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AI Ships for long distance

Jive1

Jive1

Messages
95
Country
belgium
Hey!
I'm working, i.e. experimenting!!!... on a project in FS9 WIN7 to try to let an AI ship travel, via a regular TTools 'flightplan', on a longer distance.
I know, everybody tried that and did not succeed. I want to give myself a try.... and I hope to find a solution for... this...
One problem...
When an AI ship "taxies" from it's parking area towards the "runway",
and the runway is 18/36 oriented,
and when the ship enters the runway from north, so direction 18,
in this/my problem case, once the ship is on that runway, it suddenly turns quickly to the north, i.e.36...
and stays so for very, very long time, altough still moving, it says 0.5 kias, in direction towards it's original parking area, but much too long to wait and see wether it is going to continue it 's flightplanned way.
My question is now....
How should I make, in Afcad221 or in AFX, the runway to not let the ship turn to the north, but just to let it leave the runway in direction 18, towards another, far away distant runway, which is fully determined in the flightplan in direction to south...
I can send the Afcad that I use now, if somebody thinks te be able to give me a good solution.
Greetz
Jive1 - Belgium
 
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The ship should never attempt to join the runway. Add an hold-short node at the destination far from the runway.

BYW. I had problems when the path crossed the meridian.
 
As far as I can remember the two runways (the one it leaves from and the one it arrives to) should be perfectly aligned, something which is undoable if the two runways are too far apart (try drawing a straight 200 mile long line and place the two runways on the exact center of the line at both ends with exactly the same but opposed heading:eek:).
The way I found (that worked more or less) was to have the runways not too far apart and perfectly aligned and then adapt the trust in the aircraft.cfg so that the boat does not take off but stays on the ground but still moves fast enough to not stay sitting tight at the runway start.
Either that or have the ship disappear upon arrival at the runway i.e. making it stop long enough at the runway entrance by adding two hold shorts the one behind the other.
Or other option: place the runway very close to the parking spot so that when the ship disappears it will reappear in more or less the same location as where it disappeared. You then adapt your flight plan in such a way that the time it is gone is minimal. The latter option was in my mind the best solution under the circumstances but there were still some issues depending on when you viewed the AI boats.
 
There shouldn't be two runways. The ship leaves a parking spot and travels along a taxiway to a hold-short node at a distance from the "take-off" runway. So long as the hold-short node is further than the minimum distance from the runway, the ship won't attempt to take-of, it will wait and eventually disappear.
 
if you solve this I would compile a few of my ships for FS9 - just looking at some classic models which could fit also with the 60'ties and the Calclassic project :)
 
Nothing to solve here. What George says (a variety?/improvement? of my last option) is probably the best way.
 
Hey! Robystar,
What do you mean with "adapt the trust in the aircraft.cfg so that the boat does not take off but stays on the ground but still moves fast enough to not stay sitting tight at the runway start"?
Is there some setting somewhere in the Aircraft.cfg that is to be altered?
Greetz
Jive1 - Belgium
 
Well, instead of what George suggests (that the craft stops and then disappears) it is possible to have it go on to the runway, 'take off' and continue on the water surface because the engine lacks the power to really lift off (a flightplan with 0 alt does not work). It will continue to go straight on forever unless you find a way to place your arrival runway in such a location that it is perfectly aligned with the departure runway and so "catch" the craft again (so that it is under control of the AI engine for the approach and 'landing').
In the aircraft.cfg " static_thrust= ....": make that a whole lot less but so that it still moves forward or play with the "inlet_area"or both (I do not recall exactly anymore how I did it:().
 
I've been testiing now for two ful days, my main problem is now: how to make the ship to take off from the runway...
I'll continue tomorrow...
Greetz
Jive1
 
Hey!
I think I give up!
I tried anything possible with Afcad/AFX, every imaginable settings Three days long! I tried, and you know what! I succeeded three times with one and the same settings to have the AI ship leaving the runway in direction where according to the flightplan it had to go, but at only 12-13 KIAS, so that was too slow, even for a cruise ship. However to have these three good times I had to try 10 or 12 runs maybe... It was not reproducable enough so as to say "this is it!". Well, I tried thereafter several other settings more, but no more succes.
What I really wanted to find was a solution for AI ships leaving an airport/harbor, passing through several waypoints via straight sealines, avoiding land, from one to the other, like they do for ai-aircraft, and at last then go to a final destination harbor.
It will be for another time! That is what I think. For the time being, I quit! But I will kep in mind, that, whenever whereever I meet with some scenery which has AI-ship flightplans, I will of course carefully sheck how the flightplans and specially the afcads are build....
Have a nice weekend!
Greetz
Jive1 - Belgium
 
Hey!
I was not really giving up, of course! Who would?... Instead I started again testing this morning, and ...
I'm now in the following position:
- the AI ship goes at 20 KIAS coming from an almost 100nm away parking area to the runway,
- this runway in my case is designated 18/36, but in fact it is oriented 185/005,
- the ship slowing down till 6-7 KIAS before entering the runway,
- and it then tries to center to exactly direction 185, which it does
- It goes almost the whole runway, which I made somewhat longer to be sure that the ship comes exactly in direction 185 before the end of the runway,
- while it still is on the 1000ft long runway the speed goes up to even 20KIAS, but slows down before the end of the runway till 6KIAS
- still on the runway, somewaht before the end of same the ship suddenly makes a complete turn of 180°,
- it tries again to center on the runway, at 2-3KIAS,
- when it has centered completely, that is into direction 005, it stops for a while, speed zero, and then it suddenly starts traveling at even 35 KIAS ( I cannot see wether it is still on the runway or already out of same )
- this new start corresponds fully to what aircraft do on a normal runway, one can see the speed going up from 0.0 over 0.1 - 0.2 - 0.3 ...1 - 2 - etcetera .
- I guess that the increased speed corresponds to the ship.
- and that is exactly in the opposite direction as where it should go according to both my afcad and my Ttools flightplan
- this means that the whole manouver is correct, except that there is a 180° tour which should not be there.
- above that this whole manouver is very well reproduceble now,
- with this procedure but without the 180° tour I can work and continue to now find solutions for the waypoints...
My question now is: how to avoid that 180° tour?
Greetz
Jive1 - Belgium
 
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Hi,

This is typically AI behavior.
The slowing down to 6-7 kts is probably due to some link nodes (and hopefully a hold short). It then continues to taxi to the runway start from where it should depart. The active one depends on the direction the wind comes from. Set the wind direction to 185 and it will take off from rwy 18.
That the ship then speeds up to 35 kts is because it is no longer taxiing but trying to take off (and presumably you have done what I said and tinkered with the engine thrust so that the ship lacks the power to really get into the air?).

Roby
 
Well,
I tried different settings of the power_scalar, but apparently it did not make any difference....
My big problem still is : why does the ship make a 180° tour instead of taking off at the end of the runway?
Changing the wind direction, I did not test that, because that makes no sense, since the wind is always set by the weather-system. The ship should take off at any wind direction.
There is however another mystery in my system. I said, the runway is designated 180-360, but in fact oriented 185-005. Well, carefully watching my ship, as well on the runway, it travels direction 190 and not 185, and later when it left the runway in opposite direction; it travels in fact direction 010, and not 005. Both these directions are not what I planned, nor with the runway, nor in my flightplan. Strange mystery to me... Is there any explantion for?
Greetz
Jive1 - Belgium
 
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I still don't understand why you would wish the ship to take off.

Place a parking spot at the departure port and a hold-short at the destination port. Have another Afcad with these reversed. Make the flightplans such that the aircraft departs from the destination a minute after the other disappears. It will appear that the same vesssel will arrive and depart.
 
Hey! George,
You are of course right. I misuse that word "take off" In fact I mean always "departs" when I said " take off". I'm not of english expression, but dutch, and so my vocabulary is little short... Sorry!
And indeed, I could do what you say: make two afcads, one at the first place, and one at the other place, but both in opposite direction. I understand that, and I can do that as well.
But my efforts go in finding solutions for a departure afcad, then let the ship depart there, and via waypoints, like in normal AI aircraft traffic, travel towards the arrival afcad. Eventually i may use both afcads as the way for the return. So I want that it not only "appears" as, but that the ship really does, and that it can be observed anywhere during the route...
I know, everyone tried to find such a system, and I myself want to geve me another try and find a way to do so....
Greetz
Jive1 - Belgium.
 
Hi there,

are you familiar with the AI ships "starter kit" I've uploaded about ten years ago (yikes!) to Avsim? In it I describe the approach I used to make AI vessels move away from the runway in a straight line. It also contains a bunch of pointers regarding AFCAD, aircraft.cfg, and "flightplan" coding. Also, I believe you can close one of the runway directions for take-off.

http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fs2004ai&DLID=42950

If I remember correctly the main problem with long-distance AI ships is the limited range that the AI system has in FS9, was it ~40 miles?

Cheers, Holger
 
Hey!
Right, Holger!
I already had in mind what you wrote, I've already earlier read your notes of January 2004 of your starter kit.
In fact it is item 1 of the 4th chapter in the ai-ships text, "airdraft.cfg setup", that is most interesting to me, because I don't look for ships that make a round tour, i.e. from place A to B, and then back.
What I'm looking for is a way to have ships leaving a place A and possibly go to B, but also, and according to the so called flightplan, possibly even to C or D or whatever place, and not necessaruly back to place A.
So, I want the ships, in a well reproduceble way, moving away from the so called runway towards a specific direction in a straight line, according to the direction that I want that is goes. And then your item 1 in the chapter of setting up the aircraft.cfg is most interesting to my tests.
Before however I can really start setting up that aircraft.cfg I first must be able to make a ship leave the runway in the right direction that I want, and not in an opposite direction, like what I experienced now.
So my main problem for the time being is still: why does the ship make a return of 180° at the end of the runway, and how can I avoid that. Nor should the ship stay there and then disappear. Once that problem has been solved I can start setting up the aircraft.cfg as to get the best speed and so on for the ship before arriving somwhere at a "waypoint" and continue the planned route.
I know, it might be long time eperimenting before I will have a stable solution, but if a solution will be there, that is in fact what everybody wants to see.
Greetz
Jive1 - Belgium
 
Being a bit ignorant here, may I ask what the objective is that requires all this work? Something that can't be achieved by using a small but really useful little utility like AITDB (I think that's what it's called). It creates routes for AI vessels. No limitation on range as far as I know. In the past I've successfully used AI and converted "driveable" ships (and you only need a sim.cfg not aircraft.cfg) and planned very long "voyages", e.g. even trans-Atlantic ones for rendezvous with SAR planes etc. You can even set up "waypoints" or locations of course alterations with a minimum of work. There is always the limitation of the FERRY option and understanding the scheduling but it works.

I must be missing something in the requirements of the mission here and would love to know what it is.
 
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