Crazy station idea

[Racecarlock]

What if we made stations with solid ground? I mean, that would make excellent scifi stuff, right?

[willy88]

Orbiter doesn't collision detection, but Artlav is developing that. And landing at it would be next to impossible, even
harder than landing on phobos.

[Quick_Nick]

next to impossible? why?

[DanSteph]

I succeded to land something on Symphony's top... It's technically possible.

Dan

[Voyager]

Quick_Nick wrote:
next to impossible? why?

i wouldn't quite call it impossible, but writing a complete collision detection engine is ALOT of work, especially if it's
just a add-on, not a addition to Orbiter's base release. I've tried my hands on making a FPS game, and making good collision
detection subroutines is not a easy or fun job

[Artlav]

Racecarlock wrote:
What if we made stations with solid ground? I mean, that would make excellent scifi stuff, right?

What exactly do you mean?
A station that spins or have another kind of AG, that can be landed on?
Or a ground base with many-levelled landing pads?

willy88 wrote:
And landing at it would be next to impossible, even harder than landing on phobos.

Why? If it is a spinning turus, you just align to the landing ledge, do down gently, and press the brakes.

[Quick_Nick]

Voyager wrote:

Quick_Nick wrote:
next to impossible? why?

i wouldn't quite call it impossible, but writing a complete collision detection engine is ALOT of work, especially if it's
just a add-on, not a addition to Orbiter's base release. I've tried my hands on making a FPS game, and making good
collision
detection subroutines is not a easy or fun job

He said landing was next to impossible. Artlav's mod has friction for objects.

[sunshine135]

It isn't even hard. In reality, landing on a floating station really is no more than docking. The exception being that you
"dock" by placing the spacecraft landing gear/struts on the ship versus linking up to a docking port.

[Van Zan9]

If I'm correct, you could use an adaptation of the Orulex and Visosad add-ons to do that.  If anyone decides to make
it, I volunteer to be the noob beta tester.

[Quick_Nick]

whoops. double-post



Post Edited ( 05-02-07 00:26 )

[Quick_Nick]

I thought what he originally meant was really a base made of dirt and grass.

[Racecarlock]

What I meant was making a station with a dock like those in sci-fi films, and coding ground physics into the floor of that
large dock. These docks are where the station has some sort of atmosphere shield and therefore ships can land on the floor of
a docking room, for lack of a better term.

[Ursus]

Racecarlock wrote:
What I meant was making a station with a dock like those in sci-fi films, and coding ground physics into the floor of that
large dock. These docks are where the station has some sort of atmosphere shield and therefore ships can land on the floor of
a docking room, for lack of a better term.

Well... Those ships in those sci-fi films have some sort of artificial gravity and/or the producers throw the laws of physics
totally out the window... (Same thing?)

Hmm...

I haven't studied the Orbiter API enough yet to be sure, and I'm not familiar with the above-mentioned add-ons, but I think..
If both the landing shuttle and the mother ship were coded for it, one could probably simulate some sort of landing
bay with "gravity plating" (and maybe even inertial dampeners), but it would be pretty darn complex, and once the shuttle has
landed...

Does the Orbiter API permit on-the-fly creation of attachment points, so the landed shuttle would stay where it landed,
relative mother ship, once the mother ship applies thrust?

...but here I go, trying to figure out how to take the physics out of what is really a physics simulator...

[Edit...]

...and you said "station", not "starship", so I guess I was really going of on a tangent.



Post Edited ( 05-07-07 23:08 )