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Jive1

AI ships Afcad making

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Hey!

How to make afcads for AI ships, that is what I'm trying to find out. I've seen a video on Toutube and things are not clear to me....I try to follow what is explained there, but it does not work here in my FS9 on a Win7 pc...

Is there any specialist who knows what is important and what should be taken care of when making the afcads?

Greetz

Jive1

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It looks like this:

14251737737_b533d888c7_b.jpg

Very important: the radius of the parking spot must be set at 600 ft. The area must be set as "Dock". The length of the runway can be set at 500 ft - it's enough. To reduce the width of the runway I use the Afcad 221. That's the only tool allowing to reduce width to 0.4 ft and make it completely invisible. Otherwise I create all my Afcad with AFX, the only tool with an interface and showing exactly where apron paths should to be placed. A real WYSIWYG!

Bernard

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Very good, Golden Rocket, that is more or less the same as what I did with both Afcad 221 and with AFX. I use both programs, and most I do with AFX, sometimes, like here making the runway not wider than 0.4ft, I do with Afcad221.

But what I want to do is, making the ship going from one harbor to another harbor, let it stay there for e.g. one night, and then let it return the next day. So I need two places where the ship will automatically start and arrive one day after the other.

Your Afcad model does not show this. The ship apparently starts and arrivés at the same place.

Above that, there is the fact of writing the fligthplan for the AI ship. How do I have to compose and write the plan? I guess it will be almost identical to a flightplan of whatever aircraft?

In my specific case, I want e.g. let the "Le France" start in Le Havre and arrive in Marseille both in France. So the ship must make a tour around Spain from north of France to south of France...

Is that possible?

Regards

Jive1 - Belgium

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Above that, there is the fact of writing the fligthplan for the AI ship. How do I have to compose and write the plan? I guess it will be almost identical to a flightplan of whatever aircraft?

 

Yes it would be pretty much identical to a simple aircraft flight plan. Keep in mind since your vessel will travel at taxi speed only and the distance you are considering even a 24 hour cycle plan may not be sufficient for the vessel to make its journey. I don't know if a day of the week to day of the week type will work. (I have never tried that)

 

 

Since the ship is basically in taxi mode from the parking spot to the runway only there is no stop over allowed as in Bernards example. You would need two AFCADS, one Le Havre to Marseille and one Marseille to Le Havre. with the arrival and departure points perfectly over lapping for the two AFCADS. Once you have accomplished that it is a matter of timing in the 'flight plans' so the arriving vessel stops and is replaced by the departing vessel.

 

The best information and examples of this sort of thing has been done by Holger Sandmann.

 

http://library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=holger+sandmann&CatID=fs2004&Sort=Added&ScanMode=0&Page=11

 

ai_ships.zip

 

I hope this is of some help.

 

Regards,

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Thank you, Mebull!

Meanwhile I checked already myself Holger's files, and I was already doeing experiments with his suggestions. I'm not finished yet....

I'll wait and see what that gives...

Greetz

Jive1 - Belgium

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It isn't a matter of flightplan, but only of Afcad. Once I had a Staten Island Ferry traffic starting at Bowery and stopping at Staten Island for an hour. And a similar leg in the other direction. I had to add a further runway link at Staten Island. But afterwards I couldn't recovered it anymore.

 

BTW, Holger Sandmann's Afcad are created exactly the same way as shown in my Afacd above. So don't expect any new input.

 

Create a ship traffic from Le Havre to Marseille won't work. Traffic based on apron path will only be shown within the 90 nm radius. Further away AI ships disapear. Ships aren't AI aircraft taking off from one airport and flying to the another. I have some traffic from Southampton shown until reaching Lands End or leaving Sognefjorden until the open sea. That's the most I could do.

 

Bernard

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I looked at KDYT Sky Harbor located on land and water on Lake Superior near Duluth, MN and Superior, WI using ADE version 160 (Airport Design Editor freeware).

 

Note that runway type and surface can be designated as WATER. (Type and Surface are two separate properties). You can also designate a very narrow width of 1.1 meter but this should not be necessary as far as appearance. Like the land runways at this airport, the water runways have start locations on them.

 

I also noted that taxi paths and runway taxi paths can have a water surface. Parking locations can be named DOCK and type can be Dock_GA.

 

The water runway compile with a width of 0.4 feet by ADE which adheres to the FS SDK bgl rules will not compile in ADE but with water surface properties for all objects involved here is it necessary to have that narrow width below the 1.1 meter minimum via the SDK asnd ADE? The Sky Harbor water runways are 2000 and 1500 feet for whatever design purposes.

 

ADE can modify AFX files as far as I know with the exception that if the AFX files do not contain com frequencies that the intermediate XML code must be modified to not exclude com frequencies in the same airport at lower priority. They can be imported, however, or recreated.

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The water runway compile with a width of 0.4 feet by ADE which adheres to the FS SDK bgl rules will not compile in ADE but with water surface properties for all objects involved here is it necessary to have that narrow width below the 1.1 meter minimum via the SDK asnd ADE?

That's why it's necessary to use the old, but still very efficient Afcad221.

 

Bernard

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That's why it's necessary to use the old, but still very efficient Afcad221.

 

Bernard

AFCAD221 was designed mostly by "experimenting" before MS released the FS SDKs for FS9. In some add-on airports it can strip some scenery objects added in the afd type .bgl files by designers using certain airport editors who add these objects to the AF2_ (by convention) .bgl files.

 

It is much safer to avoid AFCAD221 even the file may be names AF2_ ity may have these added objects using these other editors.

 

But my point is, if the water surface and water type objects are set in ADE or other capable editors, aren't these invisible anyway in water bodies? ADE9X is freeware and AFX is payware, both capable editors.

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But my point is, if the water surface and water type objects are set in ADE or other capable editors, aren't these invisible anyway in water bodies?

Excepting if using an environment enhancer like REX. All Afcad tools show a default water or unkown texture which still might be seen even if path is reduced to 0.4 ft. But this discussion doesn't help solving the initial question: how to stop AI ships at a certain place for a certain time?

 

Bernard

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But this discussion doesn't help solving the initial question: how to stop AI ships at a certain place for a certain time?

 

Isn't that what an AI flight schedule file does? Do you have the readme.html file for TTools? For each model which you assign to a designation number to be used in the schedule you can assign time to a location, departure time, weekly or day of week, etc. I imagine cruise level would be 0 for sea level. Speed would be the ship speed in "cruise".

 

To get around some limitations, you might assign additional ac numbers to the same model used for a different schedule insuring time elements do not conflict with another schedule using the same model. The ac numbers reflect the title= line in each aircraft.cfg flight section so if the same ship model has unique paints you can have different versions of the same ship "master" model.

 

Look at aifp2121.zip to edit and create ai flight plans using your ship models. If you have an existing ship ai plan file you can decompile the .bgl to examine it. Note that for new "airports" first add it to the FS scenery and let it reindex. In AIFP2 on the main menu bar select airports, find, then collect and select individual or all airports with scenery.cfg as a reference to add it to AIFP's database. This utility is for both FS9 and FSX. See how the timetable works for you.

 

 

 

 

 

Regarding texture, is UNKNOWN transparent?

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Hey!

I'm still experimenting with the Afcad and I made e.g. a taxiway according to the drawing above. No good result up to now, but a new problem arose. Look at the picture... ( url= http://www.davidsfondswillebroek.be/Norway.jpg ) The ships that I'm playing with is twice on the picture, once as my personal ship ( right  in front ) and once as the AI ship ( left behind ). Now, that AI ship always is like you can see here, with the 'boeg' high, and the back at normal height. Furthermore, even with a Afcad which is exactly conform to the drawing above, only adapted to the way the ships must go, and nothing moves as it should according to my flightplan, which is as follows: AC#1,NORWAY,80%,24Hr,VFR,09:56:99,10:11:22,000,F,0001,ENVO,14:59;39,15:14:46,000,F,0001,ENVO

What could be the origin of the behavior of the ship?

( ENVO is the harbor that I use near to ENOV in Norway )

Greetz

Jive1 - Belgium

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Sorry Ronzie, but here we are speaking about ships, not aircraft. Like buses or crash tenders, AI ships have to stay on ground. Therefore it's a different way to create an according Afcad. Using normal aircraft Afcad and normal aircraft flightplans you will get "Flying Dutchmen"! As I said before, it isn't a question of FP.

 

Unknown textured apron paths or taxiways are shown in green.

 

 

 

What could be the origin of the behavior of the ship?

It seems to be a problem with your cfg file. Is your ship an AI or are you using a "flyable" model? In this case you have to use an adapted cfg file.

 

 

 

AC#1,NORWAY,80%,24Hr,VFR,09:56:99,10:11:22,000,F,0001,ENVO,14:59;39,15:14:46,000,F,0001,ENVO

This flightplan is absolut correct, even if you could set the second departure time at 11:16:22, like doing just a pattern. The ship will anyway use the time needed.

 

Bernard

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Indeed I'm using a flyable ship made by Mitsuya@Hamaguchi(hama) and it is named "Le France.zip" with added painting for SS-Norway.

How can I modify or change the cfg file?

Greetz

Jive1 - Belgium

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