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Ships Instructions

Ship Model Library - December 18, 2023

Please find attached the model presentation I showed in our meeting with some updating. Importantly I added a couple of examples of general arrangement plans for ship types which could be used for testing a scalable approach. For these first types I think it should be relatively simple to achieve a good and realistic result, which would in fact cover a large number of vessels.

I also include the extended vessel type list which we have used as basis for the model library.

Ships - August 27, 2024

Attached a new list with suggestions based on the match analysis.

I have included suggestions for yachts up to 20m. It can be these or other others; the model doesn’t matter that much but the sizes are important to have a coverage. I have reduced so there is now only one of the three large cruise ships included.

  • In general models will now be selected to be equal or smaller than the size of the ship data; a model of 100m will represent a ship from 90-120m. By selecting a smaller ship we avoid too many overlaps. But overlaps cannot be completely avoided as you have ships with the AIS sender at the front and ships with the sender at the aft. THIS IS IMPORTANT FOR YOUR MODEL BUILDERS – the center of the model MUST BE WHERE THE BRIDGE IS ON THE SHIP MODEL. If not your models will dock on land or on top of each other.
  • As you have very few models below 25m eg pilot boats, the matching must be changed to 90-130% at this point; in the future if you have more models or a dynamic sizing this can be changed.
  • At the start of the project I mentioned that FLAG in the AIS data is an important selection criteria. It must be included else you will have a Taiwanese fishing boat in Cuxhaven… And a German in Kaoshiung… It will only be more important as you add models, but when I gave go ahead with the model selection in the debrief this was an underlying assumption and already now it will be a problem if you do not include it. I know Kai has also mentioned this, but it seems not to happen.
  • Another visual issue. For the matching in GAIST I did an almost full list of European and American car ferries to secure that we using the IMO number as key got a good visual match – I highly recommend that we copy this feature from GAIST because it changes the visual correctness tremendously.
  • Remember to tell your model builders that sails must be animated to be removed when the ship is stopped… A marina full of sailboats with sails up will look… well… strange.

MSFS 2024 Realtime Ship Traffic - Ship-Type for Sim.cfg files - September 27, 2024

I have attached the current Ship-Type assignment for the Ships we have selected so far. Some ships have gotten two types for better model matching results (yellow marked).

There are some information missing in the table (red marked), can you ask Gaya to provide me with that information so I can include them in the data for the model-matching algorithm optimization I am currently working on.

As soon as you can confirm what Ships from Henrik suggestion will be added as well, I will update the Excel-File and should be able to finish the optimization of the model matching algorithm within a few days. After that I will update the information for Sarah and her team for the testing-process.

Instructions on Ship Flag Features - October 30, 2024

Details on the Ship Flag features we added last week, which you will need to implement into your files.

For context, I asked Asobo to implement this feature to constrain certain boats to specific countries or seas. It will be the first parameter read by our model matching. This was primarily made to prevent the German rescue ship HERMANN MARWEDE from spawning outside German seas, but it can be used with any ship. For reference, we are using the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 - Wikipedia code.

Now that the system is enabled, here are the mandatory and optional steps you will need to take:

  • Mandatory: Add shipFlag = DE for HERMANN MARWEDE models.
  • Mandatory: Add shipFlag = Sunk to all sunken models. It’s a faster way to override other models matching criteria for sunken ships and avoid bugs.
  • Optional: Add shipFlag = Any to each other model’s XML to set the default option. Not mandatory but great to make sure all files contain the same fields

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Final note they are case sensitive, so better check twice on these before saving.

ShipTraffic - Flags - November 3, 2024

From our consultants:L

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I have attached an updated Excel-Sheet with the Flag-Values included. I have cross checked the data with the Match-Data Henrik created for the GAIST RealTime version some months ago.

Adding to many flag restrictions in the limited Model-Set would have a negative impact on the overall match-results world-wide that’s why I have only set a few flags on very specific ship models for now.