Project XR2 Ravenstar - Mk II

[Dores]

I cannot wait for this!!!!

Looks fantastic : )

Any idea when a beta would be available?

Dores,

 

[Keatah]

The only thing keeping us from building the ship for real is materials sciences. Everything else looks quite believable.

 

[jedimaster1214]

Coolhand, i was wondering...

With what appears to be extra passenger space, and bunches of neat-o little details, how much is the scale compared to the Mk1?

Is it only slightly bigger or is a considerable size bigger? could you post a pic please to show a comparison?

Thanks in advance, this really looks like it will be THE ship to fly, for ANY occasion! Great work! :thumbup:

 

[Coolhand]

I posted some dimensions in post #1716 what that means is it's slightly longer, slightly shorter and slightly thinner than the mk1... It's still roughly the same size and its unlikely to change any further externally at this point.

As for a public Beta release, they're traditionally kept to a small group - who again will be commemorated on a new mission patch - if we have too many we can't fit all the names on the patch

However if it's like the mk1, the time between Beta and final release candidates (which are public) is fairly short... Please don't ask for a release date as i have no idea when that will be, i have to find time between jobs etc and i have to work basically all the time... Also had a client who screwed me over a couple of weeks ago and really set me back this month

(infact, If anyone wants to help me out then please contact me for details to make a donation to the project. Thanks.)

 

[Cras]

This project looks amazing, absolutely amazing.

And one of the best things about the XR series is the ability to really set things up to one's desire. Some people can use it as a future space plane and hop in and take off for Mars, or I can set it up to use it as a near future STS replacement.

And each time I see a new pic posted by Coolhand I cant help but get giddy.

 

[TSPenguin]

Those renders look outstanding. The interior has a more airliner feel to it and the cockpit area door looks properly star trekesque. The lack of lighting is some thing I actually quite like. It looks like it would be a lighting situation created so people can get some sleep (as long as the sun is not shining in their faces). Too bad it would be crazy cumbersome to add a light switch

 

[Scav]

This project looks amazing, absolutely amazing.

I wouldn't stop at amazing. I'd call it stunning.

And I hereby recant any ideas I put in my own head about developing anything remotely resembling a spacecraft add-on. There is no way I could match this sort of virtual engineering by a long shot.

I know better, by now.

 

[Coolhand]

Thanks guys, but I would hate to think that development of this model is putting others off even trying. - There are so many design options to explore.

As for the lighting, i'm sure we talked ages ago about switching textures to simulate day and night as you might want to on a voyage... even rotating the ship in flight. It's a possibility and doesn't need a switch as it can be an automatic system.

btw it would probably have blinds or screens to cover the inside of the windows, whether that will be modelled or operable, I can't say, but it would still be there as you get on other aircraft... Same is true for displays and warning lights.

The layout packs people in like an airliner economy class (with perhaps a little more legroom), but whether you could do this for a trans-lunar flight...? quite probably you'd want more free space in the cabin because you're going to be there for a very long time so probably the interior layout should resemble a luxury jet in the way that the interior space is used, more space to move or float about in.

Presently it carries 20 passengers in a 'coach' layout - reduced from 28 seats prior to the added facilities. I might reduce that back to 8-10 to allow more personal space per passenger... Also; passenger meshes are going to add to the triangle count so in a sense the fewer the better. Ideally the end user would configure the interior, and it would be a living space with animated sim type people who eat, sleep, get scared and float to the bathroom, etc, and include animated displays, lighting effects, operable window blinds (perhaps they could change opacity instead) only limit is time, skill and imagination and unfortunately all that stuff would take far too long to do and would be beyond the scope of a spaceplane - least so far as animated people. Living / animated UMMU's might be a great idea for an addon though if someone were to take up that challenge.

 

[ghostrunner01]

Wow. I am stunned Coolhand. This spacecraft so far sounds more promising then some payed aircraft in X-plane and FSX. I am looking forward to the release of this thing. The XR2 will become my default Orbiter ship, no doubt about it. Keep it up!

 

[Cras]

This spacecraft so far sounds more promising then some payed aircraft in X-plane and FSX. I am looking forward to the release of this thing.

I would say that I look forward more to the XR2-mkII more than I did the NGX. A lot of that has to do with my preference now to fly in orbit rather than in the atmosphere, but also at the high bar being set for the MkII. When the guys making it are excited, it spills over. I only wish I had some skill to contribute. Meshes I have no experience with and C++ is a skill I have long let rust over to absolute worthlessness.

But if you guys want a video made of it, I could do that.

 

[MachJok]

btw MachJok, if you're still with us it will fit comfortably into a bounding box 30*20*9 meters, thats with gear down and nosecone closed, with gear up and nosecone open it will fit into a slightly smaller area.

Thanks Coolhand! I will make the necessary space in Project Erdös. It looks fantastic and I can not wait to fly it around!

MachJok

 

[Coolhand]

Thanks again, I feel the project, the model i've created for the addon and the addon itself really is payware quality, i've put a frightening amount of time into realising it.

I realise there are a lot good causes to donate to like orbiter itself or this forum, if you enjoy the XR2, want to support development and encourage further development of other freeware projects please consider making a donation... I have setup a paypal account specifically for this:



no donation too small I know things are a struggle for a lot of people including myself. Although the Addon itself is a team effort between Dbeachy and myself, Doug has kindly and generously offered to allow me to keep all donations for this specific project which for me has been nearly 4 years on and off (beginning late 2007), of modelling, painting and experimenting.

And I know there is the Ravenstore, but that is largely for fun, zazzle makes the large majority of the money off sales, and even the Orbiter forum store - for which I produced a number of designs (and thats a donation of mine to the forum a gift for Tex really to help him run the place to which i owe so much, i recieve nothing from those sales)

Of course there are less tangible rewards to a project like this - which i had never started for money, thinking that it would be over in a few weeks of starting - the feedback from this forum, seeing it eventually fly (thanks to Doug)...

I really enjoy looking at the videos that people make with the XR2, and occasionally search Youtube for "XR2 Ravenstar". I would encourage everyone (cras) to make an XR2 vid, write a song about it, someone even wrote a strange poem about it iirc.

(And the videos will look much better with dx9, normal mapped mk2.)

Thankyou for all your patience and support over the years, it is what has kept the project alive, ulitimately people do this for fun and orbiter forum community, most of the time, makes it fun.

 

[jgrillo2002]

Looking good Steavo!

 

[Scav]

Thanks guys, but I would hate to think that development of this model is putting others off even trying. - There are so many design options to explore.

Ehh, I think I'm going to take this opportunity to clarify what I meant. What I see happening here, is something I want to see out of myself. I want to be able to do something of this high a quality sometime down the road. I was more acknowledging that I didn't really have 'it' at the present time.

So no, I wasn't put off, and no bad mojo here -- just excitement and admiration. This is really a good project.

 

[Axel]

Coolhand wrote:

The layout packs people in like an airliner economy class (with perhaps a little more legroom), but whether you could do this for a trans-lunar flight...? quite probably you'd want more free space in the cabin because you're going to be there for a very long time so probably the interior layout should resemble a luxury jet in the way that the interior space is used, more space to move or float about in.

Your ideas and your skill are great! But this ship is no moon transfer vehicle, its a strongly earth to leo passenger shuttle, when we look at its drive technology (scram jet), and design (small payload capacity in size). But in vacuum a scramjet cant work, and the internal tank is to small for a pure rocket mode, because only for landing and start at moon you need about 4,8km/s dV!!! And how should we get realistic to the moon from earth and back? For this we need some more dV! We had to mount any kind of extra transfer stage to it, but theres no mounting place, your back docking port would be an option, but then only if its at the vertical center of mass, conected to a low thrust system. And when we fly higher than earth we would need extra radiation shilding, the mass of the Xr2 has to be mutch more than, so we would need mutch more dV again, again and again.
I would it let as a strongly earth to leo shuttle with a high passenger number, because a company like Altea gets money for every seat! This passengers in leo are entering a space station or a mutch bigger ship for interplanetary travel. There are better vehicles for that job.

 

[yagni01]

Coolhand wrote:


Your ideas and your skill are great! But this ship is no moon transfer vehicle, its a strongly earth to leo passenger shuttle, when we look at its drive technology (scram jet), and design (small payload capacity in size). But in vacuum a scramjet cant work, and the internal tank is to small for a pure rocket mode, because only for landing and start at moon you need about 4,8km/s dV!!! And how should we get realistic to the moon from earth and back? For this we need some more dV! We had to mount any kind of extra transfer stage to it, but theres no mounting place, your back docking port would be an option, but then only if its at the vertical center of mass, conected to a low thrust system. And when we fly higher than earth we would need extra radiation shilding, the mass of the Xr2 has to be mutch more than, so we would need mutch more dV again, again and again.
I would it let as a strongly earth to leo shuttle with a high passenger number, because a company like Altea gets money for every seat! This passengers in leo are entering a space station or a mutch bigger ship for interplanetary travel. There are better vehicles for that job.

Well, it has dV to burn (no pun intended) and the space is probably more per capita than the Apollo astronauts had, so why not? I remember talking to Coolhand a couple years ago about a 'lunar shuttle' version of the mesh - no wings, nosecone, skin, or other aerodynamic features. One that crashed and was salvaged later, so they do at least make it to the moon.

 

[Cras]

I rarely find myself taking off the XR2 into LEO like an airplane using the ScramJets. But I also tone down the capablities of the craft quite bit. I almost always use a launch vehicle to get it into orbit, and if I am going to the Moon, I will load that payload bay full of fuel to I can get there and back. Realistic? enough for me, in my little Orbiter world the XR2 is developed quite a few years in the future, and with some shnazzy rocket sytem and fuel to get that little ship to the moon and back.
And it fits my idea of a future re-usable multipurpose crew vehicle, so it is not meant to just go to LEO or to the Moon, but anywhere. But it still needs the wings because crashing into the ocean is just plain boring. I prefer to unpowered glide a ship home to a nice gentle touchdown and stop on a runway anyday and twice on Sundays over splashing down in the ocean.

 

[Axel]

Ok i understand, Orbiter and all DGs are a place of SciFi again.
Because theres no technology to fly completly single stage to the moon and back in this small spaceplane. Not yet and not on the near future, maybe in 50+ years. But i think when we have some day a STTL (single stage to lunar) :lol: it will be so powerfull, that its not needing wings for saving fuel.
And it will be veeeryyyy big!

The only way i can see now is an extra transfer vessel with powerfull drive, some kind of fusions afterburner stuff. When this mothership is over the landing side in lunar orbit, it makes a complet brake, glides backwards down with burning main engine, to 10 km or less. Then we undock the XR2 so that it only has to land and deaccelerate some m/s. It will have enough dV then for a start to lunar orbit for rendevous with the mothership again, when we use chemical propulsion (after the leo rendevous it gots fuel from it, but from where got the mothership the fuel hmmm?). Nuclear propulsion for the small XR2 is to complicate or makes some other problems. And we can not scale down every technology to every size.

Ofcourse, if you use unobtanium that is all no problem, but for me and many other realistic fans it is.

 

[Cras]

Ofcourse, if you use unobtanium that is all no problem, but for me and many other realistic fans it is.

No thanks! We must kick this unobtainium habit we have got ourselves in! No more forgein wars for unobtanium!

Pixie dust is more green anyway.

But the point stands, if you want it to be reusable, and be able to land on Earth, what is better than having little wings to glide in the atmosphere? And the XR2 if anything has small wings.

 

[Keatah]

I always add quite the fantasy element to orbiter adventures. And it varies from just a little extra hover-thrust all the way to using Shuttle PB for multiple atmospheric incursions at neptune, using warp drive to get there.

I also set up Johnathon Livingston to tow BigWheel into orbit around Ceres. That was quite the amusement.