Ai Shadow Aircraft

[Steve Waite]

IF10 [sg01] available in the Development & New Builds section!

[Steve Waite]

In version [sg01] go to "Ai Selection" to set the checkboxes for "Enable Ai Shadow" and "Wait for Instructions", the small button to the right pops up the Ai Shadow selection.

The Ai Shadow will leave anyway a minute or two after your Preparation time is up. Choose the Ai Actions from the menu or reselect for no actions, the Ai takes over. The Locate item shows a message on the screen with the distance, altitude, compass heading, and bearing to the Ai Shadow.

[sejannasch]

I had only time for a short 10 Minute test and it seems to work. More tomorrow

Sven

[Steve Waite]

Depending on the aircraft performance he may not be so easily controlled during ascent. Set the planned ascent speed higher so he doesn't zoom off from you. I've set in some nice collision avoidance, but it's not going to be 100% successful due to latency and proximity, otherwise he'd always keep well away. Watch out when he comes over to buzz you, or put yourself 100ft off cruise altitude.

[Mike Cameron]

This update fixed my Ai shadow issues, the ai shadow aircraft now generates as it should. Thanks. I have another question, would it be possible to have the shadow aircraft be on the same type of flight plan as mine. I was on a VFR flight plan and more or less following a straight line and only talking to ATC when I needed too. When I looked back at the shadow, they seamed to move left and right over the route and even though I told them to catch up, they would stay several miles away from me. I started listening to ATC and as I expected, ATC was vectoring them all over the place and changing their altitude, so they must have been on an IFR flight plan. Also I thought of a future feature request, formation flying. This would be a wonderful ai shadow feature. At least if we were both on VFR flight plans and I slowed down enough they would eventually catch up with me, I hope.


Thanks for all the wonderful work,
Mike

[Steve Waite]

Thanks Mike,

The aircraft performance plays a big part, if your cruise speed is close to maximum then it could take the whole route to pass you. I just did a route with the B350 with the plan set for a cruise of 220. I Left it on no instruction and it went off ahead, got bored came back, did a circle around me, fell back, then come past again 10 minutes later. Give it some time to make adjustments. You may say drop back and for a little while it will continue on. What you are probably seeing is flying against the wind and keeping off your exact path. Tune in and listen to the ATC and Shadow to find out what exactly is going on.

[Steve Waite]

...sorry forgot to say that it's IFR with takeoff and landing on land only.

[sejannasch]

My Ai Shadow issues are sorted out too Only on the commands for "closeup" and "fallback" it seems to need more time. But until now i have done only short flights with IF SG. Thanks.

Sven

[Steve Waite]

Thanks Sven, in the next update I've improved slightly the collision avoidance and adjusted the fallback aggression. Perhaps that will balance out a bit better, but it's complicated, to do with the aircraft relative performance scalar and its closeness to full airspeed.

[Steve Waite]

...looks like the other departing aircraft are often the same as the shadow, I'm fixing that right now and I'll get another micro update out asap, putting some more stuff into the Ai Buddy too. Later.