Who here also plays Orbiter

[KerNailZ]

I play watch orbiter every now and then, but this is more my cup of cha, I like the hands on, skin of your teeth, seat of your pants, Kerbal stylee boi!

[Drakomis]

I do, though now with KSP at my fingertips I do so VERY rarely. KSP shows more promise and it's the first game developed by another person I actually paid money to. So yeah, in my opinion even though Orbiter shows great promise the KSP community alone trumps it by ten fold.

[DoctorEvo]

I do.

I like KSP for the building and engineering that goes into it, whereas Orbiter's all about piloting and navigation. Also, KSP's rudimentary instrumentation adds a certain element of adventure that's sometimes hard to find in Orbiter (one of these days I'm going to try closing my instruments and performing a VFR reentry in Orbiter - with an XR-class vessel - just to see if I can), and the whole theme (i.e. Jeb) adds a massive helping of character to the game, which is rather amusing.

[Victor]

I do, though now with KSP at my fingertips I do so VERY rarely. KSP shows more promise and it's the first game developed by another person I actually paid money to. So yeah, in my opinion even though Orbiter shows great promise the KSP community alone trumps it by ten fold.

Have you never payed for a game before? PIRATE!

[DoctorEvo]

Have you never payed for a game before? PIRATE!

Orbiter is free, much like the current version of KSP.

[iamwearingpants]

KSP and orbiter are like apples and oranges.

I play both for different reasons.

When I feel like blowing crap up I go to Jeb.

When I want to fail at everything, I become an UMMU and die

[RangerDanger75]

Quick question for the pro orbiters. I'm trying to land on Mars in a Delta Glider, reduce my ground speed enough to land at Olympus base? I always fly right over it between 1 000 m/s and 2 000 m/s

[DoctorEvo]

Quick question for the pro orbiters. I'm trying to land on Mars in a Delta Glider, reduce my ground speed enough to land at Olympus base? I always fly right over it between 1 000 m/s and 2 000 m/s

It's a bit more like landing on the Moon than like landing on Earth. There's an atmosphere, but it's not enough to fly through with a Delta Glider unless you're going really fast. You can use the atmosphere to reenter, but it's so thin that you still have to turn around and retrobrake in order to make your spot. If you're set up right, you'll use the atmosphere for every little bit that you can, working your way down into the thicker parts as speed bleeds off (or as you need to bleed off speed), just like on Earth - only this time, you'll run out of altitude before you run out of speed, at which point you will flip around and hover down the rest of the way, like a lunar descent. However, odds are, you WON'T be set up properly and will have to turn around earlier to fire retrograde and slow down in time.

I often find it helpful to pop up prior to turnaround so I can see my spot better, come down steeper, have more time before I hit the ground, and also have less atmosphere trying to spin me around if I've REALLY overshot. Also, on the DG, you CAN go eyeballs-out and use a combo of retros and hover thrusters instead of the main engines to slow down - just keep in mind that the mains have more thrust.

[RangerDanger75]

I think the mistake I was making was that I was coming in at too slight an angle, so I would be cruising through what little atmosphere Mars had for a couple thousand kilometers. Unfortunately the atmosphere on mars is not thin enough to slow you down significantly, but thick enough to prevent you from turning around to fire off a retro burn.

[DoctorEvo]

I think the mistake I was making was that I was coming in at too slight an angle, so I would be cruising through what little atmosphere Mars had for a couple thousand kilometers.

Where you low? That's where it's thickest...

Also if you're trying to slow down hard aerodynamically, you should be trying to increase drag as much as possible. Staying in thick-enough air is key (and your number-one way to modulate your rate of aerobraking), but it's also important to dirty up the spacecraft as well. A Delta Glider isn't very draggy all buttoned up with the nose pointed straight; it helps to stall the machine, and execute S-turns or rolls to control altitude (like the Space Shuttle, you know?). Or if you MUST fly in a nose-forward orientation, at least consider opening a speedbrake or something (IRL this might cook you to death, but let's not worry about that until you nail the basics).

Unfortunately the atmosphere on mars is not thin enough to slow you down significantly, but thick enough to prevent you from turning around to fire off a retro burn.

That's why I balloon up when I need to turn around. If you suddenly pull up and zoom-climb right out of the atmosphere (or more likely just where it's nice and thin), you'll have no trouble whatsoever getting turned around and slowed down (unless you run out of fuel trying to stop, that is). From then on it's just like a lunar descent but with more gravity and a bit of atmosphere.

But even still, I don't have that much trouble turning around... are you sure you didn't turn your RCS off at any point? AF surfaces aren't enough. Also, if your CG is too far forward, that can really hurt your control authority (to the point where you may not even be able to keep the glider stalled during reentry).

Here, watch this guy: http://vimeo.com/25592340

It's not exactly fair since he's using AeroBrake MFD to plan everything out ahead of time, but at least you can watch his retrobraking technique (in this case with hover thrusters) as he gets close at about 1.2 km/s (right around 24:20). And notice how at no point does he un-stall the ship; he's trying to get plenty of drag so he can get as much out of the aerobraking as he can.

[HarvesteR]

Me. Hard-core Orbinaut here! :hailprobe:

I have to say, the Orbiter community has helped me a lot in developing KSP. Even though in the first six months they (nor anyone) had no idea what I was talking about, they helped me out nonetheless.

And it's also where it all got started really. In early July, I posted a thread about KSP in Orbiter Forum, and from there it went.

Here's my Orbiter setup (Note also the DG paper model sitting on top of it ):

Cheers

[Tychonaut]

I fly and die in Orbiter as well as KSP. The two are complementary. What KSP lacks in fancy instrumentation and places to go (so far) it makes up for with sheer craziness. If only I had two PCs side-by-side so I could conveniently play both at once!

Strangely, although I can see the faces of my Kerbonauts, both terrified and nuts, I feel more relaxed about slaughtering my crews in KSP than Orbiter. The seriousness of Orbiter makes me feel as though real people are at stake. Of course, this hasn't stopped me from, say, bungling a Luna-Earth return trajectory and asphyxiating a CTV crew...

???

[Richy]

Also orbinaut here.

Thats a nice simpit you have there, HarvesteR, respect!

How did you managed to spread orbiter over three screens? Is it just in Window-Mode on an expanded desktop?

[HarvesteR]

Also orbinaut here.

Thats a nice simpit you have there, HarvesteR, respect!

How did you managed to spread orbiter over three screens? Is it just in Window-Mode on an expanded desktop?

Thanks

I'm using Jarmonik's D3D9 graphics client. It allows for a greater range of resolutions than the inline (D3D7) renderer.

Cheers

[Puppetteer]

Thanks

I'm using Jarmonik's D3D9 graphics client. It allows for a greater range of resolutions than the inline (D3D7) renderer.

Cheers

I can't seem to view the picture you both seem to be talking about.

[DoctorEvo]

I can't seem to view the picture you both seem to be talking about.

Me neither.

[HarvesteR]

I changed the picture to an attachment now. It was hotlinked before, and it might have been unviewable for some.

Cheers

[McLuv]

Harvester I want your setup...

I tried failed misreably at it, actually after learning of it from the KSP forums.

While I am interested in sims, I didn't have my joystick at the ready, and didn't but in nearly the required effort to get above the steep learning curve.

It could be said that I was trying to escape the equivalent of Jupiter's Gravity well with a mind capacity at the time of a small firecracker. ???

[Epsilon]

I like how Orbiter is such a capable program (just like KSP is too). There is a ton of stuff you can do in both. I think KSP is more user friendly in some cases. I'm used to non user friendly programs though so I'm not sure my opinion counts.

[DoctorEvo]

I like how Orbiter is such a capable program (just like KSP is too). There is a ton of stuff you can do in both. I think KSP is more user friendly in some cases. I'm used to non user friendly programs though so I'm not sure my opinion counts.

Orbiter is EXTREMELY capable if you know C++.

But for people like me, KSP is much more capable. I can't build my own rockets in Orbiter; I can't do any engineering in Orbiter; all I can do is pick one of a narrow selection of pre-made spacecraft and go fly it somewhere. To me, that takes half the fun out of it.

[NoXion]

I've heard of Orbiter, but what's been putting off me from downloading is that it sounds very complicated - with KSP by comparison its ridiculously easy to learn the basics of piloting and design, meaning that more time can be spent actually getting good at designing rockets and flying them, rather than learning how to in the first place. KSP itself has considerable scope for additional complexity, but at the moment I think it serves as a brilliant way for non-experts to get a 'feel' for building and flying rockets. There's no reason why later versions couldn't 'hide' any additional complexity from the player until the player feels capable enough to handle it.

[MajorThomas]

I've played orbiter since 2003 or so. (I'm MajorTom in the forum over there.) Did a few add-ons, which was my way to enjoy it. Didn't fly that far; had trouble getting to Mars, and difficulty getting back from the Moon.

In KSP though, you make your own ships, and flying in space is just so much easier. (Yet I find planes and spaceplanes really hard in KSP.)

[The Destroyer]

Well, I used to play it. I had to use autopilots for... everything

I could pilot the enterprise!

Since around good ol 2010. I sucked. Until I found KSP. Now I can launch rockets into space without autopilot!

...I still need one for other planets. WEll, at least an MFD and a tutorial.

[Nuke]

i discovered orbiter after getting fed up with arcade style space sims. this was a year or two prior to the 2010 release. it wasnt really that much fun. once you could go to the moon and return home it kinda got old. but it had a lot of mods. so i played mods for awhile. tried a jupiter mission. got there but never made it back.

there was another game called space combat that like ksp let you build a ship and then fly it in a newtonian engine. it even had some weapon systems. but it wasnt very useful for learning orbital mechanics.

Edited February 7, 2014 by Nuke

[The Destroyer]

i discovered orbiter after getting fed up with arcade style space sims. this was a year or two prior to the 2010 release. it wasnt really that much fun. once you could go to the moon and return home it kinda got old. but it had a lot of mods. so i played mods for awhile. tried a jupiter mission. got there but never made it back.

there was another game called space combat that like ksp let you build a ship and then fly it in a newtonian engine. it even had some weapon systems. but it wasnt very useful for learning orbital mechanics.

Space combat? Is it this:

http://www.myrealgames.com/download-free-games/space-combat/