AI Boat Traffic Compiler (AIBTC) is a software to create, edit and compile
schedules for ships in Flight Simulator X. It is inspired by the venerable
TTools of Lee Swordy to create AI aircrafts schedules. A prior knowledge of
aircraft AI traffic is needed to understand this document. A good source of
documentation is the help file of TTools
2.0
A big thank you to Lee
Swordy who published the specification of the BGL traffic files which was
very useful to create this tool.
There are multiple ways to get sea traffic in
FSX:
Static boats. There are
some static boats in main seaports around the world. As said, they are only
static, they don't move. Their density depends on the "scenery complexity" ruler. You can add some
static boats using standard scenery tools, like Rwy12 or the object placement
tool included with the mission SDK (only in FSX deluxe).
LivingWorld boats:LivingWorld is the name of the FSX subsystem
that deals with vehicles additions, like cars, airports ground vehicles and
some boats. In FSX, it handles only inland and leisure boats. The boats
managed by LivingWorld have no schedules or known paths. They just moves
randomly near coastlines and on lakes. You can edit the density of LW boats
using the "Leisure boats" ruler on the
"Traffic" tab, but not manage each
boat separately.
You can also change the models of the boats
used by editing the LWcfg.xml
configuration file. Note that you must recompile this file to SPB format
after editing. The concepts used by LivingWorld traffic generation is very
similar to Autogen features, so I advise you to read autogen and terrain
documentations included in the SDK (don't search documentation about LWcfg.xml
it is yet undocumented)
Mission or SimConnect-managed
boats : these boats are created ang managed by the mission system or
some kind of third-party add-on using simconnect. The developper must include
a list of waypoints for each moving object he wants to include in the
simulator. These boats are thus restricted to very special situations and not
available in a general flying context.
AI boats: the AI boats
(Artificial Intelligence) are managed by the same AI system that provides
aerial traffic since FS2002. In FSX, it can also handles boats. The features
offfered by AI boats are very powerful : you can add your own models, define
accurate schedules and routes to follow. The AI Boat Traffic Compiler Tool
address only this type of traffic.
Download /
Installation
Last version : 0.2 release date: 3 March 2007. Download here. You must have
Java 5.0 installed on your computer before. You can download it free here. This
release fixe a bug in traffic file format. Unzip the file to a temporary
directory and double click on aibtc.jar.
If JRE 5.0 is correctly installed, the application should be launched
automatically, otherwise please verify your java installation. When you run
the application for the first time, you should set up the correct paths as they
are not automatically detected. Choose menu Files->Set source folder to change the path
where you want to store the text files and working files. Set up the traffic
installation path withmenu
Files->Set destination folder. You should locate your FSX installation
(generally c:\program files\microsoft games\flight simulator x) and then change
to Scenery\World\scenery subdirectory. If you choose a different directory, your
traffic files will not be visible by FSX.
Conceptual
differences between boats and aircraft traffic
Globally, all the facts
needed to create and understand boat traffic are the same as for aircrafts.
However slight differences should be noted:
Boats do not travel between two ports, but follow a route instead. All
points on the route must be specified while creating the traffic. There are no
known limitation on the number of points. If you create a traffic that places
two boats on the same route, they will not collide or sink, but ignore
themselves.
When a boat arrive at the last point of a route, it can stay at this point
until the departure of the next order (FERRY type) or can dispatch on a 300
meters circle around the last point (CARGO type). The cargo type allows to
have than one boat at a terminal port at the same time. When designing cargo
boat routes, it is recommended to place endpoints at least 300 meters away
from land.
Boat plans can have more than two legs in their orders, however if more
than two different routes are used, the traffic may cause FSX to crash
Schedules can be repeated on a periodic basis specified by the user. The
frequency availables are the same as for aircrafts (1 hour - 1 week) plus 2
weeks, 5 weeks and 8 weeks to allow longer travels
Aircraft-specific features are discarded (IFR/VFR, touch'n'goes, flight
numbers, altitudes)
No custom schedules can be used with the TrafficDatabaseBuilder tool
shipped with Flight Simulator X. That's why AIBTC was
developed.
Text traffic file
formats
Boat traffic text files are very similar to AI aircraft. There are 3
distinct files needed to compile a valid traffic:
The boats file
(Boats*.txt). It specifies to model names of boats to use in
this traffic. The format is the same as for aircrafts :
AC#7,25,"VEH_water_cargoG_sm"
AC#7 introduce the id number of this entry. Please use different number
for each entries. You can also use the BT# prefix to make a distinction
between ships and aircrafts
25 is the boat speed. Acceptable values are around 15 and 25.
VEH_water_cargoG_sm is the model name. The model name could be found in
the sim.cfg of each boats directory in the SimObjects\Boats directory under
the FSX installation. Each title= line
specifiy a different model name. An invalid name will cause traffic to not
appear
The routes file (CSV)
A basic
file format for boat routes is specified in the Microsoft Flight Simulator X
SDK. You can use it to compile your traffic. A route has the following
format:
The first number (4721) is the identifier of the route. It should be
unique in the file and be a number
The other numbers are terminal identifiers. They are not used by the
traffic compiler
Follows a block of latitude, longitude pairs. At least two points are
needed in a route. Only decimal position is supported. Degree-Minute-Seconds
notations are not supported yet
The order of the points on a route is
important. A route is two-way as you can specify the travel sense in the boat
orders. The canonical way is from the
first point defined in a block to the last, the reverse is from the last to the
first. Alternatively, you can use a KML file to specify routes instead of a
CSV :
The routes file
(KML/KMZ)
(Routes*.kml) The main format used by AIBTC
is the GoogleEarth KML format. It can be
viewed and edited using free versions of Google Earth, so it is more practical
to use this format for routes. Only one route file format (KML or CSV) can be
used to compile a route
KML is more stable than KMZ. If you encounter
problem using KMZ routes, please save your file as KML instead. All paths
stored in a KML/KMZ file will be parsed to extract the routes, however only
those referenced by plans will be compiled in the BGL. The path name saved
in Google Earth is used as the identifier of the route. If a name is
non-numerical, the route will be skipped and could not be used for defining
plans. Path informations other than latitude and longitude are not used. If
some parse errors are experienced with KML files, it is advised to remove all
styles informations and keep only points coordinates.
Paths in Google
Earth are shown undirected, however the canonical direction is from the first
point added to the last point.
Schedule file (Plans*.txt)
Each
line of the file specifiy a different boat. Lines starting with '//' are
comments and not read by the program. The line is split using the comma as a
field separator. A plan starts by 4 fields then is followed by the list of plan
orders (at least two)
AC#14,B60264,60%,2Hr
AC#14 define the boat model identifier. Use the same identifiers as
specified in Boats.txt
B60264 is the boat name. It is not displayed or used by the traffic, but
could help to distinguish plans. Only characters valid for an aircraft
registration could be used here. Avoid punctuation marks and use no more than
10 leters.
60% is the minimum traffic percent that must be configured to see this
boat in the simulator
2Hr is the repeat frequency. You can specifiy it as a number of hours or
weeks, e.g. 1344Hr or 8WEEK
In each order, a departure time is given.
The departure is relative from the start of the period. If a plan has a 4 hours
periods, then an order that starts at 1:45 will be repeated at 5:45, 9:45,
13:45, 17:45, and 21:45 each day. Although all these times could be used to
define a plan, the first one (between 0:00 and 4:00 the end of the period)
should be used.
For periods that span multiple days, a day number is also
used, followed by a '/' before the time. Day numbers starts at 0. For 1WEEK
periods, 0 means Monday, so for instance 4/15:20:40 means 15:20:40 on
friday. For periods that span multiple weeks, the day number 0 is
(apparently) the first monday of the year, though it remains unsure. An order consists in 5 comma
separated fields:
00:18:19,00:24:06,1754,reverse,ferry
The first field is the departure time or day/time if period is more than
24 hours. The time is always GMT.
The second field the arrival time. It is not used by the program since the
arrival time is recalculated based on the route length and the boat speed.
When a file is compiled, calculated arrival times are inserted back in the
file. It's generally a good idea to check the calculated arrival time to see
if the next leg does not starts before the arrival of the current leg.
Otherwise the boat may conflict and not appear at correct times.
1754 is the route number, as defined by the Boats.KML or Boats.CSV file.
Only numerical identifiers are supported
The fourth field is a boolean indicating the travel direction on the
route. If it is marked reverse, then
the route is followed from the last point to its first point. Any other word
in this position means normal direction
The last flag concern terminal parking type. As said before, a boat marked
FERRY will stop at the endpoint of the route. The default behaviour is not
FERRY, so any other word in the leg definition will cause the boat to find a
parking spot on a circle around the endpoint.
When
designing flight plans, users should be very careful to the order and directions
of the legs. Like aircrafts schedules, a boat schedule must loop back to its
first point before the end of its period. However improper route definitions and
direction may cause the circuit to break. AIBTC check circuit continuity and
errors. A complete plan definition looks like this:
AC#14,B60264,60%,2Hr,00:18:19,00:24:06,1754,reverse,ferry,01:18:19,01:24:06,1754,normal,ferry
Note that the plan use only one route with one
leg marked as "normal" and the other as "reverse". This is the safest way of
creating a boat plan. Due to some limitations in the AI subsystem, no more than
two different routes (not including direction) could be used in one plan. The
contrary may cause FSX to crash. You can fortunately have more than two
orders provided they use only two routes and makes a correct closed
circuit.
Using the
software
Users familiar with the TTools 2.0 graphical interface will
have no problems using AIBTC:
First, path settings
should be set correctly using the Files
menu. Left and right file lists will only show file types appropriate for an
operation (TXT/CSV/KML/KMZ files for compilation and BGL for decompilation).
To compile a traffic, select one of your text files on the left panel.
Other text files needed for the compilation will be automatically selected base
on the file names. If not please make sure that your traffic files are all named
with the same suffix: BoatsProject.txt RoutesProject.kml
PlansProject.txt Click on the compile
button and the traffic BGL will be generated. The output directory must be
correctly set to the FSX Scenery/World/scenery directory.
To decompile a
traffic, select a traffic file (bgl) and click on Decompile. 3 text files will be generated in
the source directory.
Actually no other features or command line
arguments are supported by AIBTC.
Example traffic
An example
traffic is providen in the "Samples" subdirectory of AIBTC. It contains the
source of an example aircraft carrier strike group. The ships depart Norfolk at
16:50Z and go to Napoli. The period of the traffic is 8 weeks, meaning that you
can see the group departing at the following dates:
5 January 2006
2 March 2006
27 April 2006
22 June 2006
17 August 2006
12 October 2006
7 December 2006
If you experience problem, for example traffic
not appearing; a good debugging tool is the TrafficExplorer toolbox. It can be
installed with the FSX SDK. To activate it, edit the dll.xml file situated in Document and settings\User\Application
Data\Microsoft\FSX and change the Disabled status to false in the configuration block of
TrafficToolbox. In the traffic explorer or map, uncheck the aircraft only option to see all
boats.
