Had problems with the F-14, it kept on shutting down for some reason and for some reason it wouldn’t climb. Odd. Anyway the F-35C worked fine though, well apart from my landings which are terrible. Me and the LSO are not the best of friends. Mucking about with the Hellcat now.
One thing I wish is that the static carriers had actual parking spots on the deck. You can spawn in on the runway with the engines running and stuff and then use the little toolbar thing to move to a parking spot with the engine off etc but it can mess things up, like the Hellcat not all switches are in the cold and dark state and also the engine will be primed making that part of the startup redundant. I don’t mean a spot in the hangar which I understand is not possible on the statics, but surely it’s possible to have an actual dedicated parking spot on the deck you can spawn on? Some of the freeware carriers I tried in the past from flightsim.to had that as an option. Would make things so much easier. The devs earlier Lexington carrier didn’t have parking spots either which was annoying, even more so there as there was no toolbar app to help out.
Anyway, some attempts to take off with the Hellcat without a catapult ended in disaster so now hooking up this vintage warbird to a modern steam catapult. What could go wrong?
This is a known bug, unfortunately this is how stock MSFS arrestors render for some reason. Has been reported to Asobo multiple times but seems it is low priority for now. Seems like its some sort of “bounding box” where tailhooks are detected that shouldn’t be visible
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Did you use teleport? Teleporting is still an experimental feature and it may create issues with some aircraft. For example, teleporting from Air to Runway, or Runway to Approach does not result in any issues, but teleporting from Runway to Parking/Hangar and back to Runway may result in issues since aircraft is suddently being forced to change state from “Ready to Fly” to C&D and back to Ready to Fly.
This is a complicated one… It IS possible to add parking spots, but then it would never be possible to have hangars available on static ships (which is probably the most requested feature so far). Both things are incopatible with each other. The best way forward here would be to find ways to continue improving the teleporting feature.
Yeah that was the issue, started on the runway and wanted to start up the plane myself so teleported to the parking spot. Even with the sim limitations and issues I’m enjoying this addon. I’d actually prefer a deck parking spot or two over a hangar start for the statics although I’m probably in the minority for that.
Anyway landed the Hellcat, got a 2.8 out of 5! I think FlyingIron have their own arrestor hook logic though where it just kinda simulates an arrested landing anywhere so I didn’t get to see the wire being caught, so I’ll pretend I caught the third wire
There most likely will always be problems with teleporting to an cold and dark start with some 3rd party aircraft, because of the usage of L:VARS, which you as the carrier developer will never be able know all of em and initinalize em in an easy way. The best solution in my opionin would be, to convince naval aircraft developers to implement a State selection feature, like a lot of airliners have, where we could choose to set a full initialised cold & dark state when loaded into the flight. At the moment, if people find themself with an aircraft, that is not working after teleport - the only way is to use the Dev Mode, Tools, Behaviour, Quick Reload feature. This fully reinitializes the aircraft after a teleport, but mostly in a “runway start” condition.
That’s what I waited for three years of my life (Since the release of MSFS 2020). Compliments to the devs of this add-on which is more than worth its price. I was delighted recognizing Jayshrike (whoose freeware World Carriers was the best carrier add-on so far) is now member of the team. In recognition of this great add-on I also purchased Miltech’s UK Carriers an the Amphibious Ready Group.
I’m now looking forward to the updates including the announced features e.g. TACAN on moving carriers and a tool for placing the carriers.
My personal wishes for future updates:
The yellow vest catapult instructor (if he survived my taxiing) suddenly vanishes if I tick the yellow box for aircraft-ready-on-cat. I see a green vest guy walking, so it may not be too complex to let the yellow guy walk away too.
There is the feature to align the carrier against the wind. May be it’s possible whith reasonable effort to implement a simple ‘steering’ of the carrier. This could be another menue in the carrier tool (e.g. buttons for left/right degrees and speed in steps of 5 kts.) In the end the distinction between static and moving carriers could become obsolete.
I’m aware of the limitations of the simulator, therefore Super Carriers Pro is a five stars add-on already now.
The easier for a cold and dark would be to use parking spots, as you used at some of your other addons. For MSFS teleport works with ICAO, POI name or coordinates but the problem is that a teleport needs to reload scenery after you have teleported, not before, and that normally loads runways and parkings first, terrain elevation later and after that the scenery objects and simobjects, fine adjusting everything to the resulting terrain elevation in the last steps. However once scenery is already loaded a teleport into runway, parking or any coordinate will detect any hard surface (with collisions) in between sea level and current aircraft position, allowing you to spawn above sea level on top of an object like the carrier deck, even if parkings or runways are set at sea level.
If scenery is already loaded because you are at the same area the ship exists, the teleport is instant. In case of moving to a distant location then you may need to teleport 2 times: once to go to the location itself (and force the scenery reloading) and another one to place aircraft on the desired parking or runway, setting a delay between the two teleport actions. Parallel 42 Portal (included in Flow tool) uses a faded user interface so that you don´t see the scenery being loaded while you are teleported. That´s an option in this case too. MSFS does exactly the same when you load a flight, fading the screen with the progress bar screen while world is loaded. Using parkings and runways this way still allows to start on a static ships deck directly from game menus because aircraft is spawned once scenery is already loaded.
It´s therefore easier to forget about using terrain elevation to force elevated runways on ships. Just make runways transparent at scenery editor, so that the runway will be still there but it won´t be visible, place them at sea level, and place any 3D object with hard surface as the ship (or use an invisible plane) on top of runway and parking positions. The best is that runway size is a bit smaller than the deck to avoid problems or to set runway start position in accordance, not too close to deck limits.
When you start the flight at a parking the cold & dark state won´t be changed, no matter how many times you teleport airplane on the deck or even if you teleport it to runway. You can even teleport aircraft to other parking positions placed at the nearby destroyers, provided that those ships are already visible because they are not too far (if not another scenery reload will be needed). After landing that teleport won´t shut down engines either. In any case it´s player the one that should manually start or stop engines or use a cold & dark or ready to fly preset implemented at aircraft side. Too lazy players will still have the option to spawn at runway directly, as done with any other airport or use the auto start/stop engines action available in game.
By the way it´s a really nice addon. I´m enjoying it a lot, as the rest of your addons
This likely won’t be possible. Aircraft do not behave correctly when ships are moving in any other direction than a straight line.
Thanks a lot for the feedback. Will explore more the options here, but what we have seen is that having a hard surface above the runway (without having the elevated flatten) doesn’t always work consistently. I have a couple of ideas how to work around it
Whenever you teleport from the same elevation to the same elevation the telporting is consistent. From a higher elevation to a lower one it´s consistent as well. Hard surfaces detection will be still alive in both cases and you will spawn on them. However from sea level (or lower elevation) to a higher elevation it requires that elevated terrain exists at destination point. So hard surfaces detection is not working in that case.
I just made a quick test with Portal at your ZC03 (Panama). Standing at any position on the deck and lowering the elevator allows you teleport on the lowered elevator using the following coordinates and just keeping the “spawn on ground” setting at Portal: 8.83547 -79.63548.
If you repeat the test starting anywhere at sea level then it places you below the elevator, at sea level. But if you teleport while flying (so even with engines running and gear up) it also places you at lowered elevator, as your initial altitude is still higher than elevator’s hard surface height. In the lastest case you may need to force a parking brake application as any power set on the throttle will make aircraft move after teleporting. Gear will be deployed automatically by game as soon as it detects that there´s a surface below aircraft at destination coordinates.
The teleport system is very poor and has flaws but I think you may still get some use out of it. Most likely the problems with hard surfaces detection deal with the way collisions are intended to work. You are normally expected to come from above or from a side to collide with a standard 3D object placed at terrain or sea, but not from below as this would mean you were flying inside the 3D model when collision took place. Most collisions use planes for that purpose or a solid cube around 3D model. But placing a cube a bit above ground level still allows you to create an empty usable area below it, and collisions from below the cube will work. I used that method at one of my airports to force collision with one hangar roof and walls using two transparent cubes on the sides and one on top because native 3D object did not implement them. You could enter hangar but you will still collide with walls and roof.
I understand, the aircraft doesn’t follow the ship’s change of heading or speed. A solution could be an automatic teleport upon each incremental change of the the carrier movement (degree by degree and knot by knot). When I align against the wind and the change in heading is small enough, the aircraft remains on deck but slightly changes its position. After a manual teleport it’s on the old place on deck again.
Of course, this would only function for aircraft on runway or parking teleport position, not for an aircraft parked anywhere, it would be kicked into sea. However this would be a great feature.
Wow wow wow … I am really looking forward to this. This addon is going to get tied to my account via the Marketplace, so it’s an immediate available download when I upgrade my system or reinstall Windows/MSFS (which I typically have to do too often to play this game).
Unfortunately no confirmed release date for Xbox yet. The MS Marketplace recently implemented a few changes to the injection process and we won’t know when the product is scheduled for release until 3 days before. We expect in 2 weeks or less.
As for carriers going to mainland - this shouldn’t occur, at least in theory. All carriers are placed in a way that they only have ocean ahead, and the distance they move is limited due to WorldScript radius limitations. After some time (about 2hrs) travelling on a straight path, the carriers will de-spawn and re-spawn at the initial location. The aircraft is automatically teleported with the carrier.
Now, if winds are in the direction of mainland and the carrier is aligned to wind through the Toolbar, and assuming the land is closer than the radius of the Worldscript, it may happen that the carriers collide with land. In that case, I have no idea what would happen, but likely the ship will follow the terrain as Worldscripts are attached to ground altitude. Again, quite unlikely that will happen as moving locations are positioned far enough from the coast.
I think they travel something around 25 nm. The moving ships from amphibious group addon apparently a bit less, like 20 nm. I made a quick experiment during weekend because I wanted to place some at editor close enough to coast. I teleported into decks and set sim rate x4. Later on I measured the distance of aircraft trail directly on Littlenavmap.
First of all, thank you all for the excellent reception the Supercarrier Pro product has received. We have been gathering all the feedback throughout the week and currently have lots of plans for bugfixes, updates and expansions:
Supercarrier Pro V1.0.1 Coming Soon. This update will cover the most-requested features, as well as fix some of the bugs that have been reported. The changelog is lengthy (https://miltechsimulations.talkyard.net/…/supercarrier…) but here’s a summary:
Significant Changes to moving ships. Moving ships will now be identifiable by ICAO codes, and aircraft will start on deck.
Significant changes to static ships. Issues with spawning under the deck/in the air fixed, aircraft hangar will now be accessible
Carrier accuracy fixes: CVN-76 accuracy changes, new early-Nimitz class added with the old Island design.
General bugfixes: collision surfaces missing, texture fixes.
Teleport compatibility improved: new teleport aircraft selector to guarantee full compatibility with the most popular 3rd party aircraft.
No ETA at this time, but we expect to release in just a few short weeks.
Marketplace Release, Xbox Release: The marketplace/xbox version is currently under review and should be available in a couple of weeks. Unfortunately, we won’t have an official release date until a couple of days before.
Freeware expansion - Charles de Gaulle, Independence-Class: Expected by end of October.
Payware expansion packs - WWII: Currently in the early stages of planning the first expansion pack “Supercarrier Pro: WWII Carriers”. Will feature Essex and Yorktown class ships, as well as support ships and perhaps some international ships.
Exclusive Discord community: The Discord community is thriving and the first informal fly-in events are being held over the weekend. The attached screenshots have been shared by the community over Discord (credit to the authors)
Finally got this today along with Top Mach’s F-22A. Haven’t tried yet, but I am looking forward to it as I am starting to get into warbirds. Been looking forward to this for a while since the announcement. Thanks for the product!
Atmospheric sounds will add a lot to the experience. And looking forward to the app to place down the carriers where you want. Nuclear powered Carriers will be sailing up the Bristol Channel some day soon. I really hope you add a British carrier for the WW2 pack as well. I know we don’t have any specific British made WW2 carrier planes yet but the Royal Navy did fly Wildcats, Hellcats and Corsairs which we do have (or will soon with the Wildcat)
Really enjoying this and the dev has been extremely helpful in discord with bug identification/reporting. The list of updates and fixes for the first patch is impressive.
It’s nice to see an addon offer something a bit different in terms of functionality (and it does look excellent too).
Love this add-on and very excited from a WW-era expansion. It would be great to see an updated Lexington with both Lady Lex and Sara available too, if you’re taking product suggestions.
