General Question What's the Deal with Orbiter Development?

[Swigert]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I am yet to see any updates on what's going on with the development of Orbiter. (Then again, I don't look around very well...)

I know there's the beta, how's that coming? I tried it once a few months back, and crashed whenever a scenario was loading, so I am kind of hazy on trying it again. I'm comfortable with 2010, but the terrain on Earth annoys me and I don't honestly feel like using an addon to add hills and valleys and whatnot.

So basically, I was just wondering how development on Orbiter is coming. If it's active, when we could expect a possible update, assuming that it's still being developed.

 

[Pipcard]

Orbiter is Martin Schweiger's hobby, being worked on in his spare time. There's no guaranteed time for a possible update.

The next version of Orbiter will have terrain. However, due to the high-res textures and non-procedurally-generated terrain data, it will be many gigabytes in size (so terrain will probably be an optional download).

 

[Spacethingy]

Martin's on it for sure. He does the odd post here now and then, maybe a video or screenshot demonstrating something he's working on, then answers questions in the thread about whatever the new thing was. (Both the links were from a few days back.)

Don't worry, next releases will have some pretty cool stuff in.

 

[Swigert]

Ah, wonderful! You got me excited now. Thanks!

 

[Urwumpe]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I am yet to see any updates on what's going on with the development of Orbiter. (Then again, I don't look around very well...)

I would say, the better description is "You are as blind as a blind mole". :lol:

Sorry to be harsh, but aside of Orbiter being a hobby project that martins does it his freetime and which you use for free, there is a lot of progress updates and hints about new capabilities in Orbiter. Especially the Orbiter Screenshot thread is a good idea to look into from time to time.

 

[fsci123]

I know I'm going to get attacked for saying this but...

Could there be someway to speed development of Orbiter by releasing portions of the Orbiter code to a programmer who does this sort of work for a living? I personally wouldn't mind pitching in 20 or 50 dollars to pay some people to enhance atmospheric effects or shadows or lighting. Who knows maybe the Orbiter Community could collectively raise enough funds to make Orbiter even more awesome than what it currently is.

 

[martins]

Could there be someway to speed development of Orbiter by releasing portions of the Orbiter code to a programmer who does this sort of work for a living? I personally wouldn't mind pitching in 20 or 50 dollars to pay some people to enhance atmospheric effects or shadows or lighting. Who knows maybe the Orbiter Community could collectively raise enough funds to make Orbiter even more awesome than what it currently is.

Well, I do this sort of thing for a living, but if you want to hire my services on a professional basis, then 50 dollars won't get you far (not even half an hour of my time at current UCL consultancy rates). And I'm not sure you'll find much cheaper elsewhere, even if you could persuade me to hand out the sources. Given the amount of time I have spent on Orbiter, I'm beginning to feel that I have seriously undersold myself ...

Edit: Incidentally, that part of the code (the graphics subsystem) is already released, so you could indeed hire a programmer (there are enough starving ones out there) to implement whatever you feel is missing.

 

[Urwumpe]

Could there be someway to speed development of Orbiter by releasing portions of the Orbiter code to a programmer who does this sort of work for a living? I personally wouldn't mind pitching in 20 or 50 dollars to pay some people to enhance atmospheric effects or shadows or lighting.

Sure. But the only important reason against it is:

This is martins hobby. He does it for fun. You also want to have fun, don't you?

The other reasons that you can consider:

For some feature requests, you would be paying a few many 50 dollars to somebody who knows how to do it. Consider a ballpark figure of 100 dollars for a cheap and skilled programmer per hour of work (you can also get some programmers here in germany for about $70 per hour. But those are in the best case just talented apprentices, who will learn doing it the right way, and in the worst case not even worth half of the money). Next, even a good programmer does not always do things much faster than a bad one, he only does it more reliable and longer lasting in the application lifecycle.

So you can still calculate a few thousand USD only for a relatively simple feature that only took a few days to implement and test. A bad programmer could get you one such feature for maybe $4000, work a week and then gives you something that is buggy as hell. And then the lawyers have a field day.

(And if you now think about becoming software developer because of the money - most of the price per hour goes away into taxes, licences, office rent... in the end, you as software developers get just a nice little compensation for the time that you can't play Orbiter)

 

[jedidia]

Who knows maybe the Orbiter Community could collectively raise enough funds to make Orbiter even more awesome than what it currently is.

There's a reason AAA games have multi-million dollar budgets, you know

That said, a lot can already be done, especially graphics wise. You might want to join up with the D3D9 or D3D11 client crowds, I'm sure they'll be glad for additional hands.

I know there's the beta, how's that coming?

From what I see and hear, it's going to be the most awsome thing since the invention of the rocket engine

 

[Donamy]

I say we get a rope, and string him up.:shifty:

 

[garyw]

For some feature requests, you would be paying a few many 50 dollars to somebody who knows how to do it. Consider a ballpark figure of 100 dollars for a cheap and skilled programmer per hour of work (you can also get some programmers here in germany for about $70 per hour

As a server person my charge out rate for a days work is between £300 and £500 depending on what's required. Programmers would be charging similar amounts and remember, it's going to take a few days to get up to speed on systems and what is required.....

IT people are not cheap! :lol:

 

[Lucy]

I work as a web developer; my external charge rate is now £95 per hour.

 

[Space_Cadet]

Cant wait for the next version to come out :hail: martins

 

[dgatsoulis]

Could there be someway to speed development of Orbiter

---I know that I am quote-mining fsci's post---

Simple: The Orbiter download page has a donation link. (Which is hidden, not in big bold letters on the front page).
Donate a sum there, and when the donations start to match Martin's annual (or most probably next 5 years) income he may consider your proposal.

Given the amount of time I have spent on Orbiter, I'm beginning to feel that I have seriously undersold myself ...

I cannot speak about 2001 standards but compared to today... Yes.
Seriously, people make money out of crappy lunar-landers with occulus-rift support, that you could probably code in a couple of weekends.
Not to mention others who entered this wonderful world you created for everyone (for free) and then decided to make money out of it *cough-KSP-cough*, without giving you back a dime*.

*(My lawyer told me to make a disclaimer here, since I have no way of confirming your relations or lack their of to the KSP authors).

 

[BruceJohnJennerLawso]

I cannot speak about 2001 standards but compared to today... Yes.
Seriously, people make money out of crappy lunar-landers with occulus-rift support, that you could probably code in a couple of weekends.
Not to mention others who entered this wonderful world you created for everyone (for free) and then decided to make money out of it *cough-KSP-cough*, without giving you back a dime*.

*(My lawyer told me to make a disclaimer here, since I have no way of confirming your relations or lack their of to the KSP authors).

Well I don't know if I would take things quite that far. Harvester and his team definitely have sunk their own blood/sweat/tears into making KSP, and I don't think they owe anyone for that.

For what its worth, why is everyone so up in arms about the "Next Version" ? If you are complaining about not having enough to experiment/explore in Orbiter 2010, you're crazy!

 

[Matias Saibene]

I want to help spreading Orbiter in my blog, and I will create some repaints of space agencies. Unfortunately I can not create bases because OBM does not work.
The work, and project of Dr. Martin Schweiger seems more than commendable.

 

[dgatsoulis]

Well I don't know if I would take things quite that far. Harvester and his team definitely have sunk their own blood/sweat/tears into making KSP, and I don't think they owe anyone for that.

Nope. They don't. Newtonian mechanics are public domain. I am not saying they (legally) owe anything to Martin, nor that they broke any laws during the creation of KSP.

For what its worth, why is everyone so up in arms about the "Next Version" ? If you are complaining about not having enough to experiment/explore in Orbiter 2010, you're crazy!

You were crazy even if you did that on the 2006 version.

 

[Hielor]

I guess I need to start compiling another one of those "threads asking about the next version" lists...

 

[paddy2]

Unfortunately I can not create bases because OBM does not work.

Since when!!!!
My copy works fine, more then fine.

 

[Swigert]

As an small time software designer (I do it as a hobby, not a job), I know how long it can take to code something. Especially when you don't have enough time to really dive into it for that matter. I respect Martin and all the work he's put into the game.