Okay, thanks for all the feedback, it really is a rewarding feeling, first, that the things works, second that you like it
and third, that you give me positive feedback
So let me answer all one by one:
About trigger I hallucinated.. your voice said "engine cuttof" at the exact
second it cutted off, Your ascent program ROCK, it set 350km right on the money
This WAS my major concern. If the autodescent were not so reliable and consistently brings you to the same point in
space, you can time the voices perfectly. So you program ROCKS
-the radio CFG seem to not work properly, as said before it set 000.009
instead of 000.911 at start.
I corrected that. It should be the correct frequency in the ZIP now.
-there is already five men aboard, you must jettison one before being able
to rescue Leo Farawitz, would be nice to remove one men in the scenario
to make room for him.
That was on purpose. I didn't know how it will affect the ascent program if I remove 1 person's kilograms out of the
picture, so I left 4 people in and now you have to decide to let one out before Leo gets on board. The other person
has to go back to the station by its airlock
Just a sort of real-life catch thingy. I can remove the person and see
what happens.
-you speak about 175.61 but it was more 173.61 or so when I launched
at the exact time (when you say go) I bet this value is a bit too sensible to
rely on it... perhaps you might remove it from the doc and say instead
Hmm. Check again. The TrL value for ISS orbit. It SHOULD be 175.61, because the whole success of the approach is
based on this single number being the same everytime. But I agree, the actual time of launch, like 8:18:30 MET is a
lot more practical for the user. I will change that.
My personnal wish: some more wav before ending the sound sequence
the first catch when the ascent program end is 600km, the last instructions
are a bit too condensed for my taste and some more wav to explain with greater
detail would be welcome. (and perhaps some ambiant voice or voice from the
I know. That is because I was in a hurry to make the scenario public and also I planned to make a .pdf with detailed
mission instructions, so the voice would only be a reminder. It would save space and increase game performance
(long .wav files take time to load and affect the game). But I guess a few shorter files, nicely sequenced would do the
trick.
Also would be cool that the last wav state really clearly that it will be the
last radio communication. (perhaps because the earth station isn't in sight anymore?) So we know that now we are
really free to change focus and do whatewer we want.
Agreed.
If you want to avoid the "sequence restart" bug when you switch to Leo
you can state in one of the last wave that one must set frequency to MSS (any empty frequence)
before switching (consistant with the docking wave)
That is what I did when testing and that is EXACTLY why the zip files contained the "empty" .009 frequency
Will
make sure I take care of that.
Too bad that the radio sequence restart when you switch vessel, this IS
resolved in the OrbiterSound 3.0.
It's the STATIC variables again eh?
Ability to put a saved frequency to load per ship in the scenario.
so each time you switch vessel a different sequence may start.
that would be beautiful!
and very few people use it. A triggered system would take me even longer to do
(months?) and I'm not sure it would be more used. (and you know I don't have much
time yet)
Okay, forget it than. It's not as important. It would be fun, but not worth the extra worth. You can combined timing,
docking and frequency changes well enough to go around the problem
PS: I never saw the "engage turbo" msg from autopilot, I passed 1000 before I engage it
perhaps you can voice it instead ? I know I must engage them but it might be confusing
for other peoples. Anyway at least you can push the message to ALT 1490 in the PRO904
it will be less sensible.
I removed it, becuase the voice tells you to activate turbo pump. It says so at the same time it says to engage the
ascent program. Doesn't it? But I will add it to the program at a lower altitude. Something like 500m, at the same
time the voice tells you to engage it.
T+45: "Earth station, we are almost out of range, salute Leo for us when you meet him, good job End
of all radio communication"
Or "Okay, we've done all we can, you're on your own from now on. We will not send any more transmission to
distract you. Good luck! Huston out!"
Perhaps you can supply also the config.cfg located in sound/dgIII ?
I didn't know it was in there. I'll do that
A countdown with your voice would be really nice instead of the stock one...
Heh, there's a practical reason why I didn't include more sound. I feel really stupid to record myself and even more so
if my girlfriend is at home..
If you don't know the context, hearing someone go: "ready for takeoff, launch in 30
seconds. All systems go." is REALLY weird
Freespace is mad that he doesn't have any "1337" skills. Ignore him.
1337 skills?
I just have one question though: How do you calculate the launch date for a direct ascent? I would like to be
able to do this with other spacecraft, but I have no idea how.
Check this page
http://orbiter.vidmar.org/direct-ascent.htmlAt the end of the page I explain briefly how you create an ascent program. Once you get the program to put you in
the right orbit, you must find the best launch azimuth. If you are launching from the same location, the current one is
okay. Now you have the last point. WHEN. What I did was, I timed the whole ascent stage. In the case of this
scenario it is about 706seconds. So all you need to do then is determine how much the ISS moves in the SAME
amount of time. Using some relatively simple formulae or just plain trial-error you can get to it in no time. Now you
have to connect both locations (ISS and DG3). You know that both craft must be at point X (interception) at
T=706seconds. Now you know the location of the Dg3 at T=0 (the launch site). What you don't know is the location of
ISS at T=0. One way or another you calculate the distance the ISS travels in 706 seconds. So now you know where
ISS is at T=0. If the orbits are close enough to be almost coplannar (low RInc), you can probably simplify the
calculation by just using the TrL (True Longitude). This piece of information tells you where the object is currently on
its orbit. The reference is the same for all objects (I think it is the meridian) so if you say that ISS is at TrL 180 and
the DG3 is at 270deg, you know that they are 90deg (quarter of an orbit) appart.
Back to your calculation. You have both launch locations. You need to determine the TrL of each starting position and
then their difference. Then you get the answer: The DG3 must launch, when there is X degrees angle between it's
starting position and the ISS orbital position. Then you need to wait for the time, lock the MET and you have the
launch date/time. My numbers are not accurate, because I did not take into consideration bigger issues like Earth
surface curvness, the additional speed you gain from Earth rotation by launcing eastwards and the Coriolis's forces,
and other things which all possibly effect the end result to some degree.
Now I'm sure there is a more elegant, possibly simpler way, but I am not skilled enough in math to invent it. Perhaps
someone else will, now that we have a basic model. I hope to put together a more explanatory manual with some
pictures to illustrate this process. I think it would be good to develop some kind of mathematical model and include it
into Orbiter base distribution, because launch windows play a major role in space operations. And not only in
interplanetary flights. The shuttle's fuel margin is so constrained that this kind of model would enable it to minimize
alignment and synchornization fuel costs a lot
*Doc is planning to equip the shuttle with this sort of approach* Only with the shuttle the constraint is that the
current autopilots get you to a really low orbit. But if you had the ISS, say 45 degrees ahead of you, you would really
only need to push yourself a little further to intercept it half an orbit later. I tried that using the Transfer MFD, but
didn't get any conclusive results yet.
Cheers and thanks,
Janez
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