DGIII alpha release available part 1 (closed)

[DanSteph]

It make no sense to hold so much time an add-on that have already much more
feature than the previous DGII.

anyway take care this is still an alpha version,
I'm still working on it and I may release other alpha version
so check back for news.

download here:
http://orbiter.dansteph.com/index.php?disp=dgIII


Dan

Edit  I tested the install but it's possible something is messed if it's the case I'll release a corrected version shortly.

[harmsway]

8o



Dan the Man

[Prandini]

Works great!!!! Congratz! The hover is amazing, also the damage system!

I played for 10 mins... Its really great!

I know is an alpha version but I think is nothing wrong to report some bugs:
1 - Cockpit opens in space w. no penalty('N' key)
2 - The hover do small ascend at 0 m/s (0.20 m/s)
3 - (not a bug) Couldnt find a way to lock the airbrake (Ctrl+B?)

Thats all that I discovered in 10 mins

What the Ext Radiator do?

You should receive some "Addons Oscar"

[]'s

[Christopher Tarana]

Cool!  Any chance of seeing the medical skin in 512x512?    I'm downloading the alpha now,
and I'm really looking forward to seeing what's new!  

  Thanks, Dan!

         Christopher

[Christopher Tarana]

 
 Excellent Job, Dan!  I took the DG III out for a ride, departing from both the ISS and KSC.  I
think the HudConfig is excellent!  The DG handles well on the ride up and I didn't get killed
like the last time.    The radiator is a great addition, especially with the panel switch.  The
cockpit graphics seem better too.  The expanded Delta Glider config program is nice.  A lot
people who asked for configurable fuel tanks are going to like this!  This alpha is going to
see beta real quickly.

 Great Work, Dan!  

           Christopher

[Peer]

Great work!
The best ship I've ever seen!
And I thougt the DGII couldn't get better!!!
No problems with alpha on my notebook.
How about combining the white strobes with red and green lights?

Dan, you're doing a great job!


Peer.

[marcozp]

simply... GREAT!

I tryed some features, looks fine to me!

[DanSteph]

I feel suddenly like microsoft to release such alpha version

Prandini
1 - Cockpit opens in space w. no penalty('N' key)
-cockpit open in space test still a "todo" work...

2 - The hover do small ascend at 0 m/s (0.20 m/s)
-I know about the hover, annoying, I'll try to get around.

3 - (not a bug) Couldnt find a way to lock the airbrake (Ctrl+B?)
-this is a feature the airbrake are not done to work for long time.
 is this missing ? (otherwise I can make "switch state key b" but there is
a risk you forget them opened)
Also later I'll do a test about speed, you'd better check your airspeed before
opening the airbrake.

well ext radiator ?    press it on watch from outside... anyway I'm not satisfied with this button
its on my todo list.

Christopher
Just added the 512x512 replacement texture , watch the alpha download page
there is a link.


Peer
You mean "nav" light ? adding 3 more thruster worry me much
about performance otherwise it would be an 1h30 job only....

The code is so wide now, I'm affraid with low end config, how does it work
for you (spec/framerate)
I got about 80fps to 35fps in busy place but I have a 1.7ghz 794mo  ram ti4200 128 mo
the lower panel seem to eat more fps (I know why)

let me count the project's code.... mhhhh here the result :
Total lines : 20435
Code lines : 16742  (81%)
comments : 2710  (13%)
mixed :   542   (2%)
blank : 1525   (7%)


Dan

[Spets]

Dan,

So far, so good!

just a couple minor comments:

any chance of having the temperature reflect the shadow/sunside of the earth? I also noticed that
I got a temp of -40 degrees at 65 kilometers.. isn't that a bit of a low temp for such an altitude?

the HUD colors need some work.. the white parts around the letters completely screw up
readability.

My pilot became unconsious during re-entry (my passengers became dead), but I could still control
the spacecraft.

Otherwise, looks pretty good so far. I achieved a collapsed landing gear (-8m/s) and a hull temp of
800 degrees upon touchdown! but then again I didn't follow standard re-entry procedures.

may post more as I explore.

Spets

[icebrain]

Idea for next version:  would it be possible to set a minimum throttle on the main engines, and a
minimum burn time?  IE, the lowest possible throttle setting would be, say, 10%, below that it
shuts off.  And the engine would need to start at that minimum throttle, and run there for a second
or two before throttling up.  And shutdown would require you to throttle back to that minimum.  
And it would need to run for a minimum time before shutting down (say, 6 seconds).  Then a gap
(10 seconds) before it can be started up again.

It would also be nice to have some other stuff--like high and low RCS settings, and a mode to run
the +X RCS jets without having to hold down the button.

[Wilko]

About the low-end config, it's running fine on my 1.1ghz, 128mb RAM, 64mb GeForce 2. Runs just
like the DGII Don't know about lower system specs... I know some are worse off than me with
their setups

[Christopher Tarana]

 Dan, I got the 512x512 texture pack, I'll test it tonight. Regarding performance, I'm using a
P2 Celeron 300mhz and I don't have any problems running the DGII or DGIII.  I think red and
green nav lights would be a good addition.  

  Thanks, Dan!  

        Christopher

[DanSteph]

spet:

About temp in shadow/sun there would need far to much computation
for such a litle display and only something like raytracing would be somewhat accurate.
(what if cloud ? what if an object is in front of the sun ? what in one wings make some
shadow on the body? what about asteroid ?)

I may at the complete end try to add planet shadow but this will not be an easy
job for me, and I still don't know if the SDK offer to us really the data that we need for that.

-40C° at 65 km, that's it, see below : (taken from the standard atmosphere temperature US)



( I had very long discussion about space temp in specialised forum...

IceBrain
The idea is good and would add realism howewer if we state that the deltaglider
can reach orbit with 6 ton of fuel we can state also that it can fire its thruster at any moment
I'm in concern to keep the DGIII friendly user, to much complicated procedure can kill the fun
for many people (not anyone want to read the real shuttle manual before flying it)

Anyway one idea that would be simpler is adding an engine temp display
and state in the doc that this temp must be a certain level before firing thruster again.
If the user fail to do this this would damage more and more the thruster until
it fail because the player didn't complied with the right procedure.
There is not much to know= "if temp below 200C° you can fire else , wait"
And I can add also a parameter for failure in the dgIIIconfig "things broke if user
doesn't follow procedure" or something like that. What you think ?

High and low RCS thrust is a very intteresting idea I'll add it in my todo list.
The only trouble I see is this button must be next surface/rcs control and there is
not enough place...
What do you mean exactly with the +X jets ?  linear RCS left right ?

Dan

[DanSteph]

SPET:
the HUD colors need some work.. the white parts around the letters completely screw up
readability.

That seem a bug to me I don't have those white part, do you have a screenshot ?
don't know exactly but it's perhaps something like font antialiasing of your system.. (xp crystal
font ? or something like that)
Do the Customhud.exe do the same ?

Mhhhh ? perhaps you don't run it in 1152x864 ? the font/panel may have problem at other resolution.

About loosing control, inconscious pilot doesn't affect control but death will
taken that you checked it in dgIIconfig. (as was stated in the doc this is
done to leave a chance to lower the G changing the trajectory, a sort of autopilot that would take control in place of the pilot in critical condition)

Chris
You really MEAN p2 300mhz ?  8o  
(tips: the image should be animated when you run orbiter else you can't state that "you don't have problems" )

Dan

[John]

Great Job Dan! I took the Delta GliderIII for a test spin. I tried a 135 degee accent using the
autopiolot with the iss only setting but could not make orbit. I had to use the iss moon setting to
achieve this orbit. THe graphics look good, frame rate was good, did not note the rate, but I have
1024 mb ram and a PNY 128 agp Geforce 4 card. I have yet to try the hover autopilot. I was
wondering about the music that plays when you select the 5 HUD switch. What and where is the
file that is playing and is it possible to substitute another wave file using the same name? I like
the playing of music while in orbit and was wondering how I could substitute other wave files for
this?  I also had some throuble reading the the HUD diplay, I will experiment using a lower display
setting and see how that works. But overall nice job and look forward to checking the DGIII out. I
guess I could always make a new radio file and put my music on a special frequencey also.

P.S.  Hope you are feeling better. And I agree Dan gets the addon award. What's your address
Dan so I can mail you the check and the trophy.

[Spets]

Dan,

some more tests. here is a picture of the HUD, as you can hopefully see the letters are sometimes
covered with white pixels which makes readability very hard. Cleartype WAS turned on; turning it
off fixed the problem. But if it is possible to fix it to work with cleartype, then that would be
awesome! but don't lose too much sleep over it. http://www.x-plane.org/users/spets/Untitled-
1.jpg

Thanks for the temperature chart, I understand now. Nevermind about the real-time temperature
difference either,s ounds like too much work :P

-Perhaps a bleed valve in the O2 system in order to dump the cabin air in turn for whatever is in
the atmosphere at that point? I know you can open the hatch to do this, but I think the real "ship"
would have a special atmosphere dump valve.

-When the ship is turned off, the engine valve still emits smoke.

-Perhaps add a message to the computer saying that the radiator has finished openning and
closing?

-Who honestly uses the engine gimballing switches? what COULD be useful is to add a button to
the panel to automatically tie the engine gimballing to the joystick input. that way the the
atmosphere you get the manueverability of gimballed engines, yet you can turn the gimballing off
with the push of a button once you reach space and can use RCS. Instead of the current
gimballing area, perhaps a second display for data functions? I'm sure you could come up with
what to put there :P

-G units. Instead of measuring the acclerating G's, is it possible to measure the G experienced on
the body? for example sitting on earth I should get a reading saying 1G, not 0G. In space it should
be 0G, and on launch and re-entry the numbers should adjust accordingly. Currently it seems a bit
weird. I pitch down and the G's increase yet while I pitch up the G's decrease?

[Hoverboy]

So far, what I've tried, the autopilot is 0 for 1 on achieving earth orbit.  It came back to earth at
55km (I think, but I'm not familiar with metrics).  Looks cool though.

[Christopher Tarana]

 Yes, Dan, P2 Celeron at 300mhz.    I average between 17 and 22 FPS in Orbiter.  The new
512x512 Medical skin worked so well I changed the names of my crew to Johnny, Roy, Patient1 and
Patient2.

 I'm using a SiS 6326 SVGA AGP card with 8 megs Vidram.  I'm not getting any white borders
around any of the HUD lettering like Spets is describing.  

    Thanks, Dan!

         Christopher

[MattNW]

I'm downloading it as I write this post. Gonna give her a try as soon as possible. I was thinking
about the post above asking about music. It might be possible to install a few music .wav files as
a radio pack the same way you would install an add on radio chatter folder.

[Hoverboy]

Allright, now it's 0 for 2 on the autopilot (PRO903SPEC42).  Is mine a dud?

[Spets]

some more notes:

-when lifepack is turned off, the computer pops out a radiator fail message even if the radiator is
stowed.

-I am able to lift the nose of the DGIII using RCS thrusters while on the ground.. either ship too
light (doubt it!) or thrusters too powerful?

-consequently, atmospheric controls seem to be too weak. it's like flying a slow boat almost. takes
2 kilometers to do a loop! perhaps they need to have increased effectiveness? which can then be
modulated down as speed is increased to stop over-responsiveness? (not sure if possible).

-further suggestion for the automatic RCS/Elevon mode: have the system try to maintain a certain
change rate using a combination of RCS and Elevon. at sea level the elevons alone should be able
to maintain this change rate, but as the altitude increases, the RCS should pitch in slowly to help
out, resulting in a subtle transistion. currently I get no elevon response and then BAM full RCS
power. Again coding this might be interesting, but maybe something to think about.

-Retro thrusters emit no smoke. you switching to enviromentally friendly fuel whenever you
decellerate?

-Is there a wheelbrake? or nosewheel steering, in this version?

[Spets]

Re: Autopilot..

yep launch autopilot appears to be bugged.. topped out at 55km before descending, along with
fluctuations as it tried to maintain heading. please return to Dan's Space Outlet for full refund

I think Dan didn't have time to edit the autopilot routine for new atmospheric modelling.

[DanSteph]

John

I was aware lately of the fuel problem (default setting) I'll correct it.
For the check thanks I'm awaiting the postman

spet

That's it: cleartype, the antialiasing it make disturb the transparent color
unfortunately there is no way around martin allow us only the stock
windows drawing. Anyway it's nice to know it, I should add that in the doc.

-Perhaps a bleed valve in the O2 system in order to dump the cabin air in turn for whatever is in
the atmosphere at that point? I know you can open the hatch to do this, but I think the real "ship"
would have a special atmosphere dump valve.
-When the ship is turned off, the engine valve still emits smoke.
-Perhaps add a message to the computer saying that the radiator has finished openning and
closing?

-Funny, the bleed valve was planned and replaced by the radiator's button, it's a good idea I'll see.
-Thanks wasn't aware of the smoke bug.
-The radiator is not finished at all the button is crap and I should add a feedback.

-Who honestly uses the engine gimballing switches?

Now THAT'S a good question
not me anyway but some guy asked about it long time ago so I suppose they use it ?
Anyway as I plan "one engine" failure or loss of power they might become usefull
later I'll see then if they need some rework to make them simpler to use.

G is another annoying problem, I tried hard I failed, it's a bit more complicated
than it seem.
Anyway You must assume that the 1G of earth is not taken in account
by the instrument, he show only the dry acceleration. (he is accurate with this)

Dan

[DanSteph]

spet you just earned an "faster poster of forum award"

-Launch autopilot is nice the problem is in the fuel&engine power setting
 try with middle power/fuel setting, it's on my list anyway.

-martin don't allow us any control over the controlsurface the only thing I can do
is "on/off"  I wonder why because we can't do any autopilot.

So this is why the RCS are so powerful at ground (but they are NOT so powerful
in fact I think it's a Orbiter's bug... vessel behave strangely on ground)
because they must be able to replace the surface control that we don't have
for the autopilot.

Retro smoke:  Yes the environnemental lobby is powerful here....
( -> put in my todo list )

-Is there a wheelbrake? or nosewheel steering, in this version?

The noseweel must turn at ground given that your control
is given to surfacecontrol and that your below 50m/s
the ship is able to full taxiing.

Dan

[Spets]

Dan,

Thanks for the award

Everything otherwise sounds pretty good so far, hopefully martin can fix some of the control
limitations in a future orbiter release.

Don't get me wrong, I'm loving this version. I'm just doing my job as a beta tester to write down
what's broken or wrong and report that to you, hehe! hopefully you don't mind terribily.

and it's spetS, not spet!