Discussion Proposal New version of Orbiter

jameswebb

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Orbiter is so out of date. Why not rip the physics/formulas/equations physics the doc came up with rip em out and put them in a game engine like unity. The engine has everything you need for modern graphics, multiplayer, collision and its multiplatform for you Linux guys. And you can make it moddable which is why KSP was so successful. Think about it. Rip the kerbals out of ksp replace them with modern astronaut meshes and animations throw in the deltaglider put in the docs physics and what do you have? you have a new bad ass looking orbiter with a active modding community. The old addons on the hanger (or what used to be the hanger) will sit there for orbiter 2016 only. I would stop wasting time or worrying about "backwards compatibility". New orbiter, new addons simple!
 

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Orbiter is so out of date. Why not rip the physics/formulas/equations physics the doc came up with rip em out and put them in a game engine like unity. The engine has everything you need for modern graphics, multiplayer, collision and its multiplatform for you Linux guys. And you can make it moddable which is why KSP was so successful. Think about it. Rip the kerbals out of ksp replace them with modern astronaut meshes and animations throw in the deltaglider put in the docs physics and what do you have? you have a new bad ass looking orbiter with a active modding community. The old addons on the hanger (or what used to be the hanger) will sit there for orbiter 2016 only. I would stop wasting time or worrying about "backwards compatibility". New orbiter, new addons simple!
Yes! Go ahead, please! Hack away to your heart's content. The code is here: https://github.com/orbitersim/orbiter .
 

jameswebb

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I still use software that is out of date even for decades 🤷‍♂️

AFAIK NASA still uses Windows XP and 2000 on lots of their PCs and laptops.

👀
So what are you saying? Dont modernize orbiter just let it fade away? I got a 2000 ford explorer i'll sell ya
 

Face

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im not a coder but i can 3d model. But you sir are a fine coder 😜
Ah, I see. Well, I don't really know how to do what you described so easily. I'd guess it to take months of work, but unfortunately I don't have the time.
 

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I still use software that is out of date even for decades 🤷‍♂️

I can beat you there. I know software that still needs to run in an IBM 390 compatible virtual machine, because it survived the 5th or 6th attempt to replace it by a successor and without it, a large former state company of Germany would drop into a deep dark black hole, since nearly everything depends on it. And its still written in COBOL 1974.

I am pretty sure, Orbiter 2010 has good chances to beat it....
 

n72.75

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Orbiter is still in quite active development.

The majority of the things that make KSP great don't come from Unity for free, those are hard won customizations by the devs.

Backwards compatibility has never been something that is stopping development. It is important to preserve backwards compatibility with the API though.
 

jameswebb

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Hehe, why don't we just calm down and let @jameswebb find someone to fulfill his demands and be happy
as we will then have a newer, better, more modern and equipped with best 3D models Orbiter ;)
so no support here i reckon. Ok welp i tried. Orbiter cough 2016 it is then (y) wait...what year is it again? Thats right its soon to be 2023. anyways
 

n72.75

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so no support here i reckon. Ok welp i tried. Orbiter cough 2016 it is then (y) wait...what year is it again? Thats right its soon to be 2023. anyways
Remember no one gets paid to develop Orbiter or addons. It's a hobby for everyone and we do it for fun.

Learning to make addons is not super difficult. You say you have some 3d modeling skills, those obviously took some time and effort to learn, programming is no different.

I don't think anyone particularly disagrees with the features you want, but everything takes work to impliment.

It might be worth asking yourself and others: "how could I help". Whatever you arrive at for an answer is almost certainly your fastest route to the features you want
 

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What about you simply learn coding and do your own Orbiter?
that always seems to be the goto argument. Well this is why the topic is called a proposal. Meaning an idea. I am a 3d modeler not a coder. This is what i love about these forums. Somebody comes out and talks about an idea and all they get is ridicule. I have another idea....how about we stick to the topic. What are your guys thoughts about the OP? "Go code your own orbiter" is not helpful. I am looking for constructive feedback on the idea. It can be pro or con thats fine. What would the challenges be other than the quadtree sphere planets? thats a given. How can it be accomplished? what are the downsides? What are the upsides? How long would it take approx compared to working with the current version and slowly bring that into modern times?
 

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Orbiter is so out of date.
Good start to make new friends... Just see: you've got 10+ replies in less than 4 hours. We usually get fewer reactions whenever a new fully functional add-on is published :cool:

I am a 3d modeler not a coder. This is what i love about these forums.
Well I am interested! And probably I'm not the only one. Please go: new meshes, new vessels, new space bases, new orbital bases, or simply new textures for existing meshes. Please post your concepts in the dedicated sub-fofo to show your ideas and you'll find partners. When an idea is ready to publish, offer it as an add-on.

Also please tell the license you'll give us (Orbiter has gone open source / MIT, but you are free for your own work). If you need some technical support for the right formats, just ask in the sub-fofo, I am pretty sure somebody will guide you to the correct documentation, because it is a great community of talented people.
 

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that always seems to be the goto argument. Well this is why the topic is called a proposal. Meaning an idea. I am a 3d modeler not a coder. This is what i love about these forums. Somebody comes out and talks about an idea and all they get is ridicule. I have another idea....how about we stick to the topic. What are your guys thoughts about the OP? "Go code your own orbiter" is not helpful. I am looking for constructive feedback on the idea. It can be pro or con thats fine. What would the challenges be other than the quadtree sphere planets? thats a given. How can it be accomplished? what are the downsides? What are the upsides? How long would it take approx compared to working with the current version and slowly bring that into modern times?

Look, I am just making suggestions to help you get ahead with your proposal.

And yeah, its the most obvious argument there, please excuse me for annoying you with such trivialities.

BUT:

If you aren't investing a large deal of your life and energy into your own vision, why should somebody else do it?


If you think, this is ridiculing you, maybe the problem aren't us, but you and your own respect for yourself. You want to sell something here. But sadly, you decided to arrive in your pajamas, instead of your business dress. You came here unprepared and not very convincing.

Maybe you want to try it again? Do you believe really believe in your idea? Or will you go to KSP(2) if things go hard and cumbersome?

And just one small warning: Such a project will take many man-years and you will often meet people who will be WAY more resistent to changes and new ideas than the people you met so far here. Because actually, nobody here wants Orbiter to stay like it is. Everybody has his own PITA what should be fixed or improved. If you don't want to code, your job will still involve convincing enough people of your vision of Orbiters future (Sounds like politics, smells like politics, tastes like chicken...uh. Yeah, its politics), to follow it and integrate their visions into your vision. (Or else.)

And now, better go on, prepare better sales material and do something impressive. Or I will held a lecture about business re-engineering here. And you REALLY don't want me to do that to you.
 

n72.75

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The Orbiter community is very welcoming to new members. Your original post seemed to take a rather negative view of the development efforts underway currently. No one here wants to gatekeep or ridicule. You are very enthusiastic, and that's a good thing.

To properly address your question: it would be harder to remake Orbiter in Unity and impliment all of those features, than it would to just impliment them in Orbiter.

DirectX9 will not be around forever and a lot of the graphics client stuff I have seen being worked on will help move to newer systems down the road.

Multiplayer is extraordinary difficult in any engine, but we do have an example working as an addon, so in principle it's possible.

Collision already works, but only with the ground. This one might be easier than anyone thinks. The question though, is "what do you want to do with it?" Seeing rigidbody Deltagliders bounce off of each other would be really fun and cool. I will admit, though that I am more interested in simulating probe and drogue collision for docking. A system that works well for one, might not work well for the other. How do we reconcile this?

Orbiter, by virtue of it's design has to be many things to many people. I've spent a few hundred hours implimenting and testing a new non-spherical gravity model for Orbiter. Is this a waste of time? I don't think so. I'm quite proud of it. It will be more applicable to NASSP users than most people, and I suspect few will use it to it's full potential, but it was important to me, so I put a lot of hard work into it.
 
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