FSX/P3D 800+ AI Ships, Boats and Global Traffic

This freeware package contains over 800 AI ships, boats, traffic FSX, and P3D. It includes both 200_ai_ship_and_ai_ship_traffic_v2.zip and global_ai_ship_traffic_v1.zip in one package.

This package contains more than 800 AI ships and AI ship traffic routes for the entire globe for P3D and FSX.

UPDATE: If you want a Microsoft Flight Simulator (MSFS) 2020 release-compatible version, check this updated mod here.

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It is an addition to Global AI Ship Traffic V1 released in April 2016. Global AI Ship Traffic V1 (global_ai_ship_traffic_v1.zip) is bundled with this file in order to complete the package - there is no need to download anything else.

The package includes cruise ships, ferries, container ships, bulk carriers, fishing boats, destroyers, frigates, patrol boats, yachts, oil rigs, and more. Routes cover the entire globe.

This package will work in FSX, FSX: Steam Edition, and P3Dv1 to P3Dv4.

This package contains replacement files for 4 ships from Global AI Ship Traffic V1, so they will work in P3Dv4.

This package will not work in FS2004.

Introduction

In order to get the full benefit of this package, it comes bundled with the original release of global_ai_ship_traffic_v1.zip. For further information regards to installation please look in the Manual included in Global AI Ship Traffic V1. Please install global_ai_ship_traffic_v1.zip first.

Three years of modeling, creation of AI routes, and extensive testing come to an end with this package. More than 600 ships ranging from small fishing boats to giant containerships are put on routes across the globe in this package, which compiles all previously released packages and corrections in the Global AI Ship Traffic project into one easy-to-install package.

This package includes the work of numerous persons in the form of ship models, textures, and effects. But even more, people have contributed through testing and giving valuable feedback. I would like to thank all for their contributions small or big and for making sure that we can now present a package that is truly global in coverage and with models representing different regions and making sure that each area has its particular and realistic shipping pattern.

In particular, I would like to thank Erwin Welker, Jean-Pierre Fillion, Knud Kristoffersen, Milton Shupe, Manfred Siedler, Bernardo Barroso, Paul Donnelly, Finn Kristoffer, Didier ‘‘Lagaffe’’ Puentes, Andrew Thomsen, Antonio Diaz, Sebastien Viale, Alberto Garcia, and Robystar. Each of them has played a special role in making this project a reality.

v1 (Included) Details

This package contains more than 600 AI ships and AI ship traffic routes for the entire globe for P3D and FSX. It is a stand-alone package comprising all my AI ship packages and fixes released until April 2016 including 86 new models released in 2016.

The package includes cruise ships, ferries, container ships, oil tankers, bulk carriers, tall ships, fishing boats, destroyers, frigates, patrol boats, icebreakers, and more. Many of the ships have helicopter platforms.

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You can land on all ships with an H painted on decks or hatches. Routes cover all major harbor cities including e.g. New York, Boston, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Vancouver, Seattle, Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Taoyuan, Manila, Jakarta, Sydney, Auckland, Ushuaia, Buenos Aires, Santos, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Panama, Chennai, Mumbai, Dubai, Cape Town, Lagos, Dakar, Las Palmas, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, London, Copenhagen, Aarhus, Gothenburg, Gibraltar, Barcelona, Istanbul, Marseille, Athens, Napoli, Bergen, Oslo, St. Petersburg, and many more.

These routes will not work in FS2004

For users of FS2004 – no luck - The files in this package are made for use with FSX and P3D only. They will not work in FS2004 and the traffic files cannot be made to work in FS2004 as AI ship traffic works in a completely different and much more limited way in FS2004. Sorry, but nothing to do...

Installation

Standard installation if you have not installed any previous packages:

1. Unzip the file 200_AI_Ship_and_ship_traffic.zip to a temporary folder
2. Copy all files from the effects folder to the folder Microsoft Flight Simulator X/Effects/
3. Copy all folders from the Simobjects/boats/ folder to the folder Microsoft Flight Simulator X/Simobjects/boats/
4. Copy all folders from the Simobjects/animals/ folder to the folder Microsoft Flight Simulator X/Simobjects/animals/
5. Copy all files from the Scenery/World/Scenery/ folder to the folder Microsoft Flight Simulator X/Scenery/World/Scenery/
6. Copy all files from the sound folder to the folder Microsoft Flight Simulator X/sound/
7. Make sure that AI traffic for ships and ferries in FSX settings is set to more than 5%.
8. To do this follow these steps:
   1. Enter Settings from the main menu
   2. Select Customize
   3. Select Traffic
   4. Increase Ships and ferries to above 5 % in Land and sea traffic box

Standard installation if you have one or more of the previous packages installed already (global_ai_ship_traffic_v1.zip):

1. Unzip the file Global AI Ship Traffic to a temporary folder
2. Copy all files from the effects folder to the folder Microsoft Flight Simulator X/Effects/ - accept overwrite
3. Copy all folders from the Simobjects/boats/ folder to the folder Microsoft Flight Simulator X/Simobjects/boats/ - accept overwrite
4. Copy all folders from the Simobjects/animals/ folder to the folder Microsoft Flight Simulator X/Simobjects/animals/
5. Copy all files from the Scenery/World/Scenery/ folder to the folder Microsoft Flight Simulator X/Scenery/World/Scenery/ - accept overwrite
6. Copy all files from the sound folder to the folder Microsoft Flight Simulator X/sound/ - accept overwrite
7. Make sure that AI traffic for ships and ferries in FSX settings is set to more than 5%.
8. To do this follow these steps:
   1. Enter Settings from the main menu
   2. Select Customize
   3. Select Traffic
   4. Increase Ships and ferries to above 5 % in Land and sea traffic box

Alternative advanced installation

If you have a slow computer and install many air or ship AI traffic files the loading time for the simulator might increase and your computer will have to process more during flight... If you are mostly flying in particular areas you can choose either just to install the traffic bgl files for the corresponding areas following the previously described method, or you can choose to place the traffic bgl files in a number of scenery folders in the Microsoft Flight Simulator X/Addon Scenery e.g. Microsoft Flight Simulator X/Addon Scenery/Norwegian_Shipping/Scenery and only activate the scenery folder for the area where you are currently flying.

All traffic files are named according to the following pattern:
?Traffic_Ships_area_route_number e.g. Traffic_Ships_Arabia_Dubai_50904 or Traffic_Ships_Norway_Aalesund_40967. So by sorting alphabetically you can quickly find the different areas and move them to a folder in Addon Scenery e.g. Arabia Shipping, Norway Shipping, Mediterranean Shipping, etc.

Problem-solving

AI traffic does not show up:

You might be looking in the wrong place at the wrong time. If you have all packages installed take a flight from Rio de Janeiro Santos Dumont airport or from San Francisco Intl... You should have ships at all times of the day sailing in and out of Rio de Janeiro and the San Francisco bay area.

If still nothing shows up...

• Traffic files might not have been installed correctly. All files named Traffic_XXX.bgl must be placed in the Microsoft flightsimulatorX/scenery/world/scenery folder

• Your ship AI traffic settings are too low. All traffic files in this package are set to show up at 5 %.

• You have FS9 traffic files present in the area you are looking at. This could be e.g. World of AI files, which even if they work perfectly in FSX has been compiled in FS9 format.

To solve this issue and display all the AI traffic correctly you must convert all FS9 traffic files including air traffic files to FSX format. This is easily done for air traffic files in a few clicks using the freeware software AI Flight Planner AIFP.

Wake, smoke, or light effects are missing

• Not all the ships have smoke effects, but all should have wake effects, and most should have light appearing at a distance of a couple of miles

• If no wake appears it could be due to a missing effect file. Check if the effect files were copied correctly to the effects folder.

• The wake and light effects depend on some standard FSX textures – if you have removed these there will not be any wake or light effects, but still all ships will have a simple light based on the main texture provided for the ship.

Known issues

Light display

• FSX and P3D display light effects differently. All ships have texture-based navigation lights – most have light effects also, but they might not all display properly in P3D

Ships running ending up on the beaches:

• FSX coastlines are not always very precise – I believe to have avoided ships crossing land areas and not to have smashed too many bridges, but even with a team of beta testers we have not surveyed all the ships all along all the routes. You will have the best performance if you use FTX Global vector or a photo scenery.
• Routes have been tested with the default and FTX Global vector and should generally work with both.

Collisions

• Creating shipping routes in FSX takes time... I have tried to create realistic routes between some of the major ports with ships which are either known to have sailed to these ports or could at least realistically go there. But many ships sail on the same AI routes. With smaller ships, the FSX AI traffic engine makes the ships avoid collisions – with bigger ships it is slightly more complicated, therefore all ships on main routes in this package travel at 25 knots – higher speed equals higher safety distance for the FSX engine and it makes the ships turn earlier to avoid collisions. In addition to this, I have put the largest ships on individual routes.

Routes

The routes in this project have been made from two principles. The first is that it should be likely to find the ships in the same place in reality as you see them in the sim, however, the ships do not follow their real-life routes. It would be impossible due to limitations in the sim, which only allow for point-to-point routes without stops.

The second is that traffic is concentrated in areas, where it is most likely that simmers will actually see them i.e. in coastal areas near major airports. There will be little ship traffic mid-ocean as few people will see them and the routes would put your computer to work for nothing.

Ferries are placed on their actual routes and around a hundred routes are served in the sim. However, also here none of them follow their actual schedule. They could have done, but I prioritized having more models and less accuracy on this aspect.

Finally, ships mostly don’t enter harbors... It is a pity because it is nicer when they do, but simmers have so different set-ups and with the default, only many ships would end on land if I let them go into harbors. So usually the ships anchor outside the harbor or just turn around and leave again.

Developer: Henrik Nielsen (and others).