General Question Career Mode

[Reese]

How has no one built some kind of Career mode for this awesome masterpiece? The best I've done is create a locally hosted web application that randomly generates missions with payouts.

I would pay for something like that built in to Orbiter.

Thanks for great sim. Still loving it after 5 years.

 

[Xyon]

What you suggest is possible, but it's usually done in the form of a virtual space agency, or VSA. We've several in various levels of activity within the community, from the private (ISA) to the community effort (OFMM).

I can't say why nobody's released an add-on which attempts to gamify the orbiter experience in this way, but external organisation, progression etc is certainly possible.

 

[Urwumpe]

I can't say why nobody's released an add-on which attempts to gamify the orbiter experience in this way, but external organisation, progression etc is certainly possible.

I would really like to, I even have a plan. But I fear I lack the time now getting it right before all time runs out. :facepalm:

 

[ADSWNJ]

@Reese - talk more about what this would look like. Is it a progression of missions? Flight skill tests? Would you want to log flight time, etc? Curious what you are thinking.

 

[Xyon]

I would really like to, I even have a plan. But I fear I lack the time now getting it right before all time runs out. :facepalm:

Snap. Maybe we should join forces and get nowhere together.

 

[Urwumpe]

Snap. Maybe we should join forces and get nowhere together.

Sounds like a plan. As long as your nowhere has BBQ.

No, seriously, one idea was to add a mission framework to World of 2001, because it was already very rich in assets and locations and would fit pretty good to the idea of an open world.

 

[Xyon]

My BBQ had to get binned because we used it so infrequently it seized up with rust - this is Britain, after all.

The key thing I think about with this kind of solution is to support how people want to use it, from the people who all want to do a collaborative thing (OFMM style) to the people who just like adding a bit of meta to their Orbiter experience (ISA-style, sorry Gary).

On both parts, I see an "in & out" solution - one component which sits outside Orbiter as a discrete application, which manages the "mission control" aspect of the VSA, assigns vehicles, generates contract missions, records flight times and mission results, and generates .SCN files to be fed into Orbiter (based on the addons you have, the vehicles in your space agency and the contract you've chosen, if your VSA can afford the launch costs, etc). The "in" portion is then an Orbiter plugin which is fed information by the outer component through that generated SCN file, which actually feeds your mission objectives to you in flight, and records when they're complete - and takes care of updating the outer component with the result, or passing the result back in some form that the external application can process.

This can then be communicated up to a central server, for the consumption of others, or not, depending on how people want to play. For collaboration, it would be prudent for users taking a contract to "lock out" a mission and a vehicle, so they can't be used simultaneously, which would lead to drift issues.

I'm expressly not talking about being able to fly the same mission in real time with your friends - that's OMP territory.

 

[Urwumpe]

Well, making a Java Dropwizard based web service for such a "VSA management" would not be a big issue. I could make an ugly prototype in 40 hours of full-time work, assuming generic features. Theoretically, it could also be made generic enough to host multiple VSA on a single server or entry point. Maybe its harder finding a server hoster who allows running a generic java application without spending too much money.

Making an Orbiter plugin that allows getting the data of the server into the simulation is harder... maybe it makes sense to just offer a download link for a scenario file and keep the missions completely separate. Also, the player could then choose to play a mission online or just practice it offline until deadline approaches. Also time acceleration would be no issue then. And assembly missions would be much easier to implement...

 

[Xyon]

Maybe its harder finding a server hoster who allows running a generic java application without spending too much money.

You're speaking to someone who runs a container-based hypervisor service anyway, that's a non-issue.

I don't know much Java, but if I don't have to write it, I don't care

 

[Urwumpe]

You're speaking to someone who runs a container-based hypervisor service anyway, that's a non-issue.

I don't know much Java, but if I don't have to write it, I don't care

I did not plan to shanghai you there. :lol:

No problem with Java here, had been doing webservices here for the last years. The biggest problem for me right now would be having some set of requirements to make a ugly prototype. And finding a good code name for the project. "Raumflugliniensimulationsverwaltungskalkül" doesn't really sound like it. But it has a heavy metal umlaut.





Buuuut... if would you expect me to do this in PHP....

 

[Xyon]

Erm, okay. Maybe: "PHP space agency"?

Something like openVSA or yourVSA or something pithy like that.

 

[Urwumpe]

"Pretty Good VSA?"

 

[Xyon]

"Pretty Good VSA?"

Let's not oversell it, "unbedeutend" might be more apt

 

[jedidia]

I'm not sure I follow what this thing is supposed to do... Let you click together a mission profile and then generate a scenario based on that?

 

[Face]

I'm expressly not talking about being able to fly the same mission in real time with your friends - that's OMP territory.

Some years ago, there was this Orbiter Challenges idea that I think is the most feasible approach to a career mode. Unfortunately, most links are down, except for the french development post on Dan's forum: http://orbiter.dansteph.com/forum/index.php?topic=6653.0

I've written a blog entry based on that, but with the links down, it is but a skeleton now: https://www.orbiter-forum.com/blog.php?b=789

OMP is more like a platform, and besides obvious problems like distributed resource-databases, it could well work as a snap-on once a proper career concept played itself out in stand-alone mode.

 

[Xyon]

I'm not sure I follow what this thing is supposed to do... Let you click together a mission profile and then generate a scenario based on that?

That's one of the options I'm thinking, yeah. Sort of how FSPassengers works for FSX, in a way - you have to have the aircraft you want to use, but since space tourism isn't really a thing yet I envisage more money coming in from putting things in orbit, satellite missions, etc.

You'd get the ability to define your own missions, but more space agency work comes from a requirement from someone else, be that a private customer or the military, et cetera. So I think there would be an element of predefined mission types too, to represent that aspect.

 

[jedidia]

Ok... Since the preliminary idea here seems to be a web-service somewhere in Java-space, I think I would be able to justify using my education-time to help out here (about half a day a week). My "expertise" (if you could call it such with barely a year actually working with the technologies professionaly) is in Spring on the backend and Angular2 on the frontend side. Preferably the used technologies should be interesting for future use, but I'm not limiting myself too much in that regard (basically any widening of experience in the JVM-space is profitable to me at this point).
So if you get some kind of spec and tech together, I'll see if I can fit it in.

 

[Xyon]

Sounds good! So, here's a difficult question; how do you both feel about open-sourcing this thing? It feels like a good start point for an open-source (MIT or LGPL) style project.

 

[jedidia]

how do you both feel about open-sourcing this thing?

Didn't even think about that, naive little me, I just assumed it would be open source.
Open source is non-optional for me. I wouldn't see much purpose in participating otherwise. I don't care too much about the specific license. I do all my stuff under MIT, but if somebody insists on GPL I don't mind. Not in this case anyways.

 

[Urwumpe]

Well, my idea would be using this there:

http://www.dropwizard.io/1.2.2/docs/

Spring is a bit too big there I think and Dropwizard was great so far.

Key question is: What should it be about?

I think its clear, some basic stuff should be around:

1. It needs a classic user management. Like Admin role.
2. There will be a user role "VSA Admin".
3. Since many people have different ideas how a VSA should be like, it would make sense to separate "server user roles" and "VSA user roles" and the rights that you can assign there. By default, there is just a "VSA Admin" with all rights and all other players have no rights.
4. It will have an entity VSA. It needs to create, edit and delete it.
5. I would like to add an empty dummy layer called "Universe" there. It can be created, edited, activated, deactivated and deleted. An activated universe can't be edited or deleted.
6. It makes sense to have a default universe there for the start.
7. A VSA is always assigned to an active universe, it must select a universe during creation. Its possible to move a VSA to a new universe.
8. A player can be active in multiple VSAs at the same time.
9. For the start, it would be enough to support one kind Orbiter vessel, I would say DG.
10. A VSA has a pool of vessels. Its possible to add a new vessel to the pool, delete a vessel or rename it.
11. A vessel can be assigned to a mission or to a player or be available in pool.
12. For simplicity during first iteration, its enough to generate a simple mission to start, landed.
13. There should be three kinds of mission pools: Managed, Offered and free.
14. A managed mission is assigned to a player by VSA management.
15. An offered mission is offered to all players of a VSA.
16. A free mission can be claimed by any player active in the same universe.
17. The number of missions that a player can have can be limited. How has to be tried later.
18. Initially, a "first come, first serve" principle regarding the mission claims should be good enough, even if it means some frustration for the players. Later, different methods of claiming missions could be created (Like bidding for a mission)

I would say, this is already enough for testing a first prototype.

Of course, there is still a lot of stuff left that needs to be experimented with. Like which user roles make sense. How to resolve conflicts if a player is active in multiple VSA in the same universe.

For most extensions, I would prefer to include Groovy as scripting language later, like defining special scenario file parameters or abilities for add-on vessels. The idea would be to limit the Java server to the core functions and implement most special features by scripts. Maybe allowing some native Java extensions by SPI.

And: I won't do something if its not open-source. I would even say GPL with classpath exception should work out. But Apache license might be a better choice in the Java world.