All XR vessels are built on a common framework and share similar internal systems. Highlights include three (XR1), four (XR2), or five (XR5) 2D instrument panels that natively support 1280-, 1600-, and 1920-pixel-wide resolutions, high-performance Altea Aerospace SCRAM engines, complex damage simulation, custom sound effects, over 250 voice callouts performed by actress Sally Beaumont, and highly precise autopilots just to name a few. In addition, the XR2 and XR5 include a payload bay with full payload support via a custom panel. The XR codebase consists of over 60,000 lines of C++ code.
Features:
Full payload support that supports any payload module (i.e., vessel) that exists in Orbiter that can fit in the payload bay. The Vanguard can carry up to 432 metric tons of payload, whereas the XR2âs recommended payload limit is 10.8 metric tons.
Rotating wheels animation.
A payload instrument panel to manage grappling/deploying payload.
Support for auxiliary fuel and LOX tank payload modules attached in the payload bay. Bay tanks drain first in flight and fill last when ship is resupplied.
XR5-Only Features
Nose wheel steering animation.
Independent front/rear gear compression animation on takeoffs and landings.
A crew elevator to allow the crew to EVA while landed. Crew may EVA/ingress via either the top-mounted docking port or the crew elevator.
A top-mounted docking port that includes a docking camera panel view.
An RCS Config mode that switches between standard and docking RCS configurations: in RCS docking configuration, two things happen: 1) power to the RCS jets is reduced to 40% of normal to allow for precise control of the ship while docking, and 2) the control axes for the RCS jets are switched so that when you are looking along the docking port centerline camera you can use the RCS Rotation and Translation keys just as though you were looking along the nose with a nosecone docking port; i.e., it will feel "normal." For example, pressing NUMPAD-6 in translation mode will move the ship forward along the Z axis in normal RCS mode, but it will move the ship up along the Y axis in docking RCS mode.