Project Wideawake International Update

[wehaveaproblem]

Yeah I would like to do a hi-res tile version, but I don't know if I have the photoshop patience and skill. It won't make it into this next release, but it is a project always on the drawing board.



I think now I am going to release an update for WIN, rather than an expansion per se. I'm going to add a few key things I nearly added to the orginal release, and make a few cosmetic tweaks... that's it. I've taken on board all the feedback and have decided to only spend a limited time further on WIN. I'm going to get it to the place it should have been in v1, then start on a new base instead.

Question is... the new base... on Earth or the Moon...?

 

[Face]

Question is... the new base... on Earth or the Moon...?

TBH, I'd really like to see a moon base of Wideawake's quality. Alpha and Heinlein were really nice, but the experience suffered from framerate drops for me. Wideawake never had this problem...

cheers,
Face

 

[Arrowstar]

Seconded for a moon base. It'll make a nice destination for all of our WIN flights!

 

[Countdown84]

Earth base is going to get my vote - your talk about Diego Garcia got me pretty interested

Of course, I won't be sad to see a new moon base instead!

 

[n122vu]

I vote moon base.

 

[kevinvr]

I love wideawake and enjoy landing there especially. I use autopilotMFD a lot so making waypoints to li ne up with the runway is great fun. The markes will be great.
Thanks for all the great hard work. I like the suggestion of another wideawake somewhere else, hey maybe even one on each planet - he he he!!
Thanks for an excellent addon!!

 

[Kaito]

Boy, that's a tough one. I'll vote moon base, mainly because I'm getting sick of Brighton Beach.

 

[T.Neo]

Boy, that's a tough one. I'll vote moon base, mainly because I'm getting sick of Brighton Beach.

Yeah. A lunar base with the quality of WIN would the brilliant.

 

[Nemoricus]

I'll add my voice to the chorus of moon base advocates, though ultimately it is your decision.

Either way, Earth or Moon, I'm sure that we'll see a very well done base to do missions from.

 

[wehaveaproblem]

Cheers for the votes chaps. Judging by the response it seems Venus is the destination! hehe, j/k obviously. The moon it is! That was my preferred choice too.

I had planned to develop the stages that ultimately lead to the AIA moon base, but that is a loooong road, an awesome one, but a looong one. So what I'll do instead is make the Toehold Project a moon base project. ie miss out all the crap in between. I actually enjoy making bases and there seems to be a gap for it in the Orbiter market, so to speak... we don't really need me to develop another space station, do we?

Ok, so to bring the thread mildly back on topic. What I've decided is that I will add the winged launch structure over the runway at Wideawake and make a few other tweaks and additions, then call that a day for Wideawake dev. Then I will move on to the lunar base. I'll open a dev thread for that because I will especially want ideas and feedback for it's location and make-up, so put your thinking caps on please!

Thanks again for all your input, much obliged.
WHAP

 

[wehaveaproblem]

Quick screenie of the new Winged Launch Complex under Dev.
It consists of a command building and passenger terminal, a large glass structure for final pre-launch checks and passenger embarkation, a seperation structure and the blast shields themselves. I thought I would make it a little stylish, hence the glass. What you see here is incomplete and untextured. Still to add is the command terminal building, a handful of flourishes and the textures. The blast doors will be a seperate SC3 vessel, which will include animations, fake thruster sound suppression and UMMUFA Docking port for passenger transfer. I'm yet undecided whether to include a flood lit version for night launches too.

Elsewhere on WIN, I have tweaked some of the paving and beacon arrays to tidy things up, and am still to add the invisible landing pads.

 

[agentgonzo]

I think that I'm probably the only one who would like it, but I have a penchant for volcano lairs. I'd like to see a hangar entrance into the mound on Ascension Island for entrance into an 'underground volcano lair'. Doesn't need to be particularly functional - just cosmetic.

 

[wehaveaproblem]

Yeah I was thinking of making an Ascension Chiyanne Mountain (sp*) type affair, but it just seems too unnecessary. But the Lunar base WILL have a base in a crater wall, so I'm meeting you half way

 

[Donamy]

... but it just seems too unnecessary.

That's what we want the enemy to think.

 

[wehaveaproblem]

That's what we want the enemy to think.

haha, true true... Code me a stargate.dll and I'll whip up a Chiyenne...

 

[ar81]

I would like to feel the base is alive.
I did something like that when I made the tutorial on how to improve Olympus base and Brighton Beach.
If you take pictures you feel like there is something going on there.

 

[agentgonzo]

Chiyanne Mountain (sp*)

Cheyenne.
Good news about the volcano lair, though I'm not sure if I can achieve world domination without a volcano lair. Lunar domination is so passé.

 

[Donamy]

We could call it, "The Alan Parsons Project", after that noted physicist from Cambridge.

 

[wehaveaproblem]

I would like to feel the base is alive.
I did something like that when I made the tutorial on how to improve Olympus base and Brighton Beach.
If you take pictures you feel like there is something going on there.

Yeah, this is something I was thinking about ways to achieve. It's tricky in orbiter due to the way animations work and such (vessel focus etc). I'm certainly going to add a few more monorails and things to give the illusion of 'action'. Is it possible to code animated objects that can be included in the standard base config, like the monorails? or are these animations hard coded into the orbiter.exe?

Cheyenne.
Good news about the volcano lair, though I'm not sure if I can achieve world domination without a volcano lair. Lunar domination is so passé.

haha, yeah, it's a bit 80's I agree, maybe I should make a third base, called the "Doctor Evil's Meglomaniac world domination mountain hidout"...

We could call it, "The Alan Parsons Project", after that noted physicist from Cambridge.

Is this a bad reference to the Dark Side of The Moon? or do I have the wrong Alan Parsons?

 

[agentgonzo]

Is this a bad reference to the Dark Side of The Moon? or do I have the wrong Alan Parsons?

Kind of... it's a reference to one of the Austin Powers movies, where he says that he'll name something the "Alan Parsons Project", without knowing about the rock band or Alan Parsons.