A new standalone real-time online traffic solution is coming soon to Microsoft Flight Simulator. Developers FS Live Traffic Liveries has shared a new trailer highlighting this freeware product that will greatly enhance the injection of traffic into the simulator.
The new tool will take the default Microsoft Flight Simulator traffic one step further by injecting realistic liveries and models based on data streamed from FlightRadar 24. This will also work with stock ATC interactions and work worldwide. The new system will also provide unique liveries based on the tail numbers, and if no model or livery is found, there is an in-built intelligent fallback system.
For those that may be concerned about performance, the team say that as they are low-poly and native gITF models, there should be no stutters or CTDs caused by FSLTL. In total, there are currently 700 made-from-scratch liveries (in 4K), along with a number of custom made models. Each aircraft model also has realistic Wwise sound effects which include startup. spool up, reverse and shutdown. You will also see heat, contrail and other visual effects.
To enhance things further, each aircraft will use the correct ground services and jetways, whilst aircraft also spawn at correct locations based on historical data. The AI will also turn on or off landing lights realistically.
Alongside the actual injection of traffic, an ‘Installer / Traffic Manager’ is in the works allowing you to quickly install/remove everything or things individually. More details on the manager is due to come soon.
Whenever these types of products are featured, a common concern is whether the developer owns the legal rights to use the models or paints. According to the FS Live Traffic Liveries Discord, they have “all permissions on porting these models…” The full response to their Q&A also said “we won’t be using any legal loopholes, tricks and half-measures I see in other projects to mask using others models under their brand. We’ve put a lot of time and effort into these models, so they are used as they were meant to be – as a lightweight, fully animated AI, properly credited and for free.“
In addition to being compatible with the online AI for Microsoft Flight Simulator, the models and paints can be used natively in VATSIM.
If you want to stay updated with the latest news, you can join their Discord channel. Likewise, we’ll be sure to keep a close eye on this and see how things develop. Finally, be sure to watch the official trailer for FS Live Traffic Liveries Winter 2021 above.
Thanks to Squishee for the tip.
