Microsoft Flight Simulator Offshore Landmarks-: North Sea (released)

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51561]

Ahhhh, right April first. No,  this is not a april first joke.

 

The North Sea is not a stretch of water.

• It is an incredibly productive fishery where over 2,5 million metric tons of fish are caught every year. Close to 7000 fishing vessels, ranging from small trawlers to absolutely massive factory ships, provide food for millions of Europeans.
• Because of the climate, geographical conditions, and current demands make it a prime location for wind farms. The average depth is around 60 meters meaning it is relatively cheap to place wind turbines, and as any seamen can tell you, the wind is a constant in the North Sea. Around 25% of the total North Sea is now scheduled to be used for wind farms. Many tens of thousands of turbines will provide the countries around the North Sea with renewable energy. Many wind farms are being built at this moment. If all reserved areas of the North Sea are used, there will be close to 100.000 wind turbines. These will be able to provide 80% of the electricity needs of the countries bordering the North Sea.
• Underneath the North Sea is another treasure. Oil and gas. In huge quantities, not as easy to get to as in the Middle East, but due to the depth of the sea, technically very feasible with current energy prices. Close to 200 oil structures, often made up of multiple platforms, are placed on the most productive fields.
• In between these structures, tens of thousands of vessels have to find their way. The absolutely massive oil tankers, container ships and bulk carriers seek the load and unload their goods in the harbours of Rotterdam and dozens of others. Huge ships lay cables and pipelines. Ferries link countries (I long back to the big hoovercrafts!).

While the number of people working on the North Sea is limited (estimated at around 8000 people), the money involved is staggering. Billions of euros are invested every year. Even a small oil platform will run into the 500 millions of euros. A modern support vessel can easily cost 100 million.

 

The North Sea is not a stretch of water. It is the largest industrial park in Europe. Every square mile has been dedicated to some use. That is why we decided to create a scenery product covering this area. If you only fly over the North Sea at FL380, don’t bother. If you fly lower and slower, perhaps even in a helicopter, there is a lot to explore or see enroute to your destination. Because framerates are never an issue at sea, we can use incredibly complex objects. Some ships are as complex as a complete major airport in the sim. Construction sites consist of millions of polygons. If you see a helipad, you can land on it and use the drone cam to explore the structure.

 

This DLC can be merged with any of the other add-ons covering shipping or other offshore elements.

 

So what can you see? Let me make a list; it is not complete.

 

Fishing Industry

• Trawlers
• Factory Ships
• Seiners

Shipping Industry

• Container ships
• Bulk carriers
• LNG tankers
• Oil tankers
• Chemical tankers
• Fruit juice tankers (I did not even know these existed)
• Life stock carriers

Other ships

• Ferries
• Cruise ships

Wind Industry

• Monopile wind turbines
• Jacket wind turbines
• Floating structure wind turbines
• Fast crew boats
• Substations

Wind Industry Construction

• Survey vessels
• Heavy lift vessels
• Offshore support vessels
• Crane vessels
• Crane platforms
• Floatels
• Tug boats

Oil/Gas Industry

• Production rigs (spar, jack-up, compliant)
• Normally Unmanned Installations (NUI)
• Conductor Support Systems (satellite stations)
• Toadstools
• Fast crew boats
• Support vessels
• Anchor vessels
• Patrol vessels
• Floating production systems ships
• Floating production systems monocolumn
• Floatels
• Single buoy mooring stations
• Fast Resque Boats

Oil/Gas Construction

• Drilling rigs
• Seismic survey vessels
• Crane vessels
• Tug boats
• Anchor vessels

 

This product is intended to be released in late summer at between 10 and 15 Euro. It will be sold in our store (duh…), our affiliate stores and the Microsoft Marketplace. It will run on PC and Xbox. We have a team of veteran experts assisting us to make sure what we show is realistic. 

 

These images show some of our first trials we needed to do to make sure the highly complex objects would compile into the sim. They will all need work (made more dirty as a starter) but I think you understand why our team was enthusiastic. As we will be adding objects almost daily we will be able to show a lot of screenshots.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

 

 

 

[Er!k 575]

Cool add-on, also when you fly an airliner... If you fly into Amsterdam for example you can see a lot of ships, windmills etc.

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51561]

10 minutes ago, Er!k said:

Cool add-on, also when you fly an airliner... If you fly into Amsterdam for example you can see a lot of ships, windmills etc.

 

Yes, but the sim has a hard limit on what you can see, it needs to cover 1.5% of the screen to be shown. So while you would see ships and oil platforms (certainly at night) from FL380, the sim most likely will not show them.  See why we add a lot of very large tankers?

 

But that said, if you fly into Amsterdam, London etc you are often at FL100 when you get to the coast.

[Gstove 10]

Looks fantastic, I’ve often thought oil/gas platforms in the n sea would be awesome. Especially if we can land on them. Can’t wait for this! 

[ravenn22 4]

what, is Seafront doing this?

 

I recognize the stock TurboSquid models  

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51561]

7 hours ago, ravenn22 said:

what, is Seafront doing this?

 

I recognize the stock TurboSquid models  

 

We are indeed using some of those models.  But this is an internal project. 

[ravenn22 4]

2 hours ago, Mathijs Kok said:

 

We are indeed using some of those models.  But this is an internal project. 

Ah, ok - glad to hear it

I'd done some freeware placements for the platforms off Santa Barbara and Alaska ( starting back around FSX and updated for MSFS ) and had always intended to add custom platform models and animated support boats - but the time to model and optimize all the platform variants was pretty daunting.
Really curious to see how this turns out!

Cheers!

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51561]

23 hours ago, ravenn22 said:

Ah, ok - glad to hear it

I'd done some freeware placements for the platforms off Santa Barbara and Alaska ( starting back around FSX and updated for MSFS ) and had always intended to add custom platform models and animated support boats - but the time to model and optimize all the platform variants was pretty daunting.
Really curious to see how this turns out!

Cheers!

 

Would you be interested to assist (testing) the Team?  If so contact me on mathijs.kok@aerosoft.com.

 

And indeed, if we would have to model all these elements it would be impossible to do a project like this, it would cost close to 500k in modeling. So I am basically going on a massive shopping spree and buying the rights for these models. A major investment but one that will pay of handsomely. For example models like this: https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/watercraft/industrial-watercraft/fast-emergency-response-vessel

 

When we have the models we only need to create the LODs, add the effects (flares, lights, sounds etc) and place them (for that we have 8 persons who work in this industry. All in all still a major project, but one that can be completed in a reasonable time. When that is done we might look at the Gulf of Mexico (very different structures there) and possible the Middle East. 

 

Here is a example of the LODs that the main modeler added this weekend:

 

Please login to display this image.

 

I think we'll make a small demo project in a few weeks so you can fly around and land on the objects. 

 

 

 

[Ha_Ma 195]

This is great!

I do not fly often over any sea, but always when i am over the northern sea i think that it is much to clear.

Will all your ships be static, or will they get a route that they follow?

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51561]

6 hours ago, Ha_Ma said:

This is great!

I do not fly often over any sea, but always when i am over the northern sea i think that it is much to clear.

Will all your ships be static, or will they get a route that they follow?

 

We are still considering the movement. I did experiment a bit today with moving ship traffic (some great freeware for that), but when there is no static object in the frame, you simply do not see if a ship is static or moving. Simply too slow.  For some objects like the fast ferries:

Please login to display this image.

 

and the fast emergency response vessels:

Please login to display this image.

 

It would make sense to have them moving about.  As want to include every possible helicopter landing pad (even those that only allow hoist operations) ships with those will have to be static. But as said, I simply could not see if an oil tanker was moving or not. And I also do not believe that I would notice if I saw the same ship a week later it was in the same location. 

 

 

[TomAce 78]

26 minutes ago, Mathijs Kok said:

 

We are still considering the movement. I did experiment a bit today with moving ship traffic (some great freeware for that), but when there is no static object in the frame, you simply do not see if a ship is static or moving. Simply too slow.  For some objects like the fast ferries:

Please login to display this image.

 

and the fast emergency response vessels:

Please login to display this image.

 

It would make sense to have them moving about.  As want to include every possible helicopter landing pad (even those that only allow hoist operations) ships with those will have to be static. But as said, I simply could not see if an oil tanker was moving or not. And I also do not believe that I would notice if I saw the same ship a week later it was in the same location. 

 

 

For me moving objects would be the reason to buy a product like this. I want a living world and seeing the same ship at the same spot every time would probably ruin a bit of immersion. 
Anyway, I’m sure everyone are not thinking the same as me.

[ual763 81]

On 4/1/2022 at 2:37 PM, Mathijs Kok said:

 

Yes, but the sim has a hard limit on what you can see, it needs to cover 1.5% of the screen to be shown. So while you would see ships and oil platforms (certainly at night) from FL380, the sim most likely will not show them.  See why we add a lot of very large tankers?

 

But that said, if you fly into Amsterdam, London etc you are often at FL100 when you get to the coast.

 Would it be possible to make some of the lights on the models a ‘streetlight’, since these are visible at much further ranges?  I don’t know if this would be possible, but really, I just like seeing the lights while at cruise at night.

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51561]

Btw, there will be some really weird vessels included.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

That is a Offshore Accommodation Vessel (more commonly referred to as a floatel). It can offer comfortable accommodations for the crews that work building off shore installations. It is more comfortable (as it is very stable), safer, has way more amenities like movie theaters, gyms etc. The crane like structures are gangways that allow an easy passage from one ship to the other shop or platform (called 'walk to work').  This model will be a major challenge as it has a crazy amount of detail. 

 

Please login to display this image.

 

 

 

 

 

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51561]

5 minutes ago, TomAce said:

For me moving objects would be the reason to buy a product like this. I want a living world and seeing the same ship at the same spot every time would probably ruin a bit of immersion. 
Anyway, I’m sure everyone are not thinking the same as me.

 

But again, if you see a 300 meter livestock carrier going forward at 20 knots and you circle it with an marine patrol aircraft going 200 knots you simply will not see the ship moving. And if it is outside any visible static structure, how would you ever be able to see it is at the same location? And keep in mind that when ships are in visible range of land they often ARE static and on anchor. At this very moment there are 58 ships at anchor on the coast of Rotterdam.

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51561]

5 minutes ago, ual763 said:

 Would it be possible to make some of the lights on the models a ‘streetlight’, since these are visible at much further ranges?  I don’t know if this would be possible, but really, I just like seeing the lights while at cruise at night.

 

Yes, that is one of our most important issues. Visible ranges are limited in the sim and we need to stretch that as much as possible.

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51561]

Speaking about weird ships. Look at the center one.  It is one that is used to do seismic research to find new oil and gas.

 

Please login to display this image.

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51561]

I promised you we could show a lot of images every time we added a new model. This is a small tanker used to bring chemicals to the platforms and to bring waste back to shore. 

 

Please login to display this image.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

Tomorrow we will show a panamax sized tanker.

 

 

[simulasyonturk 9]

@Mathijs Kok  I think it looks amazing. Now we need a playable detailed ship simulator from Aerosoft. Anyway it will be great with helicopter missions.

[LanderC 2]

You want to ruin me? First EBBR and now this beauty? I think i will need a new pc to....

No just kidding  Great work!!! I know this sea, and its a very busy place for ships.

Can't wait when the addons comes out. Now just a good coastline and its complete at the North Sea.

Keep on the great work over there!

 

Greetings.

[Scandinavian 53]

Love this. The offshore oilplatforms and sea activity is a large part of my home airport. So this is something I have always wanted to see. Now we just need a Super Puma or S92 helicopter addon for MSFS.

 

Are you only planning generic platform/rig models, or are you planning to also recreate some of the real ones out there.

For the Norwegian sector there are a some notable platforms like the large Troll-A and the classic Ekofisk/Statfjord/Gullfaks platforms.

 

I'm not sure if you know about these sources for rig and platform placement.

This is a official continuously updated list of movable rigs locations.

https://kartverket.no/en/at-sea/efs

https://www.kartverket.no/efs-documents/plattformer/Riggliste.pdf

 

The Norwegian internet pilot planning service ippc.no has a location, ICAO-code and metar for all the permanent oil platforms.

 

You just need to select landing sites on the left menu. Also shows platforms in the Danish sector, but looks like UK platforms are not shown.

Please login to display this image.

 

 

[CaptHawkeye 0]

On 4/1/2022 at 1:37 PM, Mathijs Kok said:

 

Yes, but the sim has a hard limit on what you can see, it needs to cover 1.5% of the screen to be shown. So while you would see ships and oil platforms (certainly at night) from FL380, the sim most likely will not show them.  See why we add a lot of very large tankers?

 

But that said, if you fly into Amsterdam, London etc you are often at FL100 when you get to the coast.

 

This is an exciting project.  For some reason, I get more excited about this kind of stuff than anything, as it just helps to make the world feel alive.  Will it be compatible with Seafront Simulations products?

 

As to this issue, this freeware project resolves it by adding a single massive triangle that would essential be underground or underwater.  From what I have seen, it works very well, as you can see those tiny white cones from much higher altitudes.  Not sure whether that's the same limitation you're referring to.

[SkyLaneOfficial 116]

Woahhhhh I always wanted that!!!! I can't wait!!!

 

After this, we will need Offshores plateform shuttle helicopters (AS225, S92 etc)

That will be a real challenge to reach and land on those plateforms and ships on High winds and bad visibitity.

 

btw, will the plateforms and ships sway with the waves? or will remain static

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51561]

1 hour ago, Scandinavian said:

Are you only planning generic platform/rig models, or are you planning to also recreate some of the real ones out there.

For the Norwegian sector there are a some notable platforms like the large Troll-A and the classic Ekofisk/Statfjord/Gullfaks platforms.

 

It will be a bit of a mix. We do have a few accurately modeled platforms, but simply not for all. The main issue is that the 'accurate' models are normally rather low poly and we really want details for this project. The manual will explain exactly how detailed all models are.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

1 hour ago, Scandinavian said:

I'm not sure if you know about these sources for rig and platform placement.

 

Yes. It is amazing how detailed the Danish are with these things. 

 

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51561]

1 minute ago, SkyLaneOfficial said:

After this, we will need Offshores plateform shuttle helicopters (AS225, S92 etc)

 

We are talking to the fine people who are making helicopters. 

 

2 minutes ago, SkyLaneOfficial said:

btw, will the plateforms and ships sway with the waves? or will remain static

 

At this moment it is not possible to land on animated objects, so if it has a heli deck it will need to be static. We are still talking to the people who advise us on how important movement is. At this moment it seems to be that it is simply hard to see the very small movements of larger vessels. 

[Andre_RX85 67]

This is a really nice Add-On. I hope it would be later released for XP 12, too.