[Update] Arrow Freighter version 2012 updated (screenshots)

[dansteph]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Urwumpe

 Just my two cents of annoyance: Would it be possible to have a gradual fragmentation of the wreck? Not just all exploding at once, but rather over time, with the destruction sequence being determined by the energy and forces absorbed by the fragments?

The problem is that speaking about particle effect Orbiter suck and displaying 100 debris is already a challenge. (each one is a vessel)
Only 200 which is a very low particle count make my framerate drop slightly while all other things I added to the Arrow barely made any difference. (and the debris have low poly count, tiny texture, no shadow and there is only 2 type of them)

So whatever the effort the result would visually suck because a nice effect would require 100 time this count of particles and much more control over mesh. (vertex shader, pixel shader)

Now a partial damage system would require more complex system and this may require a lot of time to be nicely done.

Last the "natural" accidents (not due to failure) in space are often binary; there is nothing to recover when you aerobrake at mach 20 in Arrow or impact at 500 m/s.

So imho giving the actual 3d engine it would be actually a waste of time for just a game over. This said the particles have different weight and "random" ejection so they naturally spread over the trajectory in re-entry.

---------- Post added 07-13-12 at 12:54 AM ---------- Previous post was 07-12-12 at 11:23 PM ----------

DEV NEWS - A LOG TO RECORD YOUR SOLAR SYSTEM TOUR

After the global statistic (see last "dev news" above) I decided that a simple log of your flight was fast to do and a great add when making a tour.

I changed also the "display" buttons so to make room for the two new screens buttons.



(Displayed log is filled with tests and cheat to programatically fill it)

[TerraMimic]

When it says 01mn57, is that 01 hours and 57 minutes, or 01 minute and 57 seconds? I'm guessing it's the former, since it does say that flights of less than 5 min are not recorded, but the way it's written seems a bit unclear at the moment. Otherwise, it looks pretty good.

Although, I am curious as to how a ship can be crushed by pressure while on the moon, or at least in the moons SOI.

[dansteph]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TerraMimic

 Although, I am curious as to how a ship can be crushed by pressure while on the moon, or at least in the moons SOI.

--->

Quote:

Originally Posted by dansteph

 (Displayed log is filled with tests and cheat to programatically fill it)

So it's 1 minute 57 seconds because I cheated to fill this log (I'll not wait 5mn and make 19 real flights just to show a screen)
This explain also why the moon seem so pressure-powerful suddenly. (and I'm also not so bad at flying in orbiter )

[Keatah]

I always wanted to see a pressurized moon.

[Izack]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Keatah

 I always wanted to see a pressurized moon.

Remove your pants on a trans-Atlantic flight, then check Failblog by the next morning. :p

[Urwumpe]

Just to correct something unimportant: I didn't mean more debris. When a satellite fragments, you also rarely have more than just about 20 fragments that are bigger than 10 cm out of the 400-700 fragments that are large enough (>2 cm) to track by radar.

So, if the larger Arrow has 100 fragments in the size between 20 meters and 10 cm, it is by the number of fragments already in the realistic range.

I just meant a different pattern to create the 100 fragments, instead of just the expanding cloud of a single fragmentation event (which would be caused in real spaceflight by battery or tank explosion, space debris collision or ALIENS)

[Marvin42]

Quote:

So, if the larger Arrow has 100 fragments in the size between 20 meters and 10 cm, it is by the number of fragments already in the realistic range.

I also believe that 200 fragments is a bit too much. But we'll have to wait until (a) thursday and see how it blows (literally)

Quote:

I just meant a different pattern to create the 100 fragments, instead of just the expanding cloud of a single fragmentation event (which would be caused in real spaceflight by battery or tank explosion, space debris collision or ALIENS)

You mean you want to blow an Arrow also on the way toooo a planet...oh, you maniac

[Ghostrider]

While I appreciate realism and damage models, I think that blowing up an Arrow is like wiping your nose on the Bayeux tapestry.

[Urwumpe]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marvin42

 
You mean you want to blow an Arrow also on the way toooo a planet...oh, you maniac

99% of spaceflight is preventing things from exploding by themselves. You might be surprised how often it once happened that a spent rocket stage exploded suddenly after some months in space, because the old metal-hydrite batteries had not been vented and inerted. The explosion warning signs at stations for recharging truck batteries exist for a reason.

Most spacecraft are literally flying bombs until you disarm them properly for disposal at the end of the mission.

And that is yet still harmless. Let fuel run out before you can safely shut down a large rocket engine and you can see around 150 MW pump power go postal. Before the up to 1.5 tons of propellant in the rocket engine behind the pump are consumed, you can for a few milliseconds experience real chemistry... white hot metal burning in the presence of oxygen, white hot metal reacting with hydrogen, oxygen doing illegal acts with hydrogen, hydraulic oil being abused by all others, metal dust increasing the reaction rate... If you are lucky, it only costs you the engine. Usually it costs you the whole thrust section of the rocket and you have only seconds left before the rest explodes as well.

Isn't spaceflight fun?

[dansteph]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Urwumpe

 So, if the larger Arrow has 100 fragments in the size between 20 meters and 10 cm, it is by the number of fragments already in the realistic range.

Ah yes, I've done that for another program, rip apart a model with debris from 1m to 10m is easy with 3dsmax. Less overall debris but more appealing explosion.

Well... look interesting for me the problem being that user don't have somewhat the choice of nbr of debris any more because it would miss important part of the hull with lower number. (Unless you sort carefully parts by size, mean more complexity)

Progressive destruction is problematic because it's not adapted to all explosions and you might spawn an object below ground so, more code, again more complexity.

I balance... (not for progressive, but for ripping apart instead of a lot of small debris)

[Urwumpe]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dansteph

 Progressive destruction is problematic because it's not adapted to all explosions and you might spawn an object below ground so, more code, again more complexity.

Yeah, I know. It isn't the most simple algorithm, especially for bigger complex vessels. Would be no problem to execute in real time, especially if you have enough information pre-computed during add-on development, but the implementation and tool set for it does not exist for Orbiter yet and I doubt somebody would want to create it for just one add-on.

[BruceJohnJennerLawso]

Now that the arrow will have sun heating on the hull, I assume well have to put it. In a barbecue roll like the apollo missions?

[dansteph]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BruceJohnJennerLawso

 Now that the arrow will have sun heating on the hull, I assume well have to put it. In a barbecue roll like the apollo missions?

There is no cooling system modelised yet so absolutely no obligation and I don't plan this in a future version also. At the time ship will have such powerful engine I bet materials will be enough sophisticated to avoid such manoeuvring.

[Ghostrider]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Urwumpe

 oxygen doing illegal acts with hydrogen, hydraulic oil being abused by all others

We should never light up a rocket engine anywhere near Amsterdam, I guess...

[dansteph]

DEV NEWS - THE CAPTAIN'S ROOM (additional VC)

Warning, low quality, work in progress ! (The final render to texture take several hours, to much for a simple test and the model & textures are not yet finished)