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Converting flyable aircraft to AI

Discussion, tutorials,hints and tips relating to designing military ai aircraft.
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MikeCrem
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Converting flyable aircraft to AI

Post by MikeCrem »

Firstly, apologies if this is posted in the wrong place.

I am creating an environment in FSX that represent the RAF bases in 1960-85. I would like to use a Hastings and a Beverley as AI aircraft. I have sourced FSX flyable versions of each aircraft but have a problem getting them to fly as AI - they never lift off.
I suspect that something needs to be changed in aircraft.cfg and/or the .air file.
Both .air files have section105 set as '2' and both have 1101 and 1199 sections but I am not sure what to look for in those.

Any advice and assistance would be appreciated.

Mike Cremonini
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Firebird
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Re: Converting flyable aircraft to AI

Post by Firebird »

OK what you are making is a common misconception.
Rather than looking at it as trying to make a flyable model into an AI aircraft what you should be doing is trying to make an existing AI aircraft fit the model.

So have a look at your system and see if you have a 4-prop tail dragger and a 4-prop tricycle aircraft that are AI aircraft. At a pinch you can use 2-props and modify them later.

So what you do is save the existing fde (air and cfg files) and then copy across the existing AI fde.
Then you mod this to fit your model. The biggest item to mod will be the contact points but also the viewpoint as well. What you do as a starting point is copy/paste the original contact points across.

WARNING - If the reference_datum_position and empty_weight_CG_position values are different you may well have to move the contact points appropriately to compensate.

Once they line up then the lights and the effects will need to be copied across from the original as well. Again, if you had to make adjustments above then the same adjustments will need to be made again, as they all work off the original reference_datum_position.

Once that works you can start to tweak as you see fit.

The key thing is trying to get an AI aircraft with the performance as close as possible to what you want, as there will be less messing around later on.

For example I think that there is an AI York, or at least was, which might fit the Hastings quite well.
Steve
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MikeCrem
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Re: Converting flyable aircraft to AI

Post by MikeCrem »

Hi Steve
Thanks for the suggestions - I have found both a flyable and AI York so I will try a few experiments. I started this project some 10 or 12 years ago and then got lured away onto P3D and X-Plane. At that time I did have AI versions of both the aircraft but have lost my original FSX setup.
Thanks again

Mike
geoffj
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Re: Converting flyable aircraft to AI

Post by geoffj »

Hi Mike,

I have a Beverley and 2 Hastings models in my FS9 1962 setup. I have just tried them in my FSX Acceleration setup and they work surprisingly well as AI for non-AI aircraft, and as far as I can remember without any modification. They take off, land and taxi as normal, and display OK apart from the dark prop textures.

The Beverley is by Brian Horsey available on Fltsim, one of the Hastings models is by Jens Kristensen and the other by D-GHHH simulationware, both on Avsim. Might be worth a try.

cheers,

Geoff
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TimC340
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Re: Converting flyable aircraft to AI

Post by TimC340 »

Yes, I have those too and they work acceptably in P3D (models converted by MCX). I also have a Britannia which takes a long time to get airborne (it needs a minimum 7000ft runway), but it works. All using the flyable FDEs. Even the animations are more or less ok. I'm sure they could be a lot better if I spent some time on them, but for very occasional visits to that bit of the past they are passable.
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