Cosmic Penguin
Geek Penguin in GTO
Hi! I've just decide to start my own add-on development project. Even with zero experience in meshing and making textures (although I DO have C/C++ coding experience), I've decided to make my first project a large one: offering all 8 major versions of the Long March family of rockets available today and all 3 Chinese space launch sites to the Orbiter simulator. I have decided that the full version of the add-on will be coded with C++ directly (although I would not rule out an interim version based on the multistage module), offering a complete autopilot and animations on all rockets and all 5 currently active pads (e.g. swinging umbilical arms and engine nozzles that can gimbal). Right now I'm still inside the data searching phase (turns out that it's really difficult to nail down basic parameters for the Chinese rockets, although the situation's slightly better than the Falcon 9/Heavy 
), but I think I will be able to make some visible progress here in the next month or two. Don't expect me to complete it soon though: it's a rather big project, and I think the most optimistic schedule I can give is releasing in Q3 2012 (in SpaceX's timescale ).
The reason I've decided to make this my first project is because of the very high launch rate of the Long March family of rockets expected in the next few years: averaging at more than 20 launches per year (in fact it could be even higher: China launched 20 times in a 7 month period between June 2011 and January 2012!). Between 2000 and 2009, the Long March family is the third-most used rocket family in the world (behind the R-7/Soyuz and Proton families), and it is currently leading the scoreboard for 2010-present. So it seems necessary to offer the rockets to Orbiter to complete the picture of spaceflight in the 21st century. It also serves as an opportunity to advertise on Chinese spaceflight (on both the bright and the dark sides of it's development and difficulties faced), as not too many information has reached the "Western world" from Chinese sources.
Stay tuned for news on the development of this add-on, as well as probable follow-up projects (including Chinese satellites and retired Chinese rockets) here. Comments on this add-on are welcome.
Galactic Penguin SST
), but I think I will be able to make some visible progress here in the next month or two. Don't expect me to complete it soon though: it's a rather big project, and I think the most optimistic schedule I can give is releasing in Q3 2012 (in SpaceX's timescale ).The reason I've decided to make this my first project is because of the very high launch rate of the Long March family of rockets expected in the next few years: averaging at more than 20 launches per year (in fact it could be even higher: China launched 20 times in a 7 month period between June 2011 and January 2012!). Between 2000 and 2009, the Long March family is the third-most used rocket family in the world (behind the R-7/Soyuz and Proton families), and it is currently leading the scoreboard for 2010-present. So it seems necessary to offer the rockets to Orbiter to complete the picture of spaceflight in the 21st century. It also serves as an opportunity to advertise on Chinese spaceflight (on both the bright and the dark sides of it's development and difficulties faced), as not too many information has reached the "Western world" from Chinese sources.
Stay tuned for news on the development of this add-on, as well as probable follow-up projects (including Chinese satellites and retired Chinese rockets) here. Comments on this add-on are welcome.
Galactic Penguin SST
