Orbitrader - store your sim state on Our Server! :) (some PNGs)

[Enjo]

I'll be copy-pasting my posts here from my dev thread at m6.

Orbitrader will be a multiplayer economy system. The actions that you perform have impact on prices and product production in bases (and later - at space stations). The products' prices and amount are stored on a server, so other users will benefit from your actions... or just the opposite.

This is how the MFD looks currently:

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News:

Now, Orbitrader detects certain events of your flight, such as:
- launching
- landing
- leaving orbit
- entering orbit
- slinging
- powered slinging

and after these events occur, it stores the details of your orbit, as well as state vectors, date and fuel reserves on the server. After logging in again, the MFD tries to validate your ship (currently only class name and ship's name are taken into account), and after successful validation, it downloads the latest saved data. Using the data, your previous state can (and must) be restored.

here's how such reports look via www interface:

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Below, I've just slinged Jupiter, so I've reached system escape velocity, and I had no apohelium. Otherwise, I'd get apohelium distance and time. The first would let admins and other users know what was the destination, and the latter, along with saved MJD, would let determine if somebody "accelerated" his ship a bit too much. As such, this info is a good remedy against ScnEditor cheaters... or worse. Unfortunately I'll still have to think of something to allow for constant acceleration transfers.

​

What's left to do is making the status checker function act as a module, not as MFD, so you don't need to have your MFD switched on all the time. The next thing will be thread support, because even the libCurl multi interface lags Orbiter.

 

[Enjo]

Orbitrader - because your sim should not be blocked (some PNGs)

Having fought some natural threading problems, I'm proud to announce, that Orbitrader now uses thread wrapping of libcurl file transfers. For those who don't know what it means: The file transfers now run as parallel processes and as such, are absolutely non-blocking for the simulation, unlike even the libcurl multi interface, which is non-blocking by itself, but its preparation isn't (namely the select() function). I'm happy that you haven't seen it in some alpha release of Orbitrader. I'll try to make the first release as ergonomic as possible.

What's left to do on the client side before we have multiple vessels support in the entire system is checking your orbit's status beyond the MFD, as a module, just like how the AbsoluteKillrot works. (do you still remember that you're using it? )

[EDIT]
We've had a short discussion on a Polish forum, about using Orbitrader components for Virtual Space Agencies. Most orbital operations could be monitored, actions which you want to have monitored could be selectable in plugin's configuration in-sim, and sent to a server, which supports PHP. You could use some of Orbitrader server code to parse the received XMLs, as well as extract and display the results via a www interface. Are you interested?

 

[Cornflake]

Wow this sounds really sweet. I've been wanting to play Orbiter in some kind of multiplayer form - (No full multiplayer addons are even near complete); this in a way reminds me of a simple Orbiter RPG I'll give it a try.

 

[computerex]

Wow this sounds really sweet. I've been wanting to play Orbiter in some kind of multiplayer form - (No full multiplayer addons are even near complete); this in a way reminds me of a simple Orbiter RPG I'll give it a try.

Well OMP is pretty near completion...In fact people used it inside their virtual agencies. It was pretty stable, even in it's alpha stage. The only major glitch it had was the necessity to forward ports in order to use it.

 

[Enjo]

It's a good thing that you, Mohd, among others, still help Face testing the OMP. I have been subconsciously avoiding OMP since it became closed and I regret it.


News update:

I have finally moved all the crucial functions outside the Orbitrader MFD class, so the (how to call it now ?

)... project works more like a plugin instead of being MFD bound. Ultimately, this means that you don't need to have the MFD switched on to make it record your orbit status and do other stuff planned in the future (like IRC handling). It will simply run in the background, requiring that you turn it on only when you need to buy something etc., but definitely not during a normal flight.

 

[Enjo]

Nothing much was going on around Orbitrader, as I was developing Launch MFD, plus, Orbitrader server developer has to catch up with me. However I've done some tests concerning DGIV and DG-XRs, results of which are quite satisfying
The test consisted of checking the above ships' resistance to sudden state vector and date changes, that is - restoring a saved state, which is the last entry on the Orbitrader server, while the started Orbiter scenario was just a randomly picked one.

Let's start with the total winners - the DG-XR family:
Absolutely no non-obvious side effects which would result from the mentioned sudden changes, like dead crew or broken equipment.

DGIV
Specific - gear and hover engines failure after restoring a state of the craft in orbit, from an Orbiter scenario, where the craft sits on ground.

Both ships suffered from an obvious reason: Gear and hover engines failure when you start a scenario in orbit, and you're restoring the state from ground. Reason - retracted gear. Both ships had no problems if I lowered their gears before restoring the saved state.

The above problem may be avoided if you simply use the same scenario that you used for previous Orbitrader session. The state restore ability is still a good anti-cheat method.

And while we're here - Orbiter has problems with negative Sim Time. This occurs when you pull your date back to past in Scenario Editor, or restore a state which was saved some time (MJD) before your current scenario.
The symptoms are: MFDs not responding to buttons, or behaving crazily; changing orbital parameters, which should remain stable.
Remedy: If you see negative Sim Time in top right info display after having a state restored by Orbitrader MFD, simply quit your simulation and restart it, using the default "(Current State).scn" scenario. Orbitrader will restore the same state as before, but your Sim Time will stop being negative soon, because Orbiter saved your MJD in the "Current State" before exiting, and this MJD is used as a reference to Sim Time. I hope it's clear.

 

[J_Aerospace]

It would be good if this addon also saved vessel states so you could put a sat in orbit then someone else could repair it etc.. for orbiter money.
Or even hold a list of current addons and every time you login it automaticaly updates you install of orbiter. This would open many new possibility's

 

[Enjo]

Good idea. Thanks.
The satellites could bring stable income to their owners while they're operational.

 

[J_Aerospace]

It would be great if this prog saved vessel states as well would be great for launching saterlites and repairing them

 

[Enjo]

Yes, I understood

 

[J_Aerospace]

sorry i posted twice, my computer is playing around a bit