General Question Is Development On Orbiter Dead?

[Atmosphex]

Hi everyone,

I've been meaning to ask the question for probably over a year now, and I fear I know the answer already: has the Orbiter project been dropped?

The development four years ago seemed to be going fantastic, what happened? After the 3D meshes and detailed textures came about it seems nothing else has come along since (besides the small mods on Orbit Hanger.)

Is there any any hope of further development? Perhaps plans for a commercial version in the future? I'm just thinking of the potential there could be with a different game engine with these realistic physics and VR in the future - it would be sad for this to be the end as really nothing comes close as a hobby or a education tool than Orbiter.

 

[Donamy]

April fools day was yesterday.

 

[Atmosphex]

April fools day was yesterday.

This is a legit question, there's been no news on the main website since 2017...

Sorry for showing an interest....

 

[Donamy]

You didn't say that before. I thought you were kidding. :hello:

 

[Atmosphex]

You didn't say that before. I thought you were kidding. :hello:

No, I wasn't.

 

[Donamy]

Did you hear about Orbiter 2016's release, and the new DX9 client graphics that are available now ?

 

[GLS]

This is a legit question, there's been no news on the main website since 2017...

Maybe there is no "news", but Martin was actively debugging Orbiter yesterday, so it looks alive to me.

 

[Atmosphex]

Did you hear about Orbiter 2016's release, and the new DX9 client graphics that are available now ?

Yes I was aware of that, I just note that there hasn't been any large modules added (that I'm aware of) since then.

---------- Post added at 08:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:36 PM ----------

Maybe there is no "news", but Martin was actively debugging Orbiter yesterday, so it looks alive to me.

Ah thats good news.

 

[Ripley]

Yes I was aware of that, I just note that there hasn't been any large modules added (that I'm aware of) since then...

Not officially "added" yet, but read about VesselBuilder by fred18, you'll be surprised. That's quite...large, I'd say!
https://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=40517

 

[Atmosphex]

Not officially "added" yet, but read about VesselBuilder by fred18, you'll be surprised. That's quite...large, I'd say!
https://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=40517

That looks great, perhaps my original post seemed a little ungrateful - I got hours of enjoyment out of Orbiter2010 a number of years ago, its just that I've been tweaking around trying to get 2016 to work to no avail and its quite sad that as a whole, Orbiter since 2016 released seems to have gone down hill.

Just playing around it seems multiple modules (like Dan Stephs brilliant UCGO mod) just doesn't want to play ball with the newer version, so you're kind of stuck with a more visually pleasing 2016 with not much content, or 2010 which had the Space Elevator, UCGO and good scenery packs like the Sagan spaceport.

Its not a moan, I know Orbiter's development has largely been the work of hobbyists with an intelligence level far beyond my own, but its depressing that the 2016 update which I remember waiting for with great anticipation, seems to have in some ways made it worse from a gameplay point of view.

Hopefully Vesselbuilder will go some way to rectify that.

 

[fred18]

That looks great, perhaps my original post seemed a little ungrateful - I got hours of enjoyment out of Orbiter2010 a number of years ago, its just that I've been tweaking around trying to get 2016 to work to no avail and its quite sad that as a whole, Orbiter since 2016 released seems to have gone down hill.

Just playing around it seems multiple modules (like Dan Stephs brilliant UCGO mod) just doesn't want to play ball with the newer version, so you're kind of stuck with a more visually pleasing 2016 with not much content, or 2010 which had the Space Elevator, UCGO and good scenery packs like the Sagan spaceport.

Its not a moan, I know Orbiter's development has largely been the work of hobbyists with an intelligence level far beyond my own, but its depressing that the 2016 update which I remember waiting for with great anticipation, seems to have in some ways made it worse from a gameplay point of view.

Hopefully Vesselbuilder will go some way to rectify that.

I quite agree with this last post. There has been a sort of stand by in addon development for the new orbiter version which created, exactly as you said, a more complete and extraordinary set of addons for Orbiter 2010P1, but once you see the 2016 you just want to use it but for many of them you just can't...

I know Martin is working to update the latestversion, I hope that many fixes and a more friendly way to create bases will be added.

from my side VesselBuilder is ongoing for exactly the purpose you mentioned. I hope that people will start again to develop for the new orbiter using it, in order to migrate to the latest (and absolutely wonderful, especially if you use D3D9) orbiter2016... let's see. BTW orbiter is not dead, there was a time a couple of years ago that nothing was happening neither on the forum, then it is about one year that there is a lot of activity in the forum and that is a wonderful sign!

 

[Urwumpe]

Also, I can't say this too often: Activity in the Orbiter community is also YOUR activity.

Nobody is stopping you from taking things into your own hands. And as far as I can tell, all people are as willed as in the years before to help you if you are contributing to the community.

Also, even being a good test pilot for add-ons is a great contribution, that you should never underestimate. Its great to get detailled constructive feedback how to make things better or how to reproduce bugs in another add-on.

 

[Atmosphex]

Also, I can't say this too often: Activity in the Orbiter community is also YOUR activity.

Nobody is stopping you from taking things into your own hands. And as far as I can tell, all people are as willed as in the years before to help you if you are contributing to the community.

Also, even being a good test pilot for add-ons is a great contribution, that you should never underestimate. Its great to get detailled constructive feedback how to make things better or how to reproduce bugs in another add-on.

I would love to be able to contribute, but alas my knowledge of programming is worse than my knowledge of rocket science. I guess I could have a bash, but I'd be asking so many questions that someone else may as well do it for me. Guess I could always make more texture packs, not that they're something we're short of.

 

[jedidia]

I would love to be able to contribute, but alas my knowledge of programming is worse than my knowledge of rocket science.

I didn't know much programming either when I started hacking together stuff for orbiter.
Now I'm working as a software developer professionally, because I learned a lot from orbiter.
It's a great learning environment

Also, texturers and modelers usually can find things to contribute to without having to know how to program, or can hack stuff together with Spacecraft4 and the likes. Fred would probably also not be disappointed if some more people started testing the VesselBuilder at this stage...

 

[Urwumpe]

I would love to be able to contribute, but alas my knowledge of programming is worse than my knowledge of rocket science. I guess I could have a bash, but I'd be asking so many questions that someone else may as well do it for me. Guess I could always make more texture packs, not that they're something we're short of.

Still, remember the my last suggestion: Good test pilot.

No programming required. You can learn the professional lingo and astrodynamics skills while doing it.

All you need to do is using Orbiter, trying add-ons and post many, detailled reviews. You have no idea maybe, how important well-done reviews are for developing better add-ons. Also for motivating other developers. Just imagine the effect of having a simple procedure described how to reproduce a complicated bug annoying all players.

There is a reason why good software testers are paid more than good software developers... But becoming a good software tester is only slightly easier than becoming a real-world test-pilot.

Also, making tutorials and videos around Orbiter is a pretty popular activity...

 

[Linguofreak]

Martin has a slower release pace than a lot of developers. Major releases have come roughly once every five years, so a long wait between releases is fairly typical.

 

[gattispilot]

Not sure how you measure activity? If by addon in the hangar. I know I have projects going that may never make it there. Like the shuttle recompile,.....

 

[Urwumpe]

Like the shuttle recompile,.....

Why that? I thought you came a long way towards the release so far?

 

[gattispilot]

Thanks. It mainly just me. I am sure something is left out,.....
It would be nice to get it fully working but that requires more skills than I have. like the mfd and autoland

 

[Urwumpe]

Thanks. It mainly just me. I am sure something is left out,.....
It would be nice to get it fully working but that requires more skills than I have. like the mfd and autoland

Well, Rome wasn't build on a day. Also autoland is no trivial thing its sure nothing wrong with you, if its difficult for one person alone without standing on the shoulder of giants.... :thumbup: