HyperDart - A new spaceplane

[Usquanigo]

I can't comment too much on the atmo FM, as I only have a keyboard here at work. But one thing I did notice is that it wants to point 90* vert all the time unless you wrangle with it to prevent it.

The upshot of that is, with the horizon level AP on, it rides the atmosphere like a water skiier that let go of the tow-rope. As long as you have the RCS fuel, it's an easy and gentle way to get down (though not precise - but fun).

Main thing I noticed is that I can't see the HDLander at all. The first 2 missions showed nothing but the F9 (planetarium view) vessel ID box floating. It was shaking a bit, there was no VC (only Generic "pit"), and no fuel in it. I have a relatively clean install, and I put the arm and Vandeberg AFB in as well before I tied running it.

Is there a damage model for the HD? I was worried about blowing up on re-entry but it never did, and then it slammed into the ground at about 50m/s, it made the crash sound, but didn't affect anything.

On initial spawn, there was a note in the lower left that said there was a crash and that all the crew were dead. This happened again on the above landing.

On take off, the nose pulled up so hard that the tail went right through the ground. Not sure if there's anything that can be done about that with the way collisions are (aren't) handled in Orbiter.

Other things are minor - the wheels don't animate, the ship was still under control with all the crew EVAd, the fuel capacity is epic (I took off far too vertically and wasn't paying attention and before I knew it I had an 822x569 orbit going, ran my fuel dry in the process, but that's a big orbit, felt like any higher and I'd be grabbing GEO sats, crazy in the lack of a launch vehicle or method).

The RCS ran out kinda quickly, but then I did use the APs a lot, including riding the H-Lev down into the atmosphere, which actually isn't really a bad thing, it adds a certain level of challenge.

I would LOVE to see the on-board flight computer fully functional. That would be absolutely killer.

I think that's it so far. This thing rocks man. Can't wait to see how ti develops.

I don't know much about modding, but I do fancy myself a bit of a geek and plan to start making some things anyway, so if I can be of any use at all, I'd love to help.

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

OK I've tested it:

AWESOME!!!

No real problems I can see, apart from the fact that the lander is very un-aerodynamic for Earth-ISS flight:rofl:

 

[Usquanigo]

I tried a different mission (taking an HDLander to the ISS for life-boat duties), and interestingly, the main fuel didn't last quite as long, though it was still a very high orbit. hehe

But I post this to say - still no HDLander. Opened the payload bay, and it was empty. The yellow F9 ID box was around the docking hatch (labeled HDLander) and even when I opened the scenario editor and added a new one in orbit, it was still totally invisible. I zoomed the camera in to .1 distance (max zoom) and it still wasn't there.

Not sure what's causing that. Any ideas?

 

[CigDriver]

Hmm, is it fly-by-wire or hydraulic (in regards to the control surfaces)? Fly-by-wire would be more touchy, whereas hydraulic would be slower in terms of the time between pilot input and "reaction". It's a classic Airbus vs. Boeing problem.

By the way, the API guide in the SDK has a fairly detailed section on airbreathing engines. Its complex, though.

It would be fly by wire. Part of the touchiness is due to a lacking feature, see my response to Bloodspray's first observation below.

...clip the very long post, I'll answer each by paragraph.

1. Yes that is a real problem. It is currently balanced for hypersonic flight where it will be spending most of its in atmosphere time. Eventually there will be a way to adjust the CoG. There is a graph and buttons to do it on the little display on the right side panel. I ran into problems with shift messing up most coded things, and not being able to shift it back. I'll have to revisit it. Once this works you'll be able to move the CoG back for take off and that should calm it down.

2. Yes, the Dart loves to skip like a stone! You really have to bank it over when entering.

3. I'm completely baffled by this. I'm going to guess that no one else is having the problem since it wasn't mentioned. Perhaps some one here will have an answer. The best i can suggest is to redownload and install.

4. No damage...yet. I'd like to implement this at some point. it is the main reason that the schematic is on the one display.

5. This related to UMMU. In the SDK they are coded to die at 3m/s impact speed. i thought this was very low but left it. I'll bump it up. I would think it should take at least 15-20g to kill someone, not 1/3g

6. As far as I can tell you can only code 3 touchdown points, which are the gear. There might be a way to code something to stop it. I'll look into for the future.

7. Animated wheels are something for the future. This is my first exposure to C++ so some things had to be cut. At some point I will put in code to check if there is crew onboard and disable control if there isn't. That is an impressive orbit! I never launched that way before. I always flew up to orbit in a more airplane style. That generally gave orbits in the 250-350 range doing a final boost with the OMS. I'll have to try your "accidental" method. If that is that much more efficient then I'll lower the ISP back down a bit.

8. RCS limit is by design. There is plenty, but riding the autopilots can burn it quickly. If the general concesus is that the fuel is too limitied I'll add more.

9. Some day. I need to learn more about coding and about how autopilots work. I'd love to have some kind of launch autopilot that lives in it

OK I've tested it:

AWESOME!!!

No real problems I can see, apart from the fact that the lander is very un-aerodynamic for Earth-ISS flight:rofl:

Never tried earth to ISS with the lander It does come down nicely though. With the speedbrake deployed and a bit of trim it just floats in. the actual landing is a bit hairy though. If you get into a pitchdown situation at low speed you are stuck in it. I need to fix that!

 

[Tommy]

5. This related to UMMU. In the SDK they are coded to die at 3m/s impact speed. i thought this was very low but left it. I'll bump it up. I would think it should take at least 15-20g to kill someone, not 1/3g

3m/s doesn't translate into 1/3g. G forces are calculated by meters per second per second, not just meters per second.

Actual G forces will be calculated by using the descent rate, and modified by the suspension dampening provided by the landing gear.

That said, 3 m/s is low. The Space Dart could be reasonably assumed to survive from 3.5 to 4.5 m/s descent rate (depending on fuel/cargo mass) without damage. More than that would likely damage the gear and injure (but not necessarily kill) the crew.

 

[penlu]

...It looks like we've got the next delta glider on our hands.
Definitely for later, but... can you add systems like the Dragonfly's? That would be very cool.
So far, though, everything is already great. I would like to see it!

 

[CigDriver]

3m/s doesn't translate into 1/3g. G forces are calculated by meters per second per second, not just meters per second.

Now that is a stupid mistake My high school physics teacher is going to come and haunt me tonight!

 

[eveningsky339]

That said, 3 m/s is low. The Space Dart could be reasonably assumed to survive from 3.5 to 4.5 m/s descent rate (depending on fuel/cargo mass) without damage. More than that would likely damage the gear and injure (but not necessarily kill) the crew.

It would be nice if there was a "knockout" feature to make landing not so black and white. I tried to implement a function(on my Unity addon) which caused the crew to be knocked unconscious at any rate above 6 m/s and killed at 8 m/s. Unfortunately the UMMU SDK does not provide a function to do this. I probably should have talked to Dan.

 

[the.punk]

Hi,
I downloaded and it's realy cool.(Great job:speakcool.
But have you got a release date for the launcher yet?

 

[Usquanigo]

CD, I just tried the HDLander again, and still no good.

At work, I have a P4 3.2 with 2GB of RAM running Vista Enterprise and an old ATI Radeon.

At home I have a P4 3.2 with 2GB of RAM running XP Pro and a GF6600.

Both are 32 bit, and both have pretty much everything turned on and up (in Orbiter, 32bit depth and all the goodies).

Even on my home system, where I just now downloaded and installed the RMS arm, Vandenburg, and the HD package, it does the same thing when I launch the HDLander mission - no model, no VC, no fuel, just a hidden camera and generic pit.

So that rules out the archive (as does the fact that it's a zip file, it won't extract if it's damaged or incomplete). It also seems to rule out the video card (and driver) and OS.

All that's left is the processor? Doesn't seem like that should have anything to do with it at all.

What system specs are you running?

Also, I saw on here somewhere that some issues are solved by going to either 16 or 32 bit depth (whichever was the opposite of what existed with the problem), so as I was already on 32 bit, I tried changing it to 16 bit to see, but it was the same thing. No change at all.

 

[Arrowstar]

Even on my home system, where I just now downloaded and installed the RMS arm, Vandenburg, and the HD package, it does the same thing when I launch the HDLander mission - no model, no VC, no fuel, just a hidden camera and generic pit.

Happens to me as well, just tried it.

 

[CigDriver]

Do you see the HDLander in any of the hyperdart missions that include it? HyperDart Mission 1 and 3 should have the HDLander in the bay when you start the scenario.

I've tested it on my game machine (2.4G Core 2 Duo, 2GB Ram, NVidia 8800GTs 640MB) my laptop (1.4G Celeron, 1GB RAM, Built in Video card), and my work computer (Dual 3.0 Xeon, 2 GB Ram, nVidia Quadro FX), and it works on all three without a problem. Now at one point or another I have compiled it on all. I did, however, do a clean install of orbiter with vandenberg, the beta package, UMMU, orbitersound, and URMS. It worked fine. I'm at a total loss right now.

 

[Arrowstar]

Are there any dependencies in the lander's DLL that we might not have? Can you test the install on a friend's PC and see what happens?

 

[Usquanigo]

Do you see the HDLander in any of the hyperdart missions that include it? HyperDart Mission 1 and 3 should have the HDLander in the bay when you start the scenario.

I've tested it on my game machine (2.4G Core 2 Duo, 2GB Ram, NVidia 8800GTs 640MB) my laptop (1.4G Celeron, 1GB RAM, Built in Video card), and my work computer (Dual 3.0 Xeon, 2 GB Ram, nVidia Quadro FX), and it works on all three without a problem. Now at one point or another I have compiled it on all. I did, however, do a clean install of orbiter with vandenberg, the beta package, UMMU, orbitersound, and URMS. It worked fine. I'm at a total loss right now.

No, none of the HDLander equipped missions have the HDLander. I even tried adding one via the scenario editor once in orbit and it was still not there.

Seems we can rule out any chance of it being an Intel vs AMD issue (which I thought was unlikely anyway), or nVidia.

The only other thing I can think of is what Arrowstar just suggested.

I have all the other things, and just recently re-installed Orbiter on both systems and installed very little, and did so very systematically.

 

[CigDriver]

Ok it looks like it is a dependency issue. I just downloaded dependency walker and looked at the dlls for the HyperDart and HDlander. The dart has all the dependencies in user32.dll, gdi32.dll and kernel32.dll. All of which I remember setting up in Visual C++. The Lander has kernel32.dll and msvcr90.dll in what appears to be a temporary directory.

It must be some error in my preferences in visual C++. The latest build is on my computer at work so I'll have to check it out tomorrow.

 

[the.punk]

Even on my home system, where I just now downloaded and installed the RMS arm, Vandenburg, and the HD package, it does the same thing when I launch the HDLander mission - no model, no VC, no fuel, just a hidden camera and generic pit.

I don't know about this.
All scenarios are working well on me.

 

[CigDriver]

I compared the preferences between the HyperDart project and the HDLander and found the bad setting. As a test I loaded up orbiter on another laptop and installed the beta from the original download, I got the same result as posted by Bloodspray and Arrowstar. The new DLL works great now. I've made a patch for the beta:
http://www.animatedexistence.com/orbiter/hyperdart/hyperdart_patch.zip
and updated the main beta file:
http://www.animatedexistence.com/orbiter/hyperdart/hyperdart.zip
I've also updated the HDLander Test 1 - Checkout Flight.scn to start with an external view instead of the generic cockpit. that is included in both the patch and full package.

One other item I forgot to mention, in the HDLander, if you click on the left knob on the HUD MFD it will cycle the HUD mode. I went to put that in this morning since I had to rebuild the dll anyway and was surprised to see I had already done it

***Edit****
I played around with the HyperDart a bit this morning and now have the COG adjustment working. I want to look into adding gear damage based on touchdown rate, then I'll release an update. further damage modeling will wait for the Mark II.

 

[Woo482]

I have just tested this and it works fine but the control in the Atmosphere is not that good but that could just be my flying

 

[astrosammy]

I just had some fun with flying to a Death Star in lunar Orbit with the HD attached to an Energia. Cool ship.

 

[Woo482]

how do I land the lander ? I cannot pitch it up enough to land it