Flight Question What was your Orbiter progression?

[Jeorbit]

Hi guys,

I'm wondering how went your orbiter progression regarding the type of flights and destinations you took when you started up.

As I just started, so far my goals have been to be able to :

- reliably get the XR-2 in a decent orbit (done)
- reliably rendez-vous & dock with all kind of stations (done)
- reliably get to the moon, first with the default Transfert MFD and now with TransX2 (done)
- reliably land at Brighton Beach (done).

I'm now working on reliably getting back from the moon (meaning alive and landing on an actual runway)

But what after that ? Of course I could change "reliably" by "efficiently" and that would again take me on a new path filled with hours of trial & error and even more hours of staring at Blixel's face :hello: (thank you so much for this Absolute Beginners series, by the way!).

That could be fun, but I'm curious about what were your next milestones after you were able to reliably get to the moon and back.

Master a new ship? Mars? A grand tour?

Let's hear them!

 

[steph]

After reliably getting to the moon and back in the DG, I sort of cheated , got loads of SF spacecraft and took that spaceship from Starship Troopers to Neptune in a straight-line flight (and also the Orion out of the Solar System , because why not ? :lol: ) But seriously though, my most serious and rewarding flights to date were Mars trips on the freighters from World of 2001. Not that I didn't have screw-ups there as well.
The rendezvous techniques came after the moon flights.

 

[Shifty]

- Fly the Apollo 11 mission with ASMO
- Using Atlantis or one of the Shuttle mods, take off from KSC, rendezvous with the ISS, and then deorbit and land at KSC unpowered.
- Fly to Mars. Then slingshot there from Venus. Land at Olympus Base. Install a Phobos base and land there.
- Try the KSC to Wideawake challenge.
- Do any of the above with the DGIV, with full breakdown/damage simulation.
- Recreate and fly a shuttle mission.
- Try orbital assembly--fly one or more of the OFSS missions
- Fly some of the challenges in the challenges forum
- Etc

 

[Blake]

Stock Delta Glider:
- Learn how to fly into orbit. This is different than just flying into space.
- Rendezvous with ISS. Learn all about orbital planes and synchronizing orbits.
- Dock with the ISS. Practice your RCS skills.
- Fly to the moon. Watch the earth shrink in size and appreciate just how out there those astronauts were.
- Learn how to land at a base without an atmosphere.
- Fly to Mars and learn about Hohmann transfers. Understand the trade-off between speed and fuel when flying to the planets.
- Fly to Jupiter. Pay attention the next time so your orbital direction around Jupiter is actually the same as its moons.

At that point I got into the development side of things. Design build and fly your own spaceship. Cool!

Now, probably 95% of my Orbiter time is in development work.

 

[Urwumpe]

1. Fail to dock to the ISS in many creative ways
2. Dock to the ISS in a very boring way
3. Dock to the ISS in less boring ways
4. Magic
5. Make add-ons

 

[Jeorbit]

Thanks guys, lots of great inspiration !

I even did not know you could actually fly missions to build a base in Orbiter!

(and I guess dev work will probably appeal to me too after a while... )

 

[Artlav]

-Try to return a Shuttle from orbit by pointing down
-Get the orbital mechanics enough to put a dg into orbit
-Start making add-ons, and explore the solar system far and wide
-Release a relevant add-on each time someone on the forum says "it's impossible"
-Make a better Orbiter, with stars, galaxies and terrain
-Get bored, set everything on fire, move on
-Post witty comments on the forum now and then

 

[boogabooga]

After I could make orbit, I went through a phase of pointing at the moon with the Delta Glider and burning until fuel exhausted, then using the scn editor to refill the tank and repeating...over and over again. I got really fast, but I never did get to the moon that way. :rofl:

 

[Jeorbit]

-Try to return a Shuttle from orbit by pointing down
-Get the orbital mechanics enough to put a dg into orbit
-Start making add-ons, and explore the solar system far and wide
-Release a relevant add-on each time someone on the forum says "it's impossible"
-Make a better Orbiter, with stars, galaxies and terrain
-Get bored, set everything on fire, move on
-Post witty comments on the forum now and then

Really great stuff you made, lots of very original and pragmatic ideas to make Orbiter better. Very creative!

And as you said, each time you learned new stuff
(classical programmer journey of launching a side project -> learn stuff -> drop it somehow -> find later that you can use that stuff you learned somewhere else in a professional gig )

Now we probably all wish you find inspiration again to better Orbiter 2016 as you did with the previous versions

 

[Face]

Now we probably all wish you find inspiration again to better Orbiter 2016 as you did with the previous versions

To be honest, I wish for him continuing Spaceway instead. Well, perhaps also to merge it with Orbiter, but that's impossible .

 

[Jeorbit]

- Fly the Apollo 11 mission with ASMO
- Install a Phobos base and land there.
[...]
- Try orbital assembly--fly one or more of the OFSS missions
- Etc

Ok, I really need to learn how this base building & station assembly is made possible!

 

[Trekkie]

Creating Star Systems, Creating Star Ships

 

[N_Molson]

But what after that ?

- Perform a Soyuz or Progress mission following a real timeline. Land the Soyuz in the primary recovery area* or burn the Progress away from populated areas (ie. over Southern Pacific Ocean).
- Perform Voyager's "Grand Tour".
- Build the ISS step by step, using the historical hardware and missions (the addons are available). It should keep you busy a few days

* Which means a 30 kilometers-wide area :

 

[Urwumpe]

Another nice joy of having Orbiter is using sling-shots in the Jovian system for traveling around from moon to moon. Its always surprising how many moons you can visit spending only very little fuel by exploiting gravity.

 

[Dantassii]

Download the latest version of Orbiter, download the latest pre-alpha version of IMS 2.0, build a HUMONGOUS space station 1 module at a time, watch what FPS I get.

Well... he asked what we like to do....

Dantassii
HUMONGOUS IMS shipbuilder

 

[mercsim]

Orbiter is THE premier Spaceflight Simulator. However, its also a pretty awesome Flight Simulator. Step into something you otherwise might not try.
- Download some of the awesome airplanes and fly them around your favorite places.
- Learn about the world of Tintin.
- Fly formation with the Dream Chaser landing at KSC.
- Experience the car tow of the M2-F1 at Edwards and then land on the dry lake.
- Dig into the only active SpacePlane in the world (liber's X-37) and learn about Vinka's amazing stuff.

- Don't stop trying new things.

Thank you Martin for helping "keep the dream alive".

 

[FSchieber]

-Watch the autopilot taking STS to LEO
-Watch videos on Youtube from things i can't do
-Enter the forum and start reading questions
-Try to reach orbit
-Fail
-Try again
-Again
-Success and make progress with my own learn curve