AI boats in FSX

Post by **TSR2** » 17 May 2007, 17:44

I was going to have a play with AI Ships in FSX. I seem to remember someone (Rick?) working on a project in FS9 who had modeled ferries. Is there any chance I could get a hold of them. I wanted to try using the FSX traffictoolbox to get them to sail between ports. If that works I'm going to try adding ports arround the world and making some of the UK docks busier, as some are very quiet. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

[edit]Is there an easy way to convert the lat / long from degrees minutes seconds into decimal notation?

Post by **TSR2** » 17 May 2007, 23:27

I found a nice little utility for compiling boat AI traffic, it even allows you to schedule them!... However, it was then that I noticed, my AI boats aren't showing at all... not even the default ones. :think: :sad:

The large Cruise ship in Southampton is actually a static and not AI. All the living world boats (i.e. the small ones that just randomly move about without a plan) are ok, just the ships don't show. Think I'm loosing the plot.

Has anyone come across this problem?

DanKH · Post by **DanKH** » 17 May 2007, 23:32

I think the ferries etc, are the ones you are missing? Maybe you slider is set too low? You might disassemble the trafficboatxxx.bgl file too actually see the percentage they use in their "flightplan"

Isn't the Traffic Toolbox in the SDK helpful?

You can use the TrafficDatabaseBuilder utility to customize the types of aircraft and routes flown by the AI (â€œartificial intelligenceâ€

Post by **TSR2** » 18 May 2007, 00:19

Hi Dan,

Thats the strange thing. I've been using traffic database builder and this other utility and the both work fine, the trouble seems to be that my slider is having no effect whatsoever on the density of the ships! I've just been to Rotterdam, one of the busiest ports in the world there are about 10 ships with the sliders at 0 and 10 shipps with the slidders at 100. And none of them are sailing. If you open Traffic Toolbox and check traffic explorer, (unchecking the aircraft only) I get all the ground cars etc at the airports, but not a single boat. something is a miss me thinks.... :think:

Post by **DaveG** » 18 May 2007, 07:32

If this new prog you've used produces FS9 traffic plans, then you may have a problem. I've read that FSX won't uses a mixture of FSX and FS9 plans, it will only use the FS9 ones.

DanKH · Post by **DanKH** » 18 May 2007, 08:12

DaveG wrote:If this new prog you've used produces FS9 traffic plans, then you may have a problem. I've read that FSX won't uses a mixture of FSX and FS9 plans, it will only use the FS9 ones.

Just to get things straight...

You say that FSX will only use FS9 ones? :k:

Or is that the case only if you have a mixture?

I would have thought that it would prefer FSX over FS9

:think:

Post by **TSR2** » 18 May 2007, 09:22

Mr. G you are a genius!

The tool is outputing the plans in FSX format.... however, I was still using all my old FS9 flight plans which I haven't converted as yet... except for my BOAC one...(using AIFPC). When I move all of my other flightplans into another folder it works perfectly.

Thanks! :dance:

Post by **DaveG** » 18 May 2007, 12:40

DanKH wrote:Just to get things straight...

You say that FSX will only use FS9 ones? :k:

Or is that the case only if you have a mixture?

I would have thought that it would prefer FSX over FS9 :think:

Yep, FSX will use both FSX and FS9 plans, but if you have both active at the same time, it will only use the FS9 ones :roll:

You can use AIFPC to convert FS9 plans to FSX ones http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4746

DanKH · Post by **DanKH** » 18 May 2007, 12:46

Got it, does the FSX style reduce the load on the CPU or what?

I mean, is it worth traversing through all my FS9 flightplansand convert them?

Thanks btw. Dave

Post by **TSR2** » 18 May 2007, 13:26

Definately worth converting Dan, there are some other bits that you can do with AI aircraft in the new plans I seem to recall. AIFPC is a great little tool, and still in development, but works fine for simply converting.