Increasing AI plane waiting time

Christopher Low · Post by **Christopher Low** » Fri Nov 28, 2014 3:59 pm

There is a HEX edit tweak that can be made in FSX to increase the length of time before a stationary plane will disappear from 5 minutes to something like 17 minutes. I used it in FSX, and it worked really well. Does anyone know if there is a similar tweak for P3D? I had a look at the aiplayer.dll file in P3D, but the section to be adjusted seems to have different HEX characters than the FSX version, so I can't use that.

MicMac · Post by **MicMac** » Fri Nov 28, 2014 5:05 pm

Maybe this will help:

http://www.prepar3d.com/forum-5/topic/a ... axi-speed/

Christopher Low · Post by **Christopher Low** » Sat Nov 29, 2014 8:38 am

It isn't the taxi speed that I am bothered about. It's the fact that AI planes disappear if they are sat waiting for longer than 5 minutes. I want to extend that time, because it isn't long enough. I hate it when AI planes disappear when they are waiting for departure clearance, particularly when I am the aircraft on final approach!

shervsr20 · Post by **shervsr20** » Mon Dec 01, 2014 10:14 pm

I too am interested in a fix for this

McMaster · Post by **McMaster** » Tue Dec 02, 2014 3:13 pm

I'm interested in this as well.

Jedi_Jr · Post by **Jedi_Jr** » Tue Dec 02, 2014 10:59 pm

Me too, loved having the planes stay around.

Christopher Low · Post by **Christopher Low** » Mon Feb 16, 2015 1:25 pm

Hey, guys. I seem to have found the solution to this problem in P3D.

I used a HEX Editor to increase the waiting time of AI planes in FSX (so they didn't disappear after barely 5 minutes waiting for either me or other AI planes to land) by changing the middle value of the string "C0 72 40" to 8F in the aiplayer.dll file (string 11B0, or 11F0 in FSX Acceleration). This worked great, and increased the waiting time to (apparently) 17 minutes. However, when I looked for the same set of characters in the relevant string in the Prepar3d aiplayer.dll file, they were different.

I tried searching for the same set of "CO 72 40" hex characters in the Prepar3d aiplayer.dll file, and I found them in string 45720. However, changing "72" to "8F" in this string didn't work. I was disappointed, and left it for a while. However (rather stupidly) I didn't attempt to search for another "C0 72 40" set at the time. I have recently done just that, and I found them in string 4A4A0. So, I changed the "72" to "8F" in this set, and then tested it in P3D (version 2.4)

I am glad to say that this modification worked! Now, I don't know if you need to change both sets of "CO 72 40" characters. This is the situation on my PC as it stands, but I don't know if changing the first set in string 45720 has done anything else. I certainly haven't noticed any problems, but I am no expert!

McMaster · Post by **McMaster** » Mon Feb 16, 2015 3:41 pm

Thanks for the info. Since I'm interested in tweaking this as well, is it possible that you can post some simple instructions and what each different value will do to the waiting time?

Christopher Low · Post by **Christopher Low** » Tue Feb 17, 2015 7:15 am

I do not know that information. I am simply following the instructions that someone else posted with respect to modifying the aiplayer.dll file in FSX, so all I have done is look for the same character sequence in the Prepar3d.cfg file. I don't actually know anything about hexadecimal!