Orbiter newbie...

[JimmiG 244]

I've always been interested in space though this interest has been limited to the Discovery channel and science mags...I've played some space games like X - Beyond the Frontier and Freelancer, and while they are fun as games, they are very unrealistic, so I have been looking for something a bit more challenging.I saw Orbiter mentioned on the AVSim site some time ago and decided to download the sim today. Took a while because I'm on dialup, but after a few hours I had the needed base package and textures, plus the high res+super high res earth. I'll download the other texture packs later.Orbiter installed and started with no problems at all. There are a lot of posts about problems posted here, but the sim works great for me with no crashes or slowdowns. Actually learning to "fly" it is the hard part.The graphics are very good, with nice textures and special effects. I was a bit let down by the total lack of sound in the sim, but I just found out about the sound addon and I'll try that tomorrow.I browsed through the .PDF manual and printed out the Quickstart part and the keyboard commands. I then followed the quicksart guide for the sample flight. So far I have managed to fly the Delta glider like a normal airplane and land on the runway. I also followed the steps to enter orbit and did so. It was -NOT- pretty, but at least I reched the altitude and then managed to make the orbit slightly less elliptic, though it was far from perfect. I never tried re-entering the atmosphere because I didn't want to fry my brand new ship on the first flight :(One of the biggest problems I had, was maintaining the correct pitch angle during the ascent. I was all over the place because the controls were so sensetive. One second I was at 40 degrees, the next I was at 10 etc. Any tips for improving that?Another problem was monitoring all those parameters and keep them all reasonably close to the target value, especially since I don't know what half of them mean and don't have a clue what affects a particular value.I guess you get used to it over time, but there's a LOT more to monitor in this sim than in a plain flight simulator, where you only have to worry about airspeed, altitude and attitude.There's lot of stuff in the manual, enough to keep one busy for weeks it appears. I would love to be able to e.g. take off with the space shuttle, enter orbit, dock with the ISS and then re-enter and land on earth at the correct location, but I'm guessing that would take a LOT of practice and reading. How many hours did you have to log with this sim before you were able to launch the space shuttle into space and bring it back again?It looks like a great sim and one that will keep me busy for a long time.

[Guest Donamy]

Hi, You should try the Shuttle fleet 3.0 addons by Dave Hopkins and myself, available here on Avsim . They have autopilot for launch (the real shuttle has an autopilot) and you can get the Space Shuttle guidance MFD also, that will let you rendezvou with the ISS quite easily. Docking is a bit more involved, but alot of fun and rewarding when you finally achieve docking. There are all kinds of addons to suit any preference you might have for Space, there's Sci-Fi, historic, present day manned and unmanned spaceflight, from multiple nations. You found a whole new world (pun intended) with Orbiter, believe me.Don

[Guest cwright]

Jimmi, welcome to the world (or should I say universe?) of Orbiter. I discovered it a few years ago and since then it has progressed in leaps and bounds. It's amazing that a simulator of such depth and quality is free. I have a small claim to fame in Orbiter - I was the first to release an add-on for the 2001 space station. It used a great model (not mine, I hasten to add - I used an existing model with permission) and it rotated just like the real thing. But it wasn't textured. There's a much more up-to date textured version from another source. The sound add-on is excellent. It's so good that Martin probably decided there was no need to do it himself. And it's well worth getting the high resolution planetary textures. Earth and Mars look pretty stunning with these. I spend more time with FS, but I return from time to time to experience the delights of space flight. It's fairly easy getting into orbit - the trick is getting into the same orbit as the ISS - or indeed Station V! Have fun.... Best regards, Chris

[PeterR 9]

Hi Jimmi and Chris! Fancy meeting you here! :-lolJimmi,The joystick works best in atmospheric flight. Once you get into the upper atmosphere and beyond, the stick is too much. Use the keyboard controls instead (i.e. air=stick, space=keyboard). For even finer control, holding down the Ctrl key when pressing the arrow keys will generate a fraction of the thrust from the RCS engines. This is particularly helpful for docking.Thus far, I've only taken the DeltaGlider, DeltaGlider II (highly recommended) and Shuttle PB from surface into orbit. I've also tinkered with the Dragonfly scenario where you put some modules together while in orbit.Reentry isn't bad at all. If your periapsis distance (PeD) is less than the planet, then you'll be re-entering. The hard part is knowing when to begin the reentry burn so that you'll be able to land where you want.The DeltaGlider II adds an extra level of realism with crew life simulation and lots of additional systems to manage. It's really fun.Peter http://bfu.avsim.net/sigpics/PeterR.gifBFU Forums ModeratorRenegade/Seawolf Design Group (RSDG)[table border=2 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=1][tr][td][table border=0 cellpadding=8 cellspacing=0][tr][td bgcolor=#6f0000]http://bfu.avsim.net/sigpics/logo75t.gif[/td][td align="center" bgcolor=#FFFFF6]Bush Flying Unlimited"At home in the wild"Looking for adventure? Come join us! * [link:bfu.avsim.net|Web Site] * [link:www.cafepress.com/bfu,bfu2,bfu3,bfu4|BFU Store] * [link:bfu.avsim.net/join.htm]Join!][/td][/tr][/table][/td][/tr][/table

[Guest MattNW]

Welcome to the obsession. If you want to fix the lack of sound then you'll need to go here:http://orbiter.dansteph.com/Dan makes a sound add on that will bring Orbiter to life. You'll also want to download the T3 tutorials at that same address and the Delta Glider II. I highly recommend the DG II.After you master the T3 tutorial then you'll probably want to do some interplanetary flights. For that go to:http://www.orbitermars.co.uk/And check out Duncan's TransX tutorial. Those will give you all the basics you'll need to manage most things in Orbiter. The T3 tutorial will show you how to rendezvous with a small moon. You use the same procedure to rendezvous with a station except you'll have an approach aid to docking. Tune the docking port you want into your Nav 2 radio (Cnt+i will bring up the station info box for the docking port frequencies) and when you get close to the station and kill relative velocity you can use Cnt+R to put your HUD into IDS Mode. This will give you approach vector boxes to the docking port. Next you will want to set a MFD to Docking and hit the Nav button to slave it to Nav 2 radio so that when you get close the docking info will show up on your MFD. From there it's just careful maneuvering. Don't try to rush things. Line up rotationally first by centering the large X in your MFD then kill rotation. Next keep the large + centered and move slowly toward the station.I'd recommend using the Delta Glider at first. It's easier to get into orbit and much easier to dock since the port is in the nose.