Important Announcement - Major New Update Coming!

[Dutch Owen]

Captains (Majors, Colonels, etc) -

It's understandable if you thought that FSCAI was almost dead, since it's been a long time since any update. I haven't had as much time to work on it as I'd like over the last year, but here and there I've had a few days. The result, at long last, I think will be worth waiting for.

I can't promise exactly when this next Alpha will be released, but it will be pretty soon.

This is not just an update - it is an overhaul. This will bring FSCAI a giant leap closer to the full vision of what it can be - a comprehensive A.I. for realistic combat operations in FSX and Prepar3d.

New features include:

• A completely new user interface (picture below)
• A new installer (no more manual installation)
• A new comprehensive Team system that allows automatic team assignment based on configuration files segregated by "eras"
• The complete "Assignment" system from FSCaptain is now a part of FSCAI (called "missions" here) but with a standard menu interface instead of the FCDU. Mission source code is 100% compatible with the FSCaptain ASL language. All FSCaptain missions/assignments are distributed with FSCAI now, plus more.
• You're no longer alone in the sky. You can command up to 3 wingmen in your flight.
• And you'll want them because here's the big one: Aircraft are now weaponized and have the capability to dogfight you and shoot you down. But friendly aircraft (your wingmen or others on your team) will join the battle on your side.
• Many, many bug fixes and improvements

All previous FSCAI functionality (ground units) is still there.

This is still a work in progress and there are still many things to overcome but this one brings us a huge mile closer, and will bring you some fascinating new toys to play with in Flight Simulator.

Kind Regards,
Dutch



Below: Getting ready to taxi to the active at RAF Hawkinge in the Milviz P-38L to execute mission 55001 - a fighter sweep over the Pas de Calais. This won't be easy, as a look at the FSCAI active units display shows. There are a host of ME-109s in the area, and the two closest Luftwaffe airfields are protected by multiple Flak batteries. But see those 3 P-38's at the bottom of the list? They are my wingmen, and they'll fly in formation with me during the mission to help out with any 109's that dare to challenge us. I expect a furball. I can't wait.

[asid]

Hi Dutch

This is great news.

Thank you for the continued development.

Regards

[Dutch Owen]

Milestone reached today!

An AI Spitfire shot me down in a one-on-one dogfight! I was flying the Flight Replicas BF-109G6.

It's taken a long time to get to this point. Heretofore the AI have been stumblebums, even worst than me.

Slowly they are getting more competent with more tricks up their AI sleeves.

Still lots more to do, adding some more necessary features and fixing lots and lots of bugs.

But really, this has me optimistic.

Dutch


Relevant portion of the log if you're interested:


00:38:15 Vehicle 1589 (Spitfire) targetting the user aircraft with B303-6 at range 8880 alt 6129
00:38:21 Sound effect: F:\FSXA\FSCAI\Sound\AAS_Gun.wav
00:38:21 User Aircraft (ME-109) shooting MG151
00:39:26 Spitfire (object 1589) shooting B303-6 at user (odds=15%)
00:39:26 Spitfire (object 1589) shooting B303-6 at user (odds=14%)
00:39:28 Target Hit by B303-6 (Major Damage)
00:39:29 Aircraft Damage (potency 20) - Engine Fire
00:39:29 Sound effect: F:\FSXA\FSCAI\Sound\HitA1.wav
00:39:29 Target Hit by B303-6 (Major Damage)
00:39:29 Spitfire (object 1589) shooting B303-6 at user (odds=14%)
00:39:30 User Aircraft Hit by B303-6 (Minor Damage)
00:39:30 Sound effect: F:\FSXA\FSCAI\Sound\HitC2.wav
00:39:30 Spitfire (object 1589) shooting B303-6 at user (odds=13%)
00:39:30 Sound effect: F:\FSXA\FSCAI\Sound\HitC4.wav
00:39:30 User Aircraft Hit by B303-6 (Minor Damage)
00:39:30 Sound effect: F:\FSXA\FSCAI\Sound\HitC2.wav
00:39:30 Spitfire (object 1589) shooting B303-6 at user (odds=13%)
00:39:30 Sound effect: F:\FSXA\FSCAI\Sound\HitC1.wav
00:39:31 Spitfire (object 1589) shooting B303-6 at user (odds=12%)
00:40:03 Sound effect: F:\FSXA\FSCAI\Sound\AAS_Gun.wav
00:40:03 ME-109 shooting MG131 at Spitfire (odds=5%)
00:40:03 ME-109 shooting MG131 at Spitfire (odds=7%)
00:40:04 Sound effect: F:\FSXA\FSCAI\Sound\AAS_Gun.wav
00:40:04 ME-109 shooting MG131 at Spitfire (odds=8%)
00:40:04 ME-109 shooting MG131 at Spitfire (odds=9%)
00:40:04 Sound effect: F:\FSXA\FSCAI\Sound\AAS_Gun.wav
00:40:05 ME-109 shooting MG131 at Spitfire (odds=10%)
00:40:05 ME-109 shooting MG131 at Spitfire (odds=12%)
00:40:06 Sound effect: F:\FSXA\FSCAI\Sound\AAS_Gun.wav
00:40:06 ME-109 shooting MG131 at Spitfire (odds=14%)
00:40:06 Target Spitfire Hit by MG131 (Minor Damage)
00:40:06 Sound effect: F:\FSXA\FSCAI\Sound\AAS_Gun.wav
00:40:06 ME-109 shooting MG131 at Spitfire (odds=14%)
00:40:06 ME-109 shooting MG131 at Spitfire (odds=15%)
00:40:06 Sound effect: F:\FSXA\FSCAI\Sound\AAS_Gun.wav
00:40:07 Target Spitfire Hit by MG131 (Minor Damage)


[denisgerard]

woouaw and what about moderns jets firing missiles? Possible or not?




thanks

[Dutch Owen]

As it happens missiles are what I'm debugging right now. Theoretically, the same logic that guides the missiles to hit you when fired from the ground should work in flight too.

However, what I get right now is an erratic path that always misses.

But we'll get that figured out, and AI will be able to launch missiles at you. In this upcoming Alpha 0.9.1 probably just short to intermediate range heat seekers (AIM-9 and the like) but ultimately we'll have things like AIM-120.

Right now it its development FSCAI doesn't do much radar. That's a major addition to be done after this alpha goes out the door. That way people are testing the base functionality first.

Now if I could just get this chest cold to go away....

Dutch

[denisgerard]

ok thank you, i'll wait for the release i hope very soon

[xpel]

Very interesting... Especially the A2A part.

[airbumps]

Thanks for the update Dutch.

This update seems to focus a lot on the Combat side of things. Is there any significant update for those of us that use FSCaptain for civil Airline OPS?

Cheers,

[Dutch Owen]

Aug 4, 2019 3:25:20 GMT -5 airbumps said:

Thanks for the update Dutch.

This update seems to focus a lot on the Combat side of things. Is there any significant update for those of us that use FSCaptain for civil Airline OPS?

Cheers,

Be assured that a new version of FSCaptain is on the works and being tested now. FSCAI hadn't had an update for more than a year, and many improvements had been accumulating slowly during that time, and now it's time for it to emerge. The advantage of having multiple people on this project is that we can be improving both FSCaptain and FSCAI at the same time!

Thanks for the question,
Dutch

[Travis]

Hi Airbumps,

There's some work involving the Cabin Crew & the Cockpit Crew counts - some notes about this as well as GSX-L2 interaction can be found here.

Other things (beside bugfixes) look to center around allowing global and airline-specific "Preferred Parking Spots" as well as "Preferred Alternate Airports".

For the former, we've had Captains who don't want to edit their BGL scenery files to be able to assign "airline parking codes" via text/configuration files as they would need. For the latter, we are allowing Captains to define 'preferred alternate airports' per-destination via text/configuration files - airports which could be assigned randomly.

The latter issue is my baby - I'm tired of my flights to KSFO and KOAK to always have KSCK as the designated alternate. (Nothing against KSCK!! But there are other possible alternates that could be used. So this change will allow for some global randomness, as well as airline-specific choices.)

A new option will allow Captains to bypass the "Waiting to Load," "Waiting to Fly," and "Waiting to Unload" checks that could stymie regular flight operations. For example, if you're flying with a new-to-you aircraft that forces you to have an engine running to maintain battery or packs, we would halt the loading process until you shut your engines down. In 1.8.2, you could bypass that check (as well as the Exits and the Parking Brake checks) and proceed as if all is fine.

There is a change to the airport database, so you will be prompted to update your database upon installing Alpha 1....
----

I spent the better part of a week trying to implement should be a really cool AI aircraft thingy... but I've failed in all attempts to get what I wanted to happen. I can't waste more time on that now, so I'll block off those bits and head back to 'normal operations'.

We hope to have an Alpha Test version of 1.8.2 ready by the end of August. Fingers crossed....

Best,

[Travis]

One other thing that's made it into 1.8.2 are \Config\ files that allow you to set average Taxi-Out and Taxi-In times (in minutes) for any airport you like.

There will be a 'master' file, plus airline-specific files to suit your preference.

Our Public Alpha test will begin soon after Sept 2nd (Labor Day in the US).

Regards,