Problem with Lunar Base Gestelia

[stevcast]

I was wondering if anyone could help me. I recently downloaded the new lunar base Gestelia, and put it into Orbiter, and the only textures that showed up were the crater (from another download), the Delta Glider(from the scenario), and a Train from the Gestelia Files. No other textures appear. I have no buildings, lights, landing pad etc.
I have tried everything I can think of to get this base to work, but have gotten nowhere. Has anyone else had this problem, and if so, what did you do to correct the problem?

Thanks

Stevcast

 

[Tommy]

The textures may need to be "registered". Try this (if it doesn't work it won't make things worse, and is easily reversible):

Open Orbiter/Config/Base.cfg with a text editor, and find the list of textures. Add the names of the textures included with Gestalia (probably don't need "train" or "lights, etc, but certainly all with non-english names (do NOT include the .dds at the end).

WHat may be happening is that the base is created but is invisible since Orbiter didn't load the textures since they weren't called in Base.cfg.

 

[stevcast]

Tommy,
I never thought of that, but I'll give it a try. As far as the lights are concerned, your guess is as good (if not better) than mine.

Stevcast

 

[Tommy]

My impression is that the lights and train are SC3 vessels and will load their own textures as needed. Since a standard base doesn't have a module, it's textures are loaded via the Base.cfg if I'm not mistaken.

 

[stevcast]

Well, it made sense to you, and it made good sense to me, but , my computer has no "sense" (except a distorted sense of humor in wanting to torture me), and it didn't work. I can't figure out why this thing won't work, everything seems to be in order, and yet the only item to show up is the train car at the bottom of a deep crater.
The crater looks great though!!!!

 

[Tommy]

I'm at work tonight, so don't have an Orbiter install or the docs, but maybe in a couple days I can try to figure it out. There were a few things that looked odd to me when I looked the base's files over, but I'd need to check the SDK and other docs to see what's up. Haven't heard of anyone having problems, though. Have you tried downloading and installing again? That's about all I can think of right now.

 

[stevcast]

I've downloaded and installed the base five times, and I always get the same results. I'll keep trying different things to see if I can get it right. In the meantime, if there are any other suggestions, I'd sure appreciate the help!!!!

 

[PhantomCruiser]

After hearing about your trouble, I loaded this onto a clean install. I loaded the base first and quickly got a CTD (forgot about spacecraft3) then it seemed to work fine. After checking it out then I loaded the crater. On my super mega install (lots of mods, addons, scenery, ships, etc) of Orbiter I aborted the install because it wanted to overwrite a lights texture.
All I can suggest it to try it with a clean install and see what happens (and don't forget spacecraft3).


I did notice than when the crater is viewed from the outside (outside of the crater that is), that the crater walls don't come all the way down to the surface, so it seems to "float". When viewed from an approaching craft though it doesn't seem too bad.

 

[stevcast]

PhantomCruiser,
Maybe what I'll have to do is seperate my Orbiter downloads into several seperate simulators (it seems that is what alot of others are doing to simplify matters), to keep things running smoothly. I really can't see any other alternative.
Thanks for the input!

 

[PhantomCruiser]

It still doesn't seem right that you can't get the base to show up... Have you tried unpacking the files manually to ensure that the meshes go into the meshes folder (etc and so on...). The base .cfg only calls for meshes, no textures or anything.
I installed the base into my super-duper-mega-install, it worked fine. Although the floodlights only work with the attached scenario. But I can fix that manually if I had too. The crater looks great, but the floating look from the outside takes away from it. But it does look fantastic when inside it.
Let us know how it turns out eh?

 

[stevcast]

I have tried 6 clean installs into my own super-duper-mega-install, all with the same results (what looks like an ore car, and the delta glider show up in the crater, but nothing else). I have manually put every shred of data into their respective folders, file by file, and I still get "shut out". If you can think of anything else let me know, and again, thanks for your help!

 

[stevcast]

You are not going to believe this!!! After racking my brains for quite some time, and trying everything I could possibly think of to get this base working, my 9 year old son asked me to leave the room. He had been looking over my shoulder off and on, watching me get more and more frustrated as each of my attempts failed to get the Gestelia base working.
Well, I needed a break anyway and I asked him what he had up his sleeve; He just smiled and said "You'll see." When I came back in approximately half an hour, he had a scenario file on the desk top for Gestelia, and he told me to replace the original scenario file with the one he had just made, but not to open it up because there was a secret message in the file that I could only read if his idea worked.
I tried it, and damned if it didn't work! He had gone to bed and was already half asleep, so I opened the scenario file up to see just what he had done differently. The original data read as follows:

train:Spacecraft\Spacecraft3
STATUS Landed Moon
POS -13.1367538 26.8835078
HEADING 139.17
NAVFREQ 0 0
CONFIGURATION 1
CURRENT_PAYLOAD 0
SEQ 0 -2 0.000000
END
Lights:Spacecraft\Spacecraft3
STATUS Landed Moon
POS -13.1367538 26.8835078
HEADING 139.17
PRPLEVEL 0:1.000
NAVFREQ 0 0
CONFIGURATION 1
CURRENT_PAYLOAD 0
END

His new file read as follows:

train:Spacecraft\Spacecraft3
STATUS Landed Moon
POS -13.1367538 26.8835071
HEADING 139.17
NAVFREQ 0 0
CONFIGURATION 1
CURRENT_PAYLOAD 0
SEQ 0 -2 0.000000
END
Lights:Spacecraft\Spacecraft3
STATUS Landed Moon
POS -13.1367538 26.8835078
HEADING 139.17
PRPLEVEL 0:1.000
NAVFREQ 0 0
CONFIGURATION 1
CURRENT_PAYLOAD 0
END

The original coordinates of the lights and the train are in the exact same position! He slightly changed the position of the train and the whole scenario worked, and I hadn't seen the mistake!

To add insult to injury, on the bottom of the scenario file was this message "All you have to do is do it right, Dad."

Thanks to everybody that tried to help with this problem, and now I think I'll take my son out for pizza and a movie.

 

[PhantomCruiser]

Fantastic! And funny too. It's good that your son has that much attention for details. It will serve him well in the future.