Project Lunar SpacePort Base

[Krishnan]

Sorry if this is the wrong place to post.
I have been working on a lunar spaceport base, since I thought Brighton Beach was a bit too small.

Unfortunately, it doesn't quite work well in 2016, since it was made using 2010.

Please do let me know how I can improve this base and make it look nicer.
Thank you.

 

[Pioneer]

Sorry if this is the wrong place to post.
I have been working on a lunar spaceport base, since I thought Brighton Beach was a bit too small.

Unfortunately, it doesn't quite work well in 2016, since it was made using 2010.

Please do let me know how I can improve this base and make it look nicer.
Thank you.

Hello Krishnan,

Always nice to have another destination on the Moon. First I would recommend moving the pads away from being so close to the buildings, for both safety and aesthetic reasons. Try out something similar to Lunar Base Niven in that regard. Maybe move the hangars about 90 degrees and have the smaller pads be connected by smaller walkways to the circular building.

 

[Krishnan]

Hello Krishnan,

Always nice to have another destination on the Moon. First I would recommend moving the pads away from being so close to the buildings, for both safety and aesthetic reasons. Try out something similar to Lunar Base Niven in that regard. Maybe move the hangars about 90 degrees and have the smaller pads be connected by smaller walkways to the circular building.

Ah, thank you! The little pathways were supposed to be jetways for passengers to enter/leave the spacecraft. I was trying to make the base look like an airport; I'll use what you said. I don't plan on making this a base, but rather a spaceport.

 

[4throck]

Here's the base located at? I'd go for a challenging mountain location that requires some manual piloting.

 

[Krishnan]

Here's the base located at? I'd go for a challenging mountain location that requires some manual piloting.

It is located in one of the mares, but sure, I'll move the base to a mountain area or inside a crater.

 

[Krishnan]

I got the ingenious idea to make a big hangar that looks like an airport terminal. I still am confused on where I will put the pads and gates/jetways for departures/arrivals.

Current design of the jetway. I know that there should be a hangar so that the pad can be freed up for next arrival/departure and for maintenance. Still wondering on how I could make it such that the people in the main building can watch outside and not obstruct their view. The circular place acts as a waiting area/airlock, I guess.

I might have to edit the texture that makes the lights glow during dark to make all windows glow in the main terminal, but not really sure.

 

[Krishnan]

Here's the base located at? I'd go for a challenging mountain location that requires some manual piloting.

I put it in the centre of Korelev Crater. There are plenty of mountains on the approach path, and I skimmed by one at a mere 200m travelling at orbital velocity. Very fun.
Now I just need to get the design of the spaceport done.

 

[NukeET]

Hello Krishnan,

Always nice to have another destination on the Moon. First I would recommend moving the pads away from being so close to the buildings, for both safety and aesthetic reasons. Try out something similar to Lunar Base Niven in that regard. Maybe move the hangars about 90 degrees and have the smaller pads be connected by smaller walkways to the circular building.

@Pioneer:Thanks for the mention!

@Krishnan: What specifically prevents your base from working in Orbiter 2016?

 

[Krishnan]

@Pioneer:Thanks for the mention!

@Krishnan: What specifically prevents your base from working in Orbiter 2016?

The trains don't work, the lights are often underground, the solar panels don't exist, sometimes stuff is underground or black ground, etc. In Orbiter 2016, but works fine in 2010. It happened with Brighton Beach, Upton Village bases also.

 

[Krishnan]

So I procrastinated a bit more and came up with this part. This is the arrival/departure terminal. There are 32 pads total; 8 for heavy spacecraft and 24 for medium-light spacecraft.

Each pad has a jetway for spacecraft to dock to and disembark passengers, a fuel tank/external umbilical for cooling and electricity, a pressurizable hangar capable of storing 2 spacecraft (respective for what side it is on; 2 heavy on heavy side, 2 medium/light on light side). There is also an access hallway for access to the hangar without need for a spacesuit. (I plan on removing half of the hangars, since each hangar is big enough to fit 2 spacecraft).

The passengers can wait at the gate and have to climb down ramp to reach lower gate when boarding, which makes sense and is similar to real airport. I think I should lower the height of the building, since it is very tall (Look at the jetway for comparison), or my textures make it look big.



There are 2 high-speed maglev trains that travel throughout the airport, both in opposite directions. I plan on using these trains to help move passengers to other parts of spaceport and the space hotel I am building soon. I also have to move the solar farm and space traffic control tower somewhere else. Kinda sad that you can't stack objects, so I have to make the entire tower with windows.

I also have a solar farm thing, but I haven't decided where to put it.

Main thing after finishing this section is textures. I am experimenting with it.

Thank you for the feedback. I am new at making Orbiter Bases, and your feedback strongly helped.

 

[jedidia]

The trains don't work

Yeah, they're broken in O2016. Not much you can do about that from your end, though, as far as I'm aware.

 

[Krishnan]

Here is the Base file for those who want to check out the work. Put it into Orbiter/Config/Moon/Base

 

[Krishnan]

Lowered the height of the Terminal building, created a nice flagpole and a space traffic control tower. I can see how oversized the terminal is, so I made it smaller in height. Removed excess hangars. Still wondering where to place the space traffic control tower, as it is small. Tested in Orbiter 2016 but since the building is basically multiple hangars, it is disformed due to the terrain. Don't know what I am really doing, but I think it is working.


This many pads and this much big building? (5km+). Maybe one day spacetravel became so popular.


The entrance and gate seems reasonable compared to airport pics.

This may be hard to interpret but basically, there is a gap between the window/jetway and the seating area, where the ticket checking happens during boarding. In Delhi airport, the gates are below the seating area, so you would take a ramp downwards to the jetway after checking tickets.
In Washington Dulles, instead, it is basically same level with a seperate glass hallway.

The new space traffic control tower. I don't really know where to put it, so I put it in the middle of the building. I found a way to do stacking by knowing that it will appear stacked if one of the diameteres are bigger than other. In reality, they are clipping inside each other, like a telescope.

The SpacePort in Orbiter 2016. This is what I meant by the "breaking"


I chose to put this base in the Korelev Crater. I chose this because the approach/take off path involves skimming past mountains at high speeds. I reached orbit and skimmed past the surface just 200m above at orbital velocity, which was very exciting.

 

[NukeET]

The trains don't work, the lights are often underground, the solar panels don't exist, sometimes stuff is underground or black ground, etc. In Orbiter 2016, but works fine in 2010. It happened with Brighton Beach, Upton Village bases also.

I had similar problems running Lunar Base Niven (developed for 2010) in Orbiter 2016 when it came out. I deleted the solar panels in Base.cfg...and have been waiting for minds greater than mine to fix this in 2016. The underground issue is probably due to the actual terrain that 2016 affords vs the older versions. It took a while to get the terrain flattened for 2016. Easier now is using the D3D9 client and developing the text files needed to flatten the terrain.

 

[NukeET]

I located an XR2 at the coordinates you listed for Space Port 2 Base.cfg file. It is definitely on sloped ground. You could fix this issue using the newest D3D9 client and running Orbiter_ng.exe instead of Orbiter.exe. You'll also need a file located in (root)\Textures\Moon\Flat\. [file name].flt. It's just a text file. For the definition in that file, try, "ELLIPSE 721 -157.835 -4.154 500 500 0 10.

 

[jacquesmomo]

Unfortunately, it doesn't quite work well in 2016, since it was made using 2010.
Please do let me know how I can improve this base and make it look nicer.
Thank you.

Hello

Just a little trick that can help:

for meshes buildings, try WRAPTOSURFACE
like this (I take an exemple from my work) :

MESH
FILE Guyane\Hangar1
POS 520 0 -200
SCALE 1 1 1
ROT 132
SHADOW
WRAPTOSURFACE
OWNMATERIAL
END

and for soils or grounds, you need a separate mesh and with UNDERSHADOWS & WRAPTOSURFACE
like this:

MESH
FILE Guyane\Hangar1-sol
POS 520 0 -200
SCALE 1 1 1
ROT 132
UNDERSHADOWS
WRAPTOSURFACE
OWNMATERIAL
END

Just look before / after :

 

[Krishnan]

Hello

Just a little trick that can help:

for meshes buildings, try WRAPTOSURFACE
like this (I take an exemple from my work) :

MESH
FILE Guyane\Hangar1
POS 520 0 -200
SCALE 1 1 1
ROT 132
SHADOW
WRAPTOSURFACE
OWNMATERIAL
END

and for soils or grounds, you need a separate mesh and with UNDERSHADOWS & WRAPTOSURFACE
like this:

MESH
FILE Guyane\Hangar1-sol
POS 520 0 -200
SCALE 1 1 1
ROT 132
UNDERSHADOWS
WRAPTOSURFACE
OWNMATERIAL
END

Just look before / after :

View attachment 27041

Ah Thank you! I am actually using Orbiter Base Maker 2.0. Do you know what exact buildings to add this line of code to? Because I have a lot of different buildings
Since I am using default moon surface and default buildings (no custom meshes), no need for undershadows and wraptosurface code, right?
I am all new to this.

 

[Krishnan]

I located an XR2 at the coordinates you listed for Space Port 2 Base.cfg file. It is definitely on sloped ground. You could fix this issue using the newest D3D9 client and running Orbiter_ng.exe instead of Orbiter.exe. You'll also need a file located in (root)\Textures\Moon\Flat\. [file name].flt. It's just a text file. For the definition in that file, try, "ELLIPSE 721 -157.835 -4.154 500 500 0 10.

I am using D3D9 client always and Orbiter_ng.exe. It seems somewhat flat enough, but what does the file/line of code do? Will it affect the texture of the moon on that coordinate?

 

[Krishnan]

I located an XR2 at the coordinates you listed for Space Port 2 Base.cfg file. It is definitely on sloped ground. You could fix this issue using the newest D3D9 client and running Orbiter_ng.exe instead of Orbiter.exe. You'll also need a file located in (root)\Textures\Moon\Flat\. [file name].flt. It's just a text file. For the definition in that file, try, "ELLIPSE 721 -157.835 -4.154 500 500 0 10.

So I tried putting that file in, but it still looks like this. Did I mess something up? I made the file called flat.flt, created new folder called flat in Moon textures and put it there, and used d3d9 client.

 

[NukeET]

So I tried putting that file in, but it still looks like this. Did I mess something up? I made the file called flat.flt, created new folder called flat in Moon textures and put it there, and used d3d9 client.
View attachment 27044

1. Are you using D3D9ClientR4.25-forOrbiter2016(r1446)?
2. Do you have Terrain Flattening enabled in the client?
3. I was making a guess as to the size and orientation of your base. Change "ELLIPSE 721 -157.835 -4.154 500 500 0 10" to "ELLIPSE 721 -157.835 -4.154 2000 2000 0 10". Maybe the ellipse was too small.