New Release Project Mercury X for Orbiter 2016

[Star Voyager]

Maybe I missed it, but the periscope function seems to not be in the 2010 version. Other than that, this add-on is terrific! I like the HUD, especially the sequence list that is reminiscent of the cockpit! Thank you very much!

 

[Michkov]

Three bugs I encountered with v1.2

1) I have disappearing chutes. Whenever I deploy them they are there, a quick look through the periscope (F8) and back will make the mesh vanish. Functionally they are still there.

2) My periscope misses the black border shown in the screenshots. Gradiations are still present.

3) On splashdown the capsule bounces several 100m in the air again multiple times. I ran the historical Liberty Bell 7 mission using the autopilot only. So far this was the only version I could run to splashdown.

The others had me loose a booster after 2 mins, separate the capsule with the escape tower and multiple crashes on separation and flip. Not sure where the crashes stem though.

This is all on Orbiter16 with the D3D9 Client.


That said, great work on the addon. I need to dig into the readme a bit but I'm really looking forward to fly the Mercury suit. I hope this gets a cockpit, I loved the look of the original Project Mercury interior back in the day.

 

[asbjos]

Three bugs I encountered with v1.2

1) I have disappearing chutes. Whenever I deploy them they are there, a quick look through the periscope (F8) and back will make the mesh vanish. Functionally they are still there.

I can confirm this problem. I have tried to fix it, but to no avail. So as for the time being, you just have to ignore that problem.

2) My periscope misses the black border shown in the screenshots. Gradiations are still present.

There is actually no border on the screenshot. The real-life Mercury periscope had an FOV of 175 degrees, but Orbiter "only" supports up to 160 deg, so that's where we are. If you go high enough, and point the capsule 14.5 degrees down (toggle orbit attitude -14.5 deg and -34.0 deg with K during flight), you can see an "entire" globe in the periscope screen.
I have actually thought about adding a border, but am restricted by the limiting FOV (making a full Earth more rare), and the general projection by Orbiter.
Compare the atmosphere in the screenshot or in a simulation with this short video: https://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/v...atlas-periscope-stock-video-footage/143575397

3) On splashdown the capsule bounces several 100m in the air again multiple times. I ran the historical Liberty Bell 7 mission using the autopilot only. So far this was the only version I could run to splashdown.

Oops, my bad. :facepalm: Thanks for pointing that out! New release (1.2.1) in main post. No new release for Orbiter2010 version needed, as it's has touchdown points defined differently.

The others had me loose a booster after 2 mins, separate the capsule with the escape tower and multiple crashes on separation and flip. Not sure where the crashes stem though.

This is all on Orbiter16 with the D3D9 Client.

Yes, the addon is quite buggy, especially during abort and parachute deploy. But I have never found any specific cause, so I'm tempted to believe that it's due to Orbiter itself, and me implementing stuff in a less-than-optimal way (many changes and transitions between stagings, jettisons, scenario loadings, ...). I can only recommend to quicksave often (Ctrl+S), or use something like https://www.orbithangar.com/showAddon.php?id=ebe2f606-e602-4af4-970b-3b25848fdd95 if it still works for the newest Orbiter version.

I hope this gets a cockpit, I loved the look of the original Project Mercury interior back in the day.

Ah, yes. I guess this is a good time to lay out the future of this addon (Project Mercury X):

Both I and 4throck are still working on adding different stuff, to in a sense "complete" this addon.
But while we're adding, the big thing that ProjMercX lacks compared to the original Project Mercury 5.0, is the 2D cockpit. Due to big changes to the Orbiter SDK since 2005, it is not feasible to revive that work. In that case, it would have to be remade from scratch. If one would do that from scratch, I would much prefer to instead work on a 3D cockpit, because it would be much more immersive.
Of course, we would both love a fully fledged 3D virtual cockpit, but are lacking a combination of, between other things, skill (mainly in my case) and free time (mainly in 4throck's case).

Therefore, my hope was that someone would be skilled enough, and willing to spend that much time on modeling a 3D virtual cockpit.
So if anyone reading this is up to the challenge, I would pledge myself to help out with all my previous research on the Mercury project, and of course implement such a cockpit mesh into this addon.
So if anyone is interested, please contact me on PM, and we can take it from there. But remember, I can offer nothing but eternal appreciation. :hail:

---------- Post added at 01:31 ---------- Previous post was at 01:30 ----------

Maybe I missed it, but the periscope function seems to not be in the 2010 version.

Yeah, I noticed that, too. Haven't looked much into it yet, so as for now, you'll just have to restrict yourself to the generic cockpit in Orbiter 2010.

 

[moonheart]

Again - really great work.

What I have found is that if one follows the atlas launch in external view only the booster will at some point malfunction and go awry - usually about the 2+ min mark. If I launch and stay in the "cockpit" view - no problems - can ride the booster all the way to orbit. Perhaps the external view is causing the guidence file to sense an error?

 

[asbjos]

Again - really great work.

What I have found is that if one follows the atlas launch in external view only the booster will at some point malfunction and go awry - usually about the 2+ min mark. If I launch and stay in the "cockpit" view - no problems - can ride the booster all the way to orbit. Perhaps the external view is causing the guidence file to sense an error?

My guess is the framerate again.

This addon does a lot of writing to the Orbiter.log file. Could you run such a scenario, and share the contents of the log file here in [math][[/math]CODE[math]][/math] - [math][[/math]/CODE[math]][/math] tags?

 

[4throck]

Compare the atmosphere in the screenshot or in a simulation with this short video: https://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/v...atlas-periscope-stock-video-footage/143575397

That's an actual periscope film from one of the Mercury atlas test flights, probably with one of the chimps :thumbup:

---------- Post added at 09:54 ---------- Previous post was at 09:51 ----------

My guess is the framerate again.

I too have this problem, specially with time acceleration.
Frame rate is high on my end, the problem is uneven framerate.
I guess you are checking for g-forces each simulation frame. So uneven rates will give you "spikes". Perhaps you can average or ignore those spike ?
Being able to launch at 10x speed acceleration would be good, and a good way to make sure it works on lower end PCs.

---------- Post added at 10:06 ---------- Previous post was at 09:54 ----------

I hope this gets a cockpit, I loved the look of the original Project Mercury interior back in the day.

A normal 21'' monitor with the field of view set to around 40º gives you the same view that they had trough the Mercury window. So in a way your flying experience is accurate

Yes, a 3D panel would be good. I have a partial model, but it requires too much work in order to be usable - you need to make every switch clickable.
Also, there's a commercial simulator that has the full Mercury panel and systems simulation. There's not much point in recreating that for free I think...

I think we should focus on things better suited for Orbiter.
asbjos has the final word but we've talked about adding Little and Big Joe, recovery, etc. That's doable within the time we have.

I'm using Coronavirus isolation for modeling Mercury-Scout and Mercury-Jupiter. So that's something to look forward for :thumbup:

 

[asbjos]

I too have this problem, specially with time acceleration.
Frame rate is high on my end, the problem is uneven framerate.
I guess you are checking for g-forces each simulation frame. So uneven rates will give you "spikes". Perhaps you can average or ignore those spike ?
Being able to launch at 10x speed acceleration would be good, and a good way to make sure it works on lower end PCs.

Ah, time acc, yeah that clears things up. No, as of now it's not viable to launch with time acc. The same problem as for low framerate and no time acc: the autopilot sees that you're 1 degree too high, and therefore tells the rocket to pitch down. If the timestep is too large, you have overshot the aim in the next timestep, and it tells you to pitch up to correct, etc., and you spiral out of control, initiating an automatic abort.

My excuse so far has been that an Atlas launch is the fastest orbital launch ever, from standstill to orbit in 5 minutes (compared to 12 minutes for Saturn V, 9 minutes for Space Shuttle), and therefore an acceptable wait, in my opinion.

But seeing that others use time acceleration, I can try to find a solution for such a launch.

Until such a release, you will have to either

• Wait five minutes
• The autopilot is much more stable after BECO at T+2 minutes, so after tower jettison, you can press M to disable autopilot, time acc 10x, time acc 1x, press P to let rocket aim again, wait a few seconds, press M, repeat.

 

[jacquesmomo]

Hello

Just a question :
I did not know this parameter (in red) in the scn files:

BEGIN_ENVIRONMENT
System Sol
Date MJD 37715.615729
Context MercuryBases
END_ENVIRONMENT

What is it used for ?
Thank you for your answer (and your work) :tiphat:

 

[fred18]

Hello

Just a question :
I did not know this parameter (in red) in the scn files:

BEGIN_ENVIRONMENT
System Sol
Date MJD 37715.615729
Context MercuryBases
END_ENVIRONMENT

What is it used for ?
Thank you for your answer (and your work) :tiphat:

file OrbiterConfig.pdf in Doc Folder:

Selective loading of bases
To provide more control over the loading of surface bases in for a given simulation
scenario, two conditional flags can be set with a DIR entry in the base list:
 Specify a time interval with the PERIOD parameter. The corresponding directory
will only be scanned if the scenario start date is inside this interval. This allows to
replace surface bases only at specific time periods, for example to set up the Kennedy Space Center for the Apollo lunar missions.
Syntax:
DIR <folder> PERIOD <mjd0> <mjd1>
where <mjd0> and <mjd1> are the start and end dates of the period over which
the base folder will be scanned, in MJD (Modified Julian Date) format. Either can
be set to ‘-‘ to disable the limit at one end.
 Specify a scenario context with the CONTEXT parameters. The corresponding directory will only be scanned if the scenario specifies the same context string in its
environment context entry (see Section 3). This allows to add or replace surface
bases only within a defined set of scenarios.
Syntax:
DIR <folder> CONTEXT <string>
where <string> is the context string to be matched against the scenario context.
ORBITER File Formats 15The PERIOD and CONTEXT parameters can be used simultaneously. In that case
the directory will only be scanned if both conditions are satisfied.
Examples:
BEGIN_SURFBASE
DIR Earth\1969Base PERIOD 40222 42048
DIR Earth\TempBases CONTEXT RichScenery
DIR Earth\OtherBases PERIOD – 40000 CONTEXT EarlyBases
DIR Earth\Base
END_SURFBASE
Note that the list order is important to allow the custom base definitions to replace standard bases

Cheers :tiphat:

 

[Joseph Borg]

Hi all - not sure if anyone had this , I’m running orbiter 2016 & just installed project mercury 1.2.1 .
The scenario fires up nicely with no CTD. BUT ! I can’t seem to have a launch vessel shown ? And I can’t do any liftoff or inside view of cockpit etc. help ! Actually - pressings F1 I can see the usual left and right MFD screen. But def no Exterior textures . Thanks all.

Regards

Joseph

 

[jgrillo2002]

Very great addon. this makes want to watch The Right Stuff. however I encountered a problem with the 2010 version of your addon. the periscope view makes the game crash. I checked the logs and there is no indication of any issues whatsoever. however 2016 version has no issues.

 

[Joseph Borg]

Gentle reminder re: this , thanks guys

Hi all - not sure if anyone had this , I’m running orbiter 2016 & just installed project mercury 1.2.1 .
The scenario fires up nicely with no CTD. BUT ! I can’t seem to have a launch vessel shown ? And I can’t do any liftoff or inside view of cockpit etc. help ! Actually - pressings F1 I can see the usual left and right MFD screen. But def no Exterior textures . Thanks all.

Regards

Joseph

 

[asbjos]

Hello

Just a question :
I did not know this parameter (in red) in the scn files:

BEGIN_ENVIRONMENT
System Sol
Date MJD 37715.615729
Context MercuryBases
END_ENVIRONMENT

What is it used for ?
Thank you for your answer (and your work) :tiphat:

As fred18 said.
So to get the Mercury ladning sites, tracking network locations, and contingency landing sites, change the Config\Earth.cfg from

; === Surface Bases ===
; place additional bases or
; base directories in this list
BEGIN_SURFBASE
DIR Earth\Base
END_SURFBASE

to

; === Surface Bases ===
; place additional bases or
; base directories in this list
BEGIN_SURFBASE
DIR Earth\Base\ProjectMercury CONTEXT MercuryBases
DIR Earth\Base
END_SURFBASE

Then any scenario containing the "Context MercuryBases" will have these bases.

Hi all - not sure if anyone had this , I’m running orbiter 2016 & just installed project mercury 1.2.1 .
The scenario fires up nicely with no CTD. BUT ! I can’t seem to have a launch vessel shown ? And I can’t do any liftoff or inside view of cockpit etc. help ! Actually - pressings F1 I can see the usual left and right MFD screen. But def no Exterior textures . Thanks all.

Regards

Joseph

I can't replicate this bug. Can you share the contents of your Orbiter.log file after running such a scenario? Place the contents inside [math][[/math]CODE[math]][/math] text [math][[/math]/CODE[math]][/math] tags.

Very great addon. this makes want to watch The Right Stuff. however I encountered a problem with the 2010 version of your addon. the periscope view makes the game crash. I checked the logs and there is no indication of any issues whatsoever. however 2016 version has no issues.

Thank you!
I'm aware of this problem, but haven't prioritized looking into it yet. Will do it at some point.

 

[Joseph Borg]

I can't replicate this bug. Can you share the contents of your Orbiter.log file after running such a scenario? Place the contents inside [math][[/math]CODE[math]][/math] text [math][[/math]/CODE[math]][/math] tags.

It is as follows -->

**** Orbiter.log
000000.000: Build Aug 28 2016 [v.160828]
000000.000: Timer precision: 1e-007 sec
000000.000: Found 0 joystick(s)
000000.000: Module AtlantisConfig.dll .... [Build 160828, API 160828]
000000.000: Module AtmConfig.dll ......... [Build 160828, API 160828]
000000.000: Module DGConfigurator.dll .... [Build 160828, API 160828]
000000.000: ---------------------------------------------------------------
BaseDir : C:\Orbiter2016\
ConfigDir : C:\Orbiter2016\Config\
MeshDir : C:\Orbiter2016\Meshes\
TextureDir : C:\Orbiter2016\Textures\
HightexDir : C:\Orbiter2016\Textures2\
ScenarioDir: C:\Orbiter2016\Scenarios\
000000.000: ---------------------------------------------------------------
D3D9 DLLs : C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\d3d9.dll [v 10.0.18362.387]
: C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\d3dx9_43.dll [v 9.29.952.3111]
000000.000: ---------------------------------------------------------------
000000.000: Module D3D9Client.dll ........ [Build 200126, API 160828]
000000.000: Module CustomMFD.dll ......... [Build 160828, API 160828]
000000.000: Module GenericCamera.dll ..... [Build 200126, API 160828]
000000.000: Module LuaMFD.dll ............ [Build 160828, API 160828]
000000.000: Module transx.dll ............ [Build 160216, API 160214]
000000.000: Module LuaConsole.dll ........ [Build 160828, API 160828]
000000.000: Module ScriptMFD.dll ......... [Build 160828, API 160828]
000000.000: Module XRSound.dll ........... [Build 180309, API 160828]
000000.000: Module DX9ExtMFD.dll ......... [Build 200126, API 160828]
000000.000: Module ExtMFD.dll ............ [Build 160828, API 160828]
000000.000: Module FlightData.dll ........ [Build 160828, API 160828]
000000.000: Module Framerate.dll ......... [Build 160828, API 160828]
000000.000: Module Rcontrol.dll .......... [Build 160828, API 160828]
000000.000: Module ScnEditor.dll ......... [Build 160828, API 160828]
000000.000: Module InterMFD57.dll ........ [Build 161216, API 160910]
000000.000: ---------------------------------------------------------------
000000.000: >>> WARNING: Obsolete API function used: oapiRegisterMFDMode
000000.000: At least one active module is accessing an obsolete interface function.
000000.000: Addons which rely on obsolete functions may not be compatible with
000000.000: future versions of Orbiter.
000000.000: ---------------------------------------------------------------
000000.000: Module LunarTransferMFD.dll .. [Build 191224, API 160828]
000000.000: Module Meshdebug.dll ......... [Build 160828, API 160828]
000000.000: Module TrackIR.dll ........... [Build 160828, API 160828]
000000.000: TrackIR module not found.
000000.000:
000000.000: **** Creating simulation session
000000.000: D3D9: [DirectX 9 Initialized]
D3D9: 3D-Adapter.............. : Parallels Display Adapter (WDDM)
D3D9: MaxTextureWidth......... : 16384
D3D9: MaxTextureHeight........ : 16384
D3D9: MaxTextureRepeat........ : 8192
D3D9: VolTexAddressCaps....... : 0x3F
D3D9: NumSimultaneousRTs...... : 4
D3D9: VertexDeclCaps.......... : 0x30F
D3D9: MiscCaps................ : 0x2FCFF2
D3D9: XNA Math Support........ : Yes
D3D9: Vertex Texture.......... : Yes
D3D9: Separate AlphaBlend..... : Yes
D3D9: Shadow Mapping.......... : Yes
D3D9: D3DFMT_A16B16G16R16F.... : Yes
D3D9: D3DFMT_A32B32G32R32F.... : Yes
D3D9: D3DFMT_D32F_LOCKABLE.... : No
D3D9: D3DFMT_A2R10G10B10...... : Yes
D3D9: D3DFMT_L8............... : No
D3D9: D3DDTCAPS_DEC3N......... : No
D3D9: D3DDTCAPS_FLOAT16_2..... : Yes
D3D9: D3DDTCAPS_FLOAT16_4..... : Yes
D3D9: Runs under WINE......... : No
D3D9: D3D9Build Date.......... : 200126
D3D9: Available Texture Memory : 2022 MB
000000.000: D3D9: [3DDevice Initialized]
000000.000: D3D9: [Loading Constellations]
000000.000: D3D9: [D3D9Client Initialized]
000000.000: Module Sun.dll ............... [Build 160828, API 160828]
VSOP87(E) Sun: Precision 1e-006, Terms 554/6634
000000.000: Module Mercury.dll ........... [Build 160828, API 160828]
VSOP87(B) Mercury: Precision 1e-005, Terms 167/7123
000000.000: Module Venus.dll ............. [Build 160828, API 160828]
000000.000: Module VenusAtm2006.dll ...... [Build 160828, API 160828]
VSOP87(B) Venus: Precision 1e-005, Terms 79/1710
000000.000: Module Earth.dll ............. [Build 160828, API 160828]
000000.000: Module EarthAtmJ71G.dll ...... [Build 160828, API 160828]
VSOP87(B) Earth: Precision 1e-008, Terms 2564/2564
000000.000: Module Moon.dll .............. [Build 160828, API 160828]
ELP82: Precision 1e-005, Terms 116/829
000000.000: Module Mars.dll .............. [Build 160828, API 160828]
000000.000: Module MarsAtm2006.dll ....... [Build 160828, API 160828]
VSOP87(B) Mars: Precision 1e-005, Terms 405/6400
000000.000: Module Phobos.dll ............ [Build ******, API 060425]
000000.000: Module Deimos.dll ............ [Build ******, API 060425]
000000.000: Module Galsat.dll ............ [Build 160828, API 160828]
000000.000: Module Jupiter.dll ........... [Build 160828, API 160828]
VSOP87(B) Jupiter: Precision 1e-006, Terms 1624/3625
000000.000: Module Io.dll ................ [Build 160828, API 160828]
000000.000: Module Europa.dll ............ [Build 160828, API 160828]
000000.000: Module Ganymede.dll .......... [Build 160828, API 160828]
000000.000: Module Callisto.dll .......... [Build 160828, API 160828]
000000.000: Module Satsat.dll ............ [Build 160828, API 160828]
000000.000: Module Saturn.dll ............ [Build 160828, API 160828]
VSOP87(B) Saturn: Precision 1e-006, Terms 2904/6365
000000.000: Module Mimas.dll ............. [Build 160828, API 160828]
SATSAT Mimas: Terms 113
000000.000: Module Enceladus.dll ......... [Build 160828, API 160828]
SATSAT Enceladus: Terms 33
000000.000: Module Tethys.dll ............ [Build 160828, API 160828]
SATSAT Tethys: Terms 101
000000.000: Module Dione.dll ............. [Build 160828, API 160828]
SATSAT Dione: Terms 59
000000.000: Module Rhea.dll .............. [Build 160828, API 160828]
SATSAT Rhea: Terms 68
000000.000: Module Titan.dll ............. [Build 160828, API 160828]
SATSAT Titan: Terms 100
000000.000: Module Iapetus.dll ........... [Build 160828, API 160828]
SATSAT Iapetus: Terms 605
000000.000: Module Uranus.dll ............ [Build 160828, API 160828]
VSOP87(B) Uranus: Precision 1e-006, Terms 1827/5269
000000.000: Module Miranda.dll ........... [Build ******, API 060425]
000000.000: Module Ariel.dll ............. [Build ******, API 060425]
000000.000: Module Umbriel.dll ........... [Build ******, API 060425]
000000.000: Module Titania.dll ........... [Build ******, API 060425]
000000.000: Module Oberon.dll ............ [Build ******, API 060425]
000000.000: Module Neptune.dll ........... [Build 160828, API 160828]
VSOP87(B) Neptune: Precision 1e-006, Terms 391/2024
000000.000: Finished initialising world
============================ ERROR: ===========================
Could not load vessel module: ProjectMercury\ProjectMercuryRedstone
[Vessel::LoadModule | .\Vessel.cpp | 5747]
===============================================================
============================ ERROR: ===========================
Could not load vessel module: ProjectMercury\Mercury_LC5
[Vessel::LoadModule | .\Vessel.cpp | 5747]
===============================================================
000000.000: Finished initialising status
000000.000: Finished initialising camera
000000.000: Finished setting up render state
000000.000: D3D9: [Scene Initialized]
000000.000: Finished initialising panels
000052.913: D3D9: [Session Closed. Scene deleted.]
000052.913: D3D9: [Destroy Render Window Called]
D3D9: ERROR: [Failed to Reset DirectX Device] (Likely blocked by undeleted resources)
000052.913: XRSound 1.10 (Build Date: Mar 9 2018) terminating.
000052.913: **** Closing simulation session



hmmmm maybe I should re-download the file, and copy paste again ?

 

[asbjos]

============================ ERROR: ===========================
Could not load vessel module: ProjectMercury\ProjectMercuryRedstone
[Vessel::LoadModule | .\Vessel.cpp | 5747]
===============================================================
============================ ERROR: ===========================
Could not load vessel module: ProjectMercury\Mercury_LC5
[Vessel::LoadModule | .\Vessel.cpp | 5747]
===============================================================

hmmmm maybe I should re-download the file, and copy paste again ?

This indicates that there's something wrong with your installation. You should have the folder "Modules\ProjectMercury", and it should contain 10 .dll files.
If they are not there, try installing the addon again, and make sure that all files and folders are placed correctly.

 

[Star Voyager]

Small nitpick but in the scenarios, the launch vehicle is rotated about 90 degrees from the spacecraft and adapter. The spacecraft/adapter are rotated correctly relative to the tower but the launcher should look like this:

With the LOX tank pressurization line facing away from the incline and the stub pods parallel with the gantry.

 

[Joseph Borg]

This indicates that there's something wrong with your installation. You should have the folder "Modules\ProjectMercury", and it should contain 10 .dll files.
If they are not there, try installing the addon again, and make sure that all files and folders are placed correctly.

Hey / I just managed . For the benefit of all those who might encounter a similar problem in the future - I simply installed a full plethora of C++ runtime software. That did the trick . And now I have project mercury in FULL GLORY. Thanks guys.

 

[1987VCRProductions]

Small nitpick but in the scenarios, the launch vehicle is rotated about 90 degrees from the spacecraft and adapter. The spacecraft/adapter are rotated correctly relative to the tower but the launcher should look like this:

With the LOX tank pressurization line facing away from the incline and the stub pods parallel with the gantry.

For the Atlas launches from Cape Canaveral, change the heading in the scenario file to 15. For the Vandenberg Atlas launch, change the heading in the scenario file to 265.

 

[Star Voyager]

That puts the LOX pressurization line facing towards the incline, not away. What I meant to convey in my post was the spacecraft and adapter or oriented wrong relative to the Atlas.

 

[asbjos]

That puts the LOX pressurization line facing towards the incline, not away. What I meant to convey in my post was the spacecraft and adapter or oriented wrong relative to the Atlas.

Thank you for the observation! Never noticed it myself.
I've fixed this problem, and it will be included in the next release coming shortly into the future. :thumbup: