Is Orbiter dying a slow death ???

[Felipi1205]

Currently Active Users: 210 - 15/01/2012
I don't think so!
Go Orbiter!

 

[Thunder Chicken]

I think both Orbiter and the community have matured. Back when I did my search for a spaceflight simulator and tripped across Orbiter, it completely awed me.

A few years later, familiarity breeds contempt. It happens - it is the nature of the human brain. Firing up Orbiter feels a bit like firing up Solitaire in Windows - a fun distraction. I run the TAEM scenarios in the shuttle fleet for a quick fix, maybe tinker with the DG to get to the moon and Mars, but that is about it. I actually get more of a kick from chatting on the forums.

Does this mean that Orbiter is going downhill? Not really. Orbiter has brought many of us to a new plateau of experience. The climb was exhilarating, but now here we are on the top. I envy the newbies who are tripping across Orbiter today - it is even more of a fantasy land then when I tripped across it years ago.

 

[Gerdih]

I dont think orbiter is dying. I check the forum every day but I dont have time to play because of the university. Also I remember another periods where there were no much addons released per week. Also, maybe in summer I would like to learn C++ in order to join to the developers work.

 

[plainsight]

XR Flight operations manual:

"Note that the next version of the XR2, the XR2 Ravenstar Mk II,
will have a fully active virtual cockpit."

Addon quantity is not everything, virtual cockpits is where Orbiter can gain immensely. Fully working 3D pit is what brought Falcon 4 back from the dead.

I think the biggest issue now is somewhat split personality of Orbiter, because UMMU/UCGO doesn't work completely with dx9 client. So you have to use dx7 version for dan steph stuff/EVA and dx9 for XR ops and eye candy. But once you go dx9,...

SO, lots of great addons can cause some confusion and now it's on devs to sync their orbits and make their existing addons fully compatible with one another.

 

[Salun]

Well to be blunt and put it into south park terms. Its all been done. You can get almost anything you want spaceflight wise already. My belief is we need just an infusion of new ideas and concepts. Not just My Little pony and Anime based skins for the XR2. With the winter null in activity I think its a good time for the community as a whole to sit down and start to work on new, original ideas and concepts.

A few months back I showed my friend 2(That's his net name 2. He's obviously a relic of a net with a registration name that low. Right next to Al Gore) Orbiter. He's in love with it and actually devoted part of his podcast to orbiter. Everything for him is new.

For me what prevents me from using orbiter every day is the lack of science type things I can do. I'd love to have MFD's that give me sciene date, probes designed to plunge into gas giants atmospheres and send back data about the atmosphere. Collecting solar winds. Measuring magnetic fields. Things like that. For me the Arrowfreither is a big old Cargo transport. I would love to slig past jupiter, dropping a probe to circal it and pass moons on my way to saturn to send a probe into saturns rings for a sample return mission.

 

[Xyon]

For my development part, real life caught up with me. I now have a "loving" dry partner and two children under 5, with one more on the way, and need to break out on the job front to keep some money coming into the household to feel all those dependants.

I don't make money from Orbiter add-on development, so if I spend all my time doing that I'll get an earful from the aforementioned "loving" partner and she'll let the baby eat my graphics card. Seriously. Real life has to come first.

Orbiter will always be, for me, the ultimate space simulator. It's free, it's small, it's portable, it's extendable, it's realistic, it's futuristic, it's retro... it's GIGO. You get out what you put in. Orbiter is what you make it. Major version releases didn't come often between 2005-2010, but there was much development being done, as you can see from the difference between 2010-P1 and 2005. The progress of the external graphics clients continues apace (and they really do breathe new visual life into the simulation; IMO the oldest part of Orbiter now is the Dx7 inline client).

Quantity is worse than quality, too. I'd rather have (blow my own trumpet time) XRRR or an XR2 than 400 UCGO cargoes and XR2 repaints. One good addon can make a real difference; AMSO & NASSP prove that.

 

[Scruce]

Well to be blunt and put it into south park terms. Its all been done. You can get almost anything you want spaceflight wise already.

Everything? Or not.

Ok, if everything has been done, where are these?

Chinese Cargo Spaceship, Voskhod, UR-100, Echo, Minotaur, T-2000, Project 921-2, LK-3, TMK and the Space Station Freedom.

I couldn't find any of them on Orbit Hangar Mods, and I found these on Astronautix after a few minutes of browsing? :shrug:

I think that the phrase "It's all been done" is grossly inaccurate. I would say less than ten percent of the stuff on Astronautix have been 'done' in Orbiter, and I'm not even going into the thousands of MFD ideas.

 

[Kyle]

There's a lot more addons that could be created. Heck, hardly any of the many future vehicles exist on orbiter yet, such as.

A realistic SSU style SLS/Orion has never been made. (this, is something I would really look forward too)
A realistic Ares/SLS ML has never been made.
A CST-100 was in the works, but never been made.
A Cygnus has never been made and released.
A SpaceShipTwo and WhiteKnight2 have never been made.
A dreamchaser has never been made.

Then you could also,
Make a realistic, SSU style Mercury & Gemini with brand new Redstones, Atlas, and Titan rockets.
You could make a new Atlas V fleet similar to the Delta IV Launch Vehicle 3.0 that was released.
You could make Stratolaunch system and the 'Falcon 5' style rocket that comes with it.
You could add switches and ect into the Dragon released.

And as far as I'm aware of there's progress on some of those even, and SSU when it becomes re-released will be amazing, and I imagine Thorton will eventually add more missions for his International Space Station addon.

So in short, Orbiter is NOT dying. The addons are coming out slower because people simply don't have time or have banded together to work on future orbiter projects. Orbiter is enhancing, and getting better as time goes on. And I also imagine there will be future orbiter additions past the 2010 version.

 

[n72.75]

How many freeware software projects that are developed by one person have undergone eleven years of continual development.

 

[Pipcard]

Everything? Or not.

Ok, if everything has been done, where are these?

Chinese Cargo Spaceship, Voskhod, UR-100, Echo, Minotaur, T-2000, Project 921-2, LK-3, TMK and the Space Station Freedom.

I couldn't find any of them on Orbit Hangar Mods, and I found these on Astronautix after a few minutes of browsing? :shrug:

I think that the phrase "It's all been done" is grossly inaccurate. I would say less than ten percent of the stuff on Astronautix have been 'done' in Orbiter, and I'm not even going into the thousands of MFD ideas.

It's hard to recreate most of them without proper orthographic schematics.

 

[PhantomCruiser]

All it takes is a bit of research... And a bit of educated guesswork.

The Minotaur can be done quite easily (I think), it may go in the "to-do" list.

 

[Scruce]

It's hard to recreate most of them without proper orthographic schematics.

To be fair, the only ones that are worth doing contain pictures, Mark Wade (owner of Astronautix) creates orthographic drawings day by day to add to his site.

 

[KKinsane]

regarding the space program being dead, logically where does the story progress? (personally I'd go with public interest in space rather than nasa and governments doing all the fun stuff >_>)

my point being its our turn to take the ball. (from nasa. and the russians. and the EU. also china. etc. space is still being reached, just remotely, so don't forget HD camera's in your set up =P)

regarding orbiter itself being dead, it doesn't feel like long since the 2010 version came out to me, idk about everyone else but I can't exactly fly to pluto manually yet, still work to be done. (if you want to see dead try to get the original version of halo's multiplayer working on pc zero servers. that, is dead.)

also happy new year, its been a while.

 

[Keatah]

I would tend to think that many previously WIP add-ons are now dead.

 

[Tommy]

One of the reasons add-ons are coming at a slower pace is because they are getting more complex. A few years ago, most add-on vessels were config or SC3 based. Then Dan came out with the DGIII, etc and upped the bar.

Dan's add-ons kept getting more advanced, and other complex add-ons came around like AMSO, NASSP, etc. Later we got the XR series, and Moach's G-4200 looks to take complexity to a high level as well. These more complex add-ons take longer to create.

I'd rather have one really good add-on than a bunch of "cookie cutter" add-ons that are basically all the same - just with a different mesh slapped onto a generic module.

 

[Pipcard]

One of the reasons add-ons are coming at a slower pace is because they are getting more complex. A few years ago, most add-on vessels were config or SC3 based. Then Dan came out with the DGIII, etc and upped the bar.

Dan's add-ons kept getting more advanced, and other complex add-ons came around like AMSO, NASSP, etc. Later we got the XR series, and Moach's G-4200 looks to take complexity to a high level as well. These more complex add-ons take longer to create.

I'd rather have one really good add-on than a bunch of "cookie cutter" add-ons that are basically all the same - just with a different mesh slapped onto a generic module.

Not everyone has the time or talent to make (or learn how to make) high-quality add-ons. People shouldn't have expectations that high.

 

[webtek]

I don't think Orbiter is dying at all. In fact, if you go to the addon development section of this forum, you will find many amazing pieces of work in progress such as the XR2 MK2 and the G42-200.

 

[RisingFury]

Not everyone has the time or talent to make (or learn how to make) high-quality add-ons. People shouldn't have expectations that high.

Why not? Why should we settle for low quality, knowing we can get better stuff?

It doesn't take talent to create addons. It does help, but the primary need is time and effort. Addons will get rated according to the effort and quality, not to please the addon dev.

 

[Pipcard]

If people only expect high-quality add-ons, it will only discourage the people who are newcomers to add-on development.

---------- Post added at 09:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:01 PM ----------

This was from several pages ago, but quoted for truth:

- There's an unnecessary negative reaction to simple addons. This puts most people off development, even as simple as converting a mesh and configuring it as sc3 vessel. This attitude prevents the creation of new add-ons for which there are publicly avaliable meshes and that could be updated in time to proper .dll versions.

- The feedback on most treads to beginner ideas or suggestions about add-ons is negative, along the lines of : "we don't need another rocket" or "code it yourself". A better approach would be to contribute to that thread and using it for research (masses, fuel, aerodynamics, sequences, etc, etc).

 

[Scruce]

If people only expect high-quality add-ons, it will only discourage the people who are newcomers to add-on development.

Or maybe, developers should not release any of their basic addons until they reach a level where we consider them \"useful\". Otherwise, Orbit Hangar Mods would be full of little 1x1x1 satellites that simply can do nothing. Of course, if it is an addon that does nothing, then unless the mesh is really good (and I mean REALLY good), it has no worth to the Orbiter community.

But, if is has more complex things (animations, custom thrusters etc.), then it has a lot more worth. A little animation like an antennae extending can go a long way in appeal.