Global AI Ship Traffic MSFS 2020

[kl791]

Time to start a new topic... The Global AI Ship Traffic is almost set for entering MSFS in version 1. It will be a simple version and still not native, but compared to those who made a crude installation a number of issues have been corrected mostly related to transparency and texture issues, but also very importantly the whole file structure has been changed to make sure that the MSFS AI traffic engine picks all versions according to sim.cfg entries and traffic schedules. Also a number of new ships were added so the total number of ships is well above 1300 now.

[YoYo]

Great news! Thank You and cant wait for dedicated version for MSFS .

[Alan_A]

Oh, that's welcome news! Your ship traffic is one of the main things I've been missing since migrating to MSFS. Really looking forward to it.

[IanHenry]

Great thanks, looking forward to this.

[Dimus]

The best MSFS related news! Looking forward to it Henrik!

[Brytskiva]

So very nice , no more plastic toys .... looking forward for this a long long time , GOOD JOB !


HB

[firerx]

when can we get our mitts on them? I'm on the old version I ported to MSFS.

Thanks,

[kl791]

The beta is going out today. Official release I hope can be next Friday.

[fsafranek]

The beta is going out today. Official release I hope can be next Friday.

Wonderful news.

[kl791]

Launched today on www.flightsimnorway.com and www.flightsim.to - the later suffered a minor crash in the afternoon, so if you had trouble downloading try the Norwegian site FlightsimNorway.com Addons

[Brytskiva]

Thank you thank you , this will be nice i think

[IanHenry]

Many thanks for all your work, it's very much appreciated. I missed your ships since migrating from P3D.

[kl791]

Many thanks for all your work, it's very much appreciated. I missed your ships since migrating from P3D.

thanks, now that should be solved at least with a preliminary version



oh noooo

[Javis]

V1.14.5.0 seems to have sunk my ships..... Along the shores of Instanbul : 1 ship ; Hong Kong all around : nothing, nada, no ship whatsoever.. Port of Amsterdam IJmuiden : no ships at all... (default traffic ships and boats 50% )

Anybody who has GAIST and V1.14.5.0 installed, any ships in sight ??

Thanks!

[ak416]

Just checked Istanbul, Gibraltar and the English Channel, ships seem to be working as expected. I have my ship and ferry traffic set to 6% as per the manual.

[Javis]

Just checked Istanbul, Gibraltar and the English Channel, ships seem to be working as expected. I have my ship and ferry traffic set to 6% as per the manual.

Thanks ak416 ! That is with V1.14.5.0 installed, right ?

How many ships approx would you say you saw at Istanbul ?

I tried the English Channel with some success. About 6 or 7 ships on course to the Thames inlet. Not bad. Then i tried Rotterdam and Hamburg, biggest European harbors, with one ship off the coast of Rotterdam and nothing at all at Hamburg, just a bunch of what looks like photogrammetry ships with trees growing out of them..

But i guess the 7 ships in the Channel indicate that the GAIST installment does work (did install it again just to be sure). I'll check if something has changed at Instanbul.

Thanks again !

[ak416]

Yes, that is using the current version. I only saw a handful of ships coming and going but I think it is working as intended.

According to the developer over on the flightsim.to comments section,

"Try to fly out of Calais - you will not find any ships in the inland lakes in Holland. We didn't put anything there, but ships should come and go from Rotterdam and Amsterdam though only a few enter the port. But to be sure that things are installed right and your settings are right, the best place to check is Calais due to the ferries and the crossing traffic. I suspect there might be some the graphical settings which can affect what you see or how far you see it, but haven't had time to investigate more profoundly."

https://flightsim.to/file/9529/globa...raffic-msfs-v1

I think adjusting the time of day will effect the ships locations, but I'm not 100% sure about that.

Hopefully that is helpful

[Javis]

Thanks ak416, absolutely helpful!

I think i might've expected a bit too much. Surely it would be impossible to replicate big RW harbors and the striking amount of ships that often can be seen there. Obviously i was a bit confused when i saw no ships at all at the Rotterdam harbor or at the coast. It is afterall the biggest harbor in Europe. So i thought the latest update sunk all the ships...


Here's a pic from one of those shiptracker websites (fantastic!). The RW situation at the Calais harbor yesterday :



Also yesterday situation at Rotterdam harbor :



(every dot and icon is a ship, click on 'em and get the info about it. If you're interested : https://shiptracker.live/ )

I found one ship off the coast of Calais and one ship off the caost of Rotterdam. Harbors were empty. Coincidently i bought the Samscene3D payware Hongkong and found the harbors and entrance filled with ships. Maybe that's why i was a little dissapointed with the empty Rotterdam harbor.

Anyway, all clear know, the GAIST add-on does work alright and i will sure keep an eye on its progress.

Thanks for clearing it up, ak416 !

[kl791]

Thanks ak416, absolutely helpful!

I think i might've expected a bit too much. Surely it would be impossible to replicate big RW harbors and the striking amount of ships that often can be seen there. Obviously i was a bit confused when i saw no ships at all at the Rotterdam harbor or at the coast. It is afterall the biggest harbor in Europe. So i thought the latest update sunk all the ships...


Here's a pic from one of those shiptracker websites (fantastic!). The RW situation at the Calais harbor yesterday :



Also yesterday situation at Rotterdam harbor :



(every dot and icon is a ship, click on 'em and get the info about it. If you're interested : https://shiptracker.live/ )

I found one ship off the coast of Calais and one ship off the caost of Rotterdam. Harbors were empty. Coincidently i bought the Samscene3D payware Hongkong and found the harbors and entrance filled with ships. Maybe that's why i was a little dissapointed with the empty Rotterdam harbor.

Anyway, all clear know, the GAIST add-on does work alright and i will sure keep an eye on its progress.

Thanks for clearing it up, ak416 !

Hi - thanks for testing with different places and times... I think I can explain difference and maybe put expectation level right....

1. Putting ships into narrow waterways and harbors is very difficult due to the way the sim engine works - ships can only sail straight in and out to the docking point so they can only dock certain types of piers and they need to be able to back out directly one leg on their route and then they will need to have space to turn 180 degrees... Further if two ships pass each other in a narrow harbor they will automatically try to evade each other - you will get ships stranded on the pier...
2. In general ships tend to pop and disappear when idle - so you might actually not have seen all there was in Rotterdam or Hamburg because some ships at the end of their routes in Hamburg or Rotterdam had popped - this seems to be worse the more dense a surrounding scenery is.
3. In general I have not overcharged the harbors or big cities but focused on the waterways - this is from a performance point of view where it could kill FSX and still for some with lover spec pc's causes issues in MSFS - next round I might notch up the traffic in these areas as we get .glTF format implemented.
4. On top.... Hamburg is almost left out not to collide with the project Manfred Siedler developed and is now also doing for MSFS... MSFS - The port of Hamburg in MSFS | FSDeveloper Manfred and I have collaborated for years, so he actually has additional routes for my ships sailing in and out of Hamburg on his site: www.simdocks.de
5. The port of Rotterdam was in FSX/P3D well covered with static ships from NL2000 - and in MSFS a lot of photogeometric sceneries are arriving making it very hard to make routes go into the ports because I simply don't know where to place the ships without creating conflicts. See eg. this Piraeus scenery...Piraeus_Port_vol1.0 (Athens) • Microsoft Flight Simulator

[Javis]

Originally Posted by kl791
Hi - thanks for testing with different places and times... I think I can explain difference and maybe put expectation level right....



Thanks very much for your elaborate explanation, Henrik. Full well understand all points you make. And let me take this opportunity to thank you very much for your wonderful MSFS Maritime add-on.

I was wondering, are you working strictly with sailing (i.e. moving) ships ? Do you maybe have plans to add static ships to well known harbors around the world ? The example you give of the Piraeus Port shows how lovely and interesting the harbor looks compared to f.i. the abandoned Rotterdam harbors. There would also be a chance to admire all the wonderful ship models that comprise GAIST. (i can imagine all Tall Ships, one after the other, moored at the harbor as can be seen for real every 5 years here at the Sail Amsterdam event.. ;-) ( hint.... they'll stay for a week or so and then sail, one after the other, thru the 'Noordzee Kanaal' to IJmuiden where they'll say farewell to Holland off to the next event.. ;-)

Btw, talking about Tall Ships, i thought i'd take my brandnew Arrow III and patrol the harbor inlet of Kiel and the coast. Changed time about every hour, not much to see yet, but then i forwarded the month to June et voilá, there they are ! A regular 'Sail Kiel' ! Absolutely fabulous, Henrik, what a lovely sight !

Ending with a personal question: will there be chance to someday see some of these big most beautiful passenger ships from "The Golden Age of Ocean Liners" (1950's/60's). F.i. here in the Netherlands we had 'The Holland- America Line' with ships like the Nieuw Amsterdam, Statendam and Rijndam :



They have been replaced by modern ocean liners, often with the same name, carrying a thousand passengers more but cannot stand in the shadow of their ancestors when it comes to beauty.

Anyway, Henrik, thanks again for your wonderful GAIST add-on for MSFS. I'll check all examples that are givin in the doc,like i did just now with the 'Sail Kiel 21' which was great fun. THANKS !

Cheers,
Jan

[Javis]

Here are a couple shots of the 'Sail Kiel 21' Tall Ships leaving Kiel for their next destination:

[Alan_A]

@Javis -

Well, if you're going to go down that magnificent ocean liner rabbit hole, I'm going to have to see your (beautiful) HAL ships and raise you a few Cunarders and something from CGT, at minimum. If we're talking 1960s, I have to have SS France. But now you've got me thinking about several generations of period traffic - starting with Mauretania (or maybe Oceanic) and definitely continuing up through Normandie.

We can keep Henrik busy for years!

[kl791]

Hi Javis,

Thanks for your feedback and screenshots

As you might know we did launch a classic pack for FSX / P3D with some of the Classic Ocean liners like SS Canberra, RMS Queen Mary, TS Hanseatic and the good news is we will port it to MSFS. I would also love to do more Classic liners, but they are very time consuming so things take time...

To the other suggestion if I will do a static package - it is more complicated as it is very easy to have conflict with different sceneries used by different users. However, I am collaborating with several scenery developers to include ships in their sceneries e.g. LatinVFR and next up Manfred Siedler who is working on a Hamburg Harbor scenery.

Best regards

Henrik

[kl791]

@Javis -

Well, if you're going to go down that magnificent ocean liner rabbit hole, I'm going to have to see your (beautiful) HAL ships and raise you a few Cunarders and something from CGT, at minimum. If we're talking 1960s, I have to have SS France. But now you've got me thinking about several generations of period traffic - starting with Mauretania (or maybe Oceanic) and definitely continuing up through Normandie.

We can keep Henrik busy for years!

That sounds great

[Javis]

@Javis -

Well, if you're going to go down that magnificent ocean liner rabbit hole, I'm going to have to see your (beautiful) HAL ships and raise you a few Cunarders and something from CGT, at minimum. If we're talking 1960s, I have to have SS France. But now you've got me thinking about several generations of period traffic - starting with Mauretania (or maybe Oceanic) and definitely continuing up through Normandie.

Ok, matey, i'll see your wonderful Cunarders, CGT (although you'll have to fill me in on that..) SS France, Mauretania and Oceanic and raise you MS Willem Ruys (1947,later converted as Achille Lauro known for it being hijacked by members of the PLF 1985), SS Rotterdam(1956,HAL), MS Oranje (1930,SMN) and SS Rex (1931,Italian Line. Destroyed by Allied B-17's in 1944). Oh, and not forget RMS Titanic, also for four Pipes sake.

I'll throw in 2 Montecristo Edmundo's and some of the finest French Cognac so we can keep going all night.

We can keep Henrik busy for years!

You bet !