Orbiter Online - Milestone 0 Goals Thread

[BHawthorne]

Milestone 0:
This is what I consider a living document. Content will be added/subtracted/edited/omitted as needed. As content for this document will evolve over time from direct quote or paraphasing of posts within this thread, the content of the thread is community content and I hold no claim to it myself. Everything in this Milestone 0 post is open for debate and subject to change based on community consensus.

0. Define the purpose, scope and background of the add-on:
Orbiter Online is to be a set of add-ons for the Orbiter simulator. The purpose of the project is to add another layer of complexity and interest for the Orbiter community to enjoy, help build and be a part of. This is merely adding a social aspect to the simulator and a few systems to give meaning to flying other than just because you can. We could easily design something too complex to implement -- which is not what I want to see. I'd like to see us come up with something both feasible and fun that can plug into Orbiter.

It is the near future. Earth still has the current political structure as present day but we're just now establishing semi-permanent commercial footholds in Earth orbit, the Lunar surface, Mars surface and certain portions of the asteroid belt.

Earth Initiatives: There have been incentives pushed for low and null gravity manufacturing and production of products outside the Earth gravity well. Also certain factions of Earth government are pushing a "clean Earth" initiative that seeks off-Earth resources to replace and phase out many of the resource dependencies that drive the Earth economy. A shift from terrestrial coal and fossil fuels to new resources that can be found on the Moon or other places within the solar system.

Lunar and Mars Initiatives: The Moon and Mars also have colonization initiatives currently in place to seek development on those locations. Resources on both locations are in high demand to accomplish colonization goals and establish on-site industrial base for futher expansion.

Outer-Rim Initiatives: Why not have a wild outer rim, without established big bases like in the inner solar system, but instead some island-like wild settlements, like for example the Jovian or Kronian system. After all, it would be some sort of gentrification in the solar system, if you politically start out like that - bigger companies that take less risks would displace smaller, more risk-seeking companies, forcing them further outward for not getting into lossy competition with the big ones. Of course, you would then need also ship wharfs and factories, which would be more around Earth, but maybe establishing small wharfs and factories outside the inner solar system might offer some good plots.



1. Define core developer positions for the add-on:

• Project Coordinator - A position meant to help steer the overall project and play cat herder as needed with project devs and resources.
• Programmer - The key people who take the concepts and make them reality. This would be a title that would cover aspects such as server programmer, add-on programmer, voice-chat integration programmer, etc...
• Media Artist - Works on both 2D and 3D art assets for the add-on. Includes a wide range of media assets for user interface, cockpit panels, ship models, etc...
• Systems Designer - A catch-all title for those with interest in helping with the theoretical aspects of the add-on design including but not limited to all aspects of the game such as economy, building, corporations, mining, construction and anything in-between. Systems mechanics and how those systems interact.
• Quality Control - A group of people within the dev pool that test all aspect of the add-on and notify the dev pool if any bugs or balance issues need to be addressed. This would also be the group who would test out individual add-on assets for compatibility with the Orbiter Online add-on to make sure there are no incompatibilities.

2. Define the sub-systems of the add-on:

• Key Add-On Systems: Economy, Communication, Quests, News
• Economy: Establish and define a system based on finite resources, the exploration of the resources and the ability to harvest them. Have the further ability to manufacture useful items from those base resources though construction and manufacturing mechanics. Impose a supply and demand mechanic on every entity in the add-on.
• Communication: Define the ways communication could occur within the add-on. Text communication could be piped in via an IRC interface and voice chat could be integrated via either ventrillo or teamspeak SDK with appropriate time delays enforced within the client-server design. An email system might also be useful to explore.
• Quests: I envision the quest system for the add-on to use dynamic player generated content based on supply-demand needs of the playerbase. Quest content could also be generated by News events or goals internal to your corporation or country affiliation. Quests could be at the level of plots and missions. Plots would be elements of a bigger storyline, while missions happen in between and only have side effects on the plots.
• News: Current events and how they unfold within the add-on is an important aspect to give meaning to the interaction in the add-on. While supply-demand mechanics will drive much activity being made aware of such supply-demand issues via add-on News will also be important.

3. Put infrastructure in place for dev group to communicate:

• Forums - Face has offered use of the OMP sub-forums for this.
• IRC - irc.orbithangar.com #orbiter-online
• VoIP - VoIP embedded in multiplayer framework as needed.
• Wiki - To help document the add-on

Everything in this post is tentative and subject to change as needed through input of the Orbiter community. If you have something you'd like to have added/subtracted/modified please drop me a PM or post to this thread with the suggestions. If you are interested in directly participating with the add-on development please drop me a PM letting me know what your interests are and how you might be able to help further the project.


I look forward to seeing this project evolve and take on a life of it's own over the next few months. Thanks!

-Brad Hawthorne

 

[agentgonzo]

Wow. Sounds like a massive undertaking. Good luck with that.

• IRC - Does the community have a standard IRC channel in use? If so, what server? We could add an Orbiter-Online channel there.

irc.orbithangar.com

 

[Urwumpe]

You miss the scope and the outline of the project - do you want EVE for Orbiter or something else, what is the rough concept storyline for the quests and ships...etc.

And I suspect you just applied too loud for Project Coordinator. Say goodbye to your wife&family, you're promoted.

 

[Artlav]

I think this list misses an entire chapter - 0. Purpose of the project.
No harsh sounding intended.

 

[BHawthorne]

You miss the scope and the outline of the project - do you want EVE for Orbiter or something else, what is the rough concept storyline for the quests and ships...etc.

And I suspect you just applied too loud for Project Coordinator. Say goodbye to your wife&family, you're promoted.

I'd prefer the scope and background be much more in line with Orbiter than anything Eve related. My suggestion would be that it's near future. Humans have still pretty much the same political structure as now but we're just now establishing semi-permanent commercial footholds in Earth orbit, the Lunar surface, Mars surface and certain portions of the asteroid belt.

There have been incentives pushed for low and null gravity manufacturing and production of products outside the Earth gravity well. Also certain factions of Earth government are pushing a "clean Earth" initiative that seeks off-Earth resources to replace and phase out many of the resource dependencies that drive the Earth economy. A shift from terrestrial coal and fossil fuels to new resources that can be found on the Moon or other places within the solar system. The Moon and Mars also have certain intiatives currently in place to seek development on those locations.

I'm not so sure the above paragraph makes much sense and probably needs to be refined a bit for plausibility of content.

*chuckle* I'm not overly worried about the position requirements. I have held similar positions for years on MUSH/MUSE games in the 90's and with certain projects under the WorldForge umbrella in the early 2000's. This kind of stuff is what I consider fun. While I seek to get the ball rolling, I'd prefer more people speak out to help shape the goals for this add-on. Don't take what I've written so far to be by any means the final say about anything. It's merely meant to spark debate and generate activity towards progress. I want this to be 100% a community effort.

---------- Post added at 04:11 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:02 AM ----------

I think this list misses an entire chapter - 0. Purpose of the project.
No harsh sounding intended.

It's a valid question. I think the purpose of the project is to add another layer of complexity and interest for the Orbiter community to enjoy, help build and and be a part of. As I said in the MMO thread in the general sub-forum, this isn't everyone's "cup of tea". Some people like the idea of Orbiter being exclusively single player, while others might want to interact on some level with others within the client. This is merely adding a social aspect to the simulator and a few systems to give meaning to flying other than just because you can. One of the key issues that needs to be addressed is purpose and scope. We could easily design something too complex to implement -- which is not what I want to see. I'd like to see us come up with something both feasible and fun that can plug into Orbiter.

 

[Urwumpe]

I'd prefer the scope and background be much more in line with Orbiter than anything Eve related. My suggestion would be that it's near future. Humans have still pretty much the same political structure as now but we're just now establishing semi-permanent commercial footholds in Earth orbit, the Lunar surface, Mars surface and certain portions of the asteroid belt.

There have been incentives pushed for low and null gravity manufacturing and production of products outside the Earth gravity well. Also certain factions of Earth government are pushing a "clean Earth" initiative that seeks off-Earth resources to replace and phase out many of the resource dependencies that drive the Earth economy. A shift from terrestrial coal and fossil fuels to new resources that can be found on the Moon or other places within the solar system. The Moon and Mars also have certain intiatives currently in place to seek development on those locations.

I'm not so sure the above paragraph makes much sense and probably needs to be refined a bit for plausibility of content.

Why not have a wild outer rim, without established big bases like in the inner solar system, but instead some island-like wild settlements, like for example the Jovian or Kronian system. After all, it would be some sort of gentrification in the solar system, if you politically start out like that - bigger companies that take less risks would displace smaller, more risk-seeking companies, forcing them further outward for not getting into lossy competition with the big ones.

Of course, you would then need also ship wharfs and factories, which would be more around Earth, but maybe establishing small wharfs and factories outside the inner solar system might offer some good plots.

Maybe there should be also a difference between plots and missions. Plots would be elements of a bigger storyline, while missions happen in between and only have side effects on the plots.

 

[BHawthorne]

Why not have a wild outer rim, without established big bases like in the inner solar system, but instead some island-like wild settlements, like for example the Jovian or Kronian system. After all, it would be some sort of gentrification in the solar system, if you politically start out like that - bigger companies that take less risks would displace smaller, more risk-seeking companies, forcing them further outward for not getting into lossy competition with the big ones.

Of course, you would then need also ship wharfs and factories, which would be more around Earth, but maybe establishing small wharfs and factories outside the inner solar system might offer some good plots.

Maybe there should be also a difference between plots and missions. Plots would be elements of a bigger storyline, while missions happen in between and only have side effects on the plots.

Sounds interesting. I've always been a fan of the wild-west parallels with sci-fi ever since I first watched Star Trek TOS. I don't want to deviate too far into sci-fi though, so we need to strike some kind of balance between plausiable, fun and a bit of sci-fi. There are some aspects of the Firefly series that seem to lend themselves well to this too...well the frontier colonization aspects and a ship with crew that strike out as independant contractors to scrape by a living.

---------- Post added at 05:29 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:13 AM ----------

The milestone document has been edited to reflect the suggestions so far. I might clean up the wording a bit. If anyone wants to help me with that let me know or post the cleaned up text in the thread as needed for me to update.

 

[Face]

Made the thread sticky.

 

[BHawthorne]

Made the thread sticky.

Thanks, that'll help :thumbup:

A general question, how do you think we should measure the requirements that need to be met for each milestone? Many of the Milestone 0 elements are open ended. Should we impose a time limit that milestone 0 will be open, or just close it and move to Milestone 1 when there is concensus that the Milestone 0 objectives are sufficiently fleshed out? IMHO, a month for Milestone 0 seems reasonable considering most of it is abstract and theoretical in nature, but I'm open to any suggestion on how to handle it.

 

[Face]

3. Put infrastructure in place for dev group to communicate:

• Teamspeak or Ventrillo or something else? - We need to review the feasibility of voice chat for both development communication and review their SDKs for potential VC integration into the add-on with proper transmission delay enabled.

While I'm not sure if this should be in the early outline, I can comment on this one:

• My first tests with VoIP embedded in multiplayer framework worked out very well. It is absolutely feasable to implement a integrated solution.
• I wouldn't go for an external application approach (Ventrillo/Teamspeak besides actual application), since it is hard to control it for immersion (e.g. transmission delay, group signaling, frequency simulation, etc.).
• VoIP for this only makes sense together with live-multiplayer. With round-based or external-application solutions I don't see actual relevance.
• For development communication, I'm not sure if it makes much sense. Real-time audio conversation is more for P2P IMHO.

regards,
Face

EDIT: And regarding infrastructure for development of the design document: what about Wiki? I think a wiki is well suited for collaborative document development needs.

 

[BHawthorne]

While I'm not sure if this should be in the early outline, I can comment on this one:

• My first tests with VoIP embedded in multiplayer framework worked out very well. It is absolutely feasable to implement a integrated solution.
• I wouldn't go for an external application approach (Ventrillo/Teamspeak besides actual application), since it is hard to control it for immersion (e.g. transmission delay, group signaling, frequency simulation, etc.).
• VoIP for this only makes sense together with live-multiplayer. With round-based or external-application solutions I don't see actual relevance.
• For development communication, I'm not sure if it makes much sense. Real-time audio conversation is more for P2P IMHO.

regards,
Face

True, I'm just used to using it in most of the MMOs I play. It also makes sense in the content of mission control communications or whatever variation we come up with that is like air traffic control for space.

 

[Face]

A general question, how do you think we should measure the requirements that need to be met for each milestone? Many of the Milestone 0 elements are open ended. Should we impose a time limit that milestone 0 will be open, or just close it and move to Milestone 1 when there is concensus that the Milestone 0 objectives are sufficiently fleshed out? IMHO, a month for Milestone 0 seems reasonable considering most of it is abstract and theoretical in nature, but I'm open to any suggestion on how to handle it.

Depends on what you think Milestone 0 is. I see it as idea gathering process and project planing.
I think it should end whenever you feel it to be finished.

Requirements for milestone 0 could be:

• Settled on rough outline for design document.
• Infrastructure in place.
• Plan for further milestones is ready.

I wouldn't restrict it to a time-based progress plan so early. Better stay with requirements-based progress until a "living" system is out. Then you can switch to time-based in order to maintain the project (i.e. bug-fixes, features etc.).

regards,
Face

 

[BHawthorne]

Depends on what you think Milestone 0 is. I see it as idea gathering process and project planing.
I think it should end whenever you feel it to be finished.

Requirements for milestone 0 could be:

• Settled on rough outline for design document.
• Infrastructure in place.
• Plan for further milestones is ready.

I wouldn't restrict it to a time-based progress plan so early. Better stay with requirements-based progress until a "living" system is out. Then you can switch to time-based in order to maintain the project (i.e. bug-fixes, features etc.).

regards,
Face

Sounds reasonable. I'm also wanting to know how broad this document should be. The document itself could paint a pretty complex picture if we don't watch out. We need to be realists and not get too carried away on a lot of this or it could stall out. Part of what I see Milestone 1 defining and implementing will be the sub-systems core mechanics and how they work in the most basic form. If we can get past that we could begin to actually tack on a more rich feature set.

I think most of what is in it so far could be negotiated through whatever server we come up with. The only thing that will be problematic that I can see is ship to ship dock. I think that could be omitted in favor of fixed places like moon and planetary outposts and static orbital stations though. That way ships are interacting with known entities that don't have unpredictable actions. that might be a bit short sighted on my part to suggest this, but I don't want to get us stuck on aspects that might stop forward progress when we could just merely design those issues out of the milestone documents to begin with.

 

[Urwumpe]

A general question, how do you think we should measure the requirements that need to be met for each milestone? Many of the Milestone 0 elements are open ended.

Simple: Don't make them milestones. Open ended stuff is the concept, the big picture, the things you want to have after a finite number of milestones.

If you want to have Milestone 0 as some sort of Phase 0 in project management ("Feasibility"), limit the milestones to the things you want to know before going into the detailed design: is it possible? And if it is possible, in which direction should it go?

Don't go too much into the details then. To Teamspeak or not to teamspeak is not the question yet. That is detail stuff that can come later, important is just the knowledge that at least one solution exists. More important is now: How should the player be integrated? How much of the world can be made plotted and how much could be auto-generated? Are all players equal or do we need special moderator characters, which serve as plot initiators? How much of it would be needed for getting a limited test implementation running in the next milestones? Do we want special standards on the vessels or do we keep it as open as Orbiter is?

At the end of Phase 0, you don't want to know how to build the stuff, but you want to know that you can do it. You still have freedom, search for possible solutions to have at least one known.

The next phase will then be A: "Conception" - this is roughly what we are already peaking inside, since it was actually found out in the earlier discussion, that it is possible and Phase 0 partially done. Formally, we just lack some writing down of the possible options and further implications.

In Phase B, you will define eventually what the project MUST do. This is where the hard milestones will appear. You will define what the project must be able of as first small test version, how you develop it further until you have the final product. In Phase B, you still don't select solutions for problems, but you limit already the list of possibilities. It is easier to go back to Phase A in Phase B, then in later stages - at the end of Phase B, you practically aim for a feature freeze, since each new feature will be a short return into earlier phases.

In Phase C "Design", the detail work will explode: You select solutions for the problems that fulfill the requirements, meet the first milestones and get the test version done, so you can take a look if the selected design will work out eventually or not. If the design sucks, you go back to Phase B and rework it completely or fix bugs to attempt the test again. (Critical Design Review, the doomsday of any project)

 

[BHawthorne]

As an engineer I'm used to quality control systems implementation, so that makes sense. I'm making an assumption the system you are refering to is a standard for software development? I'm willing to adapt to that system if it'll make things easier. I'd rather use a time proven system than just making it up as we go. As is we've got enough content to make up without making up a development system to go along with it.

 

[Face]

Sounds reasonable. I'm also wanting to know how broad this document should be. The document itself could paint a pretty complex picture if we don't watch out. We need to be realists and not get too carried away on a lot of this or it could stall out.

I think your description of the setting is already nice. A big part of the document could be how every "mini-game" should work and how they play together. This way, the "broadness" is easily controllable... start with 2-3 mini-games and add more as you see fit.

What I wouldn't want to see in such a document in milestone 0 are technical issues like how time-acceleration might work or how Orbiter could interact with it. This should be focus of later milestones, and the design document might be a living thing throughout the project, anyway.

The only thing that will be problematic that I can see is ship to ship dock. I think that could be omitted in favor of fixed places like moon and planetary outposts and static orbital stations though. That way ships are interacting with known entities that don't have unpredictable actions. that might be a bit short sighted on my part to suggest this, but I don't want to get us stuck on aspects that might stop forward progress when we could just merely design those issues out of the disgn document to begin with.

Well, isn't that already stuck in the live-multiplayer direction? If you go with live-multiplayer, docking ship-to-ship is no big technical issue. OMP can do this already. Do you see it as content issue?

regards,
Face

 

[Urwumpe]

I'm making an assumption the system you are refering to is a standard for software development? I'm willing to adapt to that system if it'll make things easier.

No, actually it is the ECSS Project Management Standard, for Spaceflight projects, no special software engineering standard (I deal more with it than with pure software development standards, please excuse me. )... Most useful software development standards are similar though, and the infamous V-Model for German Government Software Projects is pretty much a more formal version of the ECSS.

What ever you want to use eventually - you should select the project management standards NOW and stick to them, in good like in bad times. But please: Don't use Extreme Programming or any software development standard with "Rapid" inside it. My personal experience with Extreme Programming is actually a good one, but this project is larger than the typical small orbiter add-on, where you could use it well and XP is not made for large projects. And I learned to hate any standard with "rapid" in it, because it actually means "slow and useless, except for writing books about it".

 

[garyw]

As an engineer I'm used to quality control systems implementation, so that makes sense. I'm making an assumption the system you are refering to is a standard for software development? I'm willing to adapt to that system if it'll make things easier. I'd rather use a time proven system than just making it up as we go. As is we've got enough content to make up without making up a development system to go along with it.

The standard for software development is something like the graphic below. This graphic is based on an ITIL model which has requirements and documentation as the foundation of the project.

​

The beauty about this model is that it forms a framework for the whole process and within that process you define your milestones. You don't need any dates because it's a community project so you don't know how long it will take so the foundation, the requirements and documentation become even more fundamental.

 

[Urwumpe]

You don't need any dates because it's a community project so you don't know how long it will take so the foundation, the requirements and documentation become even more fundamental.

How true...how true... :embarrassed:

 

[Artlav]

Clockwise or counter-clockwise? ( )