Aerosoft Game
Karriem Drewery
When you start a project for fun, and it becomes one of the best-selling projects we have, it is logical to make a follow-up project. So here it is. After the North Sea, we will now cover the Gulf of Mexico!
Honestly, the North Sea project was a wild idea. I had one fine evening watching extremely stupid television. The next morning I spent some hours seeing if I could find the database and models we would need, and the idea became a plan. We had to buy models and databases and compile them into an MSFS project. Of course, it was not that easy and cheap, but as I said, it sold (sells) like hotcakes, so I think we did something good. And everybody involved loved working on it.
For me, flight simulation is about entertainment. We are all simulating flying aircraft. Some do it as real as possible, and some do it less realistic. Find me any sim pilot who has not flown under a bridge, and I will buy him a beer. Some spend thousands on a cockpit, and some sit on their couch with an Xbox controller and enjoy the sim.
But in 22 years of doing sim add-ons, I never had a project where people had that much fun. Simply unadulterated fun. Sailing the included ships among the ships and rigs, flying over the area with a Twin Otter, and landing helicopters on the hundreds of new landing spots. And I understand that. Like many simmers love the less structured world of small VFR aircraft where you actually explore the fantastic world of MS Flight Simulator, we gave them a new part to explore.
So here we go. Gulf of Mexico. While this might seem like the North Sea, there are some remarkable differences. First, compared to the North Sea, this project will focus less on ships (not nearly as many) and more on oil (and some gas) rigs. The North Sea oil and gas industry is super-regulated. Only the big companies are involved. In the Gulf, where the oil fields are often on the coastlines, you might find 10 companies next to each other having oil wells on the land, the beach and on simple structures a few hundred yards off the coast. I mean really small, like 10 by ten meters. Wild west. Thousands of structures.
Other differences are in the kind of ships. Of course, there are tankers and cargo vessels, but there are way more pleasure craft and cruise ships. Way more shrimp fishing vessels. Way more multi-million dollar yachts.
I had a super group of advisors and testers for the North Sea project. People who work on rigs, people who work on ships and people who know the industry. They shaped the project, and all of them will assist in this project. But we could really use input from locals. People who fish there, people who drive boats, helicopter pilots. Heck, even people who have done a load of cruises there.
One of the biggest differences between our North Sea project and the Gulf project is that we need to shift way more towards structures and less to ships. There are simply a lot (a lot) less ships in the Guld of Mexico compared to the Norths Sea. But there are a heck of a lot more platforms. Some of the most advanced and biggest oil production facilities are to be found here. For example, the floating 'Spar' class of rigs. These are not standing on legs as almost all in the North Sea but float and are held in place by massive anchors. These can be used in waters up to 2,500 meters deep and costs around $3.000.000.000.
You seen nothing yet. That's a 750.000 polygon object. I just bought a 3d model with 20.000.000 polygons.
Probably need to buy Anne (who is doing the conversions) a new and way faster machine to compile it fast.
Btw.... While we are sad that Christian Bahr is not able to do the work for this project (he is still very much assisting), I am happy to say that Sascha Normann will be the core developer. The somewhat older customers will recognize that name as being behind many of our projects, and the dev behind the Belin airport that is being updated right now. Sascha is a wizard making FS DLC from databases and that is what this project is about. I could not wish for a better replacement. As you know I always like to tell you who is working on our projects. Aerosoft is not an 'entity' but a load of people working together. You can find their email addresses and we have a telephone number you can call.
You did tell me in the previous project that you would include the 2 platforms for Kinsale Gas(Cork) if i provided the locations even tho they were just outside of the north sea but then ye excluded it
Keep in mind we are still very much looking for people who know the Gulf of Mexico. Does not matter if you work on rigs, fish from your small craft or anything else. If you want to assist: mathi...@aerosoft.com.
Any chance this will be sold on the Marketplace as well? I really appreciate how the Marketplace allows me to update everything from a single location, though I don't recall seeing the north sea on there, so I presume there's a reason behind that.
Mathijs, just thinking here. I'm one who never bought the first Northsea product, but for two reasons, firstly it did not cover much of the areas north around Norway, But more importantly, static ships are a very controversial approach. Many seems to shy away from the product due to this. Have you considered making a version/option without static ships, but maybe donate some ships to the 'Global AI Ship Traffic MSFS GAIST Ultra V3'-group and help them getting them moving, either by providing data or dialog with ASOBO/MSFS for improvements in the system. They have 172 000 downloads and are on a mission to improving ship traffic all around the globe. Being a partner/sponsor could probably help gain sales for your ocean products now and in the future from fans of GAIST?
Now we have explained many times why we choose static shipping and we let customers decide from video footage if they would be able to see a ship being static or animated. They simply could not. Just as all the people who assist us (pilots and mostly helicopter pilots who fly to the rigs) said that is is very hard to actually see and none considered out choice to be an issue.
Well comments like your did not really stop the idea, lol. But it was always on the list if the North Sea did well. We considered other areas as well (like the Gulf of Arabia) but this is just more interesting. From a focus on wind energy we are now heavy on oil. Over 1850 (!) structures. Over 1200 new helicopter pads. A whole slew of new kinds of structures that you don't see in the North Sea where building close to shore is not allowed. In the Gulf there are hundreds of oil production 'systems' in water as shallow at 5 feet. So things like will be all along the coast.
And yes, all our products are intended for the Marketplace and always send to MS the moment we release it. Unfortunately they have a massive backlog and some products have already been on the waiting list for months. We have no control over that.
Here you see a well head protector (that is a unmanned simple structure on top of a well head) and a barge with a pile driver crane on it. These are used a lot because so much of this product will be in very shallow water, very close to the beach. It is remarkable how different the oil industry here is compared to the North Sea where it is all far out at sea.
Yeah.... no. I am not going to do a destroyer without visible canons, That's a degradation in realism I think is not correct. A good part of this project is about how the US protects its borders and ships like this, if you like it or not are part of that:
I do understand and accept the rules of Microsoft. The marketplace version will not have this ship and it will not have the carrier we have bought and hope to use. So the version we sell and the verioin the marketplace sells will differ, something I really hate as it is confusing to customers.
Btw that is the 19.000.000 polygon model I was talking about. There are whole countries in MSFS that have less polygons. Please note this is NOT a carrier DLC and the carrier will just be an object you can land on.
I am however seriously considering spinning this one off a a special project. The fact it will never be sold on the Marketplace/Xbox/Cloud makes that hard though.
Only minor requirements are required for Aerosoft One itself. Only about 200MB are required on your system hard drive.
However, when installing add-ons, the respective requirements must be observed.
In order to be able to log into Aerosoft One, you need an account with Aerosoft, i.e., the account that you would also use on www.aerosoft.com. All products contained in your Aerosoft account will be included in Aerosoft One.
Does any know where I can find the documentation folder? I purchased the Aerosoft CRJ550/700 through the marketplace in MSFS using steam credits. I am unable to locate the folder with the documentation for procedures, user manuals, etc... I've looked in the folder where it is supposed to be: \Microsoft Flight Simulator\Packages\aerosoft-crj The only folder available are working and Misc files. I've also looked in the community folder and have had no luck.
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