CVN-65 Enterprise in Prepar3D v4

Scenery design for Flight Simulator series from Team SDB

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fsafranek
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CVN-65 Enterprise in Prepar3D v4

Post by fsafranek » Wed May 31, 2017 7:00 am

Whilst beta testing Prepar3D v4 (P3Dv4) via another company over the past couple of months we took advantage of the early opportunity to check out some of our own products. We made a few discoveries right away. However, even disclosing the existence of P3Dv4 before it was available to the paying public could be viewed by Lockheed Martin as being non-compliant. And we had no intention of screwing up this opportunity. Now that P3Dv4 is available we can post these findings and acknowledge that we were involved in the testing.

The scenery products worked the same as they had with Prepar3D v3 (P3Dv3) since we had made some adjustments previously based on P3Dv3 experience. So after some scenery testing we took a look at the USS Enterprise package.

The models and animations work perfectly as before but there are some issues due to the sim now being 64-bit. In other words be careful what you wish for. 64-bit might be faster but it is going to cause a lot of rework by the sim community.

Basically the Advanced Feature files -- RFN_CarrierGauge.dll and DSD_Sound_Gauge.gau -- are 32-bit files and fail to load in a 64-bit application. The result it that none of the Advanced features work. As a hopeful workaround we swapped in the most recent RFN Carrier Gauge files (version 4.21) to see if further development over the past five years had made them work better in a 64-bit sim. Sadly it hasn't. So until the files needed for the Advanced Features or the RFN Carrier Gauge files are recompiled to work in 64-bit the Enterprise is limited to the default FSX-Acceleration carrier features. Aircraft trap and launch just fine but there is no LSO voice, no improved FLOLS, no adjusted catapult launch speed, etc.

Some other things we found...

1) By default P3Dv4 starts with "Ships and ferries" traffic density set at 0%. To ensure that the Enterprise and Robison ships and Seaking chopper all appear in the Scenarios (Saved Flights) make sure under "Options > General > Traffic" that "Ships and ferries (%):" is set to at least 10%.

2) The IRIS T-6A Texan II SP2 is no longer included among the SimObjects/Airplanes which makes the Scenarios display an error message when loading and whatever aircraft you were in to remain. If you have P3Dv3 you could always copy over the "SimObjects\Airplanes\IRIS T-6A Texan II SP2" folder and contents. Problem solved.

3) An issue with some older wave and wake effects in P3Dv3 is still present with P3Dv4. As pertains to the wake on the Enterprise it may display as vertical rather than horizontal along the sea surface. In order for things to work straight out of the box in the recent repackaging we set the Enterprise to use the default carrier wake effect file. We have since fixed the one originally made for the Enterprise to work correctly in P3Dv4. You can download it here:
CVN65_wake_P3D.zip
(1.19KiB)Downloaded 506 times
Copy the unzipped "fx_CVN65_wake.fx" file to the \Effects folder overwriting the one already there. And edit the sim.cfg in the "\SimObjects\Boats\CVN65_Enterprise\" folder by swapping the "comment" lines (//) in the [Effects] section.

4) There was an issue with the landing zone strobe lights in P3Dv3. Lights in general are sharper in P3Dv4 so this doesn't seem to be an issue now.

5) P3Dv4 is installed to "...\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v4". Similar to P3Dv3, P3Dv4 changed the location for third party add-ons to a folder named "Ecosystem". Our installer places our files in a folder named "Team SDB" in the root of P3D. Our Saved Flights (called scenarios in P3Dv4) should be installed to "...\Documents\Prepar3D v4 Files".

Please also see our report on the Enterprise in P3Dv3 from only a year ago: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=120

fsafranek
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Re: CVN-65 Enterprise in Prepar3D v4

Post by fsafranek » Wed May 31, 2017 7:04 am

A couple screenshots during testing.
CVN-65_P3Dv4-2.jpg
CVN-65_P3Dv4-2.jpg (78.55KiB)Viewed 8633 times
CVN-65_P3Dv4-1.jpg
CVN-65_P3Dv4-1.jpg (77.43KiB)Viewed 8633 times

fsafranek
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Re: CVN-65 Enterprise in Prepar3D v4

Post by fsafranek » Mon Jan 15, 2018 1:28 am

Just ran some tests in Prepar3D v4.2.11.23700 (beta). All FSX-Acceleration features of the Enterprise package work fine.

Just waiting on the 64-bit update to the Royale French Navy (RFN) Carrier gauge to get all of the "Advanced Features" back in play.

And then the integration of the SimWorks Studios Carrier EXtended (SWS CEX) package with a ton of new features.

fsafranek
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Re: CVN-65 Enterprise in Prepar3D v4

Post by fsafranek » Sun Feb 25, 2018 6:40 pm


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