New Release Wideawake International Released

[wehaveaproblem]

Ascension International Aerospace is proud to announce the release of Wideawake International, the most advanced development of Ascension Island to date.


The new base includes:
21 x light hangars, for DG/XR1 class vessels
7 x Heavy hangars for XR5 class vessels
Loading and unloading facilities for all winged craft
3 x Runways
2 x Vertical Launch Pads with VAB
Domestic Airport
New Central Command Centre
Fueling depot for winged vessels
Numerous other miscellaneous buildings and custom meshes
New surface tiles for base layout
Over 30 scenarios


Watch the Promotional Video here

Read the development thread here


Some screen shots (more available on my blog)

DOWNLOAD


Please read the enclosed pdf for installation instructions and base information.


The addon can be downloaded here: [ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=3666"]Wideawake_International.zip[/ame]






Thank you to all those who offered feedback and contributions during development. Please report any bugs, ideas or suggestions you may have.


-----Post Added-----


I knew I would forget something from the manual, here are the VOR and ILS frequencies for the base/runways, to save you having to look them up:

WIN VOR - 113.00

Runway 12L - 113.10
Runway 30R - 113.20

Runway 12R - ILS1 113.30
Runway 30L - ILS2 113.40

Known Bug: Some of the cargo used in the XR-5 scenarios is not standard issue release stuff. I thought it was, but some things are from beta... doh! My apologies, the scenarios will cause a CTD if not editied to excude the missing cargo.

 

[Tex]

SWEET!!! I'll be downloading this when I get home later today for sure!

Thanks for all your work on this project!! :speakcool:

 

[TSPenguin]

Very nice. *clickety*

Time to do some role playing again!

 

[unknown_orbiter]

Amazingly done! This and Alysimia are the only 2 bases I ever thought were nice enough to add. Very well done indeed

 

[Balladeer]

Thank you wehaveaproblem! Your base has always been one of my top favorites and I've been looking forward to this new release. Thanks for your hard work on this base.

 

[Starshipexplorer]

Hi wehaveaproblem. Thanks for your new Ascension/Wideawake International. Fantastic!

 

[tl8]

This looks excellent, great work!

 

[Bj]

Wow awesome man :speakcool:

Downloading now :download:

 

[Arrowstar]

Thank you! Time to try that KSC run again.

EDIT: Are we going to get to see the Big Dumb Booster fly from WideAwake anytime soon?

 

[James.Denholm]

Well done WHAP! *Applause*

Time to get that dead-stick landing perfected...

 

[MeDiCS]

Very nice !

Althought the main runway could be bigger, 6km is barely sufficient for a high-speed landing without using retro .

 

[tgep]

I love to taxi around a base to the runways and get a quick line up and launch. Wideawake is PERFECT for doing this ! I haven't tried any of the launcher scenarios yet cause I had to work today but you can bet your flight boots I'll find a way to incorperate those three " for rent " bildings into an RTF training area.

A top shelf add on all the way.

 

[Tex]

Just tried it today... great work WHAP! I'm actually making a short video of it now.

 

[N1986]

Nice port hmy:. Does anyone know of any taxi bees I could use to move my ships around. I'm a little concerned that I could put too much thrust and drive into a building or into the drink.

 

[wehaveaproblem]

Thank you for your kind words everyone! It's nice to know the effort is enjoyed, makes it all worth while.

Tex, looking forward to seeing that vid!

Arrowstar, the BDB is another AIA project that lies incomplete, but not dead, on the drawing board. However, tbh, I think the JupiterIII addon by andymc and it's future varients (yet to be released) can/will do everyhting I ever hoped the BDB could. It also uses similar technology, so I might shelf the BDB altogether. I'm more likely to concentrate on Rocket Racing and XR5 modules.

N1986, there is a tractor thing on orbithangar somewhere, but not sure if it can actually be used on the XR series craft or not. I did try to make the base spacious enough that an XR5 should be able to manouver around it under it's own power - although this does mean spraying most of the buildings in rocket exchaust! But not much I can do about that.

 

[agentgonzo]

Very nice !

Althought the main runway could be bigger, 6km is barely sufficient for a high-speed landing without using retro .

Are you kidding? The shuttle landing facility at Canaveral is only 4.5km long.

 

[C3PO]

Althought the main runway could be bigger, 6km is barely sufficient for a high-speed landing without using retro .

Just stay below mach 2 on touchdown, and you should be alright.:rofl:

 

[agentgonzo]

Well done with the work on Ascension island. It looks fantastic. I look forward to flying from it soon.

Is there any plans to use higher resolution surface tiles for the island? I've just looked at ascension island on google maps and it's got a lot more detail than the images of your addon. Is there an easy way for me to replace the surface tiles myself if I get the high-res images from google, or is it a limitation of orbiter? I've never done any non-mfd work for orbiter.

 

[wehaveaproblem]

agentgonzo,
The choice of surface tiles was a compromise really. It is certainly possible to increase the resolution. The current base is made from a 4x4 grid of level 4 tiles with 512x512 textures. It is possible to increase these to higher resolutions to allow for greater detail. It is also possible to use more, smaller level 5 or 6 tiles to increase this even further.

However, I settled on what I did as a compromise, based on a few reasons:

1. I had to edit out the clouds from the google earth snaps. This means the more detail I have the textures, the harder this process is - not impossible, but just labour intensive.
2. The current choice strikes a balance between detail on the ground and detail at altitude. More detailed tiles can become a little messy when viewed from high up, imho.
3. The closer you zoom in to google earth (to get more detail per snap) the harder it becomes to make the tiles line up perfectly, as in google earth they are mapped to a sphere which can cause mild warping etc.
4. level 4 tiles allowed me to cover the exisitng ascension (a sandy blob) that is on the default orbbiter surface, with my own tiles, using the minimum amount needed, whilst maintaining proper alignment with exisitng surface.

so to answer your question, yes you could increase them, it's just a bit of a pain to do it.

 

[agentgonzo]

Thanks for the info. WRT point 3, there are tools that you can get that download the tiles from Google maps (rather than taking screen grabs from Google earth) that don't suffer the mild warping as they are already in tiles - some will combine them into one image for you too. Just thought that I'd mention it if it helps.