Awesome, just found Orbiter

[levans]

Just found Orbiter. The only thing that could make me happier right now is if it was available as a native Mac app - call me 'eccentric' if you like
Thankfully I have Bootcamp.

This is just the sort of thing I've been looking for - seemingly for ages, and I'm absolutely delighted with the depth here.

Going to send the project some cash via Paypal, but I hope I'm not too late to support it - looks like the last main update was 2006, which isn't necessarily the sign of its demise of course. Are we to expect new versions in the future?

Cheers, and thanks to the author(s) involved in making this.

Luke

 

[to be]

Indeed, orbiter development is still very much alive, much thanks to its creator, Dr. Martin Schweiger, who you will see around the forum as "martins". You can see some preview screenshots of the next version here, but of course most of the improvements are to things you can't see, orbiter being very much a physics sim.

 

[Zatnikitelman]

Hi and Welcome to the best, least exclusive club on Earth!
Don't forget about all the addons available. The best source is www.orbithangar.com but there are several other sites I'm sure you'll run across.
Feel free to ask questions, that's how I learned everything.
Welcome!
Zatnikitelman

 

[Andy44]

Dr. Schweiger, the "Kirk and Creator", is busy and active, so don't worry, Orbiter's not going anywhere anytime soon. This is a vibrant community and there are lots of people working on stuff all the time, when we are not wasting our time yacking on the forum! Have fun. Get Go Play in Space and learn as much as you can, then you'll be ready to recreate entire Apollo missions from launch to splashdown to carrier recovery, follow along space shuttle and soyuz missions in realtime (yes, people do that here), and of course, fly "what-if" vessels to the outer planets and become a pro at astronavigation.

Orbiter rocks, welcome to the party!

 

[Chupacabra]

Welcome! Feel free to ask any questions, Typically you'll find a lot of answers in the Docs folder and you'll find Go Play In Space a wonderful and well written tutorial. There are also Tutorial/Playback scenarios to run inside of orbiter. Try them out.

Happy Orbiting!

 

[James.Denholm]

Orbiter's not going anywhere anytime soon.

He didn't mean the development isn't going anywhere, don't worry.

Welcome, pull up a chair, and if you speak proper grammatical English, we'll all get along just fine. The ready-to-drink coffee is in the freezer.

 

[levans]

Indeed, orbiter development is still very much alive, much thanks to its creator, Dr. Martin Schweiger...

Very excellent. The sheer wonder of this thing blew my socks off this afternoon. Very glad to hear we can expect it to go onward and upward. This compliments the other piece of software that threatens to eat too much of my time on occasion: the X-plane flight sim. It seems it's also similar in that it seems to be baby of essentially one very talented individual (ignoring the plugins of course) - though in this case it's even better 'cause it's free :speakcool:

Also gratifying to see so many folks popping up to welcome me. Nice. Thanks for all your comments and the very warm welcome.

Just printed off the manual and will start by a proper read through. Am I right in thinking that I can get some help with an "autopilot" from the DeltaGlider IV plugin? I've only just downloaded/installed this (haven't actually flown it yet), but the mention of an autopilot seems like a good idea to begin with (i.e. planning/executing orbital maneuvers efficiently).

Looking forward to more fun tomorrow

 

[tl8]

Ckeck out the recommended addons page in the FAQ, Lola Mfd is a great MFD that has autopilots for many parts of space flight

 

[tomek]

Am I right in thinking that I can get some help with an "autopilot" from the DeltaGlider IV plugin? I've only just downloaded/installed this (haven't actually flown it yet), but the mention of an autopilot seems like a good idea to begin with (i.e. planning/executing orbital maneuvers efficiently).

Dan Steph's DG-IV? Yes, that thing can pretty much fly itself. Concerning efficient orbital maneuvers though, efficiency comes mainly from knowledge of which maneuvers to do and when. And every vessel has built-in basic autopilot that will hold necessary attitude for you.

 

[gimp1992]

Welcome here is a list of many Orbiter Community Links http://simcosmos.planetaclix.pt/01_orbiter/SC_atlaslinks/00_orblinks/orblinks.htm some are offline but most are still avalible.

 

[TSPenguin]

Welcome to Orbiter and welcome to this forum.

Try the recommended tutorial section and read "Orbital Operations". It will help you in a very easy (and quick) way to understand and perform standard operations.

If you are like me (and many others) and prefer a more "hands on" delta glider, try out the exceptionaly great DG XR-1 from Doug at www.dougsorbiterpage.com

Do you have any special kind of use for orbiter planed, or do you just go on and discover it step by step? We have many people here who pretty much exclusively fly Apollo, Gemini, Space Shuttle or other kind of "fixed" missions. It will be interesting to see you develop your own style.

As others have already said: Feel free to ask any question you like. I think you will find that this is the most friendly and competent community you've ever encountered.

Happy Orbiting

P.S.: Don't be scared if you read something like "Hail Probe" or "Furry Dicez"...

 

[reverend]

Recommended Addons Page: http://www.orbiter-forum.com/faq.php?faq=addon_list#faq_addons

 

[levans]

Dan Steph's DG-IV? Yes, that thing can pretty much fly itself.

OK, good.

I have also spotted the XR5 Vanguard, which from the 'marketing' alone looks like a righteous addon.

Have just finished some more reading. I suppose to begin with, here's what I'm thinking I want to do:
- I'd like the most advanced craft that can indeed "fly itself"
- I'd like to play with orbital mechanics and getting accustomed with the various HUDs/tools to plan and set up maneuvers.

i.e. I want to learn the mechanics first, and have the ship (for now) fly itself on the courses I enter.

So, I wonder which ship(s) are the best suited to these initial goals of mine?
Also, for any recommended ship, what are the specific features that I should read up that equate to the autopilot. What I mean, is that there may in fact not be a "full" autopilot, but a series of tools that you use together to assist with doing the correct burns etc... or perhaps there IS a full autopilot on some of these vessels.

In short, my criterion for picking my first ship will be the one with the most complete autopilot to allow me to concentrate initially on trajectory planning.

Cheers, all.

Luke

 

[TSPenguin]

The autopilots of the DGIV will help you there. I think it has the most comprehensive autopilots out there. But IMO this would be overkill.
I personaly prefer the XR-1 to the DGIV. The XR-5 is from the same class and as such has nearly the same interfaces. Very great stuff those ships. If you are looking for something beautifull, check out the thread on the XR-2 Ravenstar, which is in developement.

Since you are not planning on doing lots of ascends or descents, or even dock with something, basicaly any ship will do. Every ship has the default orbiter autopilots which will be sufficiant. In addition, I think you will find attitude MFD usefull.
IMFD features an autoburn function that acts as an autopilot and TransX has in it's maneuver mode a crosshair to aim at and if you are not in maneuver mode you usaly just have to be in prograde mode.
These both tools are the ones you want for interplanetary (or moon) trajectorys. Which one is better is a neverending unanswered question. Both have very strong features and both work completely different.
Depending on the level you want to do your trajectory planning you will find equationMFD usefull.

Happy Orbiting

 

[levans]

That's great. Just the sort of info I was hoping for. I'll check out the XR-1 as I kind of like what I'm reading about the XR-5, though the latter is described as a more tricky bird to fly in the opening sections of its manual - so perhaps the XR-1 is kind of an XR-5 'lite'.

Anyway, that's about enough talking... time to dive in. I'm sure it doesn't really matter which bird I pick first if they have similar, basic autopilots.

 

[Xantcha]

Try learning to fly on moon.

Here are a few simple exercises that can give you some basic feeling for spaceflight. (Hope so)

Start on moon, brighton beach. Open Surface MFD and learn to youse your hovers:
try ascending to 10 m attitude and hold that altitude (you can do it manually, or by pressing A for altitude hold autopilot.
Check if your RCS is on, then apply left yaw thruster for a while. This will spin your craft. Since there is no atmosphere your ship will rotate indefinitely. You have to use opposite direction thrusters ir killrot function (NUMPAD 5) for that.
Press t to accelerate time - you will see that your craft slowly moves sideways. This motion is moon's rotation - welcome to spaceflight where you can see how giant rocks move Presse r to decelrate time, and slowly put ship on landing pad.

To get a better idea on ships control you may wan;t to bring your craft to another landing pad. You can use hover engine to do it helicopter-style, or use your main engine or rcs in translation mode. Just remeber that you will need to null all horizantal velocity you have made.

Now to a lunar orbit! keep Surface MFD, but open Orbit MFD as well. Choose any direction and fire your main engines, full thrust. Use hovers to keep your altitude constant. Keep your pitch at 0 (you can press L to use do it automatically). If you will do it manualy, than you will notice that your vertical accelrations goes up with time and you have to throttle hovers down. (Or if you are using hold-alt autopilot it will do it automatically). The faster you are moving the less your weight - less hover thrust required to counter it. At one moment you will notice that to keep altitude constant you don't need to apply any hover thrust. This means that you are weightless, this should be at velocity about 1700 m/s.
If you keep your main thrusters working you will notice that not only you are not falling but you are going up as well. Turn your main engines off. Congrats, this is your lunar orbit

Moon is a big rock so even at 1700 m/s it will take some time to make a round trip. Use time acceleration to wait until you will be close to brighton beach, where your trip has started. (Use Map MFD for reference). If your altitude was low enough you will literally zip through that base.

 

[tomek]

To get a better idea on ships control you may wan;t to bring your craft to another landing pad. You can use hover engine to do it helicopter-style, or use your main engine or rcs in translation mode.

You DO NOT WANT to use your main engines just to fly to another landing pad. Mains are for changing your velocity by hundreds of m/s at least. Using them to fly around the base is like trying to park while pushing the gas pedal into floor.

Well, ok, you might want to use mains, but only for a few seconds at like 5% power. Same goes for retro thrusters, though those are usually less powerful than mains.

 

[TSPenguin]

Give the man a break.
He did mention all options and warned about excess speed!

You can use hover engine to do it helicopter-style, or use your main engine or rcs in translation mode. Just remeber that you will need to null all horizantal velocity you have made.

And if he uses the main engines a little bit too much, well...

welcome to spaceflight where you can see how giant rocks move

 

[tblaxland]

i.e. I want to learn the mechanics first, and have the ship (for now) fly itself on the courses I enter.

Some good background reading here:
http://www.braeunig.us/space/orbmech.htm

Welcome to Orbiter!

 

[tomek]

Give the man a break.
He did mention all options and warned about excess speed!

To get down from tenth floor you can use stairs, elevator, or jump out of the window, but remember that stress on your body will be proportional to the square of the velocity you gain in process...