If the AI plane traffic in real time traffic really gets to work, then maybe it could also be possible for ship traffic. I was contacted by one of the largest European passenger and freight ferry companies, DFDS, and they have provided everything needed in terms of ship documentation and AIS input in order to make it possible - that is if Asobo makes it technically possible in the sim. For now I have added a lot of the DFDS ships in the update - we are not at the entire fleet yet but we will get there - and you will find them on their real routes, but not in real time for the moment.
Ephesus Seaways is one of DFDSā brand new ro/ro freight ferries operating both on the North Sea and the Mediterranean , which has been added in the new package - below a link to the real deal for comparison
No, it has actually been there for some time - obviously you donāt find it in too many places - you would need to look between Greenland and Canadaā¦
Yes, it can be done combining Google Earth and the freeware AIBTC tool to generate the traffic files and using the ships in the package.
Unfortunately not this time - I think Dreziewski included them in their FSX/P3D New York scenery at least as static so that is why I never considered them.
even if it is put higher on thier priority a major obstacle would still be that the diversity of ship models in real life is much bigger than for airplanes - there isnāt really standard models like Boeing 737 or Airbus A320 in shipping - even the longest production series donāt get anywhere near the numbers of these planes, so it will be a major effort to do a comprehensive real time AI traffic, but to take the fleet of a company like DFDS and include that should be doable if Asobo enables it. Personally my first wish is that we get effects and dynamic interaction with the water movements. That would increase realism a lot.
To create river traffic is extremely time consumingā¦ it might be a bit easier in MSFS as it is more accurate. So far I have just done it in FSX/P3D for Mississippi, Amazonas, Rio de la Plata, and Rio Parana - but currently we are having an issue with these traffic routes in MSFS, because the sim engine places all ships at ocean level - that makes the traffic disappear from water surfaces at higher levels e.g. the Great Lakes. or the upper parts of the rivers mentioned above.
Exactlyā¦ and there the captain still keeps his head out of the water but on the great lakes at 182 metres above sea level you need a mighty tall shipā¦ In principle we can make a separate set of ships for each of the great lakes - it just requires an adjustment in the sim.cfg however tomorrow Asobo might correct the issue and then the ships will be flying 182 metres above the lake
Earlier it was said that we wouldnāt see much in the middle of the ocean. Will we see them in the areas under or ānearā Nat tracks? Would be nice to pass ships on the occasional long haul. Also glad to see this out so soon for fs 2020. Coming from x plane, saw the p3d trailer and wanted it for fs 2020. Last question, will we see anything from cruise alt at night?
I will post some maps later this week with routes; will you see anything from cruise altitude at nightā¦ noā¦ not muchā¦ in fsx/p3d we had effect based navigation lights which could be seen from far away - that will have to be completely redone in a future version - But having spent a lot, a lot of time at cruise altitude in real life I have to say you donāt see much from there eitherā¦
That depends how thorough you have been when did your own conversion. The package is fundamentally a conversion and it is still backwards compatible, so we have not converted to .gtlf format in this round but keep mdl files. But still I think we have gone much further than most of the people who have converted and then there are of course the new ships and routes added.
Remember that there are several people who have contributed with ships and each with a slightly different approach to modelling and texturing and also using different tools so that means we need to approach the conversion in different ways across the fleetā¦
What is different is:
All models using BMP format textures have been corrected (models would be all white) - around 100+ models corrected
All models having colors not based on textures have been corrected (they would have white spots on the model) - around 50 models corrected
Models with transparency issues due to DXT5 alpha have been corrected - 100+ models corrected - for around 40 models we had to go back to the source model and do changes to texturing
The folder structure has been corrected - this adds around 700-800 repaints to the traffic - with a fast conversion without correcting the folder structure the sim engine will not read all the texture variants so even though you will have the right number of ships appearing you will not have all the variation in repaints
The new routes and shipsā¦ be in particular prepared for a lot of new ferries mostly in European waters but also in other places like US and South America
New sea animals e.g. right whales
For future updatesā¦
Hard decks
PBR and emissive light textures - that requires going back to the source model
Model update on some of the older models - also going back to the source model
