Mars Expedition1 Mod for Vehicle simulator

[Jafergon]

Hi!
My name is Javier Fernandez. Many years ago I did some mods for orbiter.I did the first NASA Space Shuttle for Orbiter and the default KSC scenery, both been included in the Orbiter Base package for several versions.

I'd like to show you a project I've been working for several months. Mars Expedition1 is a total conversion mod that transforms an indie sim called Vehicle Simulator into a Mars simulator. Vehicle simulator is a mix of Flight Simulator and a driving and sailing sim.
I chose it beacuse it has very easy and yet poweful scenery creation tools. It covers 100% of mars surface elevation with a resolution of 128 pix/deg based on NASA's Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter data. As far as I know it is the first time you can explore freely the entire Mars in a game in first person view, driving rovers, walkin in an EVA suit and many more vehicles. Night/day cycles and controllable weather are also featured.
I've also included some High-resoultion areas based on Mars HIRISE data from NASA. I'll be adding more high resolution areas soon.
The mod includes a series of missions that simulates a future mission to Mars and will help you understand the features of the mod. You can also add objects and vehicles in-game to the scenery to create your own bases or situations.
It has a some limitations, due to the Earth's nature of Vehicle simulator, but they do not ruin the experience.
I've been working for nearly 9 months on it and I released it las week. It's a freeware project and you can download it here:
http://marsexpedition1.com/
more info here:
https://www.facebook.com/marsexpedition1

Trailer:

 

[PhantomCruiser]

Wow! That's visually stunning.

 

[trokkes]

Amazing work, dude!

:thumbup:

 

[Kendo]

WOW, amazing. I presume this is an on going thing.

 

[goaowonk]

OMG :O

 

[Interceptor]

WOW! too cool for words.:thumbup:

 

[Jafergon]

Thanks so much for the comments! It is already available. It requires Vehicle Simulator but will also work on the demo version of that sim.

Javier

 

[4throck]

Looks good. My dream would be to use Orbiter to fly to the planets, save the situation, and then import it into something like this.

 

[cljohnston]

Awesome work, Javier!

Back when I owned a PC, before going back to Mac, I got hooked on Virtual Sailor (after I'd already become addicted to Orbiter, that is), and I always wished that those two sims could be combined — that way you could have realistic splashdown and recovery operations after recreating an Apollo mission with that awesome AMSO!

Now I hear that this new Vehicle Simulator (needs a catchier name, though) has pretty much done just that!

First thing I'm gonna do with my inheritance from my stepmom is buy a new PC (with kick-ass graphics card this time!) and load it up with every add-on for these sims that I've been pining for these past 8 years!

 

[wingnut]

Javier, this looks very interesting. I downloaded the Vehicle Simulator demo as well as your Mod.

While trying to fix an error message about a missing dll d3dx9_26.dll when starting Vehicle Simulator after I installed your mod as per the instructions in the manual, I'm enjoying reading through the manual.