[Announcement] Vessels: Enhanced AI | Seafront Simulations

Thanks for the screenshot Jigsaw. Sad to see no sailboats in the Waitamata, guess we’ll have to wait for the Orbx Cityscape addon to breathe a bit of life into Auckland’s waterways!

There were some but certainly nowhere even close to what you would really see in a bay like that.

Gotta say, other than the traffic jams close to major harbors and after flying some more around the shores of the world, I’m also a bit disappointed by the lack of traffic even at a setting of 100% (this includes Vessels: Global Shipping).

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Very interested in this product but not convinced enough yet to purchase.

The freeware version is actually very good and I think that it is great that the developer is doing it in his free time. Even so I would still purchase a payware version in addition if I was convinced it would populate the seas. Having said that, this payware version is not particularly cheap and I am still very much ‘on the fence’.

Hi @travieso65
Which airport is this please? I’m not sure if this is us or something to do with the sim. The models look low poly too. Do you have any closer images?

UPDATE: We have compared what we can see with our models and don’t believe these are ours but if you can send some side shots we can be more certain.

Hi @CyclicStatue623

I apologise that you’re not getting the expected amount of traffic near Homer. I’ve just taken a look this morning and whilst there are several routes in the area (see attached), we agree they’re not getting ‘visited’ often enough to give the desired effect. We’re looking to increase the number of boats travelling any one route, especially for the longer distance (up to 5 week) round trips where we could squeeze a lot in. We will be timing that to reduce the chance of too much loitering of boats at the ‘other end’ of the journey.


A boat just now in Homer (clearly just one isn’t what we intended for you)

To give an idea of volume of routes here’s just 50% of the routes around Alaska

and the Bahamas (again 50%)


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The airports where I saw this were: gclp, gcfv, tncm, but it disappeared when I deleted the IVAO, PILOT CLIENT - ALTITUDE traffic folder, so I think that the simulator, as it does not have airplane models or liveries, simply replaced them with boats.


Did some flights before i bought the product and some afterwards. I tried at three different locations: around the oresund bridge, Bergen norway and the strait of Calais. Before i installed the Enhanced AI i found the standard leisure boats that come with the sim, as can be seen on the shot below, and none of the freighters or ferry`s that come with the sim.

Before installing the pack.

I found that the leisure ships tend to pop in and out sometimes at greater distances after the last update. The amount of ships that the sim generates at standard felt on the low side for the leisure ships and are almost none existent for the freighter and ferry`s ( i encountered one freighter in my test flight)

After installing the enhanced AI you get som new ship models that replace the default ones. I tested the same locations and did get to see the new models and wakes. I was happy to see the standard yachts that come with the sim were replaced with some other types, this made it feel more realistic. Below some shots with the pack installed.

Unfortunatly te poping in and out at greater distances did not stop, but this is something with the sim and not the product. The models that come with this pack look great and include wakes. The night lighting is really pretty. I know the product does not change the number of ships, but it would be nice if it would be possible to increase the number of leisure ships that are being generated at random by the game. The product deliveres what it promises and gives a more realistic look and impression.

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Thanks for the feedback @meningstlos - We are making improvements based on some other feedback. Unfortunately we are capped with the number of ‘default’ ships we can replace in the AI product until we find some way of getting around that (which may not be possible). Global Shipping does add more on top of Enhanced AI and more will be coming for that in future updates too.

It’s particularly interesting to know that the boats were popping in and out before you installed our product!

Thanks for clarifying that it’s not us @travieso65. It looks like some shared GUIDs (which should never happen) between IVAO and another product or the default has caused this.

@Jigsaw407 and @PharaohEo - It looks like this is an SU5 issue rather than us. See

This looks interesting. I have the freeware global shipping mod but as I mostly fly around the Southwest English coastline and rivers it doesn’t add a whole lot for me as I’m not flying over the ocean or major port cities.

What I really want is far more, and more realistic leisure boats, yachts, speedboats, pedal boats, kayaks etc that you would see on the real beaches, coastlines and rivers of the UK.

Does this add on provide that?

The wakes and night lighting looks another great reason to upgrade to this.

Hi @Kjaye767 - Enhanced AI will improve the quality of the boats and introduce the sailing yachts along the coast in place of the default motorboat models. However probably not to the level you are looking for (it just replaces the models on the routes and autogenerated boats already in the sim). The Global Shipping traffic does go up the Bristol channel but I don’t think that’s what you’re after right now. The UK South West is on our watchlist (no commitment yet) to develop as we are with the UK South East and we agree it’s a lovely spot, especially for the leisure craft but if we do develop it, it won’t be for quite some time yet I’m afraid.

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Thanks for the honest response.

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If you’re keeping tabs on demand then I am expressing my interest in a West Country coastal shipping pack! I fly around there a lot and it would be lovely to see some more boats sailing around.

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Well, I couldn’t see the value in the full global shipping mod yet, but thought a tenner to improve the default was a good deal… and so it proved! Now after the hotfix it appears all the boats and ships are showing correctly…there was loads!

Nice models, having wakes makes such a huge difference and the icing on the cake is the beautiful boat lighting reflecting off the water at dusk/night. Wow, what a difference!

Very happy with this addon. :slight_smile:

Hope you up the model count on the global shipping package soon. I’m interested but personally its a lot of money as it stands at the moment. Look forward to keeping up on your progress. Good luck!

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Do you use Heinriks global shipping mod? I’m happy with that for the global shipping but if the basic seafrontsims package works with that and just gives me better stock boats I might buy this just to have some nice leisure boats around the coastline as Asobo’s stock ships are a bit ■■■■. Wakes would be nice too.

Yes I have and it’s working fine together.
I had first the enhanced ai package with global shipping from Henrik.
The slider for the small vessels at 100% and the slider for the big ships at 6%.
Good combination if you stay with only this packages.
But for me the sea at around Antwerp (2nd largest port of Europe) remains quite empty for the big ones. One or two big ships.

Global shipping from Seafront made the difference for me. Finally the sea came alive. Very nice to see the big ships queuing up before entering the harbors.
See the other topic from Seafront over here about the global shipping. I posted some screenshots yesterday about that global shipping.

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So I bought this tonight and had a mixed experience, flying from Perranporth to Exeter, in Devon, England, via a touch and go at Salcombe airfield.

The first two thirds of the journey, Perranport to Brixham, I only saw two ships. Once was from a little distance and the wake was so shimmery (I’m playing VR in the G2) that it would have look better without and the other ship just disappeared as I got close to it.

When I got to Torbay the number of ships increased to a satisfactory amount. The yachts I really like, and close up the wakes look great. I did get a lot of repeating of this kind of dull blue/grey ferry type boat, I would have liked more variety, and a couple more boats again vanished as I tried to get close to them.

I’m not sure how much of this is the add-on or the sim however. Around the South Hams area and along the Exe estuary my textures didn’t load and the reflections are quite broken for me, jittering and dancing about when I move my head.

So it’s entirely possible some of the SU5 bugs are hampering my experience of the add-on.

Any other VR users experience similar issues?

  1. Shimmery wakes
  2. Vansihing ships when you get close
  3. Not enough variety and repetition of ships (I understand the default game had a lot of repetition of a single ship too, and it might be that the ship I’m seeing a lot of replaced that one)

The models look great though, at least the ones I could get close enough to see!

Overall

Love the yachts, the standout feature for me.
Wakes are great up close, shimmery from afar (but that might be a VR/Asobo issue)
Ship quality excellent but not enough variety ( I saw about 20 individual ships on my 75 minute flight but only 3 or 4 types)
The reflections are great, especially on the yachts.
Needs MORE boats!

With Enhanced AI the default models will be replaced but the traffic remains the default traffic of msfs.
So if you’re only interested in the small yaths etc this addon will be sufficient as it gives better models with wakes and nightlighting.

If you want more traffic for the bigger ships on the sea I definitely recommend the other package of seafront which adds quite a lot of traffic on the sea. It becomes very realistic.
I have als the freeware global shipping but that doesn’t adds much traffic at the sea at around Antwerp .

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Nice to hear about the ship quality but the overriding issue for me is the apparent (for me) lack of variety of ships. There needs to be a lot more variety to convince me to part with my cash to be honest.

Maybe I would consider the main version though if this Enhanced AI package was included free as part of the overall package. But for the moment I am not personally convinced over the value of the two packages especially given that we have Henrik’s fantastic package which is free of charge and I believe has hundreds of models.

Still watching this space but for the moment I am far from convinced :slightly_smiling_face::slightly_smiling_face:

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