Idea orbital traffic?

[Jake]

So, I was wondering... Can a scenario be made where more ships are flown by autopilots on various orbits, besides the player's own? It would be cool to have some "traffic" coming and going from one space station to another. It would leave at least a partial impression of "busyness". I don't know if it's doable or what it entails though.

 

[Kaito]

I know it can be done, but how, I'm not exactly sure.
I think it has something to do with Orbiters playback feature

 

[Timothy Joseph]

I second this request. I've been wanting some company for a while.

Although now that I think about it, would you even notice? I mean, I think there would have to be a lot of ships in the air for you to pass one in orbit by chance.

 

[Eagle]

I second this request. I've been wanting some company for a while.

Although now that I think about it, would you even notice? I mean, I think there would have to be a lot of ships in the air for you to pass one in orbit by chance.

It might be very bad to pass a ship in orbit by chance. If you two are in different orbits you will move VERY FAST past each other. You don't want a fender bender.

You probably won't see any ships as anything other than a dot except near space stations and surface bases.

 

[Kaito]

It might be very bad to pass a ship in orbit by chance. If you two are in different orbits you will move VERY FAST past each other. You don't want a fender bender.

You probably won't see any ships as anything other than a dot except near space stations and surface bases.

Not necessarily. If their relative speeds are close, then it wont look like you're moving to fast. But yes, you are moving very fast relative to the ground.

But yeah, the only time you would ever see some ships is when you are docking at a space station

 

[Hielor]

Not necessarily. If their relative speeds are close, then it wont look like you're moving to fast. But yes, you are moving very fast relative to the ground.

Objects that cross orbits will very likely be in different orbits from each other, which means that their relative velocity will be very high (somewhere in the "Don't want to be on that ship" range).

 

[Linguofreak]

I was once departing from a wheel station I'd put in LEO, and made a plain change to match up with the plane of my departure burn. Half an orbit later I was back at x1 time accel for some reason, and suddenly the station flashes by me. That was quite a shock.

 

[joiz]

there allready is something like this.

 

[Hielor]

I was once departing from a wheel station I'd put in LEO, and made a plain change to match up with the plane of my departure burn. Half an orbit later I was back at x1 time accel for some reason, and suddenly the station flashes by me. That was quite a shock.

Yup, the planes continue to intersect at the nodes.

 

[Jake]

there allready is something like this.

What? Moar info plz k thx :|.

About seeing or not seeing other ships - I was talking more about when you dock. Standing in line to catch a free docking port teehee. About collissions: I think the risk of collision is extremely small, even if you have tens of ships running on different orbits. And even so, there's no collision detection in Orbiter, so meh, with a little suspention of disbelief (if you're not that much into realism).

Ideally we would have hundreds of scripted ships flying around and an automated orbital traffic control system, like MS Flight Simulator . But I imagine that's quite far fetched at the moment.

 

[TSPenguin]

But I imagine that's quite far fetched at the moment.

Not at all. The new orbiter version has LUA scripting. Making traffic with that is pretty easy compared to the playback solution.

 

[MAraujo]

I like to play a game with the scenario editor, I put 6 or 7 ships in prograde and retrograde orbits so that they all intersect a point at the same time going in opposite directions (try to get them as close as possible). Its pretty funny, you follow one ship and suddenly all these other ships pop out of nowhere and disappear again. Definitely need to set time acceleration to x.1 to see anything coming. Try it.

 

[Linguofreak]

Yup, the planes continue to intersect at the nodes.

Yep. I'd just forgotten about the station, and arriving at the other node was quite an... impressive way of being reminded of its existence.

 

[Jake]

The new orbiter version has LUA scripting. Making traffic with that is pretty easy compared to the playback solution.

"new orbiter version" as in "the upcoming orbiter release"? But meh, it won't matter, since I can't program anyway.

 

[tblaxland]

But meh, it won't matter, since I can't program anyway.

Well, clearly you can write. I see you can also reason (although you reached the wrong conclusion here). Therefore you can also program. The rest is just syntax...

 

[Jake]

Well, my problem would be that I might not have the time required to learn that syntax. Make no mistake, I never wrote a line of code in my life, I would have quite a lot to pick up on the way. Unless this LUA thing you guys mention is some sort of devil magic and is as simple as "ship goes boom if speed exceeds an african swallow in flight"

 

[TSPenguin]

Unless this LUA thing you guys mention is some sort of devil magic and is as simple as "ship goes boom if speed exceeds an african swallow in flight"

Yes. It is this simple. LUA is not only very simple (so somebody else will eventualy do the work for you if you don't do it first) but also very powerfull scripting language.

 

[Jake]

Sooo... when will the next orbiter release come?

 

[TSPenguin]

Tuesday

 

[Jake]

I was talking about the next stable release of Orbiter, not the Duke Nukem Forever release date. I'm trying to stay away from the betas, since I won't help much with the development.