Hi. Thank you for the replies...
#1 & #2:
I have always used the 'recommended' combination/settings of AISeparation and AISmooth. Perhaps those programmes are doing more harm than good? I'll try flying without them loaded for a while and see if there's any change. I have crash detection turned off in FS9. As I said, I also have AI traffic set to taxi a little faster than the default, 25 knots instead of 17. Could that confuse PF3 in some way?
#3:
Yes, I am sure the Conflict Monitor is at the root of this. I have re-read the relevant section of the pdf manual. My first thoughts are to wonder why the CM utility has been programmed to stop AI traffic which is in front of the user aircraft at all. If the AI traffic is moving in the same direction as the user a/c, then it stopping when you get within 400 meters of it doesn't seem to serve much purpose or be particularly realistic. Like Aerosoft's AES 'Follow Me' car, it would seem better to have the AI a/c speed up, rather than stop (though I am not suggesting that should actually happen in PF3!). If it is coming towards you, stopping it doesn't resolve anything either, it would just mean you crash into it a little bit later than you otherwise would have done. (Yes, I too use the FSUIPC 'zap' facility in that case). Perhaps I have missed the point though? Stopping a/c that are approaching from the sides is a really excellent feature, but why when they are in front? I would disable that part of the CM programme, if it were possible to do so in setup.
Meanwhile I am not quite sure what to set my 'Pause CM below...' value to. The manual ("Another point to make...", p80), says that if you keep your taxi speed to below 10 knots CM won't stop a/c you are following, but if you taxi too fast (i.e. above 10 knots) it will stop them once more. So I can't see why you recommend setting the value even lower, to <5: the manual seems to say that if I do that and then go faster than 5 knots, CM will pause AI traffic in range. I want the opposite of that, I want to be able to taxi at the usual c.20 knots, not crawl along at 5 or 10, without any AI traffic pausing in front of me. So shouldn't I therefore set the value to 20 knots or more, as CM is only active above the figure set in the CM options, as the pdf states. Of course the downside there is that traffic coming from the sides won't be paused either. I so wish the two were configurable separately.
The manual also says (p.80) "... you may find an aircraft actually on your taxiway that has been stopped (this may have occurred at the maximum distance in front of you...)". What is this 'maximum distance in front of you" that is refers to? Is it something usefully configurable?
I get the feeling I am being very dense here, so my apologies in advance if that is so - I am not getting any younger and what’s confusing me seems clear to everyone else. For me, being able to turn off the CM 'forward' feature whilst retaining the benefit of it pausing a/c coming from the side, would be ideal, in so far I have understood what CM does and how it works.
#4:
OK, understood. It only applies to the user a/c, not AI traffic.
Thanks as ever for replies, past and future!! I really appreciate the input.
Martin