Project MULE

[Bibi Uncle]

Hi everyone!

I've been working on a project for a few months now, posting on Dan's forum. I totaly forgot to translate the development thread in English here, so I'll be doing it starting from now.

Presentation
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MULE is a project started by Jekka. I made all the meshes and textures and wanted to release it. However, due to its relative complexity, he needed a programmer to finish it. He asked for help on Dan's forum, and I took the programming part. So, it is a collaboration project between Jekka and me.

MULE stands for "MUlti-Lander Explorator". It is an interplanetery vessel, with 4 atmospheric landers, as well as 4 non-atmospheric landers.

You'll be able to fly up from the Earth, to Mercury and up to Neptune with it, sending landers collecting informations about the different planetery bodies.

What it will include
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MULE will include:
- MULE vessel, the mothership
- 4 atmospheric landers
- 4 non-atmospheric landers

Also, main vessel and the landers will have a personnal MFD (2 MFDs in total), in order to control the animations, and to jettison the different parts. These MFDs will have a schemtical view of the vessel.

Screenshots:

MULE's MFD:

(The next screenshot is an old one. The schematic was not finished)

Current progress

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The project is now pretty advanced. My todo list is:

- Landers' animations
- Landers' MFD
- Atmospheric model for the atmospheric landers
- Chutes for the atmospheric landers
- And maybe a little surprise... who knows !​

If you want to see it in action, I made a video. Sorry, it is in French and it's pretty old, but you can have a glimpse:

The French thread is here: http://orbiter.dansteph.com/forum/read.php?f=5&i=22391&t=22391&page=0

Thanks !​

 

[Mantis]

Looks fantastic! You guys over at the Francophone Orbiter Community have been developing some amazing stuff.

 

[Columbia42]

Is the mothership going to be manned?

 

[Bibi Uncle]

No, it is an unmanned vessel. You launch it from the Earth using a very powerful launcher (because it's heavy), and people from the ground controls it towards the other planets/moons.

 

[Interceptor]

Looks awesome Bibi Uncle.Thank you.

 

[SolarLiner]

This is an awesome future add-on. I'm looking foward to testing the MULE (without french pun ^^)

 

[Bibi Uncle]

The landers' animation sequences are finished. Here is a fully deployed lander (on Earth...):

 

[Izack]

Wow! That is beautiful.

 

[Interceptor]

OOO! Nice job.:thumbup:

 

[Bibi Uncle]

I had such a nice time defining the atmospheric parameters! The atmospheric capsules now have an Apollo-like aerodynamism. The first screenshot loses lift, the second gains lift, simply by rolling (yawing in the case of these capsules) 180°.

http://i1029.photobucket.com/albums/y355/BibiUncle/MULEUp.jpg