What you want to see in the Next release of Orbiter

[craigh]

I'd love to be able to pop up the add-on's keyboard commands. I don't get to use Orbiter that often so remembering all of them is difficult at best.

I'd also like to be able to add any and all add-ons in that scenario editor.

Now I'll get that "read the manual already" or "see the tutorial" that I missed!

Other than that, Orbiter is the one sim that has stayed on my computer and laptop no matter what since the second or 3rd release.

Many thanks to Martin and all the developers!

CraigH

[RisingFury]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ar81

 No, I mean an in-flight tutorial mode, like you see in Jane's flight sims.

That can be written independently of Orbiter and integrated into an MFD or even into the ship.





The only things I wish for the next orbiter actually, is better lighting, more vehicle classes (such as rovers, people - kinda like UMmu and so on, and to be able to create other types of objects such as clouds which would interfear with atmospheric flight and not lag the crap out of the system), the possibility to modify planets by including planet classes... so we can model everything from gas giants to Earth's terrain (including water), and of course, more realistic physics from solar wind to magnetic fields to relativistic model instead of Newtonian model.

I also think that particle systems have to be improved. A bit simplified. In the current state, ships that produce a lot of snoke like XR-5 can put a real strain on many systems.

I've been looking through the SDK lately and I've figured out that Martin has provided us with an incredible interface and that most things people speak of that they want to see integrated into Orbiter can actually be written independently and be just as good.

I'm actually surprised that more of the potencial Orbiter has, hasn't yet been fulfilled.

[RangerPL]

Get rid of CTDs, and make 2D cockpits configurable with the FS cockpit editor.

[MeDiCS]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RisingFury

 [...] more vehicle classes (such as rovers, people - kinda like UMmu and so on [...]

Yes!

Boosters: Can be attached to the exterior of any craft, even other boosters (evil laugh)!
Crafts: airplanes and spacecraft fit into this category.
Launchers: Possibly automatic control. Transport cargo inside it, with weight and size restrictions.
Hovers: Things that can only move on soil (and water, since the only difference is the color)
Probes: automatic spacecrafts, only orbit, no reentry.

[thomasantony]

Switch to DX 9 or 10 . Include insane texture resolutions and antialiasing, and all that stuff for Crysis level graphics :D.

[RisingFury]

Quote:

Originally Posted by thomasantony

 Switch to DX 9 or 10 . Include insane texture resolutions and antialiasing, and all that stuff for Crysis level graphics :D.

Yes, of course...

You don't need Crysis level post processing and frankly, it'd be a bad idea. But I think that the switch to DirectX 9 would significantly increase performance as DirectX can benefit from the modern card architecture.

I'm sure Martin can find his way around with ease, but for anyone wanting to learn the ways of the DirectX: www.directxtutorial.com
This is a pretty good website that will introduce you to low level Windows API programming and basics of DirectX... a bit more (basic games like tetris) if you're willing to part with 20 dollars or something.

@Medics:

Well, I wouldn't go into *so* much diversity, after all, the difference between a satellite, a powered spacecraft and a probe (from Orbiter's engine perspective) isn't big.

The big difference is between a land vehicle and a ship. The primary function of a ship is go to in space and Orbiter has very accurate space physics. But when it comes to the ground, you'll notice that on impacts, your ship may bounce off in quite a weird manner.

I have seen many times the parts of my DGIV bouncing all over the place as I smashed it into the ground...

The creation of a vehicle class type would increase reality on the ground and would open up a whole new level of possibilities as far as missions go. As far as rovers that exist today... it's like trying to turn a rocket into a car....

The creation of "various" object type would enable rocks and clouds and various other types of objects to be randomly (or along another algorithm) generated around you to a certain range. Now... as you can't expect a rock to have a powered ascent into orbit, you could easily turn the calculations for physics for these types of objects off while they're just sitting in a ship or somewhere on the ground. That would allow the simulator to be accurate and still hold high performance.

And suddenly, you'd find yourself on a rock collection mission on Mars.

[Kaito]

for vehicles, i had a thought (using a "ship"):
Create a mesh that looks like the vehicle. Just dont give it enough thrust to escape the gravity, and possibly change the sound. Give it wheels, hide the thrust, and you've got yourself a makeshift vehicle

[RisingFury]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaito

 for vehicles, i had a thought (using a "ship"):
Create a mesh that looks like the vehicle. Just dont give it enough thrust to escape the gravity, and possibly change the sound. Give it wheels, hide the thrust, and you've got yourself a makeshift vehicle

That's the thing... I've driven a few and... well, it's kinda odd. When you apply power, they accelerate and get to some huge speed... then when you try to turn you end up sliding all over the place. And that was on Earth... try driving on the Moon

Just imagine... you could integrate the vehicle with a terrain system which would allow for slipping of wheels in the sand and stuff like that.

What I'm trying to say is that a vehicle requires a set of whole different physics simulations then a space craft requires. Your "makeshift" vehicle, even if you perfected the thrust, still gets treated as a space craft.

[woo482]

just like

Woo482's manned mars rover

Woo482's manned mars rover

(and that cannot reach high velocity's)

[RisingFury]

As fun as the rover is, here's a screenshot of it doing 1km/s+ on Mars.



And the thing put me into the orbit around the Moon...




Now, don't take this as a "Ha, you suck cos you can't make a rover." No. That's not at all what I'm trying to say. In fact, the thing is real fun to drive around and you did a good job on it with rotating wheels and really cool cos it's UMmu compatible and on top of that a funny and cool design. What I'm trying to say is that physics model isn't compatible with the vehicle type. Orbiter is treating it as if it's a rocket...

[woo482]

thanks for telling me I never noticed that in testing oh and I did no codeing of the rover I just asked for help and gattispilot made it for me (but I made the mesh)

[RisingFury]

Well, still a cool thing

[woo482]

yes in the next few hours I am going to post some pictures of my manned mars rover mk2 "the mars truck"

[Genius]

There are many subjects in this post regarding a better Orbiter. High on my list is a realistic collision detection. I really do not like to fly trough the ISS without anything happen to my ship or the ISS. The DGIV explode in pieces when hit the earth or burned up in the atmosphere. Maybe that can be programmed into the code of the next version of Orbiter?

[RisingFury]

That can be implemented without actually putting it into Orbiter.