179 New AI ships released

[DaveB]

Cheers Milton You're right.. there are 4 showing in that shot. 3 are quite clear.. the 4th less so. You'd know of course

Here she is with Iveston before the discovery was made..

Guardship duties and a jolly in the IoS for the weekend.

ATB
DaveB

 

[Naismith]

Great snap Mrs. thought it was real.

 

[kl791]

I will take a look and get it corrected - and yes the screenshot is beautiful.

Cheers Milton You're right.. there are 4 showing in that shot. 3 are quite clear.. the 4th less so. You'd know of course

Here she is with Iveston before the discovery was made..

Guardship duties and a jolly in the IoS for the weekend.

ATB
DaveB

 

[kl791]

Here a few screens from the area south of Bergen and Haakonvern naval station in Norway with the Skjold Class on exercise

 

[JensOle]

Very nice to see the Skjold class coastal corvette! (formerly called Missile torpedo boat) We don't really have the funding to have these boats in the Norwegian military, but the ships themselves are rather lethal machines. Very high speed, stealth capabilities and a heavy armament of one 76 gun and 8 Norwegian made NSM long range anti ship stealth missiles. Really made for a cold war type scenario. Their high cost made them unwelcome in the Norwegian military and the program was only saved by the politicians which wanted to save the ship yard which made them... But in todays situation with Russia, they are maybe not a bad capability to have after all.. if the Norwegian navy only could find money to fund their use..

 

[spatialpro]

Where did HMS Iveston come from? Is she part of this package?

 

[DaveWG]

Iveston was a model I made as a favour for DaveB, and is not generally available.

 

[DaveB]

Exactly Dave! I did the hard work and bought the plans.. you had the easy job of making the model He did a fine job though didn't he

I went looking for those Norwegian vessels the other day. Not sure if they were too fast or I was too slow but I never saw any. Must try again

ATB
DaveB

 

[kl791]

Exactly Dave! I did the hard work and bought the plans.. you had the easy job of making the model He did a fine job though didn't he

I went looking for those Norwegian vessels the other day. Not sure if they were too fast or I was too slow but I never saw any. Must try again

ATB
DaveB

The Norwegian Skjold class leaves from Haakonsvern right north of the Flesland airport; continues South and South East through Lukksund to Hardangerfjorden

And if the two of you should decide to share the HMS Iveston, I would love to include it. Next up from my side a classic ship - the S/S Martha https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07Prftd2Fu8

 

[DaveB]

Now, I like the look of that Henrik

ATB
DaveB

 

[kl791]

Now, I like the look of that Henrik

ATB
DaveB

Soon there should be images of the model.


Meanwhile a small fix for the package correcting the above mentioned issue of the flags on the Bounty:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/0r67qtcvbwwsc4h/AAAY714Cd2J4LQ9cAItgR_usa?dl=0

Copy the mdl file in the above folder and replace the file in simobjects/boats/ai_hms_bounty - Please note this fix SHOULD NOT BE USED ON ANY OTHER VERSION OF THE HMS BOUNTY THAN THE ONE INCLUDED IN "80 AI Ships and AI Ship Traffic"

(This link will be removed when with the appearance of the next larger update.)

 

[DaveB]

Thanks for that Henrik

Incidentally.. seeing the name Haakonsvern reminded me I visited there on HMS Norfolk(D21) when we were Comstanavforlant.. late '80 or early '81. The official reason was for fuel but the more widely accepted 'unofficial' reason was that the Commodore saw an opportunity for the ship to qualify for LOA (local overseas allowance)!! I think we were only there for some 18hrs (we did actually take-on fuel too) but shore leave was granted.. all of port watch for 6hrs then all of stbd watch. There's precious little to do in any naval base so some of us caught a bus to Bergen which in itself.. took a long time leaving us to run around and see as much as we could before finding transport back! Not the best way to see anywhere really but there you go. Got back to the ship exhausted then straight on watch

ATB
DaveB

 

[Willy]

I visited Bergen once on BNS Zinnia (A961) around 87 or so. Had a great time there.

I'm looking forward to the mentioned classic ship set. I've been working on a 1960ish install.

 

[kl791]

I visited Bergen once on BNS Zinnia (A961) around 87 or so. Had a great time there.

I'm looking forward to the mentioned classic ship set. I've been working on a 1960ish install.

That leaves one question - I have seen a lot of the 1960 stuff is in FS2004 - is there anybody interested in the classic ships compiled for FS2004? They will not include routes as this requires doing particular AFCADs but the models could be compiled as static ships with bmp textures.

 

[DaveB]

That leaves one question - I have seen a lot of the 1960 stuff is in FS2004 - is there anybody interested in the classic ships compiled for FS2004? They will not include routes as this requires doing particular AFCADs but the models could be compiled as static ships with bmp textures.

For my part.. I only ever use FS9 while beta testing these days so I'd get little or no use out of them I'm afraid.

ATB
DaveB

 

[Bookman1960]

Convoy at last!

Would you be willing to share your ai formation? I assume that is using AICarriers2?

I've been trying to set up a large formation for the same reason and you have achieved yours!

Bookman

As always.. stunning work Henrik

Incidentally.. I knocked this up a few days ago using your Liberty's..

Believe it or not.. the only thing that pulled my FR's down was the carrier in the middle of the convoy and the 4 warships around the outside. Sadly.. the FS maritime world needs more 'period' merchant ships but for now.. the Liberty Ships will do fine
ATB
DaveB

 

[DaveB]

Would you be willing to share your ai formation? I assume that is using AICarriers2?

I've been trying to set up a large formation for the same reason and you have achieved yours!

Bookman

Sure Here you go..

[formation.XX]
title=Convoy
unit.0=Victorious_1944_normal, 0, 0
unit.1=ai_victory, 0, 800
unit.2=ai_victory, 0, -800
unit.3=ai_victory, 0, 1600
unit.4=ai_victory, 0, -1600
unit.5=ai_victory, 800, 0
unit.6=ai_victory, 800, 800
unit.7=ai_victory, 800, -800
unit.8=ai_victory, 800, 1600
unit.9=ai_victory, 800, -1600
unit.10=ai_victory, -800, 0
unit.11=ai_victory, -800, 800
unit.12=ai_victory, -800, -800
unit.13=ai_victory, -800, 1600
unit.14=ai_victory, -800, -1600
unit.15=ai_victory, 1600, 0
unit.16=ai_victory, 1600, 800
unit.17=ai_victory, 1600, -800
unit.18=ai_victory, 1600, 1600
unit.19=ai_victory, 1600, -1600
unit.20=ai_victory, -1600, 0
unit.21=ai_victory, -1600, 800
unit.22=ai_victory, -1600, -800
unit.23=ai_victory, -1600, 1600
unit.24=ai_victory, -1600, -1600
unit.25=HMS_Belfast_1943, 0, 2400
unit.26=AI_Flower_class_corvette_X, 0, -2400
unit.27=HMS_C_class_DD_1944, 2400, 0
unit.28=HMS_C_class_DD_1944, -2400, 0

You can see here how I built it up. For once, I had a plan!!! First.. the carrier then a ship ahead and behind it. A quick look in FS then another ship ahead and behind the previous two. Then.. ships to the left.. and ships to the right. Had another look in FS. More ships to the left of those and more ships to the right. Finally.. the support ships ahead, to the side and behind (in actual fact.. Belfast ahead, the corvette to the rear then the destroyers on either side)

I could have gone on. Henrik's Liberty ships are so low on poly count and draw call, I'm sure I could have pegged another 10 without issue. Any apparent hit only began when I swapped the central Liberty for the carrier and then added the support ships. I think a few more would have been nice (Corvettes) but this was a good time to stop!!

EDIT: Incidentally.. I made a slightly different version of Henrik's default Liberty's by changing the flag from the StarsNBars to the Red Duster and named it ai_victory (based on the John model). This in case you're looking for ai_victory which you won't find.
ATB
DaveB

 

[Bookman1960]

Thank you!

Dave,

Thank you so much. Incidentally, I have been probably going about things the hard way, is there a simple tool or utility you use to build formations? Or do you edit by trial and error as I do, based upon pre-existing formations I've found?

Bookman

 

[DaveB]

Hello Mate

You're welcome

Well.. it depends on what you're looking for really. Most of my larger formations have some symmetry but my smaller formations can be hit and miss. I did one for Ark Royal IV this afternoon making her the centre ship (, 0, 0).. I then put Glamorgan 1000 ahead (on the centreline), Leander 800 to the right (but in line with Ark) and a tanker -400 from Ark's centreline (to the left) and -600 back

[formation.43]
title=HMS Ark Royal IV Group
unit.0=HMS Ark Royal, 0, 0
unit.1=HMS Glamorgan, 0, 1000
unit.2=Leander, 600, 0
unit.3=Old Tanker, -400, -600

It's loose but what might have happened at a given moment in time. Sadly.. we don't really have a proliferation of UK RFA's so whatever I do there has more than a tad of artistic license!!

With larger formations (like that convoy).. it's best to have a plan. I'd decided the formation was going to be 5 ships deep (line ahead) but hadn't decided how many lines of ships there were going to be or what the spacing would be. As you can see from the convoy formation.. from top to bottom.. Victorious is the centre of the world.. surrounded by everything else (protect the carrier at all costs e t c). I then added 2 ahead doubling the distance with the last one and again.. 2 more to the rear.. distances doubled each time. Ships were then added to the right (no minus on the first set.. positive = right.. negative =left) centred on the carrier then again.. to the left (minus in the first set of numbers). To the very best of my knowledge.. there's no magic tool to do this. You build each formation either from scratch or if you see one you like.. copy that and change the model references. It's easier if you start small and work your way up and use 'different' ships at each position. That way.. you can see exactly where each ship is in relation to the numbers you put in. You'll get used to knowing what each numeric line is (centre or left/right.. ahead or behind) but even so.. it may help to put the 'picture' in your head down on paper and work from that. Small formations are easy but bigger ones can get you lost!

It's a lot of fun and very easy to end up with a very large conf.d file
ATB
DaveB

 

[fsafranek]

Hi Joe,
As mentioned on Avsim - if someone can provide a drawing then they could go on the list, but I need at least a decent side view and a top view.

For the moment a small Danish addition - the patrol ships Ejnar Mikkelsen and Knud Rasmussen here in P3D and below in FSX

Some skillful flying there. Has anyone tried using the Lynx from the Virtavia Freeware page as a static or Ai with this ship?