G-SNDO: Last news

[DanSteph]

As you saw I had take some rest from the DGII
because I worked three month several hours per day
on it, so I was a bit tired of it.

Now I'm back on duty and plan to work again
to make a new release within two week max.

I just integrated the custom hud into the DGII
the beauty of this things is that the code
in the CustomHud  can be copied "as it is"
without any change in the DGII code, so it worked
at the first try I made. There is just a bit of tuning
(mainly value should be converted in degree or rad
and I shoud do some position tuning) and this part will be
finished.

here how it look:


see this thread about custom hud:
http://orbiter.dansteph.com/forum/index.php?topic=11329.msg175857#msg175857

Another things that I worked on tonight is the calculator
that is also almost finished, I added  two memory
with two mem and recall mem button (m1, mr1etc ).
This would be useful for long calculus where you need to
store and recall temporary result.



Load of things where also added if you missed the announce
such as solar system temperature that will show you correct
external profil temperature during reentry (ex 400C° on venus's floor,
-70C° at 20'000 alt on earth etc etc) and in space. (-156C° in earth vincinity)

I will also work on the doc for added part. I should again enlist
Canadave if he agree for the translation (dave , ? dave where are you ? )


Take care that all those feature aren't yet available for download
this is just a preview of the next version


Dan

-----------------------------------------------------------
here below my dirty "done" list that I maintain
to keep trace of what was added:

NEXT VERSION
------------------

-calculator inside

-flashing light , warning, strobe, don't flash anymore like hell when time warping.... thinking about
it now there was no reason to make them follow the time warp.... ??!!

-atmosphere temperature calculated for planet.

-new ascent program for mars PRO904

-new scenario to start on mars

-reentry prediction now work for mars, venus, jupiter and some other.

-corrected a bug with warning O2

-added custom hud

-landed at kcs scenario updated so ISS is in position for an immediate  launch at 43°

-reentry autopilot can go to +60° this can be usefful for reentry at high speed.

-added two and four years O2 reserve.

-Gen1 message bug
If you turn off Gen2, the system display reads Gen1 off.


-----------------------------------------------------------------

[omegax]

sounds pretty badass, especially that ascent profile from mars, what altitude does it put you at?

[DanSteph]

I'm still in discussion with some guy to release the same atmospheric data
on our add-on while those in base orbiter are wrong, but actually
If I recall well the Orbit was about 200km with my current atmospheric data.

Anyway anyone can edit the ascent's data to change that.

Dan

[bgreman]

This thing just gets better and better.  THe only thing I can think of that needs to still be
implemented is the random failures (which, as I recall, is what this whole project was about in the
first place.)

[DanSteph]

bgreman wrote:
> implemented is the random failures (which, as I recall, is what
> this whole project was about in the
> first place.)

Still planned but as explained before all the system must be finished
before starting on this.

Dan

[Dave Klein]

Just something to throw out there...it might be nice, when random failures are implemented, to
not have quite so explicit an alarm system.  In other words, if the primary O2 tank fails, and I hear
an alarm, look at the display next to the alarm, and it says, "Primary O2 tank has failed", then
there's no diagnosis involved.  But if there were no text alarm message, and the O2 alarm light
flashes, and I have to start checking ship's systems to figure out where exactly the problem lies,
and then I notice that my O2 levels are dropping, and I have to figure out why, and I finally notice
that it's only the primary O2 tank that's got a problem....well, that seems like more fun, no?

Just thinking out loud,
Dave

[DanSteph]

That's an idea perhaps I can add an option "verbose fail" ?

.....but thinking about it the idea I had for failure would spoil
about which failure occured.


Basically it's a crt where you can see the current failure and decide if you want to repair
it or leave it as it is (assigning priority to it) .  You would have "repair" point that goes up slowly
and you will use a certain number of them for every attempt to repair a system (this can mean
mental and physicall state of the "repairer")

Of course the attempt to repair could fail but you can make another try eating more point.
(perhaps the number of point you have will be considered in the chance of success ?)

The other idea is to make an "IA" about failure... a function will run every 10-20 second
and this function will return your current flying state (ie: just taking-off, climbing, in orbit,
aproaching a station, voyaging in deep space, reentry , near landing)

This would decide which failure may occure , ex: if you choose "critical failure" you may have one
engine going down when climbing but if you choose light failure you will perhaps only have the hud
that fail, midlle will fail the ascent autopilot etc etc.
In deep space criticall will make a tank going of loosing reserve in the process (houston ?....)
but light failure will only  disconnect the MFD or landing gear failure.

Dan

[Dave Klein]

Hmmm...

I'm not 100% sure I have the right idea of what you're talking about regarding the "repair" thing,
but I'll proceed as if I do  To me, the "game" of having failures is not necessarily to decide
whether or not to repair it; the "game" of it for me is to not be able to fix something, and yet try to
figure out something to save the crew anyway.

For instance: Let's say I'm en route to the Moon, from Earth, in the G-SNDO.  I get an N2 warning
alarm light on my alarm panel.  OK, what's the problem?  I switch to the life support panel.  I see
that the primary N2 tank's level is steady, but the backup N2 tank level is dropping slowly.  
Hmmm.  Now what?

If I understand you correctly, what you're saying is that in the circumstance above, you'd have an
option to repair the N2 backup tank.  To me, it'd be more fun to NOT be able to repair it, and have
to deal with the emergency.  For instance, do I decide to plot a new orbit to bring me around the
Moon and return to Earth as quickly as possible?  Do I decide that the N2 is leaking too quickly for
a return to Earth, and instead try to make an emergency landing at Brighton Beach on the Moon?  
Can I ignore the alarm and try to complete the ten-orbit Moon mapping mission I had planned?  

Similarly, let's say instead of an N2 tank failure, instead there's an electrical alarm.  Where's the
fault?  Is it with Gen1?  Gen2?  The battery?  The APU?  Instead of being able to just press a
button to fix these things, my personal preference would be to have to figure out a way home
without being able to fix it.  

You could even program in various levels of difficulty for the same emergency.  For instance, let's
say the G-SNDO's failure algorithm sets up an O2 tank alarm situation.  The rate of leakage of the
O2 could be set up to vary randomly; a small rate of leakage would obviously be less serious to
the ship than a fast leak.  Thus, the decision as to what to do would be a pilot's command
decision.  Isn't that better than being able to just fix it?

Hmmmmm....actually, now that I think about it, maybe your idea could be used in combination with
this.  Maybe it could be set up so you have a fixed number of "repair opportunities" you can use?  
So lets say I have the opportunity to fix any two given alarms.  If I launch on a three-day mission,
and immediately I have a problem with the inner airlock, I probably don't want to waste one of
my "repairs" on that.  On the other hand, if I'm right at the end of a mission, and the same
problem occurs, and I haven't used either of my two "repairs" yet, then I'd probably want to
spend the time to repair it.

How's this for a completely different idea?  You can give people the option to repair anything--but
repairs take some time to do, and during the time of the repair, you CAN'T CONTROL THE
SPACECRAFT AT ALL.  Because, of course, you're busy repairing

I dunno...just throwing some ideas out there, see if you like any!

Dave

[John]

How about the educational approach to fixing the problem? Have a list of relative space questions,
math problems, procedural things etc. You could have seperate categories that could be loaded or
selected. You could even set a dificulty or even better an age level.  All in all I like the idea, the
challenge and the rush of the unknown that may lay ahead. Great idea Dan, can't wait to use it in
our NASSAC Virtual Space Center Program.

John

[Dave Klein]

While on this topic, I just had a brainwave of something that would be REALLY cool to have in a
MUCH later version of the G-SNDO

I would love to see some sort of actual damage visuals implemented on the exterior of the
spacecraft, combined with EVA capability.  So let's say you're flying along, everything's going well,
and all of a sudden.....WHAM.  You get an alarm light on a communications antenna (like the AE35
unit from 2001!) attached to the outside of the ship.  So you'd then have to open the airlocks, hit
a key to switch to EVA mode, and then maneuver yourself outside the ship to replace/fix the
broken part (in this case, replace the antenna).

How's that for something that will be implemented in the 2008 version of Orbiter??  Just wishing
out loud, is all....

Dave

[Yury S.Kulchitsky (Kulch)]

What about bug with warning G-exess and G-LOC? Sometime on low fps (<15, I think) with all
engines shutdown, I can view that terrible warning... What's wrong? (sorry for my bad english).

[Yury S.Kulchitsky (Kulch)]

I hope, in next version the "Attitude mode switch" (roll or linear mode) will be available? This
switch is vary usefull.

[OrbiterBri]

I think with the repair scenarios if I were on a space craft leaking N2 or O2 I would try and fix it
anyway. Maybe faults could be set on a level where some will not be repairable, other will take
varying lengths of time to repair. Maybe this would be effected by the number of passengers on
board. i.e bigger the crew better the chance of completing a repair. Could the main flight computer
have a fault page showing fault description, severity and time to repair?

Brian

[darrenfw]

any chance of a manual switch from rcs to atmospheric mode please?  have you ever done a re-
entry and tried to land on a pad at the cape instead of the runway??  very frustrating!!

[DanSteph]

Dave

God, a lot of idea in your writting...

there is some limitation, unless you modelise the WHOLE system with
all the wire, pump and switch a "search what failed" will not be possible.
Of course one idea would be to put a lot of "fake" system so you must choose
wich one to repair but this can be a boring job. Searching for fail is fun when you know
what you are doing.

Anyway the fun would be to carefull decide wich system you must repair first
and if you should repair it or keep your repair-point for anything else.
(ex: hud and mfd fail, you are currently deorbiting you repair both and then
suddenly the gear hydraulic fail also, no more point = crash landing)

I was already thinking to disable control when you repair something
I'll do my best but failure aren't an easy job to make them consistent
and intteresting.... (else I can just make "KABOOM you exploded" but that would not
be so much fun

About aborting flight I can take care to make some fail such O2 loosing so you
must go back and land as soon as possible. (or any other reserve that would make
the flight critical)

About visual model damage , I will not write dozen line so you must believe me:
this would not be at all an easy job, and we don't have much control over the visual model
(full control over the vertex and texture would be required else another method is
to create several model with damage on them, but as making one model is already a
long process  making even more would take too much time)


John

A full repair things that is intteresting and very consistent can be a whole project
in itself that can take month, as said I'll try to do my best on this. But the DGII
is near completion while the code start now to lower the perf on middle machine.....
I cannot add anymore thousand line of code and all things added can fragilise the whole
construction.

Yury

When frame rate is too low it seem to me that Orbiter "forget" some step (jump image)
so the delta position artificially created give an acceleration... really nothing I can do here
unless I disable the G calculation. ( I have already implemented a G damper for instant
G but if I increase the damper problem will appear).

-I will add the switch linear/rot for the next version

Orbiterbri
repair process will take some time and is not garanted to work at
each time so you can expense all your point trying to repair this
hud and find later that you don't have anymore point for the engine....
....anoying

Darrenfw
What I can do is an automatic switching to rcs mode when your speed drop
below stall speed so you have rcs back for a vertical landing/take-off


Dan

[DanSteph]

you'll have your switch for RCS mode: (next version)

[DanSteph]

You'll have also the O2/pressure graph and correct crew response for different setting.





Let me explain:

horizontal is O2
vertical is Pressure

intersection of the blue line show your current o2/p level
as the text on the right top.

The white triangle show your wanted setting , the blue line will
slowly reach this point, when done the white triangle disappear.

This graph is based on real data, you see immediatelly that
if you want the lower cabin pressure possible you must set O2 at 100%
and pressure at 4psia (normal operation would require a low pressure
for critical flight phase as landing or take-off. Also setting a low
cabin pressure may be useful when failure will be implemented if
you have a hole in the cabin due to a small impact. With low cabin
pressure you will minimize air lost. In this special case I would recommend
50% o2 and 7psia)

if the blue line go outside in the black area the crew is dead.
The dark curve in the middle show the best setting possible where
crew's performance is at best.
Normal sea level setting is 14.7psia and 21.8% O2 (top of the dark curve)


Dan

[canadave]

Dan,

Are you sure you want to "give people the answer" by providing them with a graph?  In other
words, isn't part of the "game" to try to figure out the best atmosphere pressure/content ratios
without any help?  In my humble and perhaps flawed opinion, a real-time graph like you've come
up with is a little too useful--it takes away the skill of having to try to figure out what cabin
environment to specify.

That being said, I'm sure some people will love having a real-time guide.  I just feel like the
documentation you created for this subject was instructional enough  

Dave

[DanSteph]

In old time machine where provided with obscure instrument and the pilot
should learn a lot of things to translate that and have a good view of the
environment. Misunderstood in interpretating have induced a lot of death
by accident.

By any luck this isn't anymore true and now for example instead of a barometer
and some other things you have a "wheater" MFD in plane that SHOW you
the cloud and what they contain... it show you also your path , speed and alt
so you can immediatelly see if you will enter in those cloud.

Instrument in the futur will be even more friendly.

Of course a futuristic vessel like DGII would not let you set yourself
O2 and pressure level (humain often fail) but those setting will be set by
a computer that will judge the best setting for a given situation.
So your right the situation is "biased"

This graph would be interesting in some situation, I can imagine
the face of someone  that have a hole in the hull looking at the small
blue line going down 8o and trying to increase the O2 level to not fall
in the dark zone Consiousness of the situation render the things
more interesting immo.

Dan

[C3PO]

I think that O2/pressure graph is exelent.

I have tried to play around with the cabin settings, but the reserve display doesn't change.

It keeps showing the same time remaining

[canadave]

Point taken, Dan  I withdraw my objections =D

Cheers,
Dave

p.s. how would one post a picture on this forum like you did with your Geneva postcard?

[DanSteph]

Simple you must first find a hosting site for your image for example
www.apfa.ca

then you must upload your image on your hosting site (for example
upload your image called "mytown.jpg" in "image" folder)

you must then write here the complete path enclosed in "img" tag
(see help at top of forum)

in our example it will look like this
[ img]ww w.apfa.ca/image/mytown.jpg[/img ]

^ (I have put spaces in this text otherwise it will be interpreted as an
     image tag and the text will not show)

below the same text without space. If you put now an image in
"ww w.apfa.ca/image/mytown.jpg" it will show below:


(right click "properties" on the broken link image to see your image's url)

notice that most of forum work with "[ img]" tag (this is true for Orbiter's forum also)


Dan

[reekchaa]

Hey, Thanks for link to www.apfa.ca ...Great resource for families.

Lemme give this IMG thing a try...

   

SWEET!  I fixed it.  Better 6 months late then never, eh?  Thanks, Guys  



Post Edited (02-05-04 22:07)

[DanSteph]

bad luck, geocities is one of those crappy provider
that don't allow external link... if you have it already
in your internet cache you see it working but it's not.

but your image is cool (copy past link)
or click here: http://www.geocities.com/reekchaa/DVC00693L.jpg

Dan

Ps: Canadave isn't only a doc translator but he also created
      the www.apfa.ca site

[canadave]

You mean like this?



Thanks for the compliments on apfa.ca...it's nice to do a website for a worthy cause.  I still need to
work on my HTML skills a bit though...Dan's my mentor in this apparently! :0

Dave



Post Edited (04-15-03 02:48)