Venture Station Proposal Thread

[MaverickSawyer]

TOF? sounds like Time Of Flight...

 

[TMac3000]

Well, I knew I would be bringing the core stuff online first, but theres so much of it (& so heavy) that I dont know where to start.

Control systems first, then thrusters, then life support

 

[Face]

Hy BruceJohnJennerLawso,

you have asked for my opinion on your proposal here in the other thread:

The Iron Hill Project and RTI probably have been the first succesful open VSAs. I think thats a pretty significant achievement.

I was wondering if you could take a look at my proposal for venture station? It does share some common elements with a VSA, but modified in order to work effectively. I would be interested to hear what you think about the idea.

So here it is.

First, I'd like to disagree on the notion that Iron Hill or RTI are successful open VSAs.
Iron Hill is more like OFMM in that it is a community project focusing on a single mission, whereas a VSA is focusing on multiple missions in a given timeline while giving members a virtual "career".
RTI I've only read about in the Iron Hill thread, and I guess at this point it is more of a private VSA, if anything. At least the social group is pretty empty at the moment.

In light of this, yes, Iron Hill is an achievment, but not a VSA. RTI yet has to show that it is successful IMHO.

Second, your proposal has a very interesting starting point. I really think that such a narrowed scope can make the "life" of a VSA easier to manage. There is the station, you go there, you deliver or take away something, and you are gone again. Simple.

So far, so good a concept. But then I'm missing the procedure with which you want to achieve this.
Do you plan on assigning people as pilots for missions?
Will you allow simultaneous launches?
How do you distribute the scenarios and/or vehicles/configurations?
What about failed missions?
Timeline constrains?
How to keep the "resources" consistent?
Do members have to run through a "career" of sorts?
Are achievements of members recorded somewhere?
How do you do multi-crew missions?

Just some questions from the top of my mind before I'd even start to investigate the station's flight profile.

just my :2cents:,
Face

 

[BruceJohnJennerLawso]

Hy BruceJohnJennerLawso,

you have asked for my opinion on your proposal here in the other thread:


So here it is.

First, I'd like to disagree on the notion that Iron Hill or RTI are successful open VSAs.
Iron Hill is more like OFMM in that it is a community project focusing on a single mission, whereas a VSA is focusing on multiple missions in a given timeline while giving members a virtual "career".
RTI I've only read about in the Iron Hill thread, and I guess at this point it is more of a private VSA, if anything. At least the social group is pretty empty at the moment.

In light of this, yes, Iron Hill is an achievment, but not a VSA. RTI yet has to show that it is successful IMHO.

Yeah, I hadnt really stopped to consider what it was exactly too much. What was the fate of OFMM?

Second, your proposal has a very interesting starting point. I really think that such a narrowed scope can make the "life" of a VSA easier to manage. There is the station, you go there, you deliver or take away something, and you are gone again. Simple.

Glad you agree on that. Venture station is ultimately based on the PDF that I linked at the top of the thread, but doing a persistent station seemed like a nice way to do a VSA type project without a lot of the issues inherent to them. Instead of trying to go where the action is, I wait for the action to come to me

So far, so good a concept. But then I'm missing the procedure with which you want to achieve this.

Do you plan on assigning people as pilots for missions?

Not assigning no. Venture Station will have only one full time staff - me! That might change later in the project if someone dedicated is willing to help out by covering a few maintenance shifts that I cant spare time for, but the main avenue for other Orbinauts to participate will be on a contract basis. They contact me either looking to ship me fuel or rendezvous with the station for a refuel of their own, we set things up, they run the scenario until theyre done, pass it back to me & we're done. That structure helps to kill any need for an ongoing commitment to using the VSA, its only there when you need it.

Will you allow simultaneous launches?

What like this? :lol:

http://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?p=410372#post410372

No, I know enough about actual launch safety that there needs to be at least a week or so between launches at a single pad, but I wont get to worked up about it. There's so many good launch sites available anyways (Wideawake, Kourou, KSC, CSSC, JSC, Baiknour, AVSI...) that Im sure we can figure out something that would work coherently with pad crews not on duty 24/7

How do you distribute the scenarios and/or vehicles/configurations?

Ummm not decided yet. Scenarios might be distributed via attachment on the forums, although if Vash is okay with it, it would be really nice to set up an Orbithangar account that the current scenario holder updates.

I fear I will be violating one of your major VSA rules by doing some development work for this project, but I dont think its really avoidable. EML2 is going to require a fair amount of station keeping, and RCS in the current IMS release is not flexible enough to my liking at the moment. At either end of the station I plan on adding a add-on vessel, (only docked to one end though) that will allow me to have a much more powerful RCS. This would also allow me to add neat little integrated features like a RMS as I go along too, and it shouldnt be a massive project anyways.

I'll release any custom textures along with this in a package on Orbithangar, that should keep things fairly simple :thumbup:.

What about failed missions?

:chainsaw:

Well, I guess we just get a broom & sweep up all the debris. Not much else we can do.

Timeline constrains?

As in? I dont have any specific goals for the station besides acting as a propellant depot,so im not really sure.

How to keep the "resources" consistent?

As in fuel types? I'll DLL the propellant tanks & clearly label them according to what type of fuel they hold. Not sure I completely understand your question there.

Do members have to run through a "career" of sorts?

Are achievements of members recorded somewhere?

Again, only me as a regular member, so probably no. I will keep a note of any deliveries made just for the sake of it.

How do you do multi-crew missions?

Dont think we will, although mutiple MMUs can be present at the station. Maybe Ill just bring along some made up UMMUs for company

just my :2cents:,
Face

Well your 2 cents means a lot. Thanks Face!

 

[TMac3000]

In light of this, yes, Iron Hill is an achievment, but not a VSA.

That's true:yes: Iron Hill started out as just a personal project, for which I would simply report the progress and results here on OF. But once Felipi1205 expressed interest in joining up, the floodgates opened, and the rest is history Ultimately, it has become a sort of proof-of-concept project for RTI. I tend to think of IHP as an independent venture, in which some of the same people are sigining up for RTI.

RTI yet has to show that it is successful IMHO.

That's more than just your opinion--we're about three weeks old. Give us some time

 

[Face]

Not assigning no. Venture Station will have only one full time staff - me! That might change later in the project if someone dedicated is willing to help out by covering a few maintenance shifts that I cant spare time for, but the main avenue for other Orbinauts to participate will be on a contract basis. They contact me either looking to ship me fuel or rendezvous with the station for a refuel of their own, we set things up, they run the scenario until theyre done, pass it back to me & we're done. That structure helps to kill any need for an ongoing commitment to using the VSA, its only there when you need it.

Sounds good so far, you only need a strategy for cancellations. It would be more comfortable to "contractors" if they know that they can bail out if RL constrains make their plans impossible. This would also give those in the queue waiting for their turn a better feeling.

I don't mean a blaming culture with this, just an agreed procedure if somebody blocks the flow of missions for too long.

What like this? :lol:

http://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?p=410372#post410372

No, I know enough about actual launch safety that there needs to be at least a week or so between launches at a single pad, but I wont get to worked up about it. There's so many good launch sites available anyways (Wideawake, Kourou, KSC, CSSC, JSC, Baiknour, AVSI...) that Im sure we can figure out something that would work coherently with pad crews not on duty 24/7

Hehe. OK, I guess I've made myself not clear enough, mea culpa.
I actually meant concurrent missions going on, as with multiple launches (at different locations on earth, of course!) in a narrow band of simulated mission time. Like member A is starting today with a 3 weeks(MJD) mission for the weekend(RL), while the next weekend member B is wanting to start his 2 weeks(MJD) mission with a assumed RL duration of 1 week, with the start MJD being the same as A.
As complicated as this sentence got, imagine how complicated the actual managing of this scenario will get .

Ummm not decided yet. Scenarios might be distributed via attachment on the forums, although if Vash is okay with it, it would be really nice to set up an Orbithangar account that the current scenario holder updates.

How should that work? Sharing the OHM account among participants?

If you go with attachment, you have to ask yourself if the current work mode in IHP is OK for you, too. It seems like not everybody is too happy with it.

As in? I dont have any specific goals for the station besides acting as a propellant depot,so im not really sure.

As in MJD. Your scenario will start out on a specific date.
So what if a member comes up to you and says "hey, I want to run a mission to your station in the next 2 weeks". You say "yes, please do". The member is gone for 2 weeks, then comes up with a scenario that is based on the MJD you had 2 weeks ago, adding 2 month of simulation time to it.
While that sounds reasonable, what if it gets longer? What if the member takes a month in RL to finish the mission, and adds like 3 years to the MJD? Will you accept this?

As in fuel types? I'll DLL the propellant tanks & clearly label them according to what type of fuel they hold. Not sure I completely understand your question there.

Your station is holding finite resources. If you add resources to it, you can only do so up to a certain amount. If you take resources from it, you can only do so down to zero. You can only keep this consistent if you strictly serialize access to the resources. That means only one mission running at any given real-life point in time. But then there also is the simulated mission time. The station will use certain resources itself, too, and this is based on mission time. E.g. your oxygen will only hold for so long, your fuel gets consumed for station-holding, etc. Will you take that into account?

Again, only me as a regular member, so probably no. I will keep a note of any deliveries made just for the sake of it.

If you read my blog post about challenges, you will see that I actually think such lists work best for giving people a "high score" of sorts. In your particular case, simply keep a list of who delivered/installed/transported what when, and voila... you've got yourself a challenge participant roster.

regards,
Face

 

[Cras]

Compared to the other projects that have been attempted on this forum, you guys are awfully successful, and I would have to agree, Iron Hill is a success, and the most successful thing I have seen or are aware of on these boards.

The latest OFSS has stalled completely and OFMM was a total disaster. You have exceeded both in my book.

Any the idea that there needs to be career achievements and the like in order to qualify for VSA status is just arbitrary and capricious to me. That certainly can be an aspect of one's VSA is they so choose, but it certainly is not a requirement.

 

[mojoey]

Compared to the other projects that have been attempted on this forum, you guys are awfully successful, and I would have to agree, Iron Hill is a success, and the most successful thing I have seen or are aware of on these boards.

The latest OFSS has stalled completely and OFMM was a total disaster. You have exceeded both in my book.

Any the idea that there needs to be career achievements and the like in order to qualify for VSA status is just arbitrary and capricious to me. That certainly can be an aspect of one's VSA is they so choose, but it certainly is not a requirement.

Indeed. I've even heard rumblings about OFMM making a comeback.

 

[TMac3000]

Wow:huh: I had no idea that OFMM had failed...I just noticed I hadn't heard about it in a while.

Compared to the other projects that have been attempted on this forum, you guys are awfully successful, and I would have to agree, Iron Hill is a success, and the most successful thing I have seen or are aware of on these boards.

Man, you guys are making me:embarrassed::lol:
We've had our share of bumps in the road, some of them pretty big. But I think if we've proven anything, it's the same thing Burt Rutan and the Scaled Company proved: simpler is better. Multi-page mission schedules and scoring rules and all this "virtual career" business seems to hold people back. All you need is Orbiter, a chat system, and a few guys with the right stuff, to do something fantastic

So enough about Iron Hill already!:lol: This is Bruce's thread--let's get the focus back on him

 

[Face]

We've had our share of bumps in the road, some of them pretty big. But I think if we've proven anything, it's the same thing Burt Rutan and the Scaled Company proved: simpler is better. Multi-page mission schedules and scoring rules and all this "virtual career" business seems to hold people back. All you need is Orbiter, a chat system, and a few guys with the right stuff, to do something fantastic

Right. This is my point, too. You don't need a VSA with career and stuff. To have fun together the "challenge" idea or the community project with simple methods is much more feasible.

But then it is not a "virtual" space agency, because a space agency is certainly not putting a janitor into a space shuttle's pilot seat, so to say. The idea that this fact can be ignored for a virtual counterpart is just arbitrary and capricious to me.

This is not to say that a VSA needs the full blown set of agency positions filled, certainly not. But not having any notion at all of qualification for a certain job within the "agency" is making it a "no-agency" in my book, even if it is only virtual.

Of course everybody can start a community project or have a "club" of sorts, but just because somebody arbitrarily calls it VSA, it's not making it one. And there is no reason to call it one at all, as your project clearly demonstrated.

regards,
Face

 

[Pipcard]

So what would you call garyw's "International Space Agency"?

I prefer to call such things "fictional space agencies".

 

[Face]

So what would you call garyw's "International Space Agency"?

I prefer to call such things "fictional space agencies".

IMHO this is not really about how you label things, but about what could work and what not. Every private entertainment will obviously work for the single person / closed group that undertakes it, but it is not what we are talking about here.

As I see it, Bruce proposed an open community project with a neat theme. I think this can work, may it be as a VSA or as just a fun project. However, I think it needs a bit more outlining and infrastructure building before it takes off, therefore my questions. And I'm pretty sure he did not mean it to be purely fictional, as in "I write about it, and all you can do is to read it".

regards,
Face