Hiya, here's a Yousendit link for a two-scenery package that includes the new Aircarrier USS STEVE HINSON over Barbados, a massive, futuristic apartment complex with a landing pad, and as a bonus you get the capable 'Skyskimmer' to use for your helipad landings.
Gentle landings for these gmax-hardened surfaces please, or you'll break your aircraft or fall through the surface.
Make sure to read the README that is included.
This package contains clean, easy to install add-ons for FS9.
Please, if you have any interest in this sort of stuff, give me a little feedback here in this thread, as these are untested in anyone's sim but mine.
I just bought this apartment complex at Conrad Black's "OMIGOD I have to pay for these lawyers!" sale, and you're all invited over for a killer lunch...but there's a catch - you have to land on the helipad that is next to my private entrance. Good luck. Just ignore the creepy guy with the weird sunglasses.
Ahh, I just fill me guts and fall into bed whenever it suits me..well - on weekends anyway.
A few comments;
Forget about trying to land on the lower, STOL deck of the Steve Hinson, it's not hardened yet.
The Zkimmer landing struts are not that strong, it doesn't take too much to wreck them and crash. (I'm still Mickey Mouse at the contact point params in the .CFG file, did my best.) They're not stupidly weak or anything, but you will want to feather touch to avoid any problems.
Stay away from the carrier's inner walls alongside the runway - crash city if you bring a wing within a few feet of the walls. Also, keep away from the entrance beside the landing pad on the building scenery, those walls are 'crashy'...try and stay around the circle.
Yes, there is some runway surface 'flickering' when you are at a distance from both the carrier and the helipad building. Not much I can do there, it's the so called 'invisible' platform that sits just a hair beneath or above the visual runway or pad surfaces. I couldn't find a better balance between the 'platform_' and the meshes that make up the visual model....had to have the wheels sit at the proper level compared to the visual models, not perfect but darn close!! Looks good in the sim, but for some reason the Zkimmer's struts will sink in a little on the helipad, where the helicopter's struts sit almost perfectly.
Have fun, and don't forget to chime in with any comments or critiques.
EDIT: I usually set up a few flights with the Zkimmer at a nice approach distance for the building, with the city of Vancouver in the background, great visuals. Do the approach so that if you mess up you go over the other side and not pile into my entrance, thanks. I usually set up a few flights with different approach distances for different aircraft going onto the carrier.
I still want to try out the AFCAD method for landable surfaces as suggested by Mel, but I like these gmax, model-specific hard surfaces over the .XML method. You'll notice that you can fly under the carrier unhindered now.
'Nother EDIT: If you absolutely can't land on these surfaces after a little practice, especially with the Zkimmer (shame!!) - simply SLEW your aircraft carefully and fully onto the surface and then unSLEW, pause and save the flight...it's a riot to take off from these structures as well as land on them!
Last edited by harkonnen on Sun Apr 27, 2008 6:33 pm; edited 3 times in total
Here's a sort of funny story about when I was testing out the surface fine-tuning on the USS Steve Hinson.
I'm nearing the end of the project...the carrier is sitting a few thousand feet up in the beautiful Barbados sky. I have a flight set up with the small Cessna at a perfect approach height and distance and I fire up the sim in order to see how the surface is this time. (If I had a buck for every time I compiled with 'BGLCOMP' and restarted FS9 in the last two weeks I really could buy every registered member lunch!)
My approach is nice and steady and I set my Cessna down ever so nicely early on the deck and start braking as I coast down toward the hangar.
b-BUMP!! - What the heck was that!!?? Halfway down the runway my aircraft dropped suddenly what must have been a foot! Apparently the two triangles that make up the gmax platform rectangle are not matched up perfectly in height. How the heck did that happen? O.K...time to swing 'er around in the hangar and go for a take-off. Down the runway I go, gaining speed, keeping centered, hoping the ridge in my brand new runway wasn't as bad as it had just seemed. Hmmm...I haven't hit it yet...I get a little hopeful that maybe I had just imagined the last jolt being so bad when...B-BUMP!! I hit the ridge in the other direction, and it was like jumping a foot-high curb at 100 knots!!! ....Somehow my gear struts didn't smash right off, but my propeller struck the lip and stopped dead and I still have the welts from the yoke on my chest!
Now, I was just booting along, accelerating for rotation when I hit this thing...and I just kept going - right off the end of the carrier deck with no propeller and questionable damage to the gear. First thing I did was frantically scan for a road. Pretty close proximity to the Grantley Adam's runway, but not close enough....there's a road...looks like I can try an emergency landing...cranked 'er around to the right and pulled some sudden moves to line up with the roadway before I lost too much precious altitude. These emerg. landings are all breezy if you start with enough altitude - but it gets real when you are almost down...your no-engine plane sure acts differently without thrust! A few more gut-wrenching, nervous moves to avoid stalling too high above the road, and in order not to smash against the telephone pole along the side and I'm down in one piece! The gear held somehow but the prop and shaft are done.
Went into gmax and solved the problem of the mismatched heights and was just glad that I lived to tell the story.
Notice the dead prop in the picture my friend snapped from the ground.
EDIT: Of course I forgot to include something in the Zkimmer package. I gapped on including the texture for one of RD's FX...you're missing the navblue bitmap, so they won't show. I'll get it right when it goes out to the general public.
Hmmm, over a week and absolutely no feedback, eh? I never did figure out if I could check to see how many downloads of the file there were before it expired. Did anyone even grab the file out of curiosity I wonder? I learned not to to be disappointed by lack of feedback for add-ons when I released the Maelstrom, a fairly decent first release - to something like 7000 hits over a year and a half - and not one email, not even to say "Your darn bird caused my system to crash, you suck!!!"
I was chatting briefly way back with a successful developer, he described the same lack of feedback, said it was like pulling teeth to get a general public response. He did mention that his beta-testing method for new aircraft was to have a dozen or so people flying it at the same time, providing second-by-second feedback. My stuff is amateur and way simpler, heck, that kind of scrutiny would make my hair go white anyway!
I know the general public is a finicky, busy bunch of people - I know because I'm one of 'em.
What I'll do next time is nail a few of you goofs with P.M.'s and file links. That way you may feel a little obligated to reply as the whole thing's a little more personal. There's always a way.
It's a bit weird when you create something, even a simple building with a helipad, and you're not sure if it's even worth releasing for fun to the public. BTW, feedback also means the negative stuff - "I don't know hark, it doesn't seem like a worthy release, not much to it." or "It doesn't work hark, I fall through the surface every time even with a perfectly gentle landing."
Yup, I'm definitely going to have to hound a select few of you into submission next time.
Last edited by harkonnen on Wed May 07, 2008 11:30 pm; edited 1 time in total
Location: COMFORTABLY NUMB, in U.S.A. *** KOFF ***
Age: 51
Gender: Male
Sorry bud, but I must have missed this one.
Yep, I know I did, because I don't have it. Seems I don't have the update for the Hinson carrier either.
But, for me, I have a very good reason, even if I did get it, and didn't install it. I was having problems with FS9 and a few other programs. And it lead me to getting a new PSU.
Being it as it may, I didn't need or want anything to make things worse while trying to figure out my problems on my end. But I am back in the game and everywhere else now.
I know it's too late to get them now, and I'm really sorry I didn't get them. Your work has never left me anything but impressed. ALWAYS KNOW THAT.
No worries...I think I actually may get a few of you onboard again just to satisfy my hopes that the gmax hardened surfaces are decent now. Talk soon...
Got it! It took me 10 or so export tests to realize that I had a few cloned objects leftover in the same space as my invisible landable gmax platform. Once I aced those that annoying runway surface flickering disappeared. Adjusted the platform again to match the visual runway surface, I think it's as good as it gets. The surface seems nicely hardened and you can land on it if you're gentle. Long weekend coming up, that means I have lots of leisure time on hand - have to see what I can get done amidst beer, BBQ and home improvement.
EDIT: Now that the carrier seems good to go I tried a scenery export with 7 carriers arranged in a loose formation. I got so bored waiting for the compile I went to bed. In the morning gmax and MakeMDL had only puked up an error message. I'll try again tonight.
Interesting...when I looked at the error log, I was told that I had hundreds of co-located vertices in the model - but there isn't any if I just export one carrier. So I tried a 3-carrier export and it went without a hitch. Well, apparently cloning these things in gmax only really clones the visual model. It seems that details like 'already removed crashboxes', and possibly the landable surface are not cloned....in fact, I think the thing just clones as a 'clump' of a model - many details are lost. This became quite evident as I tried to sail onto the carrier clone on the left. Crrr-ash! That's O.K. though, I was more interested in using cloned models and many .BGL's to put together the beginnings of a ridiculous composite screenshot . If I get anywhere with this I'll post the finished shot later. (Like, much later.) As usual, lots of things to test and try for the first time.
Good idea RD. Lots of neat possibilities with custom .BGL's to explore. In the meantime I would appreciate it if you took a few test flights with the updated carrier. I can send you the file in the next few days if you like....I wouldn't mind a "Yeah it's landable." confirmation on this one. Or, of course, an "It sucks!" (If it sucks ) The most fun so far is getting the Hinson Tomcat F-14 onto the USS Steve Hinson air carrier in one piece, and not going through the back wall. It can be done, but you can't really do anything wrong during the last part of your approach or you're looking pretty foolish to your mates on deck.
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in Barbados. Never checked out the sky-scraper in Canada.
