I thought I read somewhere that you can take the big cruise ship objects in FSX and make them float around the world. Is this possible? I would like to take some of the oil tankers and cargo ships and put them into Lake Superior and have then enter the harbor at Duluth, MN.

I have never messed with ships as AI, but yes there is reference to ships as AI in the SDK regarding the TDBB compiler. Look in the /SimObjects directory--see if you see any ship items in there.You may want to check out FS Shipyards, they have info on AI boats.I keep meaning to experiment with it, and never do--RhettFS box: E8500 (@ 3.80 ghz), AC Freezer 7 Pro, ASUS P5E3 Premium, BFG 8800GTX 756 (nVidia 169 WHQL), 4gb DDR3 1600 Patriot Cas7 7-7-7-20 (2T), PC Power 750, WD 150gb 10000rpm Raptor, Seagate 500gb, Silverstone TJ09 case, Vista Ultimate 64ASX Client: AMD 3700+ (@ 2.6 ghz), 7800GT

Hello,There is a utility for creating custom shipping traffic in FSX. I believe it is called AI Boat Traffic Creator by Lamont Clark. Keep in mind that if you're using custom aircraft AI utilizing FS9 format flight plans your shipping and ferry traffic won't show up in the sim. Good Luck,KailFlightSimmer since 1987C2D E6850 3.0GHz 1333FSBXFX Nforce 680i LT SLI2x XFX 8800GT 512MB SLI'd4GB Crucial Ballistix PC6400 800MHzCreative SB Audigy2 ZSUltra Xfinity 600W SLI PSUSeagate 320GB SATA-3GB/S HD for O/SWD 160GB SATA 3GB/S HD for FSXWindows XP SP3 / FSX SP2 / FS9 SP1

>I thought I read somewhere that you can take the big cruise>ship objects in FSX and make them float around the world. Is>this possible? I would like to take some of the oil tankers>and cargo ships and put them into Lake Superior and have then>enter the harbor at Duluth, MN. http://lc0277.nerim.net/boat/http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y156/awf1/sign.jpg

Whew looks intense.... hehealso, I noticed the download build is from like march of 07 - do we know if this program works with FSX SP2/Accel?Thanksedit:Ok, so I'm already stuck. I'm trying to open the boat traffic bgl file, but when selecting my source folder only the txt files show up. How do I access the boat files?And I thought I was on to something when I attempted to decompile using the program I used for airplanes, but apparently you can't decompile a bgl?

You have to use AIBTChttp://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y156/awf1/sign.jpg

>Whew looks intense.... hehe>Use the utility others have mentioned here by Lamont Clark.It's the easiest way to achieve waht you want.Avoid, at all costs, the Traffic DataBase Builder ( TDBB ) in the FSX SDK. It's a VERY 'demanding' program and almost guaranteesa world of frustration.With Lamont Clarks utility you can use Google Earth to definethe sailing routes of ship traffic then bring the GE file into the program when compiling the boat traffic. Paul

Sorry, I should have described the problem better...I was using the boat traffic program. I tried to set the source folder to where my boattraffic.bgl files are. And the source folder display in AIBTC only shows .txt files. I thought I could decompile a bgl file using the ai plane editor instead and then open that txt file in the boat editor.How can I get the bgl files to display in AIBTC?

>Sorry, I should have described the problem better...>>I was using the boat traffic program. I tried to set the>source folder to where my boattraffic.bgl files are. And the>source folder display in AIBTC only shows .txt files. I>thought I could decompile a bgl file using the ai plane editor>instead and then open that txt file in the boat editor.>>How can I get the bgl files to display in AIBTC?The boat traffic files and AI aircraft traffic files are two different formats, thus the inability to decompile the ai aircraft BGL.It's really not very difficult to build your boat traffic up fromscratch. If I recall correctly, Lamont Clark's documentation waspretty good in this respect. Also, weren't there a demo BGL orother files included that you could refer to to get started?It's been awhile since I used the program but it only took a fewminutes to have 3 or 4 naval carrier groups composed, positionedand sailing in different parts of the world. Paul

I think I finally figured out what to do but now Google Earth crashes when I try to draw paths. Has anyone successfully made a new shipping route?

Hello Ryan,Yes, I have made a number of new routes using Lamont's utility.Please remember to save the path in Google as a kml file, not kmz (which, according to Lamont, is an unstable format.)The path name will be the route indentifier in the routes file - it is important to remember that.Perhaps you could try creating a simple csv file for the routes instead of a kml file, if you continue to have problems.Best regards.Luis

I went into Google Earth and made a path and saved the path as a .kml file and when I went to compile my project, it said I need two points. Does anyone know what this means and how can I get my two points.Tom B.