Is Orbiter dying a slow death ???

[Yoda]

Hate to bring the subject up ( and open up a can of worm), but in lue of the the ever decreasing add-on developments for Orbiter, the departure of many great past add-on developers (and Forum members) and the slow death of the US manned space program there doesn't seem to be a lot to look forward to anymore in regards to Orbiter and it's future.

Sure, we still have robotic missions ( eventhough they don't seem to be developed for Orbiter anymore either) and the Russian Space program.

But in light of realistic Space flight missions ( not Deltaglider etc) there doesn't seem to be anything out there anymore except for re-living the past glory days of Human Space Flight.

I find myself less and less checking the Forum and Orbiter Hanger since it all seems to be the same old junk ( XR2 skins, futuristic rockets without real purpose etc etc).

Orbiter was a great program for the last few years but it seems like we're definatively on the downslope of the Bell curve..........................

Any thoughts out there ????????????????

 

[Cras]

Well this certainly is a depressing thread. Or at least a depressing start to one.

I think Orbiter has much left to give, and will get much better in the future.

As for add-ons, I see where you are coming from, but there are near tech addons in the pipeline.

And I do not share the thought that mankinds best days in space lie behind us. Mars still calls to us, the Moon is still a place that we must return to, and we will, I firmly believe. Once the United States again feels the courage to sacrafice blood and treasure on endeavours of exploration and knowledge, if we have not already begun to see such a reawakening already, I can easily forsee a situtation where the great space agencies of the free world join forces once again, much as they did to build the ISS, and send men to Mars, and maybe even beyond.

And as these missions progress from paper to reality, the imagination they will spark will certainly spill over into the Orbiter community, for here is a mixture of skill, creativity, and talent that quite frankly I have not seen anywhere else on the world wide web.

That is my quanta of optimism to cancel out and leave the thread with a level function.

 

[Ark]

I've had similar thoughts. Ever since UCGO it seems like the rate of interesting addons has really dried up. The Italians are putting out interesting stuff once in a long while, but all the ticker shows anymore are unremarkable reskins.

Maybe all the devs are leaving us for FSX, where you can charge more than the price of the game for one plane addon...

 

[tl8]

I think it is going through a low point.

Many add on developers are having real life catchup with them and can't devote time to it.

Don't worry, it will pick up soon

 

[Yoda]

Well this certainly is a depressing thread. Or at least a depressing start to one.

I think Orbiter has much left to give, and will get much better in the future.

As for add-ons, I see where you are coming from, but there are near tech addons in the pipeline.

And I do not share the thought that mankinds best days in space lie behind us. Mars still calls to us, the Moon is still a place that we must return to, and we will, I firmly believe. Once the United States again feels the courage to sacrafice blood and treasure on endeavours of exploration and knowledge, if we have not already begun to see such a reawakening already, I can easily forsee a situtation where the great space agencies of the free world join forces once again, much as they did to build the ISS, and send men to Mars, and maybe even beyond.

And as these missions progress from paper to reality, the imagination they will spark will certainly spill over into the Orbiter community, for here is a mixture of skill, creativity, and talent that quite frankly I have not seen anywhere else on the world wide web.

That is my quanta of optimism to cancel out and leave the thread with a level function.

Very Optimistically spoken ( and I truly wish it were so) but Political Reality begs to differ with your view.

Space Flight in general has lost it's "appeal" to the general Public; it's no different in their eyes then getting a carton of milk.
Political will for ambitious Space Programs is no longer there; especially with a election year coming up.

I agree that the Italians still bring out some nice stuff from time to time but other than that it's become slim pickings around here.......
We just send another Rover to Mars and the best we can come up with is a DeltaGlider trajectory along it's course.
Back in the Hay day's we were flying these missions before NASA could even get them off the ground in real life................

I'm not trying to depress people but Orbiter has become ( may I say it) boring and repetative with nothing new to offer besides the ocassional new XR2 skin.

 

[Cras]

Maybe all the devs are leaving us for FSX, where you can charge more than the price of the game for one plane addon...

Definately not FSX's finest attribute. FSX has a culture that any add-on is payware. There certainly are those that are free and some are quality, but I have seen some of the most miniscule of work presented to the community with a price tag attached to it. I have always avoided totally up the amount I have dished out for add-ons, from weather to textures to scenery to airplanes, because I fully expect that if I did, I would become sick in my stomach, and become that rather swiftly. Not a good image I know.

Orbiter is amateur. Amateur in the purest sense of the word. Everyone uses it, develops for it, from me who is nothing more than a fan of space flight and can offer no help in terms of development, to Martin himself, for the love of it.

As a wise man once said, when you do something for money, you can no longer call it love any more.



---------- Post added at 11:45 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:42 PM ----------

I'm not trying to depress people but Orbiter has become ( may I say it) boring and repetative with nothing new to offer besides the ocassional new XR2 skin.

I understand and agree with that point.

But there is the XR2 Mk II that will come someday. When exactly is not for me to say, but what I have seen of it, exciting is one word that comes to mind.

 

[mojoey]

You have a point. Since US spaceflight is dead, robotic missions arent being modeled in orbiter like they should be. However, more and more people are being drawn to orbiter every day. The community may dwindle, but the game wont die. There will always be people supporting it. Hopefully, Orbiter will continue for a long time. However, the future isnt certain. I hope it will, and im sure many people share the same view.

 

[Pipcard]

What you're describing is a stagnation in add-on development, which isn't too bad considering that I can't make anything else but skins. But Orbiter isn't "dying."

 

[Spacethingy]

Addons aren't everything you know. To be honest, I think we've just hit a saturation point for things.

Besides, there's an awful lot of big things in the pipeline at the moment - think dbeachy/coolhand's XR2 MK2, Moach's Starliner, SSU and Shuttle Fleet still going strong, the new Wideawake Intenational... Even Orbiter itself; there seems to be some rather interesting features appearing in the beta.

Orbiter is amature. Amature in the purest sense of the word. Everyone uses it, develops for it, from me who is nothing more than a fan of space flight and can offer no help in terms of development, to Martin himself, for the love of it.

Precisely. Real life can make other things' rates of progress rather erratic, especially a project that has a fairly specialised audience, like Orbiter's. (We're special, we are... :lol

 

[N_Molson]

Well, my point of view is that the quality standards have risen ; and that by a logical way of consequence more work is required to make something decent. Which takes time. A good exemple are Virtual Cockpits : they require good skills in coding, meshing, and texturing. It is not easy for the same person to get proficient in those 3 fields.

Second point is that, I stress it again & again, too few people make the step to get into C++. I'm not a genius, never had a computer course in my life, and took me 2 years to really begin to make what I wanted with it. Really not that long given the power of the SDK.

Also, the lack of collision & terrain detection is somewhat a problem ; because it becomes harder to attract people without it, as commercial software always put more eyecandy in. However, I notice that the awesome normal-maps feature developped by Jarmonik is widely under-used, and it's a shame.

About US space program, of course, being able to fly the Shuttle in a realistic way is the first thing I tried (unsuccessfully :lol when I first downloaded Orbiter (one of the first versions). When I crashed a few hundred yards from LC39, I thought "Wow, this is cool !".

The Shuttle is and will remain a classic of Orbiter, no doubts about that. However, it might be wise to include the SoyuzTMA as well, this for two reasons :

1) It's currently the only manned spacecraft ferrying astonauts to the ISS

2) It is rocket-launched, and a rocket that comes with the install package could be a cool thing (with a few satellites to get started).

I hope that I will release a few addons in the following months (actually finishing something), but again, it takes time. (and believe me, I spend an average of 2-3 hours daily on this).

 

[PhantomCruiser]

...actually finishing something...

Speaking the truth there brother. Real life put a cramp on my projects, then writers/developers block, now the holiday eating seasons.

But hopefully there will be and Energia-M, Athena 1, 2, and 3 (plus COTS), then Kosmos-3 in the near future.

 

[boogabooga]

This is the second post in a week that shows a deep link between an Orbinaut's attitude toward Orbiter and their feelings about real life space exploration and its future or presumed lack of one.

Well, I won't comment too much on the real life stuff except to say that other than the retirement of the space shuttle, it's been a pretty active and productive year for NASA as a whole. (5 launches including two interplanetary probes, first images of Vesta, possible flowing water on Mars, completion of ISS, exoplanets found almost monthly, etc.)

I only came to Orbiter this past April, but for my part, my limit to add-ons has been only time and hard drive space. There are some REALLY impressive things out there. If add-on output is declining, it's only because past add-on development has been so overwhelmingly awesome.

 

[Keatah]

To answer the question presented in the title of the thread. Absolutely yes. Whether you like to hear that answer or not. It is fact. And will become more evident as time passes. About 5-8 months ago it began. Orbiter is what it is.

I think part of the problem lies in the add-on department. There are too many generic and simple add-ons and skins. Totally boring. To me anyways. I have about 4 or 5 skins for the xr series and dg, each. That's all I really need. We recently had an inrush of anime skins and little-known-corporate-logo skins - and I just yawned at each one. Sorry. Not my gig, bro.. Microsoft Office is more exciting!

Then on the other hand we have things like Moonbase Alpha which is a valiant effort and wonderfully detailed work. However, HOWEVER, I believe it is for the wrong game. A MoonBase Alpha add-on would best be done in an FPS with an engine like from DOOM or Quake. Or something similar. Orbiter is designed to model spaceflight, just as X-plane is designed to model atmospheric flight. Neither is coded to walk through bases or terminals. Get my drift?

I also believe that some add-ons, being in perpetual development, are having a more subtle effect on the negative pallor being cast upon the community. After a while we simply lose interest.

Too many add-ons clash with each other, or depend on other add-ons. This is not acceptable and I simply bypass those.

The core graphics engine of orbiter needs to be bought up to speed. We don't really have good 3d terrain modeling or good collision detection. And whatever external graphics clients are around are pretty damned buggy. No doubt. Say what you want. Criticize me all you want. I have a high standard.

Regarding requests (and the absence of) for MSL. Well, I'd rather see this done in Rigs of Rods or some other simulator with terrain we can drive over. That sort of thing.

Orbiter is what it is. You explore the mechanics and details of flying a craft in space according to the laws of physics. If that is not enough, then you need to play something else or combine something else with your Orbiter experience.

There also comes a time when you've learned everything you can about something. Then you move on. Many of us are at that point now with Orbiter.

I'm looking forward to getting out of X-Plane 9.xx and moving into X-Plane 10. Along with that will come some sorely needed new hardware. It's going to be a fantastic year ahead and X-Plane shall be my simulation of choice. Just like Orbiter once was, and to a lesser extent FSX. I never did the FSX thing too much because the program was ahead of its time in relation to what hardware was cost-effectively available. So it kinda got push around and squeezed out.

Sorry if you don't like my harsh words. But they are correct nonetheless.

 

[agentgonzo]

The popularity of Orbiter has always been linked to people's spare time, both in terms of how much they play it (and post on the forum) and also how much they develop addons. July always sees a flurry of activity as school/university students get into their summer holidays (for the northern hemisphere) and there is always a downturn in Sept/Oct/Nov as people head back to study and lose their free time. There is a brief pickup around Christmas when the free time returns. I don't see it in decline.

 

[Ripley]

...I'm not trying to depress people but Orbiter has become ( may I say it) boring and repetative with nothing new to offer besides the ocassional new XR2 skin.

Fortunately, no matter how dark and depressing you see it (boredom is quite subjective), there will always be fresh newbies who will discover Orbiter one day and be super-enthusiastic to just understand how to go to the Moon.

 

[fausto]

I can tell you what i think according to my Forum Orbiter Italia experience:

I think that development is not seen by a "team" point of view.. i mean that most of new addons are made by one person, and we know how complex an avanced development could be.. great add-ons are always created by the experience and passion of more people, like AMSO. I think that the fact to be in a team gives developers the will to work at the best...

I don't think Orbiter is dying.. with new private space access like Dragon and SpaceShip Two and new Orion capsule for dep space exploration, i'm sure the interest for Orbiter will rise up again!!

 

[Codz]

I don't see why you'd say US spaceflight is over. You've got SpaceX, Orion/SLS, and the Boeing CST. For unmanned missions you've got MSL, Juno, and GRAIL. That doesn't seem very over to me.

 

[Moach]

i often think Orbiter has the potential to become a largely accepted general flight simulation tool, if a few items could be produced (all part of my list of addons-to-do):

- a CFG-based way to create more involved DVC's, even for already existing ships (the universal dynamic virtual cockpit project)

- a proper ingame universal stack configuration tool, to allow users to try their own combinations of launch vehicles and cargo (the starport project)

- a decent realtime photoreal scenery streaming device, that downloads images from geographic imagery servers and composes ground tiles from those - and possibly srtm elevation data (the geo-gen project)

- a volumetric clouds and weather rendering module - to turn that thin cloud layer into something that you can fly through (this could include moving waves on water)

....that last one would require some DX11 graphics client support, particularly for addon shaders access and stuff *hint* :wink:


this weekend, i was even thinking of how one would code an FSX addon compatibility module, to load FlightSim aircraft and stuff right into Orbiter... and i find that this is actually doable :blink:


so yeah, if i had enough able time to have my way with it - i'd code Orbiter into a full-featured alternative for FSX...
but well, i find myself stripped of that most basic requirement much more often than i'd like.... (could anyone spare me a million dollars, please?)


so have patience

Orbiter has always been a "slowly-but-surely" type deal.... every now and then, it gets a kick of enthusiasm and a lot of new coll things appear (strangely related to Martins work cycle, for some unclear reason), but it's normally slow like this....

it's not dieing, really... it's just in "chill time" mode... and it's been slower than this some time before, it happens


things will pick up - surely enough

 

[Screamer7]

I wanted to put up the same thread some weeks ago, but did not do that. I visit the Orbiter Hanger website almost everyday. There is an endless stream of XR2 and XR5 skins. Once in a while there is an exiting add on. But the add ons had really dried up in some ways. It looks like the add on developers are loosing interest in Orbiter.
I remember how exited I was when David anounced that the autofcs for his newest Shuttle fleet is in the pipeline. But nothing really happened.
I remember that when NASA or other space agency plans to launch a program, an add on was released before the mission even started.

 

[Urwumpe]

Yes, Orbiter is dead - at least for Yoda, who can complain about other people not producing enough add-ons per month, regardless that his own output is pretty marginal.

Really, I really lack the proper words here to describe what I am thinking. I don't want to say that all should be making add-ons. I know that this will only end in much more repaints of the XR2. But I think that the Orbiter community lives and dies by the actions of the people inside it. And this involves you (the person on the other side of the screen). If you want high quality add-ons, you either have to wait patiently for them to come around, or make them yourself. The first step is always the hardest.