Lucy
in the sky, with diamonds.
- Joined
- Aug 9, 2009
- Messages
- 7,110
- Reaction score
- 1,304
- Points
- 203
- Location
- 10.0.0.1
- Website
- www.orbiter-radio.co.uk
- Preferred Pronouns
- she/her
This project of mine started out so simply.
Initially, it was going to be a "Damage GUI" for the XRs.
Then, it was going to be an MFD showing the state of an XR vessel in higher granularity than the in-panel MSD.
Then, it was going to be a fully-fledged random damage and failure system for the XRs.
Now - well, now, it's all of those, and also an addon which gives you the capacity to repair your XR vessel after it's been damaged by means of an EVA (this is done by combining the UMMU action area feature and the XR API).
It is not finished, though I think at this point I'm reaching the end of the Alpha phase. Beta testing is kind of already under-way, and is being done privately so that I could hold off on announcing it. It may change. It is significantly more complex than it used to be.
However, I feel confident enough in my capacity to finish it to a reasonable standard to happily announce:
I emphasise that this is still a project and is not finished. I do not expect to finish very soon, but my internal criteria for announcing this was whether I both could finish it and had the time to devote to finishing it.
Don't just take my word for it, though. Some screenshots littered here and there have already shown some of the features, or shown me poking about with various aspects of them.
This XR2 is broken. Honest.
See? I told you! Particle effects are not properly implemented yet, but this visual flair is definitely an optional component. I promise it won't look this daft.
I think it's broken, Scotty. Get the box spanner out and put down that continuum transfunctioner.
Brief video of me testing the random damage logic, with disclaimer:
This is set to "insane" level, initially created for debugging purposes only, but now implemented as a feature. Actually having this happen in-game is somewhat annoying, but the lower-end settings provide a happy balance between OMG NOO DAMAGE and a realistic approach to the concept. You can of course turn it off entirely.
(Watch the videos on YouTube itself for higher quality)
Video of a full EVA from egress to ingress covering repair of one damaged aileron (Yes I know it says it was damaged on ascent, but this is actually a generated test scenario - power of the imagination, creative license, whatever
).
Before you ask:
How to download the project:
XRRR is now hosted in a BitBucket mercurial repository, and has become open-source. To download with mercurial, I recommend using Tortoise HG. With it, you can create a folder (I recommend using a fresh Orbiter unpack / install), right click on it, and from the Tortoise HG menu item use "clone".
In the dialogue that opens up as a result, copy-paste the "source" item as:
In the "destination" box, ensure that the path is correct:
Once those are correct, press "Clone". You'll download a copy of "default" branch, which is the stable beta release at the moment. For an overview of what you will be downloading before you pull it, see the web browser page first.
The bleeding-edge branch is called "indev". This holds the most recent updates and it may very well cause Orbiter to crash. The only rule I have before committing to indev is that it compile successfully. However, indev is the testing version; it is where the cool things are developed.
To get indev, do this:
That should give you a copy of the latest commit in the XRRR indev branch. To revert to default, change the contents of ".hg/branch" back to "default" and do "hg update" again with the Tortoise HG shell extension, or whatever your preferred tool is if you don't like tortoises.
If all that was double-dutch or didn't work then you can also download packaged snapshots from bitbucket. See this page for those.
Initially, it was going to be a "Damage GUI" for the XRs.
Then, it was going to be an MFD showing the state of an XR vessel in higher granularity than the in-panel MSD.
Then, it was going to be a fully-fledged random damage and failure system for the XRs.
Now - well, now, it's all of those, and also an addon which gives you the capacity to repair your XR vessel after it's been damaged by means of an EVA (this is done by combining the UMMU action area feature and the XR API).
It is not finished, though I think at this point I'm reaching the end of the Alpha phase. Beta testing is kind of already under-way, and is being done privately so that I could hold off on announcing it. It may change. It is significantly more complex than it used to be.
However, I feel confident enough in my capacity to finish it to a reasonable standard to happily announce:
XR Rolling Repair
- A configurable random damage and failure simulator for XR vessels;
- An MFD to illustrate the current state of any XR vessel in-simulation with greater fidelity than the in-panel displays;
- A system to leverage the UMMU action areas introduced in UMMU 2.0 to allow users to perform EVA missions to repair their damaged XR vessels;
- Different difficulty levels;
- Safety interlocks (Disable the random damage entirely, protect critical systems from being damaged by it, disable it during reentry - all configurable);
I emphasise that this is still a project and is not finished. I do not expect to finish very soon, but my internal criteria for announcing this was whether I both could finish it and had the time to devote to finishing it.
Don't just take my word for it, though. Some screenshots littered here and there have already shown some of the features, or shown me poking about with various aspects of them.
This XR2 is broken. Honest.
See? I told you! Particle effects are not properly implemented yet, but this visual flair is definitely an optional component. I promise it won't look this daft.
I think it's broken, Scotty. Get the box spanner out and put down that continuum transfunctioner.
Brief video of me testing the random damage logic, with disclaimer:
This is set to "insane" level, initially created for debugging purposes only, but now implemented as a feature. Actually having this happen in-game is somewhat annoying, but the lower-end settings provide a happy balance between OMG NOO DAMAGE and a realistic approach to the concept. You can of course turn it off entirely.
(Watch the videos on YouTube itself for higher quality)
Video of a full EVA from egress to ingress covering repair of one damaged aileron (Yes I know it says it was damaged on ascent, but this is actually a generated test scenario - power of the imagination, creative license, whatever
).Before you ask:
- Yes, this supports all three currently in-operation XR vessels.
- Yes, I plan to add support for new XR vessels as and when they are developed.
- Yes, this will be for Orbiter 2010-P1 exclusively. It cannot be made for 2006-P1 or 2010 for various reasons.
- No, it isn't finished yet.
- Yes, it will be released on the obligatory Tuesday, and not even I know which Tuesday yet - spare time is fluid, and oftentimes I have none to devote to the project, but I am enjoying making it, and am putting as much time as I can into it.
- Yes, the system is being tested. The current version can be found here. See below for how to download.
- No, the particle effects may not make their way into the final version unless I can make them look right and work how I want them to.
How to download the project:
XRRR is now hosted in a BitBucket mercurial repository, and has become open-source. To download with mercurial, I recommend using Tortoise HG. With it, you can create a folder (I recommend using a fresh Orbiter unpack / install), right click on it, and from the Tortoise HG menu item use "clone".
In the dialogue that opens up as a result, copy-paste the "source" item as:
Code:
https://bitbucket.org/Xyon/xrrrIn the "destination" box, ensure that the path is correct:
Code:
C:\Path\To\Your\Clean\Orbiter\Installation\Or\One\You\Dont\Mind\BreakingOnce those are correct, press "Clone". You'll download a copy of "default" branch, which is the stable beta release at the moment. For an overview of what you will be downloading before you pull it, see the web browser page first.
The bleeding-edge branch is called "indev". This holds the most recent updates and it may very well cause Orbiter to crash. The only rule I have before committing to indev is that it compile successfully. However, indev is the testing version; it is where the cool things are developed.
To get indev, do this:
- Navigate to where you cloned "default" to by following the above instructions.
- CD into ".hg"
- Open "branch" in notepad or similar
- This file has one word in it. Change it from "default" to "indev" (without the "" characters)
- Save the file and exit
- Move back out of .hg and back out of the parent directory
- Right-click on the top-level directory and choose "Tortoise hg -> Update"
That should give you a copy of the latest commit in the XRRR indev branch. To revert to default, change the contents of ".hg/branch" back to "default" and do "hg update" again with the Tortoise HG shell extension, or whatever your preferred tool is if you don't like tortoises.
If all that was double-dutch or didn't work then you can also download packaged snapshots from bitbucket. See this page for those.
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