Standards

[reinaldojr]

Hi people,

My name is Reinaldo and i'm new here. I play Obiter, from time to time, since 2005, i believe. I think this is one of the greatest simulators ever created and i congratulate mr. Schweiger for develeping such a great project.

But as i said, i play Orbiter from time to time. And the reason this happens is that after some time playing and tweaking with the config files, i come across a problem that it seems no way near solving: the lack of standards of the addons.

I'm not complaining about the quality of them, they are great. But there are no standars whatsoever. So after a number of addons added to the base pack, I almost find myself struglling with a lot of config files to make the simulator just simply open.

Example: I'm fond of the soyuz rocket. Started with Soyuz CVEL 0.6, then Soyuz Launchers, then Soyuz Series, the came across with ISS v.2.0.5 which rewrites everything and asks for Project R-7 to be installed (which i dont like, i prefer 'series), which by itself overwrites Baikonur LC1 Pad 5 (removing the funny train) and after everything is done, the simulator crashes on opening cause I forgot to install the Space Shuttle launch pad, which is on the other side of the earth and i don't exactly need it to launch a soyuz rocket.

See what i mean? And the more large scale you go, more trouble you will have tweaking for the perfect scenario. There are four or more kinds of Space Shuttle, which does exactly the same thing aside from some playing diferences. There are lots of diferent versions for the same launcher (Saturn 5, for example), among with their modules, dlls, config files, canaveral.cfg's, sol.cfg's, etc.

After some time, the base pack is so bloated with different versions of the same thing that you have to do a lot of micromangement just to play the way you like.

Then i quit. Stop playing for something, waiting for a new version to come and solve all these problems. But after a while my addiction crawls and after some months, i go back, download the "old" 2006 pack and play some more.

So, my question is: there is any solution for this problem? There is no way of creating a standard, or a standard concept, which instead of ADDING something, it UPGRADES something?

I wish i knew programming so i could actively help to find this solution, but since i don't know, i would like very much to discuss this problem and helping the way i can.

Thank you very much.
See ya.

 

[garyw]

So, my question is: there is any solution for this problem?

Backups.

Create a new branch to test something new and decide if you want it into your core orbiter install.

 

[reinaldojr]

There is no amount of backups that can help me to fly the amazing Soyuz Spacecraft from ISS v2.0.5 on top of a Soyuz Series (by Mustard) Launcher. They conflict each other. Their structures are different.

That's my problem, not broken addons. It's the conflict between lots of them.

Also, once i had almost 5GB of different versions of orbiter tweaked around a group of addons so they would'nt screw each other.

New question: Is it really needed? Theres no other solution we can think of?

 

[ar81]

[ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=3201"]This [/ame]may help you to find some common problems in your installation. It does not spot all of them, but the most common.

 

[reinaldojr]

I use this one, it's a great tool.

But the fact that it exists is the very reason im starting this thread about standards. Its really a necessity that most of the greatest addons come as completely independent package which conflicts with everything else similar with it?

I may sound maximizing the problem, but i still think we should try think a way to implement some standards to avoid such conflicts.

 

[Zatnikitelman]

Unfortunately, tha's the tradeoff with Orbiter. Orbiter has a massively powerful API and because of it you can make your addon do pretty much anything. Whereas flight simulator, has a simpler API, you can do less, but it's more standardized. In my years of flying, I can't say I've had quite the problems you've had. Most addons I download are relatively self-contained and those that aren't only require small modifications. Perhaps later, I'll try the Soyuz and see where you're having problems.

 

[Linguofreak]

Example: I'm fond of the soyuz rocket. Started with Soyuz CVEL 0.6, then Soyuz Launchers, then Soyuz Series, the came across with ISS v.2.0.5 which rewrites everything and asks for Project R-7 to be installed (which i dont like, i prefer 'series), which by itself overwrites Baikonur LC1 Pad 5 (removing the funny train) and after everything is done, the simulator crashes on opening cause I forgot to install the Space Shuttle launch pad, which is on the other side of the earth and i don't exactly need it to launch a soyuz rocket.

I believe this is because ISS Fleet is meant for use with, and requires, Shuttle Fleet.

 

[reinaldojr]

Zatnikitelman, i completely understand that. But i think it is needed more than "small modifications" to fix the problem.

Example: When i downloaded Kukanotas' KSC i was completely impressed by it. For the good and for the bad. The good part was that before, KSC was a sad place with blurred shapes and strange edges, but after, it became completely realistic with rivers, ponds, grass, roads and everything else. The bad part was when i loaded a basic scenario like, Shuttle Satelite Launch, the ship was completely out of place. Not only this, but every single scenario that had a ship landed in KSC was out of place.

And the funny part? It was easier to reinstall everything from zero than to undo the changes done by the addon. After i while i created a customized orbiter installation and went manually changing every single scenario to correct the "out of place" problem.

So, my question is: Was kukanotas completely out of his mind?

I believe he had the best of the intentions in publishing this addon, but hell, after it everything had to be divided between "normal KSC" and "kukanotas' out of place KSC". Even Shuttle Fleet comes in two flavours now: The normal Shuttle Fleet and the "Special Edition" Shuttle Fleet, which is simply 40-more-MB of the same addon sitting there at Orbit Hangar's FTP waiting exclusively for the people who use Kukanota's KSC.

I may be wrong but i think that's the worst aproach ever to solve a problem.

PS.: I'm formulating a solution. (I think)

 

[sunshine135]

Zatnikitelman, i completely understand that. But i think it is needed more than "small modifications" to fix the problem.

Example: When i downloaded Kukanotas' KSC i was completely impressed by it. For the good and for the bad. The good part was that before, KSC was a sad place with blurred shapes and strange edges, but after, it became completely realistic with rivers, ponds, grass, roads and everything else. The bad part was when i loaded a basic scenario like, Shuttle Satelite Launch, the ship was completely out of place. Not only this, but every single scenario that had a ship landed in KSC was out of place.

I can certainly understand your frustrations. There is always much talk concerning what to install over what to make it all work without conflict.

One thing to remember. The stock scenarios with Orbiter were built with the stock KSC, so if you are going to modify the Cape with Kukanotas' KSC, it will cause all of the stock scenarios and any other scenario that does not use his scenery to be "off". There is no way around this except to either A. Have Kukanotas' scenery incorporated into the next version of Orbiter or B. Redo all of the scenarios to place the vehicles in the correct places. The freedom of Orbiter means that special use scenarios are going to exist with special packages. That is just the way it works.

Alternatives that have helped me are to keep my Shuttle Fleet and Special Addition Expansion Packs in one Orbiter Folder and a separate folder for those that use the stock scenery. Other than that, my only suggestion is to perhaps understand how the files communicate with each other.

The very fact that Orbiter is free means people will find different uses for it.

I'm sure this is not as helpful as you would like, but hopefully you understand a little better.

Cheers,

 

[reinaldojr]

Hi people,

I was reading the things i posted here and i came to the conclusion i may have sounded a little nervous or angry which is not the case. I wish to remind every addon maker out there that i consider them the most badass guys in the planet. Not only you have to know what are you doing, but to program it, make it work. Hell, wish i could do that. I wanna be you guys when i grow up.

And Kukanotas, don't get me wrong, Pink Floyd is also completely out of place, but they also are as awsome and gorgeous as your KSC.

The thing is that i'm a web developer since 1998. I saw hell in webdesigner when no standards existed and every company made the web browsing experience the funny way they wanted. Only after standards got strenght that Internet came to be what it is today. Altough the languages are different, they all speak the same idea, the same concept behind standards.

I after using orbiter for almost 5 years I think the same thing could be done here. It would not be a simple change, it would need a major change specially in the way we think about orbiter, but i think i could be done and everybody would win from that.

I wish i knew how to program things like addons, so i would stop talking and start working on a solution. But since i dont know how to program it. I will explain my idea the best way can.

Not now, i mean. Later, when i get home. I'm at work now

 

[Oceanic]

Other than that, my only suggestion is to perhaps understand how the files communicate with each other.

unfortunately that sentence is soooooo true!

i can completely understand you reinaldojr, i ran into the same problems.

i had especially problems with the the shuttle fleet add-on, because i didn't took David's advice serious:

it is strongly suggested that you make a separate Orbiter installation dedicated to the Shuttle Fleet and this expansion pack

the shuttle fleet is the most complex add-on installation out there, once you know what the files do it's an easy ride.

#1 know your CTD's
if you get a crash and Orbiter tells you to check your log file, it is easy to find the solution. if you get a "silent" crash (Orbiter finished loading and all you can see is white) you have either a spacecraft/multistage problem or wrong surface-titles in one of the bases or one of the ships has a wrong base entry (example BASE Cape Canaveral:6, deleting that line works). use ar81's fantastic diagnostic tool to check for other inconsistencies (that tool is fantastic but has a few limitations, it shows missing files if the DIR is written with / and not with \ but orbiter doesn't care really for that. it scans only one folder deep in the scenario folders. and it can't tell you if you have a missing mesh which is called with a multistage launcher.

#2 know your sol
the shuttle fleet (and many other add-ons) try to avoid conflicts by using another solar system, the shuttle fleet uses Sol_Alt, the ISS v2 uses SolM.
these alternate solar systems call different bases, either they are directly written in the earth*cfg-file or are called with this line "DIR Earth\Base" this is why you have probably overlapping surface-titles at KSC when using the default scenarios (regular sol). you have a canaveral.cfg with surface-titles in your orbiter\config\Earth\Base but also KSC.cfg with surface-titles directly called via the earth.cfg parameter.

#3 use JSGME
this very handy application will save you a lot of headaches

i hope some things might help you

 

[reinaldojr]

So, let's do it.

After smoking lots of cigarretes, eating lots of hamburguers and after lots of thinking (which apparently is something all brazilians do when triyng to solve Orbiter problems), i think i found a solution for the standards problem. But before I discuss these solutions, i want to dwell a little more about the Orbiter structure and how it affects the idea of stardarlization.

As Zatnikitelman said before, "Orbiter has a massively powerful API and because of it you can make your addon do pretty much anything". Which should not mean everybody should do what they wanted without thinking a bit out of the "my addon is awesome" box.

First major problem is the Scenarios.

As I understand, the idea behind the scenarios folder on Orbiter Base package is to gather a collection of... well... scenarios, in the meaning of SITUATIONS. Here is the situation where you can launch a space shuttle, here is another with the Delta Glider orbiting Venus and etc. It is, of course, a sample of all the things you can summon and simulate with the bundled ships and planets. But if you look closely the structure of the scenario files you will see that nothing major is changed, nothing new is added and all of them uses the same ships and the same bases, and none of them conflicts with nothing else. They follow a standard.

Obviousily, a standard that exists only inside Mr. Schweiger's mind, but nonetheless a standard.

Then you have the addons, which most of the time don't follow any standards and some even want to bend the reality around them ("What the hell! The Original Solar System is not good enough for my addon, let's rewrite it! Let's rewrite canaveral.cfg too, just to have my addon resting nicely next to that funny Tin Tin launch pad!"). Then the "situation" scenario file is so heavily modified with proprietary information, that it ceases to function as a "situation simulator" and turns itself into "this is the only way you can play my addon without CTDing the hell out the simulator".

Ok, some may say that the reason there is so much sol.cfg's and earth.cfg's and canaveral.cfg's out there is exactly to avoid conflicting, but i think thats a bad solution. Its like take the water out from a sinking ship with a bucket instead of fixing the hole.

Well, that covers problem one. Later I post the rest of them.

 

[David413]

Here's my two cent worth...

What's the problem here? I have (at present) 8 separate Orbiter installations on my computer. 5 are dedicated to various versions/installations of the Shuttle Fleet and it's associated add-ons, one for Apollo, etc. The basic program writes nothing to the registry, can be deleted if I have a problem, and typically takes less than 10 minutes to re-install a particular installation, including add-ons. The beauty of this program is that I can experiment at length on an installation, and with the proper application of backups, can delete, restart, etc. Why are standards a necessity? Some people like the idea of having various choices, and Orbiter is a program that provides a wealth of choices. And, most importantly, at no cost to the user. I have always suggested, the Shuttle Fleet and it's various additional add-ons, should be installed on a clean installation. I ask this, not only for compatibility's sake, but also to aid in any troubleshooting of problems for the end users. What I typically find is the single most reported problem is that people fail to take the time to read the documentation that I provide. Before we start asking for "standards", how about we ask people to read the documentation that the add-on providers develop for their add-ons. That alone would eliminate (my estimate, based upon my own, limited, experience) about 50% of people's problems.

/rant

Dave

 

[tl8]

I think you are misinformed.
I think you will be better off using a simpler add on that has no other dependences like the DGIV (which does need Orbiter Sound)

Look at the parts of the addon and maybe even play with it a bit. Then move onto something a bit bigger, like the ESA launchers at Mustards site. This need a bit more work to install and get right.

Then finally with a clean install, install Shuttle Fleet. This is probably one of the hardest to install, but then the documentation is there for that to be made easier.

Also you underestimate the power of another solar system.
If you are only going to be in LEO, why worry about the 60 odd moons of Saturn.
Again with Canaveral.cfg Everything including the surface titles and the runway is about 50m west of where they are meant to be. A new cfg will fix this problem.

 

[tblaxland]

i think i found a solution for the standards problem...

Before you get too far ahead, I strongly recommend you read about Face's Common Orbiter Installation project. I don't know if you are familiar with distributed revision control or not, but it presents a very powerful way of managing conflicts in your Orbiter installation. It won't solve all your problems but it will definitely go a long way.

 

[reinaldojr]

Second problem: too much versions of the same stuff.

Once upon a time I was fumbling through Orbiter Hangar's archive when suddenly I found some new addon: Space Shuttle Ultra, I think that was its name. I read the description and a big question popped in my mind: Why do I need it? Ok, it has some differences, some different controls, but heck, Shuttle Fleet is already doing its job great, why would i need another shuttle? And this question always comes back from time to time when i came across a new shuttle, new textures for the shuttle, realistic ones, fictional ones, ones with all the names written backwards, other with no names written, michael jackson's themed shuttle.....

And is not just the shuttles, I believe there's 4 versions of the saturn, 3 soyuz launchers, 4 different gliders, 3 ISSs.

It is really needed?

And before anyone shouts "this is the beauty of Orbiter!", stop. I really appreciate upgrades and more complex version of a spacecraft. What Nikita Wturin did with the Soyuz Spacecraft and what David did to the Shuttle is beyond my knowlegde of english words to thank them. I bow to you.

But thats the beauty of Orbiter. Evolution.

And you can't evolve something creating different versions of the same stuff.

And why the hell cant i launch Nikita's Soyuz atop mustard's Soyuz Rocket? I read Nikita saying somewhere he preffered R-7 Project's launcher cause it was more acurate. Ok, but why make the ship incompatible with other launchers? Why i need a specific addon, which in turn need their share of specific, canaveral.cfg-changing-another-sol.cfg-addon, to launch a ship in orbit?

This is a retrograde burn, people.

Things would be way simplier if standards came into play. If you want to make a ship, make only the ship, wrapp it and publish it. Let us choose how we can take it to orbit.

And I think it preety much covers problem 2. Later I post more.

See ya.

 

[David413]

And now I see where you are coming from...you're not interested in the input from others, only your own opinion. And you are certainly entitled to express it, just as I am now entitled to quit reading it. As I will...

Dave

 

[tblaxland]

But thats the beauty of Orbiter. Evolution. And you can't evolve something creating different versions of the same stuff.

You best go dig out some text books then. Evolution works exactly because it creates different version of the same stuff. Some survive and become successful, others don't. C'est la vie.

 

[reinaldojr]

So you want me to settle down knowing i can never, ever, ride Nikita's Soyuz atop Mustard's Soyuz Series launcher on that funny little train that comes with it because that's the way life is? Keep watching.

 

[Donamy]

Good luck telling someone how to make their addon.:rofl: