KSP vs Orbiter

[NotaKlutz-42516]

Which game do you prefer: KSP or Orbiter (Hint: Orbiter doesn't let you build your own craft)? This is a discussion/debate thread not unlike the one I made about KSP and Minecraft, and again I am not responsible for any big quarrels that may go on here.

[FullMetalMachinist]

What's with all the "game A vs game B" threads? Are people incapable of liking more than one game at a time? 

[LeuZ]

6 minutes ago, FullMetalMachinist said:

What's with all the "game A vs game B" threads? Are people incapable of liking more than one game at a time? 

Thought the same

[Superfluous J]

KSP: Love it.

Orbiter: If I ever did play it, I don't remember it. I think maybe I tried it once before I even heard of KSP and was underwhelmed.

Conclusion: No valid opinion here.

[solarbearman]

KSP : Kerbalism

Orbiter : Realism

[mciann]

Orbiter was a lot less wacky and arcade-y.  If you were going to dock in Orbiter, you needed to actually precisely connect the two docking ports with perfect alignment and within speed limits.  Whether that's a pro or a con I leave as an exercise for the reader.  While Orbiter had some spacecraft construction toolkits, there was nothing like the sandbox construction mode that KSP offers.  The planets and moons in Oribiter were all perfectly smooth, featureless spheres.  You could download landing zones that had some terrain, but they were only tiny postage stamps of detail in a sea of billiard ball boredom.  Orbiter had much better flight management and assistance tools - the HUD, the MFDs, etc.  IMHO, KSP vastly oversimplified flight and navigation controls, and bear in mind - my concern on this point isn't an elitism thing - I think some important functionality is lost in the way KSP does things that the average player would enjoy.  The map and orbit alignment MFDs, for example... but, well, I guess if you're launching from the equator all the time, those don't really play into it so much.  They did make landing spaceplanes a hell of a lot easier, tho.  If you guys ever saw Orbiter's landing MFD, however, you'd demand it in KSP.

 

There was no anti-mod elitism in Orbiter.  You *had* to use mods to enjoy the game.  For example, Orbiter has no sound at all in stock.  The stock game had a hover altitude hold mode, and all the navigation tools had auto-maneuvering features, which would make the KSP anti-mechjeb militia froth at the mouth.  That isn't to say that Orbiter was free of elitism.  Far from it.  It was a difficult community in which to be a noob, and those SimNASA amazing persons evidently thought they were actual astronauts.

 

I have fond memories of Orbiter, particularly of playing around with my nuclear powered interplanetary ship, flying the actual Apollo flight profile with a precisely simulated Saturn/Apollo stack (with panels and AGC replica), and of flying the Apollo spacecraft to Jupiter (yes, there is enough delta-V there if you use the lunar ascent and descent stages during the ejection burn).  At the end of the day, however, I don't play Orbiter anymore.  KSP +mods more than scratches my space flight itch.

[Nathair]

2 hours ago, NotaKlutz-42516 said:

Which game do you prefer: KSP or Orbiter (Hint: Orbiter doesn't let you build your own craft)? This is a discussion/debate thread

I prefer both to playing the forum like this.

[Green Baron]

Since 1.1 Orbiter, just because i don't play ksp any more due to the pile of issues it has right now. I even resurrected an old Win7-Partition for Orbiter.

But i won't compare these two. KSP is more on the gaming side, Orbiter is much more a simulator. Knowledge about navigation and basic aerodramatics help a lot, as well as patience (10 min. to leo). You can of course build "own" ships via an api (c++) and even script it (lua). Big disadvantage for me: it's windows.

The game-mechanics of ksp (i mean the space-part without career and administration) or the realism of Orbiter combined with procedurally generated bodies .... that would be a nice game i'd say :-)

Problem is, i don't dig the mathematics behind Orbiter though it's delivered with the game ... too high stupidity :-)

 

[NotaKlutz-42516]

2 hours ago, FullMetalMachinist said:

What's with all the "game A vs game B" threads? Are people incapable of liking more than one game at a time? 

I'm just posting a survey, basically. However, KSP will always be my personal favorite.

[mciann]

15 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

Since 1.1 Orbiter, just because i don't play ksp any more due to the pile of issues it has right now.

I restored a copy of 1.05 from backup and have been finding and archiving mods for it.  I really don't know if there's ever going to be a stable release of KSP again unless some major things change at Squad.

[moogoob]

I learned how to perform a gravity turn and Hohmann transfer in Orbiter. Been a while though.

[Green Baron]

2 hours ago, FullMetalMachinist said:

What's with all the "game A vs game B" threads? Are people incapable of liking more than one game at a time? 

I don't know. OP asked about our preferences. Finding out about the basic capabilities might be worth an own thread ?

 

:-)

 

[regex]

Never played Orbiter.  Not sure if I want to without a VAB/SPH, or without terrain (even RO/RSS looks awesome on my potato Intel 4K).  Images of the next version look pretty good but the great thing about KSP is the freedom to explore different mission architecture.

[Pecan]

Reason for KSP:- HarvesteR wanted to make a 'tycoon-style' Orbiter, as discussed in that programme's forums.  (There's more to the story of course but that's the relevant bit for this thread).  Yes; HarvesterR and Squad know all about Orbiter and have reasons for KSP being different.

Edited May 21, 2016 by Pecan

[awfulhumanbeing]

KSP is fun.

Orbiter is realistic.

Choose your destiny

[FullMetalMachinist]

1 hour ago, awfulhumanbeing said:

KSP is fun.

Orbiter is realistic.

Choose your destiny

I have a problem with this type of thinking. 

I play RO/RSS/RP0 to make KSP as realistic as possible, and find that it is immensely fun. 

Saying that realism =/= fun is wrong. 

[awfulhumanbeing]

8 minutes ago, FullMetalMachinist said:

I have a problem with this type of thinking. 

I play RO/RSS/RP0 to make KSP as realistic as possible, and find that it is immensely fun. 

Saying that realism =/= fun is wrong. 

if you try to make KSP as realistic as Orbiter is, than good luck!

KSP is immensely fun even with RSS, RO and all geeky stuff because it retains the same parts that make KSP fun, such as constructing.

And if you wish, you can make orbiter fun easily with mods. But KSP has way more fun at stock than Orbiter.
 

[the_Demongod]

I've been meaning to dive into Orbiter for a while now. I have it on my computer but haven't learned how to use it. Where should I start? Is it a RTFM (read the <fine> manual) situation? I play a lot of DCS so I'm definitely prepared for that to be the case if need be.

Edited May 21, 2016 by Red Iron Crown
Keep the language in check, please.

[FullMetalMachinist]

1 hour ago, awfulhumanbeing said:

And if you wish, you can make orbiter fun easily with mods. But KSP has way more fun at stock than Orbiter.

And therein lies the issue. With mods, you can take the orbiter to Jupiter. How realistic is that? 

My problem is with people assuming that "KSP = lolz explusions = fun" while "KSP with realism = birning/hard = not fun" isn't true for everyone. 

I'm not necessarily trying to compare Orbiter and KSP, as they're two different things. More trying to point out that "KSP+realism=not fun" is a bad way of thinking. 

[Pecan]

18 hours ago, the_Demongod said:

I've been meaning to dive into Orbiter for a while now. I have it on my computer but haven't learned how to use it. Where should I start? Is it a RTFM (read the <fine> manual) situation? I play a lot of DCS so I'm definitely prepared for that to be the case if need be.

Getting started with Orbiter isn't too bad.  The easiest way is to use the futuristic delta vehicle as it goes more or less where you point it.  That and basic orbital mechanics from KSP will be all you need as a platform for flying around and getting familiar with all the controls for more demanding vehicles.  The realism of Orbiter comes mainly from the great deal of instrumentation and just the way the cockpit controls scroll up/down is 'interesting'.  Definitely RTFM so you know what buttons to press but you probably won't find anything difficult in there.  Go for it.

[cantab]

Never played Orbiter. Honestly don't feel the desire to reboot into Windows just for a game that seems a lot like KSP.

[KerikBalm]

I don't run windows... so orbiter is out for me

[Tourist]

On 5/21/2016 at 4:40 AM, awfulhumanbeing said:

KSP is fun.

Orbiter is realistic.

Choose your destiny

(Sigh)

The Fun vs Realistic thing is a false dichotomy. For instance I enjoy Microsoft flight because it "realistically" simulates what it is like to fly a commercial airliner, which I find fun.

Same with the "realistic" KSP fans. They like playing with realism mods attached because they find it fun. 

If we need to have a dichotomy, and I don't think we do, perhaps Realistic v  Fantastic is a better one.   

On 5/21/2016 at 0:18 AM, mciann said:

....... the KSP anti-mechjeb militia froth at the mouth.....

I wouldn't consider us a militia so much as a anti-mechjeb knitting circle.

We're not likely to occupy a compound and make ridiculous bush-lawyer "sovereign citizen" claims. Rather, we are more likely to tsk tsk judgmentally about how much harder rendezvous was in our days and about we would not let our kerbals associate with those shifty "mechjeb" people, because, "you know what their sort are like."

Edited May 22, 2016 by Tourist

[mstram]

For all the "windows" comments, Orbiter runs perfectly fine under Wine on my Ubuntu box.

On 5/22/2016 at 12:33 PM, cantab said:

Never played Orbiter. Honestly don't feel the desire to reboot into Windows just for a game that seems a lot like KSP.

If you've never played it, how could it "seem" to be like ... anything ?

As someone who started with Orbiter, and is now "exploring" KSP, I could say the same thing, i.e. KSP a game "that seems a lot like Orbiter" ... though missing the realism (which is why I'm now looking into the Realism Overhaul  / Real Solar System mods.

[Dman979]

FWIW, KSP was first made public on the Orbiter forums. Bonus points to anyone who finds the posts!