Military AI Works

I was curious as to what they looked like, so today I created some simple plans to get them into view. I haven't gone over them in any detail, I just thought it would be neat to share what I saw.

Here's the F35.

Pretty wiggly in flight, the fde is needing some serious attention and the elevator seems fixed in a hard pitch down position. It looks fantastic sitting on the apron, not so much watching it try and maintain flight though.

RQ-170 Sentinel - It looks great but is a bit wobbly when flying, shouldn't be too tough to tweak.


Size comparison to the default Iris F22 included in P3d.


There is also a V-22, it's not quite as detailed as the others and has it's engines in the flying position at all times.

There is also an F14, F15, F16, KAI T50, Tornado, and TU-95 that I haven't looked at yet.

There was also this tiny little one.. The Fury 1500.

So it has its own military AI models included??

You bet, it's not a ton of different models and only one repaint for each but it's something. Whether they worth to be put to use or not is the question.

I never knew this, V2 I guess?

I've never noticed any in v2, but I've never looked for any either. I'll have to check later today.

Edit: I just searched through P3D v2 Acacdemic and either I don't know where to look for these AI aircraft in v2 or they are only included in v3.

They are in V2.5 as well. In the Simobjects\Airplanes folder. Looks like the MV22 and Fury 1500 UAV are new one to V3.

Dave YVR ATC wrote:They are in V2.5 as well. In the Simobjects\Airplanes folder. Looks like the MV22 and Fury 1500 UAV are new one to V3.

Dave,

You wouldn't happen to be using the Professional Plus version of P3D v2.5 and/or v3.0?

If so, how do you like it and are the additional military capabilities useful?

Dave,

I just upgraded from P3D v2.4 to v2.5.12946.0 and now have the AI present that you listed plus a C-130J AI.

I haven't had a chance to look at them yet, so I can't comment on their quality or usefulness.

BTW...The F-35A is Dino Cattaneo's flyable model and that is probably why you were having issues with it as an AI. There is a second air file in its aircraft folder named F-35AI.air. If you haven't already, you might change the aircraft.cfg file so as to use this alternate F-35AI.air file and see if that improves its AI performance.

Any LOD stats yet, I'm still looking at P3D.

For the F-35A, MCX reports 23000 polygons (roughly 3-4 times that of an AI aircraft) and no LODs. Draw calls are 282 compared to around 40 for an AI aircraft. There are 42 individual textures compared to the usual single one for AI.

It's a user flyable aircraft.

John

Victory103 wrote:Any LOD stats yet, I'm still looking at P3D.

Chris,

Not that I am aware of, but then I just finished the upgrade to v2.5.

Edit: I just checked the F-16 model with MCX (thanks for the idea John) and it has 2 LODS, 35 and 400. LOD 400 has 20,870 triangles, 23,027 vertices, and 43 draw calls, while the LOD 35 has 8272 triangles, 8829 vertices and 43 draw calls. The texture folder contains 14 individual textures.

Below is a small screenshot included in the texture folder:

Before I venture back into P3D I would like to know if the things that annoyed me are still there. If you feel like playing around could you please check if:

...Mike's B-52.... are the lights still separated from the aircraft?
...all afterburner effects still way too tiny? This could be checked nicely with Menno's SR-71.

I can't remember the other things that bugged me right now.....

gsnde wrote:Before I venture back into P3D I would like to know if the things that annoyed me are still there. If you feel like playing around could you please check if:

...Mike's B-52.... are the lights still separated from the aircraft?
...all afterburner effects still way too tiny? This could be checked nicely with Menno's SR-71.

I can't remember the other things that bugged me right now.....

Martin,

Which version were you using?

I just upgraded from v2.4 to v2.5 and haven't got any addons installed yet, so I can't answer your questions.

Oh, I thought you might be using the new V3 version. I think I removed P3D with Version 2.4, but it can have been 2.5 as well - I can't remember

So I think to it's safe to say that they are not true AI models in the sense of what we are used to.

OH wow, I didn't realize they were that bad.

P3d V3 is stunning, a leap forward from 2.5. With 2.4 and 2.5 the AI lights were near non existent and now with V3 if using the shockwave lights, they are overdone. While up close, normal AI lights are great but as you move away from the aircraft, the lights get bigger and brighter up to a certain point. Its an improvement from before without a doubt, but it's still not ideal. The B52 still has it's lights above the aircraft and it's smoke effects make it look like space debris reentering the atmosphere. Small things overall imo compared to the pluses that it brings over previous sims.

gsnde wrote:Before I venture back into P3D I would like to know if the things that annoyed me are still there. If you feel like playing around could you please check if:

...Mike's B-52.... are the lights still separated from the aircraft?
...all afterburner effects still way too tiny? This could be checked nicely with Menno's SR-71.

I can't remember the other things that bugged me right now.....

Martin,

I just set up my personal KBTV airport including the VT ANG airbase with my custom AI aircraft flight plans in P3D v2.5+.

All contrails, engine smoke and lights for the various AI were fine and the afterburner for my F-16C/D's were full size. The only issue I found was with the NBAI F-18E/F Super Hornet afterburners, which were about half size. I fixed this by replacing the fx_nbai_hornet_ab.fx file with the fx_nbai_F15_ab.fx file that I was using for my HTAI F-16C/D's, but had to lower their positions significantly.

One big change I found was that in P3D v2.5 the nav lights don't come on until engine start instead of 15 minutes prior as they do in FS9. I'm not sure if this was the case in FSX, but if it was I never noticed it.

BTW...I was delighted to find that I could still install the multiplayer full featured ATC tower to observe, track and listen to my AI flights just as I had been able to do FSX.

mikewmac wrote:

gsnde wrote: One big change I found was that in P3D v2.5 the nav lights don't come on until engine start instead of 15 minutes prior as they do in FS9. I'm not sure if this was the case in FSX, but if it was I never noticed it.

Yes that's the case in FSX too. Kevin has spent many hours trying to find an alternative xml trigger that would have the same result and I've spent a good few hours testing the possibilities for him. Alas, we haven't found one yet, so at the moment in FSX, parts like canopies stay open the whole time until engine start.

John