Obiter vs Reentry

IDNeon

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I feel dirty for asking about "competitors" (if anyone considers that to be the case) but I did see that the developer of Reentry posted here too, the community seems really cool overall.

Being who I am, I just want to know which product gives me the most realistic immersion and why.

My understanding is Reentry has focused heavily on making all the systems actually work. When I decided to compare Reentry with Obiter, because Scott Manley on YouTube says Obiter is more "hardcore sim"....well, I watch Scott Manley's YouTube video of Obiter 2016 and it doesn't look like much of anything works.

I blame Scott more than anything, he was just in default installation and mentioned there are mods.

That video is years old now, so I don't even know what Obiter is in today's condition.

But story aside, basic question above, which simulator actually offers the most immersive simulation? And how to achieve it (if Obiter requires a bunch of mods etc can someone list what they think is needed?)

What makes the sim more immersive? Is the flight realistic for either of them? For instance in MSFS the flight is ok, but not THAT realistic. For the 747 (which I had to learn myself by trial and error cuz no one wants to fly them? \o/ ) they are clunky, the systems are buggy, the autopilot doesn't respond very realistically I am told by actual 747 pilots, and the atmospheric physics is ok but not great especially with things like windsheer.

So, I want to do a space sim but what's the metric for realism there? Because I imagine in one way it's easier....and in one way it's harder to simulate. I enjoyed reading how doubles are needed to make correct renderings of orbits. Has Reentry finally moved to 64bit?

An orbit seems so precise, I always imagined a little error would lead to mission failure. So, how accurate is that for either sim and is that assumption even correct? Afterall, didn't Apollo 13 literally burn by the seat of their pants?

Versus a flight simulator where you're trying to simulate an atmosphere that's very dynamic and how it should affect your surfaces changes very rapidly.

I suppose the king of those problems would be the Shuttle itself, having to actually fly through an atmosphere at the last leg of its reentry.

Anyway, thanks for reading my long winded post. Help me understand the differences between Orbiter and the creation it inspired, Reentry.
 
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N_Molson

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Scott Manley on YouTube says Obiter is more "hardcore sim"....well, I watch Scott Manley's YouTube video of Obiter 2016 and it doesn't look like much of anything works.

Always use critical thinking, because in this case Orbiter is a 100% free simulator. The aforementionned commerical software very probably makes sure the 2 or 3 most popular Youtubers on spaceflight are on their side. And that's also how Youtubers make a living. Simply put Orbiter does not generate income and can't pay people to say good things about it.

On a personal side, I find sad that people are more and more buying that kind of "think for me" Youtube stuff. Can't end well.
 

IDNeon

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Always use critical thinking, because in this case Orbiter is a 100% free simulator. The aforementionned commerical software very probably makes sure the 2 or 3 most popular Youtubers on spaceflight are on their side. And that's also how Youtubers make a living. Simply put Orbiter does not generate income and can't pay people to say good things about it.
Sorry for lack of clarity but Scott actually suggested Orbiter as the better sim. But with no explanation why....
 

N_Molson

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Well if you want the hard math thing, Martins included the most significant equations he used in the documentation. Simply put he managed to put in maths (and code) the n-body gravitational physics problem*. The idea was to use real life data as much as possible. Now this is a simulator, the intent was never to make something "fun" or that had an interesting gameplay. Much more to put in equations and code the real world.

* as you can see there this is no trivial stuff and some of the history greatest minds worked on it for decades before a definitive solution was found.
 

IDNeon

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Well if you want the hard math thing, Martins included the most significant equations he used in the documentation. Simply put he managed to put in maths (and code) the n-body gravitational physics problem*. The idea was to use real life data as much as possible. Now this is a simulator, the intent was never to make something "fun" or that had an interesting gameplay. Much more to put in equations and code the real world.

* as you can see there this is no trivial stuff and some of the history greatest minds worked on it for decades before a definitive solution was found.
That's fair, but is it applied in both Obiter and Reentry? Or just in the Orbiter Sim?
 

N_Molson

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I have no idea, I don't know the other software at all, my guess would be to ask on their forums.
 

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I think Orbiter is a space flight simulator with open sandbox feeling, whereas things like Reentry are system simulations focusing on getting the vehicles right, but not giving you the freedom of a sandbox.

In Orbiter, system simulations are not done in the core, but by the community by means of creating vessel addons that simulate the systems of the respective vessel. Orbiter allows you putting your NASSP stack around e.g. Europa to go and try a lander descent on it. I doubt that Reentry lets you do that.

The way you ask your questions I'd suggest you go with Reentry. Orbiter is more a kind of toolbox to create your own space simulation experience, but it seems you want a polished experience with as much immersion as possible. As for what is "realistic", I'd say you have to trust the Reentry devs, whereas in Orbiter you have a big community and decades of reviewing that are a testimony for the simulation reaching to be as correct as possible.

I think you will be happier with cashing out the money and consuming the experience. That way you are also supporting the hard-core space-sim niche in the gaming industry. And besides: you can always additionally use Orbiter to see where either product has shortcomings.
 

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Also, Orbiter sure isn't really about immersion. Some add-ons get further there than others, but generally, Orbiter is at its best where there is nothing to see: In cold dark space. Flying an aircraft over Earth is possible, but sure doesn't feel very impressive. But flying over Moon or Mars is something you won't see much better somewhere else.

I started working on simulating an historic early Mars mission from the ground control perspective, trying to stay at the tools and perspective that the flight controllers at that time had. Including the fact that reprogramming the computer took hours at that time and changing attitude for maneuvers was very very slow (alone over one hour to warm up the gyroscopes). (The big advantage from my software developers perspective: Such an add-on does not require any flashy graphics to work)

Orbiter is great in letting you do what you want. Aside of the limitation to one star in a solar system like configuration, you are free to change everything. But the disadvantage is also, that Orbiter itself is rather barebones and does not care much about anything you expect from gaming. No missions, no campaigns, no pay to win, no tutorial, no highscore, no achievements, ... all except what you give yourself.
 

N_Molson

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Flying an aircraft over Earth is possible, but sure doesn't feel very impressive.

The fact is we don't have a lot of aircrafts working with 2016, which is a pity. I remember someone did a whole lot of jets for 2006 and even if the flight models were simple, it was quite cool.
 

Urwumpe

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The fact is we don't have a lot of aircrafts working with 2016, which is a pity. I remember someone did a whole lot of jets for 2006 and even if the flight models were simple, it was quite cool.

Yeah, Kev33 did so. Some of those come with the sources, but the quality of the source code is really poor, since its developer obviously was learning C++ at that time. I am sure he does much better source code today. ;)
 

N_Molson

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Yes that's him ! Something with vertical landing like the F-35 would be good fun. ;)
 

asbjos

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I haven't tried Reentry, so I'm basing my opinions on what I've seen on YouTube (using this two month old video for reference to what I assume is its current state).

For me, Orbiter is a physics simulator, whereas Reentry is an interactive replication of historic space missions.
As to how physically accurate Orbiter is, it accurately simulates solar eclipses at correct times, occultations of Venus, and the correct positions of Jupiter-Saturn-Uranus-Neptune to reenact the Voyager grand tour. It is basically as accurate as you can want any easily accessible space simulator to be.

And that's what I like about it. I can sit on the runway on Cape Canaveral in the DeltaGlider, and flip a coin if I want to cruise at 20 km above Florida, or fly to Neptune and back on a 50 year mission, both extremely accurately simulated.

Reentry, with its impressive models of the cockpits of Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, seem to be generally more realistic to what the astronauts experienced, compared to available addons for Orbiter. The astronauts had no influence on the launch trajectories, for example. So you just ride along, do some rotational and possibly translational thrusting, and come back down.
In Orbiter, you have better control of the entire process, but at the cost that the cockpits are generally not as accurate. (although NASSP seem to have the best of both worlds, with both having the physics of Orbiter, and a highly realistic cockpit interface akin to Reentry. But I haven't tried NASSP, so take this also with some grains of salt).
As Face says: you can place your rocket on another pad, another planet, in another year. Want to rendezvous a Mercury capsule with the ISS? You can (try to) do that in Orbiter.

But, as Orbiter is completely a hobby project for everyone involved, it will probably never model the spacecrafts as accurately as what the full-time employed developers of Reentry can do.

So to take a point from Face: please do buy Reentry if you want to, and support the development of a space history simulator. But as Orbiter is free, why not also download it, play around, and enjoy the freedom it allows?

PS: you want a stable Orbiter historic spacecraft addon that's as realistic as possible? Then your best bet is probably igel's Vostok bundled in this addon. Just as the actual Vostok, you have very limited opportunity to control the spacecraft.
 

N_Molson

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Yes the thing is that with some hard work we can do quite cool VCs on Orbiter, I mean we have the tools, the only glitch right now is the lighting issue, but lets hope it will be solved some day.
 

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I have Reentry and I like it.

Some aspects like the cockpits are more advanced, as expected from a commercial simulator.
But there are negatives. The Earth is incredibly basic and in low resolution. Also, there's no proper editor and save game is rudimentary.
You're limited to historical missions, while in Orbiter you do whatever you want.

I'd say use both Orbiter and Reentry, depending on what you want to simulate.
 

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The best part of Orbiter are the folks involved here not just running the sims, many of the folks you speak with here made this stuff up, and it is rocket science! Even the most basic questions are happily answered by the authors of everything here. And they are made up of folks from all over the world, with information no one person has access to. And most of them write better English than most Americans I know. Browsing this forum I am humbled by the combined talent I see here, and it's their hobby. They're not doing it for a living, they do it because it's their passion, as perfectly as they can. And they ask nothing in return except your enjoyment. I compare this to me being a volunteer firefighter, I/we do it for the community and ask nothing except what is needed to bring the best equipment and skills we have when you need us the most.. I tip my hat to Dr. Martin and the rest of the gang for making all this possible. Some of those other games, you are limited by what they give you, here you can add many things yourself with config files. I added a small spaceport at my hometown just because I can.
 
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Neptune-ME - it is worth imagining that two displays are working, all buttons are pressed and lit
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Did they already fix in reentry that they used 32 bit floating point vectors? Docking with Gemini was terribly glitchy when I tried it a while ago.
 

IDNeon

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I think Orbiter is a space flight simulator with open sandbox feeling, whereas things like Reentry are system simulations focusing on getting the vehicles right, but not giving you the freedom of a sandbox.

In Orbiter, system simulations are not done in the core, but by the community by means of creating vessel addons that simulate the systems of the respective vessel. Orbiter allows you putting your NASSP stack around e.g. Europa to go and try a lander descent on it. I doubt that Reentry lets you do that.

The way you ask your questions I'd suggest you go with Reentry. Orbiter is more a kind of toolbox to create your own space simulation experience, but it seems you want a polished experience with as much immersion as possible. As for what is "realistic", I'd say you have to trust the Reentry devs, whereas in Orbiter you have a big community and decades of reviewing that are a testimony for the simulation reaching to be as correct as possible.

I think you will be happier with cashing out the money and consuming the experience. That way you are also supporting the hard-core space-sim niche in the gaming industry. And besides: you can always additionally use Orbiter to see where either product has shortcomings.
Thanks for the advice. I did go Reentry and I think even as is it is a fantastic experience. It feels "realistic" but of course now I'd want to see that put to the test like any simulation.

Does doing this in that sim reeeeally do that in actuality?

I don't know how faithful Reentry is to real world. Its fidelity.

But then it seems the fidelity of Orbiter is also in various shades of gray needing more and more end user construction to get the mods and pieces fitting right to approach fidelity?

I haven't taken the time yet to figure out what is needed to install for Orbiter if I wanted as close-to-true as I can get.
 

N_Molson

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It seems to me that you are mixing "immersion" and "realism". Those are different things. Immersion is subjective and has to do with human feelings and emotions, realism is objective and has to do with cold rows and lines of figures. Its like Art against Science. I think both are good, but they are not about the same thing and have their own definition of the "Truth".
 
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