wishlist" topic too.

Vic

[crbascott]

6 hours ago, Edwin1970 said:

Also if an aircraft has to cross a runway, you have to wait for it to come to a full stop which takes extra time to speed up a gain to taxi speed and cross the runway. As aircraft spotter listening to ATC I often hear commands like "cross runway xx" which are give 50 meter or more before the stop bar, so the aircraft can keep up the taxi speed without stopping.

The cross runway command has been asked for a zillion times. Until we get it in the next version, there is a "cheat" you can use to get an airplane to cross a runway without stopping. You can give it a HOLD SHORT OF TAXIWAY X where X is a taxiway after the runway. You can even choose to make X a taxiway not in the taxi route and the plane won't stop until it reaches the gate. You can also issue a HOLD SHORT OF RUNWAY command using the same "strategy".

[crbascott]

@Ripskin The pilot AI in this sim is hands down better than AI I have seen in a major competitor. It's not perfect by any means, but it is the best there is at the moment IMO.

In your example you mention KATL and I assume you are playing as a SP. Personally, I wouldn't touch this airport as a SP ... it can be near impossible as an MP - which I think is a more enjoyable and realistic way to play the sim.

Sounds like you'd be a fan of progressive taxi which has been mentioned several times. I'm sure it will be on the wish list for the next version.

Lastly, you mentioned general issues at some of the airports. If you provide specifics and include logs and screenshots there's a chance they could get fixed. If there's a bug, I'm not shy to report it. Right Vic @FeelThere? :)

 

[FeelThere_Vic]

Absolutely! If it's a bug we always try to fix them.

If you mean giving taxi instructions without "endpoints" such as runways or terminals (pretty much sending the plane to some crossing or similar point) that's on our list too. It will be required for a cool and exciting new feature we plan to add into the next version.

 

Vic

 

 

[Ripskin]

On 3/21/2018 at 8:28 AM, crbascott said:

@Ripskin The pilot AI in this sim is hands down better than AI I have seen in a major competitor. It's not perfect by any means, but it is the best there is at the moment IMO.

In your example you mention KATL and I assume you are playing as a SP. Personally, I wouldn't touch this airport as a SP ... it can be near impossible as an MP - which I think is a more enjoyable and realistic way to play the sim.

Sounds like you'd be a fan of progressive taxi which has been mentioned several times. I'm sure it will be on the wish list for the next version.

Lastly, you mentioned general issues at some of the airports. If you provide specifics and include logs and screenshots there's a chance they could get fixed. If there's a bug, I'm not shy to report it. Right Vic @FeelThere? :)

 

I agree that the AI is so much better than other similar games by a fair amount and for this style of play this is the first one IMO to really get it properly since the 90's!  I do enjoy punishment though :) and ATL is a beast and a blast when the planes don't act idiotic and flat out drive into each other at random :( I think that is the main grief I have with the AI right now, their routing confusion which is minimal in the latest patches is annoying but workable.  Love telling a plane to take L D E to the apron and it takes L to the complete other side of the airport to get on M to come back and then drives through the terminal to get over to D lol.  Some games the traffic seems to behave and others it just has a mind of its own plowing into anything.

I don't know how they were coded but it really does seem to be that arrivals have problems seeing departures and vice versa on a different control or management code.  Likewise planes in push-back are on a different "plane" and do not always see the arrivals or departures and push back right into a plane :(  If that's something due for next version it's cool I can wait. 

I do use the "cheat" to have them hold short of a random runway they wont interact with to get them to roll across but its a double edge sword and I have not had much success with it on planes landing to keep them from stopping every time.  For planes already on the ground used in the right time frame it is very helpful as a "cheat". 

I can understand commands and such needing to wait for a new version (The one mentioned here to keep planes rolling and one to allow altitude / speed control for go arounds would be every so lovely :))

For logs, I'm having some issues with those as running the batch file to launch the game and create them causes a fun issue where the .exe is removed and steam trips out trying to download it but is unable without a reboot or reinstall so the game crashes from that / GPU driver issues.  

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As to ATL, I did have less fun with it when first released due to the horrible memory leak or whatever it was dropping us to 8 FPS or less.  Once that got fixed I made a goal to get an hour managed without accidents or a massive traffic pile up.  I was able to pull it off with a non standard configuration and then again (through some luck as planes did not drive into each other lol) in the regular VFR configuration with some routing hanky panky. 

I did have to realistically adjust my commands to pretend I am multiple controllers which a single controller for most of these airports would not really happen so I do my best to talk to a departure then if necessary talk over them to speak to an arrival letting the departure finish before going back to a departure but it doesn't always work out.  If I am caught up I let everyone finish before talking back.  Was good fun getting through 100% ATL traffic mostly properly. And some of the viewers on the vids have had good feedback for improvements to what I'm experimenting with or doing.  Should help with the next real world LAX schedule I run through though and is great practice.  The last one I did was before SP2 I think and some of the bugs there killed me so I cant wait to run another series there and hopefully succeed.

Mostly when I try to figure out if I messed up or the planes messed up and how to correct it I get a bit behind and will spout off commands to catch up which for the most part in my two ATL successes was not really necessary, traffic wasn't unreasonably horrendous and I was keeping up.  I had a third one well underway and had 5 planes drive into other planes which is why I made this thread lol :( 

Anowho @FeelThere thank you for looking and responding, same to everyone :) 

[FeelThere_Vic]

Thank you too :)