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  1. Piper

    Orbiter Experience

    I'm curious to hear what people's thoughts are about this. I've seen plenty of people of the years display their Orbiter Experience as "Advanced" or "Expert" and yet ask for help on what I would consider in my opinion to be fairly basic things like going to Mars or lunar transfers. While others...
  2. Piper

    Discussion 216 Kleopatra

    After learning that a few years ago it was discovered that 216 Kleopatra (the large dog-bone shaped asteroid) had two moons, I decided to make a Kleopatra addon. I'm currently working on the config files and the meshes for the moons (I'm using a publicly available mesh for Kleopatra derived...
  3. Piper

    Converting B-V, V-R, B-R to RGB

    There's tons of data for the color of minor bodies in the solar system, usually given in the form of B-V, and V-R values, and sometimes a B-R values given as well (which I've noticed is just B-V + V-R). In my strive to make my add-ons as realistic as possible, I want to write a program that...
  4. Piper

    Problem Chariklo Rings

    I've been making a Chariklo add-on, because an asteroid with rings around it is just way too good to pass up, and everything was going nicely (mesh for Chariklo made, config file made, etc.), when I discovered a bit of a hick-up. Orbiter doesn't seem to let you model rings around a mesh object...
  5. Piper

    SDK Question Rotating a Mesh, and a Jettisoned Payload

    So I've finally decided on taking the great leap from Spacecraft3 to creating proper modules for all my spacecraft. Right now I'm working with my Io Orbiter, and I've got all the basics down for creating and releasing a payload, but for the Lander I need to rotate the mesh 90deg first, and of...
  6. Piper

    General Question "_tile.bin" file format

    Anybody know what the file format is for a "_tile.bin" file? The one for 9+ level textures in the Texture2 folder. I'm looking to write a program that extracts specific tiles from a "_tile.tex" file. I've already written a program that can divide a .tex file into all its subsequent .dds...
  7. Piper

    Project Brighton Beach Terrain

    I've been somewhat inspired by Rodion Herrera's "Brighton Base 2011: An Upgrade to Orbiter's Brighton Beach" to create some realistic scenery for the area around Brighton Beach. I've already created a program that transforms greyscale terrain images into a 3D mesh. The proportions of the...
  8. Piper

    Project Low-Thrust Trajectory Planner

    When of the most notoriously difficult things to do in Orbiter is the navigation and flight of low-thrust spacecraft (ie, ion-thrusters) like Dawn, Hayabusa, or Deep Space 1. So to go along with my regular Trajectory Planner, I've made a program for designing trajectories for low-thrust...
  9. Piper

    International Orbiter Space Station

    A while ago (2007) I started a large project called the International Orbiter Space Station (IOSS), and I had to halt the project when my laptop crashed and I lot many of the modules that I was working on that were necessary to finish the project. Well, for those who remember it, and are...
  10. Piper

    Project Trajectory "Pork-Chop Plot" Generator

    I thought I'd give everybody a little preview of a program I'm working on that creates "pork-chop" plots for figuring out optimal trajectories. It's come along pretty good, and I feel I've finished all the hard stuff. When it's finished, it will also display "Prograde" "Outward vel." and...
  11. Piper

    Update Chapman Probe v2.1

    I've made some updates to my Chapman probe: Fixed bug where the probes tumbled chaotically when trying to do aerobraking. Fixed improper weights in the scenarios. Made the solar panels and magnetometer animations separate. Panels now can rotate 45degrees. It can be downloaded from Orbithangar...
  12. Piper

    Project MPC Database Viewer/Exporter v3.0 beta

    I've been working on a new version of my MPC Database Viewer/Exporter. The new version has some bug fixes, and has various little features added to it: MPC Database Viewer/Exporter 3.0 (41.4Mb) European users may need zardoz's Format Converter (if you use "," instead of "." for the decimal...
  13. Piper

    Project Io Orbiter and Lander

    I thought I'd give a little preview of an Io Orbiter and Lander that I've been working on for the past few months. I originally conceived of this project years ago (I think 2003 was the first time I thought of it), long before I had even heard of Orbiter. I've always been fascinated by Io...
  14. Piper

    Chapman Challenge

    Since I work the night-shift, I often spend a lot of time challenging myself in Orbiter going to different places, usually using one of my Chapman probes. Since these probes only have so much DeltaV, it can be quite challenging finding ways to get places, and I'd like to share some these...
  15. Piper

    New Release MPC Database Viewer/Exporter v2.0

    Ok, I've completed beta testing of version 2.0. I hope everybody enjoys the new improved version, as there isn't a single feature that hasn't been updated or changed, not to mention many new features. With this program, you will be able to travel to ANY asteroid or dwarf planet that is known...
  16. Piper

    Calculating the distance of orbital nodes

    Does anybody know an equation for calculating the distance of the ascending and descending nodes?
  17. Piper

    Project MPC Database Viewer/Exporter v2.0 beta

    "MPC Database Viewer/Exporter" is a program that allows you to import any known asteroid and dwarf planet into either Orbiter or Celestia. It automatically creates all the files necessary, and automatically adds the planet into your sol.cfg file, allowing you to instantly start Orbiter and go...
  18. Piper

    Off-Plane Transfer tutorial

    I've noticed over the years quite a few people that don't seem understand how to do an off-plane transfer. I wrote up this quick tutorial on how to do one using TransX. http://www.ioss.ca/OffPlaneTutorial/index.html The level of difficult for this shouldn't be too high. If you can do an...
  19. Piper

    Exporting x,y,z co-ordinates of spacecraft

    I was wondering if anybody here is willing to make a simple module or MFD that automatically exports the x,y,z co-ordinates of a spacecraft, and the MJD date they were exported, to a file. The interval of exporting the co-ordinates and date could either be down every x-number of seconds, or...
  20. Piper

    Changing Mesh Textures in a Base File

    I'm designing a program that randomly creates landing site scenery, and I want to be able to change the textures of the rocks. According the Orbiter.pdf file, all I have to do is replace OWNMATERIALS with TEX and the name of the texture file I want to use. However when I try that, the new...
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