Using Ships in Flight Simulator

[LJ922]

Hi All,

Some of you know that I have been having some fun lately using cruise ships in FS9.

Two excellent freeware cruise ships have recently been added to the flight sim world by Mitsuya "Hama" Hamaguchi. The first is the Asuka, a 28,856 ton vessel with a passenger capacity of 592. The second, and most recent, is the Queen Mary 2, at 151,400 tons and a capacity of 2,620 passengers.

The Asuka is available in the Flight Sim.com library under the name “asukav03.zip”. The Queen Mary 2 can be downloaded from http://fs-shipyards.com; the file name is “ship-QM2.zip”. (Be sure to get the correct file; there is an AI version of the QM2 there as well.) While you are at FS-Shipyards take a look around at their excellent download library. Some great work is going on and you will find ships of all kinds there.

Piloting the cruise ships is easy. Be sure the water rudders are down (Control W) and full throttle will deliver about 40 knots at maximum speed. Use the slew controls to maneuver in tight quarters and when departing and arriving in ports. The QM2 performs much better in turns thanks to improvements made by the author. The bridge of the QM2 is simply fantastic as you will see in the screenshots below.

Piloting is done manually, since the autopilot and FSNav autopilot are not available when on the surface, be it land or water. FSNav navigation course planning can be done quite nicely, however, allowing you to take the ships over long distances using only a very few course heading changes.

Speaking of pics, here are a few from my recent travels:

Asuka docked along Front Street in Hamilton, Bermuda
http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/Attachments/up1/81719.jpg

Asuka departing Freeport, Bahamas
http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/Attachments/up1/81716.jpg

Bridge of the QM2
http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/Attachments/up1/81717.jpg

QM2 docked in in Southampton
http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/Attachments/up1/81720.jpg

Download and install the ships in your FS9 aircraft folder so you can see me as you fly overhead. I’ll be out there on our FSHost server looking for you in the FS9 multiplayer world.

[LJ922]

I have received a message from Hama, the author of the Queen Mary 2 model. There is a weight and balance problem with the original Aircraft.cfg file. At very low fuel levels, the bow rises out of the water, making the passengers very angry. :(

The fix will improve the balance greatly, thereby restoring the passengers to happiness. :-)

Use a text editor to open the Aircraft.cfg file. Under "WEIGHT_AND_ BALANCE", simply change the value for "empty_weight" to 70000.

Ed

[LJ922]

More tips on piloting the Queen Mary 2...

SLOW SPEED MANEUVERS

Use your slew controls to maneuver the ship in harbors and when docking. The minimum lateral slew rate forward and back and left and right in FS9 is 6 knots for a single keypress which is really too fast to correctly simulate the slow rates used by the ships. The slew rotation speed is also way too fast. These can be easily adjusted in your FS9 cfg file.

Go to your C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\Microsoft\FS9 folder and back up the FS9 cfg file. Then open the cfg file with Notepad. About one third of the way down the page are the following entries under the SLEW heading:

MaxLateralRate=40000.000000
MaxVerticalRate=1000.000000
MaxPitchRate=360.000000
MaxBankRate=360.000000
MaxHeadingRate=360.000000

Change the MaxLateralRate value to 16000.000000
Change the MaxHeadingRate value to 40.000000

Save the modified file as the new FS9 cfg file. The new MaxLateralRate value will lower the lateral slew speed from 6 knots to 2 knots for one keypress; the change in the MaxHeadingRate will result in a very slow controlled rotation of the ship on its axis for a single keypress.

Remember these changes affect slewing in all aircraft, so you may want to alter my selections some to get the effects you want.

FUEL

The ship carries sufficient fuel to run about six hours at full throttle. It begins to pitch up and down some when you get below 25% fuel, so you'll need to refuel occasionally while on those long trips.

You can do this by using the FS9 menu 'Aircraft/Fuel and Balance" and manually entering additional fuel values.

A better way is to go to the FS9 menu "Options/Controls/Assignments" and assign a keypress to the "Add Fuel Quantity" event. I assigned Shift F to this event. After making this assignment, pressing Shift F several times in succession will immediately refuel all tanks to maximum and you won't even have to slow down.

[salt_air]

Hello Ed,

On behalf of myself and the rest of us who feel this way, and maybe don't have the time to say somethin', I would like to say thanks for this new facet of the simulator that you have not only introduced us to but fully researched and generously written instructions on how to use.

You always seem to find interesting "stuff" which is pretty cool in and of itself. But it's the sharing of what you find and taking the time to fix what's wrong or bothersome and sharing that as well. I'd like to include a hardy thank you for that also.

There's really about two things that keep this community together, one is finding new "stuff" to keep up interest and the other is helping and sharing even the most novice members of our fine sim-world. You do both very well. You are a pillar in the community and desire some great award for all your work. Keep on keepin' on ol' buddy and know we all appreciate it, even if you only hear it from one or two of us.

Let's all raise a few glasses of whooopass to Ed Sheats(LJ922).

;-)

[bgenesis]

Yeah, isn't it awesome that FS is also a car and ship sim?

[LJ922]

Thanks for the kind words, Austin. Sharing the news in FS is what it's all about. Most of us probably take a lot more than we give, so I am always glad to find an opportunity to contribute something.

Best,

Ed

[LJ922]

Two more Hama ships for your viewing (and driving) pleasure.

The Jet Foil is a neat little craft with a great cockpit and Virtual Cockpit.
http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/Attachments/up1/82554.jpg

http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/Attachments/up1/82555.jpg

The Le France has just been released and is an excellent model of the original ship.
http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/Attachments/up1/82557.jpg

You can get both at: http://www.fs-shipyards.com

Enjoy,

Ed

[Thatch]

Ed, now who would want to play with Ships in FS2004 ?? Just Joking Mate LOL

Cheers
Ian
FS Shipyards

[LJ922]

Why I WOULD!! And so would YOU!!

Glad to have you aboard over here mate. You are doing a great job with FS-Shipyards. Many thanks for all the contributions you have made to the FS community, Ian.

Best,

Ed