P3D V2 Carrier Ops? (Question for Dino?)

[JimmyRFR]

Perhaps this may be a question for Dino, not sure - perhaps someone else can answer it for me.

With the separation of certain military features being locked away behind the V2 ProPlus license, do we still have the ability to launch from carriers? The reason I reference Dino is that his (brilliant) F-35A is present as a default aircraft in V2, while the F-35B, and of more concern, the F-35C, is not. Which of course has me curious as to whether there is an underlying reason why the later two aren't included - one potential scenario that I thought of was the lack of carrier functionality.

As this area of simulation is something I do a great deal of in FSX, this is of concern to me.

[Navy Chief]

Perhaps this may be a question for Dino, not sure - perhaps someone else can answer it for me.

With the separation of certain military features being locked away behind the V2 ProPlus license, do we still have the ability to launch from carriers? The reason I reference Dino is that his (brilliant) F-35A is present as a default aircraft in V2, while the F-35B, and of more concern, the F-35C, is not. Which of course has me curious as to whether there is an underlying reason why the later two aren't included - one potential scenario that I thought of was the lack of carrier functionality.

As this area of simulation is something I do a great deal of in FSX, this is of concern to me.

I asked this very question in a different thread, and I agree with you. For me, if carrier ops is not possible in the Academic License version, I won't be purchasing it. NC

[Dino Cattaneo]

F-35B and -C versions were not included for several technical reasons and schedule issues... But the main reason is that I'd want to keep the "ownship" of the project.
The F-35A included in the package is a "stand alone" version with some minor compatibility modifications, and will co-exist with the future installation of the F-35 "full" package.

So, carrier operations has nothing to do with the exclusion of B and C models (by the way the STOVL functionalities work quite well in P3DV2).

Afaik, ALL the versions of P3DV2 have all the Acceleration features. They can launch and recover aicrafts, and they should be compatible with Javier's Nimitz (for instance).
As incredible as it may sound, I have not tested extensively the carrier ops... Did a couple of traps with the F-14 in Beta 2 (with a slightly strange "sliding" glitch) and some S-3 traps in Beta 3. The absence of CarrierAi makes the whole thing a little difficult...

[Navy Chief]

So Dino, do you think that the creators of AICarriers will be able to modify that program to work with the new P3D version? NC

[JimmyRFR]

Dino, thanks very much for your input - I figured that if anyone was going to be able to give an answer on the inclusion of the Acceleration specific carrier functionality, you'd be the one.

So from the sounds of it, we have nothing to be concerned about, other than whatever possible compatibility issues exist for any given add-on from FSX / P3D 1.4 to P3D V2.

Incidentally, I'm working on a little SimConnect application that places the users plane on the deck of a carrier (or other ship) at any given lat & lon specified. Not really that complex, but I'm finding it to be useful so far.

[Navy Chief]

Incidentally, I'm working on a little SimConnect application that places the users plane on the deck of a carrier (or other ship) at any given lat & lon specified. Not really that complex, but I'm finding it to be useful so far.

Now THAT is interesting news! Thanks! NC

[SkippyBing]

Let me know if you need any help with that, I've got a proof of concept app that also does that and has since grown to include turning the carrier into wind for launch and recovery. I did also get AI to land on although it needs some work. I'm tempted to develop it further for P3D to take advantage of the dynamic 3D water and have it throw the escort vessels around a bit...

Dino, thanks very much for your input - I figured that if anyone was going to be able to give an answer on the inclusion of the Acceleration specific carrier functionality, you'd be the one.

So from the sounds of it, we have nothing to be concerned about, other than whatever possible compatibility issues exist for any given add-on from FSX / P3D 1.4 to P3D V2.

Incidentally, I'm working on a little SimConnect application that places the users plane on the deck of a carrier (or other ship) at any given lat & lon specified. Not really that complex, but I'm finding it to be useful so far.

[Navy Chief]

Oh, this just gets better and better! NC

[JimmyRFR]

Let me know if you need any help with that, I've got a proof of concept app that also does that and has since grown to include turning the carrier into wind for launch and recovery. I did also get AI to land on although it needs some work. I'm tempted to develop it further for P3D to take advantage of the dynamic 3D water and have it throw the escort vessels around a bit...

Sounds like your proof of concept app is further along than mine! I was thinking of responding to wind direction as well, but hadn't implemented anything automatic yet. I also hadn't done multi-vessel placing yet, but was planning for it as well. I was also thinking about choosing having the user be able to choose between setting waypoints for the vessel, or leaving it 'anchored' by freezing the lat and lon in the case of smaller ships with heli decks.

The one thing I was having issues with was trying to get the users plane to load at the proper elevation of the carrier deck: Regardless of what method I use to insert the users plane at the specified lat and lon, it doesn't respect the altitude I send it to; it always wants to load at ground (or sea, I should say) elevation. I'm currently then setting the altitude of the plane afterwards to the proper height of the deck. Did you have any issues with that?

[SkippyBing]

Sounds like your proof of concept app is further along than mine! I was thinking of responding to wind direction as well, but hadn't implemented anything automatic yet. I also hadn't done multi-vessel placing yet, but was planning for it as well. I was also thinking about choosing having the user be able to choose between setting waypoints for the vessel, or leaving it 'anchored' by freezing the lat and lon in the case of smaller ships with heli decks.

The one thing I was having issues with was trying to get the users plane to load at the proper elevation of the carrier deck: Regardless of what method I use to insert the users plane at the specified lat and lon, it doesn't respect the altitude I send it to; it always wants to load at ground (or sea, I should say) elevation. I'm currently then setting the altitude of the plane afterwards to the proper height of the deck. Did you have any issues with that?

The deck height issue was a bit of a PITA, what I've ended up with is essentially a config file for each carrier you want to use, although I called them .ship files because I could, this includes the flight deck height, position of the landing point i.e. the third wire, cruise speed, max speed, escort ships etc. What I think I did, it was a while ago I hacked this bit, was to set slew on, then position the aircraft where I wanted it and then do a bit of fine tuning before turning slew off. I had to add the fine tuning as if the ship is too far away from where the aircraft starts the sim won't have set the ship to actual sea level, there's something about it in the SDK but I think for objects outside the reality bubble it's assuming a spherical globe rather than a WGS84 shaped one.

An alternative method if you don't want config files is to put the plane well above any flight deck height, e.g. 100' AMSL, and then slew it down until the AIRCRAFT ON GROUND variable goes to 1.

At the moment mine works by having a kml file of routes to choose from when you first load a ship you select a route which it starts following at cruise speed and then next time you load that ship it'll have moved along the route the appropriate distance. That way you're always somewhere new, even if it can take a while to figure our where that is! If anyone's interested I'll knock up a semi-stable version for people to play with and then I can use any feedback to improve it. I was eventually planning on adding some sort of randomised mission element to it, scoring landings that sort of thing but I got sidetracked making Buccaneers and aircraft carriers!

[JimmyRFR]

The deck height issue was a bit of a PITA, what I've ended up with is essentially a config file for each carrier you want to use, although I called them .ship files because I could, this includes the flight deck height, position of the landing point i.e. the third wire, cruise speed, max speed, escort ships etc. What I think I did, it was a while ago I hacked this bit, was to set slew on, then position the aircraft where I wanted it and then do a bit of fine tuning before turning slew off. I had to add the fine tuning as if the ship is too far away from where the aircraft starts the sim won't have set the ship to actual sea level, there's something about it in the SDK but I think for objects outside the reality bubble it's assuming a spherical globe rather than a WGS84 shaped one.

An alternative method if you don't want config files is to put the plane well above any flight deck height, e.g. 100' AMSL, and then slew it down until the AIRCRAFT ON GROUND variable goes to 1.

At the moment mine works by having a kml file of routes to choose from when you first load a ship you select a route which it starts following at cruise speed and then next time you load that ship it'll have moved along the route the appropriate distance. That way you're always somewhere new, even if it can take a while to figure our where that is! If anyone's interested I'll knock up a semi-stable version for people to play with and then I can use any feedback to improve it. I was eventually planning on adding some sort of randomised mission element to it, scoring landings that sort of thing but I got sidetracked making Buccaneers and aircraft carriers!

Very interesting - my version was not going to be as complex as yours. What I wanted, was simply a quick method to place a carrier (or a ship with a hard deck for heli stuff) at any spot on the globe (optionally with a heading / speed), and then have the user's aircraft (or heli) spawn on the deck. I was then planning on having the ability to allow a user to save as a pre-configured option that would be accessible from an add-on menu inside the sim to allow for super quick placement.

Since my creation of the carrier was far outside of the user's reality bubble (could be anywhere on the globe), what I found that worked the best was to create the carrier, then send an initposition structure to the user's aircraft so that it caused a proper reloading screen. The issue I had was that the aircraft will always load at ocean level (inside the existing carrier!), causing me to have to send another reposition just to get the altitude correct for the carrier deck. I also had a user configurable offset built in so that the user's plane would be positioned at the proper spot on the deck.

If you're planning on doing up something for release I may just shelf mine, or perhaps release it alongside as a no-frills/simple version, since with the existence of yours, there'd be a few features that I thought of that wouldn't be needed, would make life a bit easier! I'd also be happy to co-operate or combine our efforts into one program if you were open to that!

[SkippyBing]

Very interesting - my version was not going to be as complex as yours. What I wanted, was simply a quick method to place a carrier (or a ship with a hard deck for heli stuff) at any spot on the globe (optionally with a heading / speed), and then have the user's aircraft (or heli) spawn on the deck. I was then planning on having the ability to allow a user to save as a pre-configured option that would be accessible from an add-on menu inside the sim to allow for super quick placement.

Since my creation of the carrier was far outside of the user's reality bubble (could be anywhere on the globe), what I found that worked the best was to create the carrier, then send an initposition structure to the user's aircraft so that it caused a proper reloading screen. The issue I had was that the aircraft will always load at ocean level (inside the existing carrier!), causing me to have to send another reposition just to get the altitude correct for the carrier deck. I also had a user configurable offset built in so that the user's plane would be positioned at the proper spot on the deck.

If you're planning on doing up something for release I may just shelf mine, or perhaps release it alongside as a no-frills/simple version, since with the existence of yours, there'd be a few features that I thought of that wouldn't be needed, would make life a bit easier! I'd also be happy to co-operate or combine our efforts into one program if you were open to that!

I think mine does use the initposition structure* but I turned the slew on first, I think initially just so I didn't get a water crash as soon as the reload was finished!

I'm open to a bit of collaboration, if only so I properly comment my code! Certainly I think there's a need for some sort of no frills option when you just fancy a bit of circuit bashing, which can be a bit tricky if your carrier group has chosen that moment to go down the Strait of Malacca!

*The code's on my laptop and I can't be bothered waiting for it to boot up at the moment!

[orionll]

I've also created some SimConnect programs to test pitching decks and achieve true multiplayer carrier synchronization, though I haven't done much work in UI. I have working proofs of concept, but they don't have any facility for an end user to position a carrier. Haven't touched those in a while, though, as I've been a bit busy and didn't gauge much interest.

[SkippyBing]

I've also created some SimConnect programs to test pitching decks and achieve true multiplayer carrier synchronization, though I haven't done much work in UI. I have working proofs of concept, but they don't have any facility for an end user to position a carrier. Haven't touched those in a while, though, as I've been a bit busy and didn't gauge much interest.

I'd be interested in seeing how you achieved multiplayer synchronization, it's something I want to add to my app but I'm not really up to speed on the networking side of things.

[orionll]

I'd be interested in seeing how you achieved multiplayer synchronization, it's something I want to add to my app but I'm not really up to speed on the networking side of things.

It's actually a bit of a hack. As I'm sure you're aware, FSX* doesn't synchronize SimObjects that aren't of the Airplane or Helicopter variety over multiplayer.

In the early days of Acceleration, people would convert carriers to be aircraft to be piloted in multiplayer sessions, but that would be at the loss of FLOLS, runway lights, and catapults. I previously worked around that by creating multiplayer missions, which created the boat AI locally, and would trust the mission system to start the session at the same time. Later, I made a SimConnect client that allowed people to set a real-world time for an AI boat to start moving, giving slightly more freedom than in a mission.

The final solution I came up with was to create an AI aircraft, let FSX synchronize that over multiplayer, then use a SimConnect client to place an AI boat in the same position.

*I'm not sure about Prepar3D. I think Prepar3D supports synchronizing Submersible SimObjects over multiplayer, but I'm not sure about Boat SimObjects. If it does sync Boat SimObjects, then there'll be no need for my solution anymore.

[Dino Cattaneo]

Guys,

I am unfamiliar with the inner workings of AI-Carriers - and similar software.
From what I can see from the Beta 4, SimConnect seems to work perfectly, but I have not tried to install AICarriers in P3D - will give it a try tonight.

[SkippyBing]

Copy of my work in progress http://z13.invisionfree.com/Flying_S...?showtopic=367 any feedback appreciated. Plus questions on how it works as I've probably forgotten to mention something important...

[Dino Cattaneo]

Quick update... I was unable to install AiCarriers2 in P3Dv2 - I don't know if it is impossible, or there is just a parameter I have to set or what.
But... here are two poor images of cool things - Javier's Nimitz imported in P3Dv2 casts shadows on aircrafts (including VC) and on itself (actually you can see deck crew casting shadows too).
Finally, a modern graphics engine.

[Navy Chief]

Wow! The shadowing is amazing! NC

[orionll]

What happens if you run AICarriers2r2 alongside Prepar3D v2 (instead of trying to add it by the exe.xml)? I wonder if the Java implementation of SimConnect isn't compatible...

[JimmyRFR]

Copy of my work in progress http://z13.invisionfree.com/Flying_S...?showtopic=367 any feedback appreciated. Plus questions on how it works as I've probably forgotten to mention something important...

Just tried it out. Definitely have feedback for you, not everything worked for me the way I imagine it should - but that said, I'm not sure we want to derail this P3D thread any further than it already is! As such, I'm tossing feedback into a pm for you.

[Daube]

Quick update... I was unable to install AiCarriers2 in P3Dv2 - I don't know if it is impossible, or there is just a parameter I have to set or what.
But... here are two poor images of cool things - Javier's Nimitz imported in P3Dv2 casts shadows on aircrafts (including VC) and on itself (actually you can see deck crew casting shadows too).
Finally, a modern graphics engine.

Fan-ta-stic !!
Thank you so much for these screens, Dino !

[Dino Cattaneo]

Launching AiCarriers separately WORKS PERFECTLY with P3Dv2!
So I guess my issue was in the installation in P3Dv2...
Anyway it works perfectly - the only complaint is that the legacy wake effect for the carrier clashes a bit with the new 3D waves....

[SkippyBing]

Dino,

Would I be right in thinking that all the shadows I've spent hours rendering onto my new carrier are effectively redundant in V2?

If so I may do a V2 version that varies the aircraft in the deck park depending on the month or some other suitable variable.

[JimmyRFR]

Gosh those shadows are really something.... whether the cockpit shadows or the scenery falling on other scenery, it really elevates the visuals to a whole other level.

Good to know that AI Carriers still functions well.