Alpha India Group has shared some information about the progress of their AI Manager for Microsoft Flight Simulator. AI Manager (AIM) has become quite a popular tool for Prepar3D, and many people have been wondering about the team’s efforts for MSFS.
AIG has been working on their manager for a few months now, and it seems more or less stable. An upcoming, open beta will introduce users to the OCI (One Click Installer) for MSFS for the first time. The OCI contains less content at the moment than its Prepar3D counterpart, as a result of SimObjects that have not yet been upgraded to MSFS. The number of working flight plans will most likely also be limited due to this same reason. Users that are familiar with the features of AIM for Prepar3D might also notice that the MSFS version has less other features available. Microsoft Flight Simulator does not yet support all features that the team would like to implement, and due to this reason, some features are (and might remain) exclusive to P3D.
The information that was shared by the team also details how the future of AIM looks like for MSFS. AIG makes it clear that a lot of the future support and features will be determined by how MSFS develops as a platform. Any new features coming to AIM will first be tested internally, before being distributed to the larger public. One thing that was made very clear, is that adding new models will be a lengthy process and might take several months, if not longer.
Talking about the AIG Traffic Controller, the team shared that MSFS’s internal AI system has a lot of issues at this moment. Most of these issues can’t be fixed by AIG, but for those that can, AIG will most likely add these to AIGTC. This tool functions as an injector of AIG flight plan based traffic. MSFS is limited to AIG’s format to ensure that AIGTC can take full control over the flightplans and make adjustments were necessary.
The announcement post also contained a brief Q&A, where the team answered some common questions such as the type of aircraft included in the first release (several Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier and Embraer aircraft), or information on the limitations on AI and MSFS. The Q&A also answered that IVAO/VATSIM are not supported at the moment, due to the lack of a matchfile feature.
Nontheless, AI traffic is something that will get many users excited, and the previews that were shared alongside the announcement do look promising. AIG did not share yet when their open beta will launch, but we will keep you informed on any developments about this.
