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We even have a bitter simulator to use. It's called Orbiter. But there's just something about KSP that sets it apart, and lead to it becoming the game that got big. Probably the fact that I feel like I am playing with Space Legos whenever I play KSP, while Orbiter is a much more traditional flight simulator that just so happens to let you fly to Mars.
Also, similar to KSP, Orbiter has several outstanding mods. In particular, there's Orbiter Sound, the Delta Glider IV, and the XR2 Ravenstar spaceplanes. And also hires texture packs for the planets and moons.
Probably Orbiter, too. It goes pretty deeply into orbital mechanics.
Here’s a nice video by Scott Manley about Orbiter 2016.
And here is a video about the Lagrange MFD Plugin for Orbiter. Demonstrating a co-planar transfer from low earth orbit (LEO) to the earth-moon Lagrange point 1 (E-M L1).
Orbiter is a “little” more hardcore if you’re looking for sim aspects like this. It’s definitely worth a try.
And if vanilla Orbiter is not good enough for you, there are tons of awesome mods and plugins.
Why don't you try for yourself?
>Orbiter is a freeware space flight simulator program developed to allow users to operate simulated spacecraft using a detailed and realistic flight model. The developer, Martin Schweiger, felt that space flight simulators at the time were lacking in realistic physics based flight models and decided to write a simulator that made learning physics concepts enjoyable.
Orbiter Space Simulator: http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/home.php
Apollo Pack: http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=3902
Warning!: Apollo Flights are very complex as the program also realistically simulates the on-board computers of the time. Very primitive tools = complex spaceflight. Some of the craft in the program are completely fictional with easier flight characteristics, complex flight modeling and planning computers. The orbital mechanics, real distances, real spaceflight concepts, and how technical this game is makes it real rewarding to master.
Kerbal Space Program, teaches orbital mechanics in an incredibly approachable way. It's hard to expain to someone that getting into space is more over than up, but give them this video game and they have to learn it to succeed without being overwhelming (like the orbiter simulator).
Wow..Orbiter. I printed the manual at work a few years ago and put it into a 4" binder. I played with that for a little bit and realized that you actually needed to be a fucking engineer to play.
Want to launch a space shuttle into orbit and dock with the ISS? You can do that, after getting a fucking calculator out working on launch trajectories for 2 hours to figure out what the timing and angles are. It makes MS Flight simulator X seem like "pole position". (not from a graphics standpoint but a depth of gameplay perspective)
Orbiter is one of the most complex simulations ever
Edit: Here is the manual
There's all the rest, and then there's Orbiter Space Flight Simulator: http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/
This free simulation has the most accurate modeling of real physics that you will find in freeware, plus it's infinitely moddable. The latest Orbiter 2016 has just been released, with unbelievably beautiful scenery, clouds, terrain and visual effects. Whether you want ultra-realism with historical vessels, ultra-modern flight decks in futuristic vessels, or you want to use this as a programming platform, the universe is waiting for you. Check out the community on http://www.orbiter-forum.com/index.php
(Full disclosure: I write some of the mods in this game.)
For those that love KSP and want to take it in the flight Sim direction, I really can't recommend Orbiter enough. Sure, the learning curve is ludicrous, but the end result is fantastic. After being addicted to it about 7 years ago I pulled it out again this summer and it was still amazing to play.
It's not entirely because of computation limits. Hell, orbiter was doing it in the 90s.
The real reason the ksp devs don't want to implement n body physics is because they think the complexity isn't worth it, and that most players will complain when their spacecrafts' orbits decay or otherwise acts weird for no obvious reason. Incidentally that album is from an n-body ksp mod in the works.
While you're entirely correct about the three body problem you completely missed the point of /u/keytarvillains post.
Currently, KSP keeps all planets and moons on fixed orbital trajectories and calculates the orbital path of the craft around the body who's sphere of influence it is within.
What most people want to see is a system where all moons and planets are still on fixed trajectories but the path of craft is calculated based on the gravitational effects of 2 or more bodies. since the planetary bodies can be modeled as unaffected by anything else in the system it isn't a three body problem. In fact it boils down to a relatively simple vector geometry problem. This problem has a pretty simple general case solution at any time t.
Sure there are implementation issues with getting it into the game but the actual maths behind it is comparatively simple; especially when placed next to the three body problem.
See Orbiter for a working example very similar to KSP that uses constrained n-body orbital physics for a much more realistic space simulation.
Universe Sandbox is great, I'd recommend it. Scott Manley also has good words to say about it! u/ne0ge013 - may I also suggest Orbiter 2016? Again, however, not at all suitable for a 4.5 year old, but maybe when he hits 10 or so (or maybe earlier, who knows!).
Those scans have been turned into an AGC emulator: http://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/
Which in turn has been implemented in a simulation of the Apollo missions for the Orbiter Space Flight Simulator, which I, by chance, happen to be a developer of :D
So yeah, while I rarely have to read AGC source code I am fairly familiar with this stuff.
If you want to see just how awesomely huge they are, play Orbiter. It's pretty hard at first, but if you watch a few tutorial videos, you'll get the hang of it. Once you know pretty well how to get around in orbit, enable the infinite fuel hack and fly around the solar system in a delta glider (It's really hard to do planetary transfers without infinite fuel). So far, I've been to Mars from Earth, and I'm heading for Jupiter's moons now. Download link.
Showing off real Martian terrain using the Mars Express HRSC (High Resolution Stereo Camera) surface and elevation data which is available as an add-on for Orbiter 2016: http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/download.html
Haha. Well we do electrical engineering/computer science research and have been developing software for satellites. We've been using Orbiter Space Flight Simulator for the past few years, but connecting it to our cluster has proven to be a communications bottleneck. So we're finally switching to KSP to provide the satellite simulation/visualization :). We don't require the hyper-accurate gravity simulation that Orbiter had, and we prefer the full control we'll get from KSP over our craft!
(For reference, Harvester started out as an Orbiter player/modder iirc.)
A small note about many of the earlier space scenes: these aren't merely exploring what a future world would look like. It's showing humanity trying to adapt to a new environment and not being completely successful at it. With velcro shoes in zero-G, people have to relearn how to walk. They "eat" by drinking out of straws. All the docking has to be done in very careful ways according to orbital mechanics, instead of the intuitive movements that humans do all the time on Earth (try playing Orbiter sometime for an idea of how tricky this can be).
Humanity in space has essentially reverted to a baby-like state. In some ways, they're less capable than the apes that first met the monolith. Humanity would have to be reborn for this environment, and that's where Dave went.
This is a little different than what you mean, I think, but I used to have a separate PC dedicated to running Orbiter. I'd attempt planetary transfers entirely in real time, which of course can take months in some cases. I'd come home every day from work and be like "yup, I'm an infinitesimal bit closer to Jupiter!"
For those of you who want to play a fully functional 3-d spaceflight simulator, including true newtonian spaceflight, atmospheric re-entry, and a fully simulated realistic solar system, there's also Orbiter
Not a real resource but I've been playing around with Orbiter, it's a sim for anything space related. I'm not a huge math geek but watching the you tube instructions and playing along on my other monitor learned me all I know about orbital mechanics.
http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/
Perhaps a way to apply what you learn.
I know you mentioned you've played Kerbal Space Program, but if you're a real space / flight sim nerd, you really should try "Orbiter 2016":
http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/
There are websites with tons of mods for it too, including fictional and real spacecraft, space stations, missions, etc etc.
Whereas Kerbal is something like a 1/3 scale sim of Earth with thicker air, lower gravity etc, Orbiter is a 1:1 sim of all the planets in the solar system.
So the ISS really is at 300,000+ metres up, and you really do have to accelerate to 7.6+ kph to orbit at that altitude!
It has a steep learning curve, and is less intuitive than Kerbal, but if you're a proper nerd you'll love it. It's a great sense of achievement to launch the Delta Glider, refuel in orbit from the ISS, then take it to the moon and land.
EDIT: Did I mention it's free??
i can recommend you Orbiter, it's an educational program to learn orbital mechanics. you will easily find how to do the same things in ksp but it's exactly step by step tutorials where you press buttons and told what to look at. for me it compensated the lack of tutorials in ksp completely
According to Wikipedia:
A space flight simulation game is a genre of flight simulator video games that lets players experience space flight to varying degrees of realism. Many games feature space combat, and some games feature commerce and trading in addition to combat.
Unless you're talking about real space physics like <em>Orbiter</em> (or maybe something like KSP to some degree) but the flight mechanics in Elite are 6DOF and nothing close to arcade, especially in comparison with games like Everspace, Freelancer. That's where Elite really nails it.
Then we could talk about space simulator.
OK, I used to play Orbiter before KSP. I don't really know what state it is in now, but it is basically as close to piloting a real space mission as you can get.
Now, by default it doesn't have rocket building, but the mod support for this game was huge, and there was a mod back in the day called Velcro Rockets and this allowed you to use the various parts from other rockets and construct your own. Which was quite fun.
Check it out if you are up for a challenge. Reentry in a space plane is tough. Hell, flying a Venture Star SSTO to space was dangerous enough! If you ascended too fast you'd not have the velocity to power your SCRAM jet engine and so just tumbled out of the sky. If you ascended too slow then you would pick up so much speed from the thicker air that you'd accelerate until your hull melted.
Kerbal Space Program has its own smaller, different solar system. You can mod the real one in, but since the game doesn't use n-body simulation, it's not too accurate.
That said, there is a program called Orbiter. Very spartan presentation (there isn't even any sound without mods), but it accurately simulates the entire solar system and the gravity of each object. This simulation is so accurate that you can replicate real missions like the moon landing or shuttle starts in real-time and they will turn out exactly as they did in reality.
Interesting, that's the first I heard of something like that but it seems like a good idea.
As someone who gamed a lot since my youth, I think games (in a wider sense that includes simulations etc.) can definitely be a fantastic inspiration to continuous learning and socialisation. I wish half my school life had consisted of more fun activities like simulating space flight - it might have encouraged me to learn more!
As an example, in Orbiter you can do missions to Lagrange Points. As mentioned elsewhere, the difficulty isn't in computing n-body physics but in determining your exact orbit so you can run at 100,000x. KSP shows your exact orbit which isn't recalculated unless you exert some force. Orbiter recalculates your orbit constantly because there are always several forces affecting you, so while it shows your current orbit around one thing it's never exactly correct.
edit: An example. Orbiter comes with a scenario where you start at Earth-Moon L4. Because of the Sun's gravity you're eventually ejected from the orbit, but it lasts for a while.
If you really want to see and experience from your computer how it was done, you should download the <em>"Orbiter"</em> simulator. Orbiter's flight model is more advanced and accurate than Kerbal is, and is totally free. It is not as "user friendly" as Kerbal is, and has a higher learning curve due to its accuracy, but it is also an absolutely amazing spaceflight simulator, with tons of impressive addons available, and will teach you in a very realistic way all the facets of spaceflight.
After installing the basic Orbiter program, you then download the "NASSP - Project Apollo" for Orbiter program (also free), and that add-on has actual pre-programmed tutorial/movies showing the entire flight profile for the Apollo missions, all the way from Saturn V liftoff to landing on the Moon and return to Earth, including fully interactive interior cockpit layouts of the LM and CSM showing very accurate representations of all the relevant computer systems on-board the actual spacecraft, and how they work.
Honestly, I my opinion there is no better way for a non-astronaut to really learn and see the different stages of the Apollo missions and how the computer navigation systems actually worked than flying it yourself in a simulator like this. If you don't want to bother with that, you can even just watch the many video tutorials available on Youtube where people will take you through the entire Apollo flight profiles in Orbiter, showing how it is done step by step. It really is damn impressive to learn all the facets of those amazing missions.
Orbiter had n body and time warp in the 90s.
Not an answer to your question as such, but if you have time to kill, the free Orbiter Space Flight Simulator is a fun way to play around with these sorts of scenarios, and personally I find it gives one a very intuitive feel for all sorts of orbital manoeuvers such as changing the plane of one's orbit or changing an eccentric orbit into a circular one or vice versa.
I'm an Orbiter fan and player from a decade, and i really miss a true gravitation physic in E:D. I'd love to plot orbits around celestial body, and plan realistic re-entries on planets instead of the typical, impossible, sci-fi "dive-in" approach.
I see how the "flying like a plane" is more intuitive (and somewhat more cinematics and spectacular) but to me "space flying" have to be like with FA-Off and gravitational mechanics.
Imho E:D lacks some "smart" feature to help with FA-Off (or i may be just too used to Orbiter) like the "kill rotation" command (it automatically stops any rotational movement, without changing linear movements) that could make the "vector flying" more accessible no matter what controls you own.
IMHO again, E:D should also provide "special ships" that just don't have FA but that do other things better (say, looong jump range or great hull or shields) so you trade some "comfort" like the FA for something else. I mean: a good game is when you have to make choices, right? Or perhaps Carriers, not having the thrusters for landing, could provide a good "excuse" to made them available to fly but only in "vector" mode.
So, the answer to your question is that i'd like so much to fly in FA Off for immersion and feeling to be in space, but the lack of true gravitational simulation ruin that immersion, so i just stay in a more coheret "star wars like" suspension of belief using FA.
Try Orbiter 2016! They just enhanced the graphics from the last version. It's a realistic, full size simulation. You can even get a mod to fly the Falcon 9 and Dragon, as well a hundreds of ships from scifi and real life space exploration.
> This would be amazingly useful for interplanetary probes. Imagine an upside-down wing: it has downward-pointing "lift". If you're going faster than orbital speed, like interplanetary probes do, you could skim an atmosphere in a way that balances centripetal "force" (outwards) with aerodynamic "lift" (inwards), and gives you a circular arc of constant altitude. You could go all the way around a planet, at much faster than orbit speed.
Funny you mention that, because you can actually perform that type of flight profile in the "Orbiter" space simulator, using their XR2 addon. I was just recently playing around with just that kind of maneuver in that sim a few days ago. It works great for high-speed sub-orbital flights too, where you get to altitude and then fly it inverted when skimming the upper atmosphere to take advantage of the now "upside down" wing's aero lift versus centripetal force effects. It allows you to fly at higher speed around the Earth without actually entering orbit.
Sounds like what you're looking for is Orbiter, which as it turns out is the game that inspired Harvester to make KSP. It's really more a simulator than a game, so there's not really any goals besides the ones that you make for yourself, but just getting to orbit is a goal in itself.
There's less design to it than KSP, because you're flying already-created ships, and not building your own in-game, but those are all moddable, so you can potentially design your own vessel in CAD or whatnot, and then fly it.
Personally, I never got very far with it when I tried it out, but it may be just what you're looking for
I recommend the space sim...and I mean sim in every sense of the word....it's not a game. Orbiter Space Flight Simulator. Made by a physicist as a hobby.
>Fed up with space games that insult your intelligence and violate every law of physics? Orbiter is a simulator that gives you an idea what space flight really feels like - today and in the not so distant future. And best of all: you can download it for free!
> * Launch the Space Shuttle from Kennedy Space Center and rendezvous with the International Space Station.
> * Recreate historic flights with addon spacecraft packages: Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Vostok and more.
> * Learn about the concepts of space flight and orbital mechanics by playing and experimenting.
You will have to familiarize yourself with celestial mechanics as well as the operation of complicated multi-function displays and spacecraft subsystems.
Not really. While orbital mechanics indeed work this way, such effects are only noticeable if you are either a significant fraction of an orbital length away from the target or the flight time is a significant fraction of an orbital period. If neither is the case, direct thrust will reliably move you to your intended target, even if it is a few kilometers away.
What I would worry about is not the distance, but the initial drift. Supposedly, an astronaut will not just gently drift near the station and notice he forgot to attach his tether. There is some reason, some accident that pushed him away, and the tether must have snapped, probably causing him to tumble.
A fast tumble (a rotation with more than one axis) is very difficult to stop by directly operating thrusters. A human in panic, untrained to do this, will probably exhaust all his available fuel in vain. That SAFER device has some built in flight controls, maybe they can do that. Microcomputers tend to be much better at these tasks than humans.
You can test maneuvering in orbit for yourself using the Orbiter Space Flight Simulator. Try to dock at ISS and also give your spaceship a spin.
Others have recommended good learning resources for the math side. If you want a more detailed & realistic spaceflight simulator, check out the free Orbiter 2016.
It uses the real solar system, real physics (including N-body physics, better aerodynamics, gravity gradient toque), and has a fairly large modding community. The in-game instrumentation provides more telemetry and the ability to plan maneuvers by the numbers, and docking is more sensitive. The in-cockpit 3D view has working instruments and controls you can manipulate with the mouse. The main downside is that it's not gamified (no space program, just scenarios in a sandbox solar system) and you can't build your own ships from parts.
Not sure how much calculus KSP really does, but there is some very intimidating stuff in the back of the Orbiter manual. One idea applicable to both might be to reproduce how Tsiolkovsky came up with the rocket equation in the first place. I think he ran some sort of integration on Newton's laws of motion.
No it's not a space sim.
This is a space sim: http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/
And this is another space sim: http://imagespaceinc.com/rogsys/
Elite is nowhere close. It doesn't even simulate real flight mechanics! There's nothing realistic in elite except the scenery and the scale of space.
Just in case anyone was wondering about the software being run on the desktop/laptop (I can't say anything for the iPad but it might be an app that connects) it appears to be a free program known as Orbiter space flight simulator which is available here, this software was written to feature realistic physics and may be enjoyable to anyone who enjoys KSP but would like a bit more realism!
I don't know if NEO Scavenger will make it to VR, but the Oculus Rift project made me consider whether I could leverage VR for a better GUI. Perhaps head-tracking might enable offscreen UI, sort of like Orbiter's cockpit panels? I think there are some interesting doors opened with VR, for sure.
This is so cool and exciting!!
Here's what I think you should do: to get a feel for what the LM cockpit was like, download Orbiter and install the AMSO addon. Orbiter is a fairly realistic space flight simulator, so the learning curve is rough. AMSO is an equally realistic Apollo missions addon to orbiter. You will have to read quite a bit to learn how to fly the spaceships, but it is a really good representation of what the astronauts had to do to land on the Moon.
Then go to sparkfun, and buy a few of these. Just look around the button/switches section in general. It's pretty great. Make sure to email sparkfun once your project is done. Im sure they would like to hear about it.
As for the gauges, I think you could use the pressure one for remaining fuel in the tanks. The fuel was really critical during the landing, and Armstrong came within seconds of having to abort because of low fuel.
Guys! You totally have to download "Orbiter 2010" and install the AMSO Modpack (A lot of Apollo Missions). You can play the actual Apollo missions and learn a ton of things about the missions to the moon. Don't be afraid to "play" this simulator. The experiences you will have may also be useful in KSP. A good tutorial on this mission is the youtube tutorial by thesnorklemonkey. He shows you how to install the game and how to play the thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyj3f7wUTp4
Links: http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/ http://www.reddit.com/r/orbiter
imagine combining realistic space flight simulator with infinite highly detailed worlds and accurate Solar System modeling.
If you want to get a sense for just how hard (i.e., impossible) a launch to ISS rendesvouz is to get right by just eyeballing it, download this excellent free spaceflight simulator: http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/
KSP really helps make things more intuitive, and it's a lot more accessible (game play wise) than Orbiter. Back when I was young I took an orbital mechanics class, did not not understand sling shot maneuvers. KSP really helped visualize things.
Yes! Check out Orbiter. It's a free space flight simulation with countless mods that enable you to fly anything into space, from the Space Shuttle Atlantis to the Starship Enterprise.
It's got a high learning curve at first (think a more realistic Kerbal Space Program), but it's very rewarding the first time you successfully get into Low Earth orbit, or rendezvous with a satellite :-)
I last played the game on the 2010 version, but apparently Orbiter 2016 has come out:
I'd love it if Orbiter got VR support.
I think I remember seeing an old video of it running on a DK1 ages ago but I never found anywhere to download a plugin, or any further attempts to mod it.
If you want a learning curve you should give orbiter a look. The original dude that came up with KSP was an orbiter player (source: http://orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=22998). The best way to describe orbiter is that it's basically KSP without the training wheels and with uglier graphics (and fewer green dudes blowing stuff up).
I freaking love KSP, I think I finally hit like 500 hours recently. It may look similar but it's quite different, a lot more in-depth in the actual physics department. I highly recommend giving it a shot if you like KSP. And it's free! :D http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/
I agree with you. It frustrates me a little that people yell down or down-vote dissenting opinions.
- "It's more realistic!" - Star Citizen is a game. It isn't remotely realistic. WW2 style dogfighting 900 years in the future isn't realistic! It's a hair above Star Wars in realism. It's a game that is supposed to be fun.
- "You're controlling the ship wrong!". True. But it can also point to lack of player feedback, or flawed game design. It's not like those rules can't change. Just give the player a higher G-Force capable suit. +130% could make a big difference.
- "It's not for you to decide. It's up to the game designers." Look. They ask for feedback. And, I want this game and the space sim market to be successful. It was dead five years ago. Catering to the most hard-core will not bring about another game of this size. But big successes can makes room for more hard-core sims.
- "It's not done yet!": Which is why feedback matters now instead of later before things get more finalized.
What I'd (personally) like is more Wing Commander, and less flight simulator. Not as arcadey as Freelancer (though that and a hard-core option would be a nice in single player).
Well, if you want orbit simulation, there is http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/
I don't understand why this needed to be down voted. Sure it's not directly related to KSP, but it is related to KSP players and their interests. It's not like you've asked people to recommend ship fittings for EVE Online. (By the way, did you guys know that Jeb's company actually exists in EVE Online? Pretty snazzy. < That was off topic, but I'm sure it'd get up voted on this reddit.)
I love KSP, but if anyone is more interested in realism or just wants to fly instead of deal with the frustrating, repetitive, time-consuming amounts of trial-and-error building and fuel management, I would highly recommend Orbiter instead. On top of this, KSP is fairly unintuitive and leaves you in the dark about a lot of variables.
Also, if you learn to play Orbiter first, you'll have an easy time learning KSP's concepts later. The visualizations will make a lot more sense when you have a good grasp on how actual spaceflight is supposed to work.
Nope. KSP is a wonderful space sandbox, engineering toy, and the dream game of anyone who has ever played with legos.
It is not a high fidelity simulation of anything.
This old free game has better orbital mechanics simulation than KSP.
Orbiter 2010 >Orbiter was developed as a realistic simulator, with accurately modeled planetary motion, gravitation effects (including non-spherical gravity), free space, atmospheric flight and orbital decay.[13][14] The position of the planets in the solar system is calculated by the VSOP87 solution, while the Earth-Moon system is simulated by the ELP2000 model.
That is pretty cool. I wonder what will happen to KSP if/when 3rd body effects are modeled realistically with respect to SOI. An example of a game which handles 3rd body effects, non-spherical gravity, gravity gradient torque, etc... which I had the opportunity to learn before I even knew about KSP: Orbiter
Been around a lot longer than KSP, has a fairly big community, lots of mods built around realistic past/future missions, lots of mods for high resolution textures, etc. The learning curve is higher than KSP though, so this might be a good program to 'graduate' to?
I wasn't particularly impressed with Arrowstar's Trajectory Optimization Tool for Orbiter when run in that mode, and it's a much simpler job. Anyone doing that sure has their work cut out for them.
Note: I don't think it's Reddit's /u/ArrowStar (oops... it is.)
Definitely a simulator and not a game, but if that's what you're looking for, check out Orbiter, it's hell to learn, but once you get the hang of it, you're in for a great time.
If by "realistic" you mean "modeled after real world scenarios and technologies" then I understand Orbiter has that though I could be wrong since I haven't found time to play it yet.
If by "realistic" you mean "anything with a Newtonian physics model" then you might check out Independence War, I understand it has such a model.
I agree with you, but having played with orbiter, getting to the moon from low earth orbit (or even sub-orbit) is a little harder than just pointing at that bright light in the sky.
For starters, it takes at least 3 days to get to the moon, and probably much longer in this case since we don't have any time limitations. So you have to aim were the moon will be, not where it is now. Second, many Trajectories require that you make the burn while the moon is on the opposite side of the planet. So you need a method of orientating yourself that doesn't require seeing the moon.
Luckily that's easy, solid state gyroscopes cost just a few dollars, weigh basically nothing, you can align them on earth and as long as you keep them powered up they will keep that alignment. Then you simply program the correct orientation and time for the burn into your flight computer.
Depending on the configuration of the planets and the propulsive power available, a worst case Hohmann transfer to Saturn when 180° away from Earth would take about 17 years.
Here's what you wanna do. Download yourself a copy of Orbiter, learn to fly deep space flights, and then optimize the hell out of your flight plan. With 2010 technology you could probably get a small craft to Saturn in under 5ish years.
Total realism would be boring for 95% of the population.
It's really hard to have space combat in a realistic setting. People tried this with Orbiter and nobody could came up with a good implementation of a Newtonian (not Star Wars) physics of ships fighting in orbit. First of all, space is big. Really, really big. If you have a few ships spread in a quarter of a solar system, it would be very hard to have them fire at each other, because of the vast distances between them. Even a laser beam take three seconds to reach the Moon, if launched from LEO (Low-Earth Orbit). The impactors, like torpedoes, mine, etc, don't just go on a straight line from one ship to another, there are a lot of gravitational interactions due to planets and moons, plus it would take a few days at least for a torpedo to reach it's target, plenty of time for an evasive action. Orbital mechanics could be very counterintuitive sometimes and that would discourage the vast majority of the viewers (just try having a rendezvous in LEO using Orbiter or read about who NASA is doing it, and you'll get the idea).
So the realism is dropped in favor of the main plot. It's not that bad, not always at least.
http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/ >Fed up with space games that insult your intelligence and violate every law of physics? With Orbiter you can try what space flight really feels like - today and in the not so distant future. And best of all: you can download it for free!
The sad thing is, much of what you describe is already around, but we'll probably never see it all in one place. It sounds like you're describing a combination of Orbiter, which is freakin awesome if you're not familiar, and the Infinity engine. The video on that second link practically brings tears to my eyes, it's so magnificent. It starts off slow, but stick with it!
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/multimedia/mars500/3.html
Don't tell them that they can just press 'T' a few times to speed up time, thus making the trip in just a few minutes.
For those that didn't get the joke, the screen behind him is running Orbiter Sim, which is essentially a space simulator. I'm pretty unsure whether that guy was just playing around, or if the simulation is actually part of the mission.
You should try reproducing your work in Orbiter spacefight simulator http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/ It has extensive 3rd party addons and support for custom guidance programs.
After my experiences with it many years ago, before the advent of SpaceX, I found the SpaceX docking simulator to be gamified: much less realistic and far easier. It does not take into account the differing orbital velocities into account, for example; they truly do factor into the approach, and IIRC only become negligible during final approach.
As a pasionate Orbiter player from more than a decade, my mind struggles to adapt to E:D simulation of gravity.
While i understand that the SuperCruise is not related to gravity/orbital mechanics, i don't get why a big gravity slows you down, while if you want to drop at a High Grade Emission you get sucked in as if it was a planet.
I also don't get why you can't "park" your ship in an orbit (in normal space) and stay there without any other intervention.... but that's maybe OT in this post :)
the game doesn't explain anything, you learn everything yourself. if you want to learn from tutorials you can try freeware simulator called "Orbiter", it's not much a simulator game but more an educational program.
Another along these lines is Orbiter which is completely free.
Focused more on realism. No cute Kerbals, more physics & programming. Graphics are dated though.
You can do it for free with Orbiter. I believe it has a default space shuttle included, but there are also countless mods you can download that provide a much higher-fidelity shuttle too (or the Buran, or a Borg Cube, whatever).
If you so wished you could even spawn a space shuttle on the moon and try to fly it back to Earth.
For all the crap simmers take, astronaut is almost entirely really advanced role playing games.
It's not a surprise that the new generation of Air Force pilots all have extensive twitch gaming histories.
Playing sims is the way to mastery.
If you can land a shuttle in Orbiter, you could land the Shuttle (that's not saying you would be good at it, but it's possible).
That's how the Astronauts train, they just have a much fancier HOTAS.
The options with the strongest realism I know of aren't exactly the kind of space sim as X3. I honestly had no idea X3 was considered realistic at all.
Children of a Dead Earth - This one really tries its hardest to have real everything. Guns that won't break from merely firing. Armor that will stop force appropriately, correct nozzles for your rockets and all that. Mods? No.
Kerbal Space Program preferably modded. Mostly scientific and construction missions in space. Mods will let you have fun with propellants and nozzles, just like CODE. Mods? Loads of them.
Orbiter - Just fly in space. More of a flight simulator in space. Mods? I dunno.
You keep dodging the question, I have seen several people ask it without a response. Are there going to be orbital mechanics? As a long time player of Orbiter me and many of the community members have been craving realistic combat for over a decade now. Is this open world and does it have orbital mechanics? Because that's the most appealing part of a space combat game for me. Especially one that is trying so hard to be based on hard science.
Yes indeed, Kerbal Space Program was the reference. It's a fantastic game - at its heart it's a sand-boxy space simulator which allows you to design, build and launch your own vehicles in a scaled-down, fictional solar system. It's much more sim-light than something like Orbiter, but that's part of its charm as well.
I don't use mech jeb when its fun. Like landings or interesting launches, docking (!), planning efficient courses (swing bys to save deltaV) and general the cool stuff.
MechJeb is doing the boring stuff. I would recommend everyone to learn playing the game without MechJeb, but as soon as you get the feeling of being bored by some stuff, consider starting to use MechJeb to not bore-out.
By the way, I came from playing Orbiter and I would consider Orbiter one of the more complicated simulations, so, most of the maneuvers where very well known to me already...
AAE 532 would be a bit more in that direction though 251 does cover some of it. If you want something more rigorous than KSP (full N-body integration, gravity gradient torques, nonspherical planets etc.), checkout Orbiter. http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/
If you just want a solar system sandbox: <strong>Orbiter</strong>. Check it out, it's free.
It's different than Kerbal in that it doesn't have (much) of the vehicle building- I believe you can do some staging and such, but that's about it if you don't want to create your own dll based vehicles. But it really is worth it just for the sense of accomplishments of docking at the ISS without autopilot help.
I prefer 8UIO, but that is only because I flew Orbiter on a laptop with no separate NumPad which had mapped its NumPad to those keys when it was engaged. I am able to configure Kerbal Space Program to use those keys instead, and could indeed configure them to ASXC if I wanted to. When it comes to the clipboard functions, which I employ much more often than bona fide rocket science, I also prefer the ability to do what I am used to, and being denied that choice... You see, it's not about what is superior - I acknowledge the technical superiority of the DSK, but if you take away my QWERTY keyboard, you will soon discover where my gasket seams are ;)
Well Orbiter itself can be downloaded from: http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/
But head over to http://orbiter-forum.com/ and make an account. The software and the use thereof tends to have quite a steep learning curve but we have a great community and people are always willing to help.
ReShade, SolarLiner's addon was posted in this http://orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=36762&highlight=reshade thread and is an addon the DirectX 9 graphics engine (since the 2010 version the orbiter core software and the graphics engine are separate entities; previously Orbiter only ran on DirectX 7)
The game is a LOT easier if you have spent even a small amount of time playing Orbiter
I bought the game at 0.18 and on my first re-entry, with blind luck, totally stock, I landed on the island inside of the big crater on Kerbin. I've never tried that since.
Don't forget to read the fine print of contracts. I spent an afternoon a couple days ago putting a satellite into a specific orbit around Bop only to realize when I reached the orbit that I was missing a materials bay. Instant ragequit.
I flew in Orbiter on laptops for years before getting KSP. I therefore could not fly a spacecraft with wasd and the first thing I did was ijkl-map my keys (i.e. NumPad 5123). Maybe this means I should wasd my rovers (which already handle better than minecraft boats. Just a little.)
Yes, the RTLS (Return To Launch Site) abort mode was REALLY dangerous, and thankfully they never had to attempt one in real life, because if they did, the most likely scenario would have been an over-ocean bailout and water ditching. Only under a very small window of opportunity and abort conditions could they actually execute an RTLS abort and safely land back at KSC on the runway.
Here is a video you will appreciate. This is a video of a <em>simulated</em> RTLS abort attempt being flown by an experienced shuttle crew in the simulator. The audio you hear is the actual audio from the simulated abort, and that audio is synced to the video footage of an RTLS abort being flown in the Orbiter space flight simulator so you can see what is happening with the flight profile of the shuttle. As you will hear, the crew did not make it back to KSC in this case, and were forced to ditch in the Atlantic Ocean just off the coast. Even though it is just a simulated RTLS abort, it is still some high drama listening to it as it plays out.
If you wanna have some fun and learn a LOT about the Orbiter and how it flies, you can download the Orbiter Space Flight Simulator for your PC I linked to above. It is completely free, and does a fantastic job of replicating the STS shuttle (especially if you get the update addons). while it has a high learning curve due to its complexity, it is very accurate and uses an excellent physics model. It is far better and more accurate than Kerbal is in my opinion, and it has a ton of impressive addons available as well that you can download from various 3rd party sites. You can learn so much about the shuttle systems and procedures with it, because it really replicates the cockpit and controls of STS with exacting detail.
It generally works for Hohmann transfers where you have big differences between your low energy orbit (LEO) and your destination orbit when the two orbits are close to circular and you have a big spherical body you're only a fraction of a radius above. Lose the horizon and look for the prograde marker on your LEO being close to the target marker and the horizon of the NavBall for the most general case. It also works in Orbiter and real life. The Apollo program never actually used this as a navigational strategy, but noticed it as it was happening in the simulator (due to limitations in GPU technology at the time, the Earth and Moon were rendered by aiming cameras at models.) In Apollo 13 (i.e. the Ron Howard movie), TLI is depicted as ending with the S-IVB stack aimed directly at the Moon. Did the movie people know? I wouldn't be surprised either way.
What actually happens is that your craft goes around about half a rev on the transfer orbit while the target goes around about a quarter of a rev in the same period. Kepler's math is good enough to predict this, Hohmann could have predicted this (either he didn't or no one noticed - it's also possible that he didn't think of the case where the departure orbit is far smaller than the destination orbit.) Finally, the astronauts and flight controllers of the Apollo program noticed it in the mid-1960s. It is probable that Scott Manley introduced the technique to the KSP community, but I haven't confirmed it yet (many of his older vids are delisted, unfortunately.)
I learned to play KSP about 14 years ago from this book and Orbiter. My first career mode game was in 0.18.2-4 tracked by successive trial versions of accounting packages Quickbooks, Sage 50/Simply, and AccountEdge (the in-game functionality for tracking finances didn't appear until 0.24.)
I recommend Career at Easy for your first game. About the only way to run out of funds is to go overboard upgrading facilities. That said, you should be able to get level 2 on everything before your first landing on the Mun. Jumping straight into Sandbox can be a bit overwhelming; Career Mode lets you wade in from the shallow end.
> wow...there are a LOT of parts to an aircraft
Try this one: http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/
It is a much more realistic version of KSP, but much harder and more difficult to use. It is free was for example used for the soyuz launch movie from ESA. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVvgpKt5uCA
Two space sims spring to mind, both of which are free.
The first--Orbiter is limited in scope to--you've guessed it--orbiting the earth in realistic ships with realistic physics. I do not think this is the game you're looking for, but I include it for completeness, and because you might want to check it out some time if this is your thing.
The other is called Space Engine. The known universe is mapped with real data; the unknown generated procedurally. It's about a gig in size, and this, I think, is the game you're after. I hope this helps!
KSP has a charm for being Kerbalized. Orbiter Sim (http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/) is a great super technical/realism oriented program with plenty of 3rd party addons (orbithangar.com). I would suggest everyone try this at least once, but KSP just has a special forgiving quality to it.
This seems to be the Orbiter space flight simulator. Not sure which mod is this space craft, but I suggest you get started with the DeltaGlider craft (an unrealistically powerful single stage to orbit), which is quite easy to get started with.
You do need a mission plan to get anything done, so I suggest you start with a tutorial on flying to ISS and then fly the ISS to Mir mission.
On orbit around Earth it's something (Trust me, I know.). 1km is what you should be trying to get under.
Edit: I should have said "Trust me, I know." instead.
Orbiter does. However, N-body physics really doesn't work in a game like KSP. The devs found that it's next to impossible to precisely simulate N-body physics under time acceleration. It can also hamper gameplay when you have to micromanage dozens of satellite orbits to prevent them from decaying due to gravity of other bodies. It's only possible with Orbiter as you only have one spacecraft active at a time.
Awesome!! It is a beautiful craft. Much further along in technology than I have in the first landing of my Career games, but then again, I've been playing KSP since 0.18.2 came out and flying in Orbiter since just before its version 030303 came out (i.e. eleven years and seventeen days before I posted this comment) so you're doing well, see? :)
Yet again, my remapping the throttle-up function (for a totally different reason) has save me from disaster.
I also recall that there was a once minor issue whereby the Shuttle could suffer from a Gemini 8-like short of an RCS thruster, and the logic in the computer to protect against these firings turned off the power quickly enough that the effects on a "normal" Shuttle, docked up to anything up to and including Mir and the P6 configuration of the ISS were minor. However, once the ISS got big enough, such a thruster firing could rip the Shuttle off the docking port, so they had to do something about it (I don't have much for details, sorry.)
A little OT, but download orbiter and give it a shot.
And no...it's not that simple. Unless you have magic engines and a body that can withstand 100s of G's, that is. You have to match the Earth's orbit around the sun, and then get in orbit around the Earth; and that is very different from just going there.
Well, there's Orbiter, it's more realistic than KSP, but it's probably not what you're looking for.
I want the same kind of space simulation you want so I'm waiting for Star Citizen and EVE: Valkyrie. I've heard good things about Freelancer and X3: Terran Conflict, if you can't wait.
That scale and complexity is outside the scope of what the devs seem to have planned for KSP, and that's a good thing, really, as ease of jumping into the game and the high margin of error for flying by eyeball really helps to make the game more accessible to those who otherwise wouldn't be interested in taking a calculator with them when they play (which isn't everybody's cup of tea).
The great thing is that many of the concepts you need to use in KSP to understand what's going on with your little ship as you try and navigate around (such as Kepler's Laws, the Oberth effect, delta-V, orbital transfers, rendezvous, aerobraking, plane changes etc.) are essentially the same as in real life; the lessons learned in KSP are transferable! -and having people learn some science while they're having fun is always a Good Thing.
As mentioned by others, Orbiter is an amazing (and quite pretty) space-flight simulator that uses an accurately sized representation of our Solar System. Many of us are fond of it, and I recommend you check it out! (Don't forget your calculator!)
Every time someone limits the top speed in a space sim, I cry. Then I go back to playing orbiter.
Seriously though, this can be done with friction that increases non-linearly with respect to speed, giving you a terminal velocity. Note that this "speed" is relative to the world, nothing to do with ship orientation or thrust.
Consider making the top speed as high as you can without breaking the game, and give the player incentives to stay close to objectives rather than coming in for lightspeed strafing runs.
You may be looking for Orbiter 2010 - http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/
It's a truly realistic 3D space sim that's absolutely free to play and has loads of community-created add-ons, such as vehicles, textures, missions, and even control and display systems.
It's unforgiving and has the type of realism you are looking for. Mastering even simple aspects of spaceflight and orbital maneuvering can take time and is very rewarding.
There is an active community on its forum - http://orbiter-forum.com/ You can find lots of images and videos on Google and also on YouTube.
Well, EVE isn't a space sim, it's an MMORPG. However, is that what you're looking for? Or do you mean a true space sim? If so, the best one that I've ever played is Orbiter This game is so realistic with a really huge learning curve as well. Not to mention, it's also FREE. I've played it on and off for several years and still haven't mastered it.
You can even plot real courses to planets in the solar system and travel there in the actual real time it would take to get there.