Project EliteOnOrbiter

[slicem]

Hi all. When I first saw Orbiter in ~2004 i thought: "It`s the best engine for Elitelike game I ever see. I wish somebody do smth like this. But it`s probly technicaly imposible. It even hasn`t ship destruction eventl".

Year 2009. I saw DG4 and this:
http://www.avsim.su/jump.phtml?http://www.elite-games.ru/conference/viewtopic.php?t=43640

Hmm! It`s probably possible...
So i began to scan google "Elite & Orbiter"..
And NOTHING. Hmm. "I`m surely not the one who see it. But where al those geeks, when U need them" I thought.
"Made it myself, but it sure not the work for one, and i don`t have knowledge almost for any part that needs to be done. Well, i have ramains of my the ICBM engeniring education, but it almost useless in such a work. And an ideas... "
Ideas... "Hey gardener, please, take this appleseed from apple I eat, I would waste it, but U can grow it in a beautifull appletree". There are surely more than enouth smartasses like this.

**************************
And now, pations gone, and wish - not. So I made this:
http://www.avsim.su/forum/topic/83416-elite-i-orbiter/page__view__findpost__p__1196328
http://www.avsim.su/forum/topic/83416-elite-i-orbiter/page__view__findpost__p__1197589

The main problem - I`t made on russian accounting pogramm platform "1C77"- the only, I knows good enouth. :rofl:
Second problem - It was REALY easy, I still can`t believe, that nobody tryed it before.
****************

So. For the begining. Who wanna to talk about it?

P/S
As i understand, the orbiter environment standart is C++. So I don`t start to recall the little Visual Basic practice that i had some years ago, and turn to a Visual C(MSVS 2008).
And now I stuck. Please, can U give me a link(s) to a smth like "Tutorial 4 stupid" The basic task - to create simple .exe with GUI.

---------- Post added 08-10-2009 at 10:17 AM ---------- Previous post was 08-09-2009 at 03:04 PM ----------

Hmm.. After litle discussion and forum watch, I think i probably use incorrect words.
It`s not about recreate Elite on orbiter, but about bring into orbiter LIFE simular to Elite but not the same. For example - DG4 is the best Cobra for me or to be precise - it hows the Cobra mast be modelled.

 

[ar81]

Hmm, an Elite game for orbiter sounds like a good idea.

 

[slicem]

Thanks for the respond. As a nube, I possibly will say something common and trivial with something impossible, but lets try:

The basic statements:
1. It`s surely huge work. And not only in question of work hours, but in a variety of qualifications needed - 3D modelling, AI Modelling, maths of many diffrent areas, gamedesign and many others.
2. It freeware, pleasurework. So all based on volunteers wish.

So. The main idea.
It`s an Idea to create elite... err. LIFE`s environtment in Orbiter`s environment.
To workout some concepts, determine standarts that allows side developers to include their products as a part of ... OK let`s call it "Orbiter ALIVE" or something .

Some of concepts:
To be playable as a game Orbiter need
1. Aim - to trade, to find, to develop.. to DO SOMETHING exept flight itself, and to measure quality of this flight.
2. Enteraction. For now it`s dead space.
So here AI. Ships, stations, economix, events

The little peace that i did is simple program, that work outside Orbiter and all what it does, is checks if focused ship docked\landed. To which base. And allows to move fuel betwin them for money.

So here is second part of main idea:
The strong part of Orbiter - simulation. So it is a good idea, that our "life deeds" been simulated in it. So the cargo will be not just a line in cargospace, but object with mass, size and other characteristiks as much as possible. And not only on the player ship, but on AIs and even on bases and stations.

And the summary. Idea is to work some joint points for developers of diffrent projects. Points to transfer data simular as
*************************
GL-01SG-S
STATUS Landed Earth
BASE Habana:2

Or

PRPLEVEL 0:0.153 1:0.693 2:0.983

As a results
I see mfd or popup panel wich allows player to manage ship configuration, interact with game events.
A agreed places, forms, mesurements and tipe of varieties, for the modules developers. Using wich they will know, that their module will work with "orbiter alive"

Fore example - joint points, dimensional sizes and cargo masses for Container. Whose allows to attach it to any ship, using same joints, and allows to ship recalculate its masses and moments.
And vise versa - if Container uses some dinamic algoritmes(for example position of mass center(MC) depends on gravity\inertia for liquids), if ship developer uses some standart joints for dinamic MC coordinats\amount his ship parametres will change automaticly.

In result the economy\scenery developer just says. "Lets take Ship (A) with 53000kg of fuel(density determined), with attached to joint (C) container (B) with 8000kg of vodka (density determined) and place it here with vector (Y) and AI (X)".
And it`s all work correctly "itself".

From what i saw, i think it is possible right now, all needs - common agreements\specifications.

What do You think? Am i trying "to invent bicycle"?

 

[ar81]

No. I am sure your game might be successful.
I might suggest it to start with not too many features and then expand it.
I am already working on Space Orbinomics. So I am afraid I might not be able to engage here, or I would delay mine. But I might provide feedback.

I am sure you may find a nice way to add more gameplay to Orbiter.