Creating 'flyable' Ships in CFS2

[Padser]

~S~

I am currently working on the creation of a 'flyable' aircraft carrier for use as a target in online bombing scenarios for CFS2.

By flyable I mean that it should be treated as an aircraft by the game, although in actual fact all I want is for a player to be able to CFO to a location and then sit still and bob around on the water

I've been experimenting with the stock Essex, and, by including an airfile and a little aircraft.cfg file tinkering I can get it to appear in the game. My assumption is that the damage profile provided in the original will still work and that the model/texture files will allow other players to see the ship in the normal way. The fact that I can see the ship offline would appear to bear this out.

I'm having some difficulty in controlling the contact points in the aircraft.cfg file. This is a similar issue to the seaplane issues I was having some time ago, but my experiments so far are not proving successful so I'm here begging advice again...

I can get accurate enough reference points from the dp file to give me a reasonable idea of where the ship 'ends' and 'begins', what I wonder is how many I will need to make the ship float placidly and level while on the sea.

I'm using contact point class 4 and am assuming a 'scrape' (float?) point in each corner of the bottom of the hull, one on each of the port and starboard sides amidships and one slap bang in the centre on the underside of the hull.

At present, however, the carrier performs something of a cartwheel and explodes when placed on the water... ahem.

Eg.

point.0=4, 460, -40, -40, 1574.8032, 0, 0, 0, 0.896361, 2.5,0.9809,0,0,2,0,0 //port bow
point.1=4, 460, 40, -40, 1574.8032, 0, 0, 0, 0.896361, 2.5,0.9809,0,0,3,0,0 //starboard bow
point.2=4, -430, -40, -40, 1574.8032, 0, 0, 0, 0.896361, 2.5,0.9809,0,0,2,0,0 //port stern
point.3=4, -430, 40, -40, 1574.8032, 0, 0, 0, 0.896361, 2.5,0.9809,0,0,3,0,0 //starboard stern

point.4=4, 0, 7, -40, -40, 1574.8032, 0, 0, 0, 0.896361, 2.5,0.9809,0,0,4,0,0 //port midships
point.5=4, 0, 40, -40, 1574.8032, 0, 0, 0, 0.896361, 2.5,0.9809,0,0,4,0,0 //starboard midships
point.6=4, 0, 0, -40, 1574.8032, 0, 0, 0, 0.896361, 2.5,0.9809,0,0,4,0,0 //hull midships

point.7=2,   460,-108, 67, 1200, 0, 0.00,  0.0, 0.00, 0.0, 0.00, 0.0,  0.0, 5 // deck port bow
point.8=2,   460, 100, 67, 1200, 0, 0.00,  0.0, 0.00, 0.0, 0.00, 0.0,  0.0, 6 // deck starboard bow
point.9=2, -430,  -108, 67, 2400, 0, 0.00,  0.0, 0.00, 0.0, 0.00, 0.0,  0.0, 9 // deck port stern
point.10=2,   -430,  100, 67, 1200, 0, 0.00,  0.0, 0.00, 0.0, 0.00, 0.0,  0.0, 4 // deck starboard stern

static_pitch=0.000000
static_cg_height=0


I've not started playing with any of the other values yet, just points 0, 1, 2 & 3 - I'm assuming the others will either not matter or can be fixed once I'm properly afloat...

Any thoughts?

~S~

Pads

[Hagar]

I haven't tried this myself but a CFS2 ship starts life as an aircraft. It shouldn't be difficult to make it "flyable". There are several examples of "flyable" ships for FS2002/4. If I was doing this I would check out the AIR file/Aircraft.cfg of one of these for reference. The flight dynamics might not be fully compatible with CFS2 but would give you the basic idea.

[Bombardier101]

Pads, Pads! I know what your 'sinking feeling' problem is with the CV-9 exploding. If you have DPEd (if you don't, get it from Simviation in utilities) then change the ammo weight on all guns to 0.0, otherwise the ship is 'overloaded'. Just give me an IM to keep in touch. A ship project together would be good. Look out for my CFS2 IJN player submarine on Simviation.

<<<<<--------------------EDIT------------------>>>>>>>>>>

Hi again Pads! Sorry actualy, I thought it was about the DP. Get the US PT boat from Mark Walsh at Simviation. His aircraft.cfg and airfile will work for all CFS2 ships, I've tried it! So just get that....

I'd love to do a ship project with you , I'm realy into the ships, I've tried the Soryu as a player ship, it topped 30 knots and worked, just as you modify the DP (see the upper part of this post!)


Regards,

Bombardier

[Padser]

~S~ Bombs

I'll try the ammo weight - you're right of course, it must weigh a tremendous amount!  

I'll look into the pt boat air file etc., too. Though I have now located the CFS2 ships for FS2002 conversion that Hagar mentioned, so will try this first. I've had a look at them and (provided they can be ported back in CFS2 ) they look about right and seem to have appropriate speeds and handling.

To be honest, B, my technical abilities are pretty much limited to combining bits and pieces of stuff that other far more proficient and talented people than I have already made - not sure I'd be much use in any project requiring anything more sopphisticated than that...

Thanks for the input!



Pads

[Padser]

~S~

Mmm - fixing ammo weight doesn't seem to help and the CFS2 ships for FS2002 are proving problematic, too.

Still, that's why we like doing this right?  ::)

Giving it up for the night

Pads

[Padser]

~S~

I take it back - Mark Walsh's excellent adaptation of the PBT Blackcat aircraft.cfg and air.file do indeed seem to work! Hurray!

Thanks all for the assistance.

Now for some testing and tweaking and some more testing and some more tweaking and some more ....

~S~

Pads

[Bombardier101]

Gosh Pads, glad you like it I'll try post a Soryu on Simviation LOL!


Regards,


Bombardier

[Bombardier101]

~S~

Hmmmm, might do a mission with you in a carrier or some other Japanese ship, and you have to stay close to the non-'aircraft' ships for protection (they fire flak, you cannot).

[marick626]

I tried that once with a tube I created just to see if it worked

It doesnt
It crashes when I take it to the water

[Bombardier101]

It doesnt
It crashes when I take it to the water

When you said 'it crashes' did you mean CFS2 crashes or the ship crashes?

[marick626]

When you said 'it crashes' did you mean CFS2 crashes or the ship crashes?

what I mean that it goes splash

[Padser]

~S~

Ah ha! I see.

My ships are here: http://www.spikespage.com/downloads/ships.html (we had to move the C15 site)

You can land them on the water after an air start - let them descend and maintain around 50kts (if I remember rightly) as you touch down. Keep the nose (bow) up and hold it nice and level. It should just glide onto the water and slowly come to a stop. Full throttle should give you around 30kts on the water (but you'll need plenty of rudder to hold it steady on course).

Alternatively, when you first enter the game, bleed some speed off and then CFO to a water-based location. If you try to CFO at entry speed, you'll certainly crash when you touch the water. The ship seems to retain the speed it was travelling at just before you CFO - as long as you're not travelling too quickly, it will just come to a stop when CFO drops you on the water.

~S~

Pads

[Bombardier101]

Great, I've downloaded those, I'll try'em soon!

Like those ships! I'm gonna try get that Tidori PB on Simviation.

[Padser]

~S~

We had a lot of fun with our multiplayer bombers and these ships in online bomb runs, when I was with CAW-15 (I fly PF on Hyperlobby these days, so don't get in here so often).

Be sure to watch out for that crash bubble though...

You can find the bombers at the same site: http://www.spikespage.com/downloads/multiplayer.html

All the best,

Pads

[Demo]

maybe you could make it landable as in a player is controling the vessel and another player could land on the deck... giving you a realistic landing situation (ship in motion)