Orbiter Experience

[Piper]

I'm curious to hear what people's thoughts are about this. I've seen plenty of people of the years display their Orbiter Experience as "Advanced" or "Expert" and yet ask for help on what I would consider in my opinion to be fairly basic things like going to Mars or lunar transfers. While others I've seen do what I would consider to be much more advanced things like multiple planetary transfers and only say rate their experience as "Intermediate." I'm curious to know what others consider to be Intermediate, Advance, and Expert in skill. For example, here's my thoughts on it:


Beginner: New to Orbiter.


Intermediate:

• Launching into orbit,
• De-orbiting and landing at a non-specific location on an airless planet/moon,
• Powered landing at a specific location on a planet/moon, and
• Single planet transfers (ie, Earth to Mars).

Advanced:All of the above plus

• Launching to rendevous and docking with only minor plane changes required (sub 1 degree),
• Landing at a specific site on an airless planet/moon,
• Unpowered atmospheric landing at a specific location, and
• Single planetary fly-bys (ie, Earth to Jupiter to Saturn).

Expert: All of the above plus

• Multiply fly-bys (ie, Earth to Venus to Earth to Jupiter to Saturn),
• Aerobraking/aerocapture, and
• Low-thrust trajectories (ie, ion engines).

These would be all without any autopilot, and with limited fuel. I didn't include things like programming or add-on developing, as to me "Orbiter Experience" is really just that, experience with Orbiter, but I'm curious if the same thoughts/opinions hold true for others.

 

[blixel]

For me it's simple. flytandem and dgatsoulis have their experience listed as Advanced. Anyone who claims to have more Orbiter knowledge than them is going to have a real problem proving it.

Therefore, I'm a Beginner.

 

[boogabooga]

I consider Advanced/Expert to be reserved for add-on developers and programmers. Perhaps some tutorial publishers.

As for a piloting skill only definition, it depends on what you mean by "autopilot". Some things you describe as advanced can fairly easy with MFDs that are not necessarily autopilots. If you use LaunchMFD flight director to guide you to <0.05 RIn, but don't use the autopilot, does that count? Stuff like that.

When you say limited fuel, do you mean delta glider limited fuel or Chapman Probe limited fuel?

Then I think you have to consider a "pen and paper" understanding of orbital mechanics,rocketry,etc. Do you know Kepler's laws? Do you know what a Hohmann Transfer is? Tsiolkovsky rocket equation? Given orbital elements, can you calculate state vectors?

 

[Donamy]

For me it's simple. flytandem and dgatsoulis have their experience listed as Advanced. Anyone who claims to have more Orbiter knowledge than them is going to have a real problem proving it.

Therefore, I'm a Beginner.

If you are a beginner, that makes me a moron. :facepalm:

 

[MikeB]

As with life in general, Orbiter experience is not one-dimensional. We seek our experiences for different reasons, and enjoy different aspects of the Orbiter world. So I find little value in the idea of a single scale by which to judge experience.

Certainly there are very knowledgeable and experienced orbinauts among us, and I respect their accomplishments. When they post something interesting or useful, I add my "Thanks" to their posts.

But let's not lose sight of the different ways we can apply the lessons we have learned from our experiences. Some of us make awesome meshes; some write code that makes the Orbiter world incredibly amazing; some know how to write poetry with TransX and IMFD (how do they DO that?); some document the lessons for the rest of us (thank you Bruce Irving); some make inspiring and educational videos and tutorials; some take Orbiter out into the physical world with their simpits, to inspire and recruit new orbinauts.

For me, it isn't the experience label that matters, it's how that experience affects each orbinaut's personal enjoyment, and allows each orbinaut to contribute something to the rest of this fine community.

 

[Swigert]

Definitely intermediate. No thought needed.

 

[romanasul]

I have done gravity assists (planned by myself) of multiple planets and have flown successfully with Ion engine spacecraft, however I only consider myself intermediate because I don't know any programming and am not familiar with C++.

 

[Pablo49]

Oh, people actually look at that?

 

[Piper]

As with life in general, Orbiter experience is not one-dimensional. We seek our experiences for different reasons, and enjoy different aspects of the Orbiter world. So I find little value in the idea of a single scale by which to judge experience.

Certainly there are very knowledgeable and experienced orbinauts among us, and I respect their accomplishments. When they post something interesting or useful, I add my "Thanks" to their posts.

But let's not lose sight of the different ways we can apply the lessons we have learned from our experiences. Some of us make awesome meshes; some write code that makes the Orbiter world incredibly amazing; some know how to write poetry with TransX and IMFD (how do they DO that?); some document the lessons for the rest of us (thank you Bruce Irving); some make inspiring and educational videos and tutorials; some take Orbiter out into the physical world with their simpits, to inspire and recruit new orbinauts.

For me, it isn't the experience label that matters, it's how that experience affects each orbinaut's personal enjoyment, and allows each orbinaut to contribute something to the rest of this fine community.

Just to be clear, I know full well that Orbiter Experience is not one dimensional, indeed, that "multi-dimensionality" is exactly what I'm interested in hearing about from others. For myself for example, Orbiter has always been about interplanetary travel, and over the years, the skills I've developed and the accomplishments I've made towards that end is how I've measured myself towards whether or not I'm a Beginner, or Intermediate, etc. To be clear, I'm not trying to create a single standard/scale for measuring achievement/experience in Orbiter, nor am I trying to force people to justify how they rate their experience level. I'm just curious to hear other peoples' viewpoints on the subject, and how they measure that experience for themselves. I know the answers are going to vary greatly, but as I said, that's the whole point of the question.

 

[Matias Saibene]

My opinion on it

When I created my account in OF I choose my level of Orbiter "beginner". But by you criterion I should remain beginner because:

I have launched a spacecraft into orbit, was not a scheduled orbit even I not used some tool or Orbiter instrument. I make orbits with using my intuition and OrbitMFD (to know what he looks like.).

I have deorbited many ships (with my terrible style reentry) and landed properly in certain places and moons.

But I never made a transfer (to travel to other planets I use the MFD Rwarp). I think it would be very difficult to use something like TransX because (as I understand) complex mathematical calculations are needed and I do not know, plus I'm terrible at math.

Still I use Orbiter for these purposes:

90% fun, enjoy the freedom to fly, imagine stories and play them, get good screenshots.

11% learn about space and physics, trying to make realistic flight configurations.
(again, terribly bad at math:lol

Although Orbiter is a bit difficult (in fact, it is not a game, it is a simulator) to my amuses me. Someday I hope to make realistic flights (if they ever I make a transfer orbit to the Moon would be happy).

Something happens to me in all learning is that I have knowledge but are highly fragmented.

In short, my opinion on my own experience is:

 

[blixel]

But I never made a transfer (to travel to other planets I use the MFD Rwarp). I think it would be very difficult to use something like TransX because (as I understand) complex mathematical calculations are needed and I do not know, plus I'm terrible at math.

You don't need to know how to solve complex math equations to use TransX. Actually, the whole point of TransX is to solve those calculations for you. All you have to know is how to navigate your way around TransX, and how to interpret what the MFD is telling you.

Really, it's the same as any other MFD in that regard. You read what Orbit MFD is telling you, interpret the information in some meaningful way, and then make an educated decision based on what you see.

 

[Loru]

From Piper's breakdown I fall into "advanced" but that deals only with orbital mechanics/piloting.

I treat it more globally. Not only as measure of skills in piloting/orbital mechanics but also general knowledge about how orbiter works, how to manage add-ons, fix minor problems, suggest solutions for certain problems etc.

:hmm: Achievements tab in personal profile's page?

 

[orb]

I think I already stated my opinion about the experience somewhere in these threads, and it hasn't changed:

• What's your definition of the experiences?
• Things to do before I consider myself to be at an 'Intermediate' level

 

[Spacethingy]

Interesting question. I rated myself Intermediate: I feel that a can do some kinda advanced stuff, but I have only a pretty "flat-earth-ish" (to use Matias' new level) idea of why it works like it does... :lol: Oh yeah, and I can only use autopilots...