So I've been playing orbiter again. :)

[ky0breck]

And I've found that it's not as complicated as I once found it to be. I played it before ksp and it was so hard just learning to get into orbit, but now that I've played ksp I can go anywhere in the solar system. I just had a (almost) succesful mission to Phobos, and I feel immensly proud. Next stop, Mercury!

[rodion_herrera]

I am smiling as I read this. Really. With KSP around, it's not so hard to explain Orbiter to people I know who have tried or are using Orbiter.

[Motokid600]

Id really like to give orbiter a second chance now for the same reason. I just don't know if I can really get into it like I do ksp. Mainly for the customization. But in terms of gameplay does orbiter have the same feel as ksp? Can u land in planets and explore them? I really like the idea of being able to explore a scale model of our solar system.

[ky0breck]

Id really like to give orbiter a second chance now for the same reason. I just don't know if I can really get into it like I do ksp. Mainly for the customization. But in terms of gameplay does orbiter have the same feel as ksp? Can u land in planets and explore them? I really like the idea of being able to explore a scale model of our solar system.

The one thing Orbiter is lacking in is that all the terrain is just a flat 2d landscape, and that's the one thing that urks me about it, at the same time though you can't blame it for it. generating terrain, would probably be probably be pretty laggy, and bumb mapping would take ages, although I'd like to see it done. Another thing is it's a lot less user friendly. You can set up a manuever node and see if you'll get an intercept. Plus sometimes the MFD's can take a bit of effort to learn. And one final negative, is it's lack of collision. The community barely stay's alive from what I see :/. I've often thought about contacting the developer to see if he plans to do anything with it in the future to improve the simulator.

In the end though the challenge and satisfaction orbiter bring is excellent and if your willing to look past it's ugliness (though the planets look excellent in space) you'll enjoy it immensly

P.S Sorry for any poor grammar in this post. Feel free to correct me.

[KevinW42]

For me it was almost the other way around. My experience in Orbiter helped me learn the ropes in KSP much faster.

Although one thing I never managed to do in Orbiter was rendezvous, so maybe I should give it another go now that it's become second nature in KSP.

[ky0breck]

For me it was almost the other way around. My experience in Orbiter helped me learn the ropes in KSP much faster.

Although one thing I never managed to do in Orbiter was rendezvous, so maybe I should give it another go now that it's become second nature in KSP.I learned so much more in KSP. Orbiter always intimidated me, still very fun though

[rodion_herrera]

The one thing Orbiter is lacking in is that all the terrain is just a flat 2d landscape, and that's the one thing that urks me about it, at the same time though you can't blame it for it. generating terrain, would probably be probably be pretty laggy, and bumb mapping would take ages, although I'd like to see it done. Another thing is it's a lot less user friendly. You can set up a manuever node and see if you'll get an intercept. Plus sometimes the MFD's can take a bit of effort to learn. And one final negative, is it's lack of collision. The community barely stay's alive from what I see :/. I've often thought about contacting the developer to see if he plans to do anything with it in the future to improve the simulator.

In the end though the challenge and satisfaction orbiter bring is excellent and if your willing to look past it's ugliness (though the planets look excellent in space) you'll enjoy it immensly

P.S Sorry for any poor grammar in this post. Feel free to correct me.

You probably haven't tried Orulex then http://www.orbiterwiki.org/wiki/Orulex

[ky0breck]

You probably haven't tried Orulex then http://www.orbiterwiki.org/wiki/Orulex

Oh my god....Thank you so much...Can I marry you?

[rodion_herrera]

Oh my god....Thank you so much...Can I marry you?

LOL don't get too excited, it's a bit of a chore to get to properly work--I myself only tried it about 2-3 times, because for some reason it gets unstable in certain instances. But yeah it's cool once you get it working. As for non-colliding meshes, I made a few for the NASSP-Apollo missions years ago, namely the Apollo 14 Fra Mauro landing site, and the Apollo 16 Descartes Highlands. So you can actually have nice 3D terrain for Orbiter, you just have to find the addons/mods for them. A good place to start would be http://www.orbithangar.com

[ky0breck]

LOL don't get too excited, it's a bit of a chore to get to properly work--I myself only tried it about 2-3 times, because for some reason it gets unstable in certain instances. But yeah it's cool once you get it working. As for non-colliding meshes, I made a few for the NASSP-Apollo missions years ago, namely the Apollo 14 Fra Mauro landing site, and the Apollo 16 Descartes Highlands. So you can actually have nice 3D terrain for Orbiter, you just have to find the addons/mods for them. A good place to start would be http://www.orbithangar.com

Really? I just got it to work, with colliding meshes with in seconds. Just crashed into the side of Olympus Mons

[rodion_herrera]

Really? I just got it to work, with colliding meshes with in seconds. Just crashed into the side of Olympus Mons

Congratulations! Glad the install worked smoothly for you. So akin to KSP-related issues, I must have some Orbiter addons installed that interferes with Orulex Also, going back to KSP (because this is a KSP forum after all! I bet a mod would probably move this to the Junkyard hehehe), I too started with Orbiter, before I discovered KSP. I have to admit that, some of the more difficult concepts to figure out in Orbiter, I now understand better, after having played KSP. My grounding in math and physics is not that solid, so when I read tutorials and discussions on certain maneuvering subjects in Orbiter-related fora, I usually get lost But after "relearning" about the principles while doing KSP, I must admit I understand them a lot better now. So I think KSP and Orbiter are complimentary to each other, and I'm glad that in a way, the existence of one is supportive to the other.

[dr_jt]

Going dark. Post removed.

Edited June 5, 2013 by dr_jt

[Uberick]

I just got orbiter this last Saturday after playing KSP for a month. After learning now to use the MFDs, It's not anywhere near as difficult as I thought it would be. After learning the screens I managed to dock with the ISS, Mir, and go to the moon.

Sometimes the MFDs are a little difficult for get information from though. In KSP I find myself looking at the actual orbit in the map view , so it's really intuitive to see what changes you have to make to it. In Orbiter, I find myself looking at long lists of numbers and comparing them. After I learned what everything meant, it made sense, but it's much less user friendly. However, I have found that the added precision can make some tasks actually easier in Orbiter than in KSP. I think rendezvous/docking is much easier in Orbiter due to the amount of raw data they give you. . . those MFDs can tell you TONS of information that you have to guess at in KSP(or calculate by hand). Still, I was surprised to see how much of a foundation KSP gave me!

Now I have to download that Apollo mod and learn where the SCE to Aux switch is:)

[rodion_herrera]

For me KSP is more fun and has the one thing Orbiter doesn't have. The ability to easily create and launch your own ships.

"Easily" I believe is the difference here, but I disagree that you cannot create and launch your own ships. I've been using Vinka's Spaceship.dll and Multistage.dll files since its first releases, and even though I don't code in C/C++ I've managed to create decent ships just using those modules. Lately I've also started to play around with a combination of Vinka's DLLs and Sputnik's awesome "Velcro Rockets" addon:

So yes you can create and launch your own ships--it's just a bit more involving than KSP.

I just got orbiter this last Saturday after playing KSP for a month. After learning now to use the MFDs, It's not anywhere near as difficult as I thought it would be. After learning the screens I managed to dock with the ISS, Mir, and go to the moon.

Sometimes the MFDs are a little difficult for get information from though. In KSP I find myself looking at the actual orbit in the map view , so it's really intuitive to see what changes you have to make to it. In Orbiter, I find myself looking at long lists of numbers and comparing them. After I learned what everything meant, it made sense, but it's much less user friendly. However, I have found that the added precision can make some tasks actually easier in Orbiter than in KSP. I think rendezvous/docking is much easier in Orbiter due to the amount of raw data they give you. . . those MFDs can tell you TONS of information that you have to guess at in KSP(or calculate by hand). Still, I was surprised to see how much of a foundation KSP gave me!

Now I have to download that Apollo mod and learn where the SCE to Aux switch is:)

Now this is the "harmony" I like, and was talking about, a classic post on how Orbiter and KSP are complimentary to each other

[Scrogdog]

For me it was the other way around as well. My experience with Orbiter certainly helped with KSP.

I agree that they are complimentary, but really different, albeit similar, experiences.

KSP has a better sense of a persistent world, and thus "running a program'. Failing, figuring out why, and trying again.

I flew ships that other people made 100% of the time when I played Orbiter. Though I understood there were ways to get that done; still isn't the same feel as KSP.

Still, Orbiter is fantastic! Don't get me wrong!

Edited June 4, 2013 by Scrogdog
typos

[dr_jt]

Going dark. Post removed.

Edited June 5, 2013 by dr_jt

[Pipcard]

I landed on Mars once, and made

about it.

I also made a small satellite launcher. You don't need to make a .dll for that; all you need is something called "multistage2" by Vinka, which involves making and editing configuration (.cfg) files in Notepad.

Edited June 4, 2013 by Pipcard