Does anyone here play Orbiter 2010 to practice for KSP?

[The Russian 1021]

Was wondering if i was the only one, learned how to dock by playing it, and becuase of the challenge of Orbiter since its realistic, ive been able to now pretty much do anything with ease in KSP.

[Goldham]

Why play Orbiter when you can play KSP?

[sal_vager]

Orbiter can be hard to get into, and needs modding just for basic functionality like sound, but it's interesting to note that HarvesteR played Orbiter and later developed KSP as being more accessible.

Rather than learn from Orbiter, I've found that the orbital mechanics I've learned from KSP can be used in some other games such as Pioneer, the tools are crude but you can see your orbit, and with some guesswork you can raise and lower your apo/periapsis, change inclination and even do a transfer orbit to the Moon, all thanks to KSP

[EndOfTheEarth]

Admittedly, I tried Orbiter about three years before KSP and never got into it, mostly because I found the flight interface to be a huge pain to deal with. I plan on going back at some point and trying again, but at the moment I'm still more interested in the challenges available at my stage of KSP gameplay.

In short, I'm currently playing KSP to practice for Orbiter.

[Daze]

Admittedly, I tried Orbiter about three years before KSP and never got into it, mostly because I found the flight interface to be a huge pain to deal with. I plan on going back at some point and trying again, but at the moment I'm still more interested in the challenges available at my stage of KSP gameplay.

In short, I'm currently playing KSP to practice for Orbiter.

Yes, the real problem of Orbiter its the ugly HUD

[xzxvrx]

I play KSP to practice for Orbiter.

[Pecan]

Wow, talk about coincidence. I've just come from checking the Orbiter web-address as one of my friends said he was looking for something 'real life' rather than KSP and wasn't so interested in the design/building side as seeing what historical spacecraft were like. For the same reason I have tried Orbiter - following a link from these forums - but KSP is much more fun. I am interested in designing and building my own ships.

[adinfinitum]

I played Orbiter before I'd heard of KSP, and I'd have to say that, for me, it helped a lot as far as getting into orbit, rendezvous, and docking are concerned. Once I found out about KSP it was a pretty easy transition from one game to the other. You're definitely not the only one who learned to dock from Orbiter, once docking ports were released in KSP I never had any trouble docking two ships together.

[diomedea]

I am one of those that arrived to KSP with a rather solid experience in Orbiter (since 2002). Almost any maneuvers I make in KSP, I did with Orbiter years before and practiced many times, therefore I must say yes, Orbiter allowed me to play KSP with ease. I am still using in KSP a similar approach as I had with Orbiter, so to plan in advance and make any maneuver to the utmost precision, though KSP allows greater margin for errors and its simplified universe is easier to navigate (just move KSC far from the equator and tilt the rotation axis of each body, to imagine how simpler it is).

[Guest]

Like diomedea, I'm a long-time Orbiteer (2003). Getting into KSP was easy thanks to my many hours spent in Orbiter. But I have to say I'm enjoying myself in KSP much more.

[Mulbin]

Orbiter can be hard to get into, and needs modding just for basic functionality like sound, but it's interesting to note that HarvesteR played Orbiter and later developed KSP as being more accessible.

Rather than learn from Orbiter, I've found that the orbital mechanics I've learned from KSP can be used in some other games such as Pioneer, the tools are crude but you can see your orbit, and with some guesswork you can raise and lower your apo/periapsis, change inclination and even do a transfer orbit to the Moon, all thanks to KSP

I just checked in with Pioneer last week (first time since before I bought KSP) and the first thing I did was play around to see if I could orbit Never realised it had such realistic physics. I wonder if you could orbit in the original Frontier Elite 2...

[Mulbin]

The trouble with orbiter is the lack of development both from the creator and the modding community. There just isn't anything really being done to improve it or add new craft, the AMSO apollo is very pretty but not much else around that isn't half finished or untextured( and they don't ever seem to get finished).

[The Russian 1021]

Well, i just got back from playing orbiter for about 6 hours, ended up taking a little trip around the block, Went from Titan to hyperion, the to mars and then landed at KSC. Had a couple of close calls on reentry, wish jeb was flying XD

[MajorThomas]

I'm with Diomeda and Jack Wolf: Orbinaut since 2002, and learned the ropes there. I'm using KSP now because it's just a lot easier to do complete missions in KSP, not to mention much more fun to build your own ships.

And yes definitely, Orbiter was great practice for KSP. I suppose you could use KSP to practice Orbiter too, because the concepts are identical. However in Orbiter you're missing the Nav ball and maneuver nodes. I've become spoiled by those.

Edited March 3, 2014 by MajorThomas

[MajorThomas]

The trouble with orbiter is the lack of development both from the creator and the modding community. There just isn't anything really being done to improve it or add new craft, the AMSO apollo is very pretty but not much else around that isn't half finished or untextured( and they don't ever seem to get finished).

You should check out the Soyuz spacecraft and launch vehicle, and the ISS work. Top notch, very refined, textured, etc.

[The Russian 1021]

Oh, and might i add, orbiter is hard, like if your a ksp noob, then orbiter will be near impossible, but i played orbiter at the same time i got into ksp, about 2 years ago, only in the past few months have i been investing serious time into orbiter thought. its really fun to be able to use real spacecraft, and have more of a challenge to navigate and acheive your goals. My primary reason for playing orbiter though, is becuase i wanted a realistic shuttle simulator, and most of my time playing orbiter is spent in endeavour and atlantis! Also, flying the SS in venus is pretty neat too. (used hacks to get there, just for the fun of it)

[Mulbin]

You should check out the Soyuz spacecraft and launch vehicle, and the ISS work. Top notch, very refined, textured, etc.

Any links? There are 75 soyuz mods for orbiter... don't fancy wading through all the rubbish to find the one good one!

[brooklyn666]

Any links? There are 75 soyuz mods for orbiter... don't fancy wading through all the rubbish to find the one good one!

Check out ISS v3.2(I think it's 3.2) There should be a link to the Soyuz FG/U LV and spacecraft that is made to work with it. Shuttle fleet v4.8 is also pretty great.

[Mulbin]

Check out ISS v3.2(I think it's 3.2) There should be a link to the Soyuz FG/U LV and spacecraft that is made to work with it. Shuttle fleet v4.8 is also pretty great.

Ohhh... yes, I have that. Partly textured rockets (block colour on many parts), no interior, not updated for 4 years. On the whole graphics that wouldn't look out of place in flightsim 98 This is my point, orbiter was great back in 2004 but that was 10 years ago and its looking really old now, and development has slowed to a snails pace (mercury / gemini last updated 8 years ago!). This is why I love KSP, its well made and has a great modding community and has modern graphics. I'd love to see a new real world sim released that uses modern graphics... Orbiter 2014?

[Whirligig Girl]

I once messed with orbiter, but it was just too hard. Then, after searching Spore-like games (expecting biology or evolution and such, of course) I found KSP, and I downloaded the demo. A week later, shortly after 0.16, I bought the full version.

[Mulbin]

Here's what I mean

Orbiter - no texture maps... just block colour with a shader...

KSP... eye candy

[kelmv]

KSP docking improved my Vendetta Online docking skills and overall manuevering.

[diomedea]

... orbiter was great back in 2004 but that was 10 years ago and its looking really old now, and development has slowed to a snails pace (mercury / gemini last updated 8 years ago!). This is why I love KSP, its well made and has a great modding community and has modern graphics. I'd love to see a new real world sim released that uses modern graphics... Orbiter 2014?

You are certainly right on about everything, IMO. Development with Orbiter seems to be very slow (though still the community there is pretty active). Certainly, if a "Orbiter 2014" was to be released (not that I can find any sign about that) it should also have improved graphics (worthy of the performance offered by more modern GPU, that could not be achieved some years ago). Anyway, I always loved, and still do, the high definition texture packs with the planetary bodies; and about the internals, I finished to almost always use either DG-4 or AMSO, just because at least there was something decent with those.

[Soda Popinski]

Out of curiosity, does Orbiter also use patched conics, or something more advanced?

[Alfalfa]

Ohhh... yes, I have that. Partly textured rockets (block colour on many parts), no interior, not updated for 4 years. On the whole graphics that wouldn't look out of place in flightsim 98 This is my point, orbiter was great back in 2004 but that was 10 years ago and its looking really old now, and development has slowed to a snails pace (mercury / gemini last updated 8 years ago!). This is why I love KSP, its well made and has a great modding community and has modern graphics. I'd love to see a new real world sim released that uses modern graphics... Orbiter 2014?

Well you definatly don't know where to look... There is the Orbiter 2010 version, that was good in 2010 and not in 2004. Also keep in mind that the developper of this simulator is all alone and do it for free. You can't expect the level of polishing from one man on his free time vs a team of programmers paid for it. There is a new client for improved graphics, most of the main vessels have good skins and textures. The devlopper is even adding terrain fom the various sattellite images availables (by terrain I mean elevation and texture) but that will be for the next version of orbiter. Keep in mind that the scale is the actual scale of the solar system, and the physics are more realistic so you cannot expect too much realism for the graphics. Also, I doubt about the 8 years update for some add-on, since most of them are not compatible with the 2010 version of orbiter... So please don't bash something if you don't know what you are talking about...

That being said, it is true that there are a lot of unfinished add-ons, but the good ones are good and fairly well polished. As for myslef I play both in and out. I prefer KSP for the building part and the terrain when you land somewhere, but I like Orbiter better for the realism of the simulations (and especially the MFDs). I can fly the whole mission from the cockpit without having to switch to a map every time I want to set up a manoeuvre.

EDIT: And my I had, about the graphics and eye candy thing. The closer you are to reality, the uglier it gets. If a simulator is a little off reality it will look wrong. KSP is meant to be cartoonish, obviously the art style will look a lot better. But I agree that KSP looks a lot better than Orbiter.

Edited March 4, 2014 by Alfalfa