Orbiter 2016 Released

After six years of development, the new version of Orbiter went live today! You can download it here:

http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/index.html

Dat porno music

Oh so that is what it sounds like

Well it is appropriate, it's about things rising and shooting into space

Edit: Music: Dougie WOOD lol no you just could not make that up

Must be watching different types/genre of porno then! Or maybe I'm not watching enough?

Orbiter gets us space nuts all hot and bothered, so porn groove is appropriate.

*cue porn groove* DAT APOAPSIS HNNNG!1

YAY!!! I actually just installed last month Orbiter after having been away for years. I quickly deleted it as I just couldn't bring myself to get it all modded and to remember how to get around in the sim again. But this is a must! I was starting to wonder when we'd see anything new from this sim. Thanks for posting.

I've downloaded the hi res terrains for Earth, Moon and Mars but I have no idea what to do with the resulting ".tree" files...


Any ideas?

Orbiter always intrigued me, but when it came down to playing it, it was just too dry for me. I ended up learning a lot more about Space exploration from KSP. I'm sure the physics etc are far more authentic in Orbiter though.

You need to put them into their respective folders in the Textures directory of the main install. You can either add a .old to the low res versions, or completely overwrite them. Here's a link to the installation instructions for the hi-res files: http://web1.orbiter.us/tex_help.html#tex_install



Different strokes for different folks. I actually prefer the no-nonsense and engineering feel of Orbiter, and found KSP to be a little to kitschy for me. I also like that Orbiter is "real." When you fly through the solar system, you're flying through ours, not a fictional one. Especially with the hi-res terrains with the new release. The planets have never been more beautiful, especially Earth.

Absolutely Rambler, each to their own.

I use mods such as MechJeb and Kerbal Engineer to help make things a little more scientific than just guestimating if you have enough Delta-V for a specific task etc. I also like the problem solving aspect to KSP (ie a big part of the game is that you have to design your own spacecraft). More than once I have flown a perfect mission only to realize that I forgot to include a parachute in the design, or a solar panel to recharge the batteries.

KSP allows you to learn some quite complex, and sometimes less than intuitive concepts in a very simple way. Questions such as "you are in the same orbit as a space station but behind it by 100nm, which way do you burn to close the distance?" become very easy to answer after messing around with KSP.

The little green guys don't bother me too much, although I would like to see it possible to replace them with Human Astronauts. There is already a real solar system mod out there if I recall correctly.

Thanks!

A little update for Orbiter. A hi-res version of Antelope Valley/Edwards AFB was released awhile ago. Makes the area look 100x better. Can be downloaded here under Earth>Addon Scenery Packs
http://web1.orbiter.us/tex_mirror.html

That looks really good. I never was any good at this sim but I had a lot of fun with it. I even made some DGIV skins and Prelude base skins back when some of which would look good on this because I made a few desert themed ones. Has there been any exciting spaceship releases in awhile? Years ago someone was working on something that looked like a SR-71 version of a space plane that looked awesome but it got scrapped I think. I always like the Dyna-soar type stuff.