Orbiter 2016 - A Less Kerbal Space Sim

Orbiter is the definitive spaceflight simulator and it just recieved an update featuring new terrain features and improvements to the physics. I took the stock shuttle out for a quick test flight....
orbit.medphys.u...

[@runelauridsen5000]

"A Less Kerbal Space Sim" then lands a spaceshuttle on Titan

[@nasawormlogo9521]

4 year lol

[@hareeballsac9777]

@@nasawormlogo9521 4 month lol

[@nasawormlogo9521]

@@hareeballsac9777 4 hour lol

[@dylstructor9867]

@@nasawormlogo9521 1 month lol

[@For_debate_check_description]

@@dylstructor9867 1 year lol

[@oldcanadiangamer130]

"Never stop learning, that's what I say!" ROFL I was rolling on the floor when you said that, Scott! As a bush pilot with ohhh...what do I have now? 12,750 hours? Somewhere around there; I stopped counting a few years ago....but ahem. I thought when I first started playing Orbiter about a decade ago I'd breeze through it. I'm a pilot after all. ONE launch with the magnificent AMSO addon relieved me of that notion. Orbiter is HARD! That statement: "Never stop learning" is the solace and excuse we supposed professionals use when utterly and completely screwing the pooch in a simulated flight. At least in Orbiter we can just say "Yup, learning experience" when our sim abruptly ends in an explosion. When it is graded and examined in real life, we have a few more questions to answer...very pointed questions. I love all your work, Scott; especially your humour and cheerful whimsy. Keep up the good work! (Big thumbs up)

[@cheddar2648]

Incredible! Used to play Orbiter long before KSP was a dream. I had no idea there was an update. thank you thank you THANK YOU

[@AndromedaDream]

4:00 Scott, the ISS changes the orientation for docking and undocking. they do that to push the Space Shuttle on an other Orbit. So they don`t crash.

[@steve1978ger]

Orbiter has terrain now? Well that's a relief.

[@bfrobin446]

Pun intended, I hope, because it's a good one.

[@pseudocoder78]

That joke really makes the grade.

[@CountArtha]

I see what you did there.

[@MushVPeets]

I'm inclined to agree. :P

[@kellyweingart3692]

meethane

[@greeneyedbeast4016]

6:57 "Ok, that was a landing. That was not quite as smooth as I would like, but uh. good ne- Oh..." Not too different from Kerbal Space Program, after all, hehe.

[@Neutronic01]

At least the ship doesn’t spontaneously explode on landing xD

[@Santibag]

I thought almost everybody forget this beautiful space sim. Appearance of Sun and Neptune from Triton in this sim were almost becoming history.

[@AddyRaina]

It's been years since I've used Orbiter (I would do 2010) so glad that u did it, it's right up your alley :)

[@Seekay_]

9:55 Scott, there's a vertical speed indicator next to the artificial horizon on the right. The rightmost blue tape that says "VS" and "m/s".

[@scottmanley]

+Seekay and at the exact moment of touchdown it was unreadable because of the background image.

[@CarFreeSegnitz]

Played Orbiter since the early 2000s (2002 or 2003, not sure now). My favourite pastime was to de-orbit the Delta Glider mark 2 while keeping the external skin temperature under 300 degrees. Made me wonder if lifting body physics would solve the heat shield problem. If we could actual re-enter Earth's atmosphere but keep the craft's skin to just a few hundred degrees we could save a lot of weight by not having to pack a shield.

[@_tyrannus]

At one point you said "Orbiter 2006", actually pretty coherent with the whole DX7 engine. :)

[@MrC0MPUT3R]

Pretty sure there was an Orbiter 2006. I remember playing some kind of Orbiter back then.

[@scottmanley]

+turarwanaa Orbiter was first released in 2000, since then we've had Orbiter 2006, 2010 and now 2016

[@danilooliveira6580]

2006 was the first if I'm not wrong, then orbiter 2010 and finally 2016

[@scottmanley]

Nah it was originally released in 2000 as 'Orbiter'

[@mwilson14]

Ok. That's it. I have to own this simulator. No questions about it. My survival depends on obtaining this sim. Thanks for sharing Scott. This really looks like a fantastic sim.

[@DFX2KX]

it's free, so it's not going to cost anything at least!

[@mwilson14]

I'm so glad you replied to this thread. I forgot about this until I saw the Google notification. LOL. So much for my previous attitude of my survival dependent on getting this sim. LOL.

[@DFX2KX]

LOL. well, that's what I get for scrolling down at the comments without looking at posted dates. But yes, it is indeed a fantastic sim once you wrap your head around the interface.

[@NawiasemPiszac]

Scott Manley: I'd recomend playing a bit with slightly futuristic but rich in features XR-2 Ravenstar vessel (already recompiled for Orbiter 2016)

[@CarFreeSegnitz]

INCBraindead I blew up countless times just after engaging the scram jet. Tricky business engaging it at the right speed and disengaging it when it got too high or risk overheating... or overheating the craft's skin and burning up in the atmosphere.

[@Semicon07]

Thanks Scott, this is right up my alley....why am I only seeing this now???

[@gaalidas4836]

The tossing into deep space at random while landed has always been there. I remember messing around with Orbiter back in the very early days... before KSP was even a distant dream.

[@agentozzy]

I was playing this years before Kerbal. And I like it more.

[@ZemplinTemplar]

Same here.

[@insylem]

When landing, your Nav1 says 134.200MHZ. That is a Com frequency and not a Localizer frequency. Localizer frequencys have an odd number after the decimal point, and go from 108MHZ to I think 112MHZ.

[@paulcarr6388]

I love orbiter and its challenges and played it for quite a few years. what i love more though is the ability to create. KSP with some realism mods does it for me.

[@mikeman7918]

There actually is a book called Titan by Stephen Baxter where a re-purposed space shuttle is landed on Titan as part of a one way mission. This reminded me of that. I am so hyped to play Orbiter 2016, I have been waiting for Orbiter to update for years!

[@legoclone0965]

Cool! And hello. You're gone from the forums.

[@mikeman7918]

legoclone09 I'm still there, just not very active. I'm mostly lurking and participating in the role-playing thread.

[@legoclone0965]

mikeman7918 Ah, OK. Wait. Isn't roleplaying not allowed?

[@mikeman7918]

legoclone09 It is allowed in the "Quizzes, Roleplaying, ect." sub forum.

[@legoclone0965]

mikeman7918 Wait. I'm confused. Can you link the subforum?

[@AlienPet13]

I remember trying to play around with this back in the early 2000's. Thought it was pretty cool but too complicated. Of course, I didn't have a HOTAS back then. Graphics are much better now so I might just have to take another look at it.

[@Ichinin]

Cool to see Martin is still at it. Hope that the Delta glider have survived over all these years. I used to love playing an older game called "Shuttle" on the Amiga, it came with a thick manual and a large poster showing all of the buttons on the dashboard(s). There were also a looong checklist that went on until you were in orbit, making you remember stuff like OPS 101 PRO, ITEM 27 EXEC and extending the KU band antenna. Prefer KSP nowadays. P.S: Try the Jumpdrive mod. Earth -> Jupiter in seconds.

[@4TheRecord]

Would be really great to have Oribtor, Kerbal Space program and Space Engine all put into one cool program. If they all got together they could make an excellent game, flight and space simulator.

[@packmandudefake]

Nice pfp, brother

[@thedeerguy7579]

I loved this! I admit: _I modded the heck out of this game. It was a wild ride learning how to cruise between planets and aim the craft just right._

[@dm12377]

Would you ever consider doing a NASSP series (the sim with the flight computer) or use one of the more detailed fictional spacecraft to show a trip to an outer planet?

[@twinkytwinklier4047]

when a dude that has been playing orbiter for a year. SCREAMING AT THE SCREEN

[@Jimfoxyboy]

Speaking of text and manuals for the Space Shuttle... a few years ago, I found and picked up a copy of 'The Space Shuttle Operator's Manual' (Copyrighted 1982) at a thrift store. Surprisingly, for a 30 year old book, its in really good condition. (Or maybe its a reprint?) A little research says the book was meant as very in-depth introduction of the Shuttle for the general public, or possibly someone going into 'space camp' back in the day?

[@thundercactus]

I fix industrial machinery ranging from $70,000 to $1.5m and, trust me, no one EVER reads the manual.

[@eddievhfan1984]

IIRC, one of the things they also added to Orbiter 2016 (at least in the beta), was randomized wind simulation, to make things a little more interesting. ;)

[@weebgrinder-AIArtistPro]

The velocity vector versus your attitude laterally is called sideslip I think

[@Yorgarazgreece]

this is old enough to bring good memories

[@agentsmidt3209]

AWESOME! Been waiting for this badboy for a while.

[@aerospacematt9147]

Lands shuttle on Titan. Reminds me of Steven Baxter’s book of the same name.

[@Ollervo100]

Scott there is a re-entry simulation with the orbiter shuttle in x-plane10/9. x-plane 10 has pretty much the best aerophysichs available commercially so maybe you could try that.

[@MrMichalMalek]

Scott, do you know the Buran Screensaver?

[@Xerkus]

I've read somewhere (i think that was nasa site) about ISS orientation, where it was said that station can and does reorient for incoming craft or per experiments requirements. So we can pretend that was the case in this demo

[@noonehere4332]

Are you gonna make a series on this, Scott.

[@MarcelBerteler]

And now it's Open Source! Let's see what happens next.

[@lorenzopappatico]

If you want a more faithful simulator for the Space Shuttle, then you should take a look at Space Shuttle Mission Simulator. Maybe next year the new installment will eventually come out, after that the previous version had been updated for the last time back in 2010

[@Otonashi-kun]

In Space Shuttle Simulator only use the Space Shuttle, is complete, but in Orbiter 2010 you can download The Space Shuttle Fleet, And The Space Shuttle Ultra that can give more things like the Space Shuttle Simulator, and In orbiter ( all versions ) You can use more fictional and historical spacecraft( you can download a lot of great fictional and realistic historical spacecraft on orbit hangar or other websites ), and go to the, Iss, Mir ( and other space stations addons ), go to, moon ( and the historical bases in the moon, and fictional bases, and fictional space stations in moon ) and go to sun, mercury, venus, mars, jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune ( and if you have more special addons, you can go to Pluton and other solar systems like Kepler ;) i hope that this help you to understand more this simulator

[@lorenzopappatico]

I know what kind of game Orbiter is, I was talking about the space shuttle only, nothing else. And in that game you fly real missions, really happened, like deploying satellites, like Hubble, or docking and building the space station. Again, I know what Orbiter is about and what you can do with it, but for the actual Space Shuttle I think there's nothing better than that. And besides, if you read my comment above, you will see that I said "If you want a more faithful simulator for the Space Shuttle...", not " if you want a better sim for space exploration..."

[@lasselahti4056]

Wonder how many pages is in IRL "space shuttle" manual? In Finland came F/A-18C´s "owners handbook", when it was bought in 95. It is more like library, with those moving thriller movie bookshelfs.

[@jongeduard]

Orbiter's DirectX 7 stock client works perfectly on Windows 10, but you probably didn't know that there is a maximum for the screen resolution in the stock client. If you have a modern monitor with a large resolution larger than 2054px wide, than you need to limit the resolution in the Video tab before launching Orbiter. This maximum of 2054 px width is a limitation DirectX7 itself. Using a larger width leads to an error like "Initialising 3D environment using a hardware device failed. Try again with a software device."

[@ankurage]

Addon MFDs will really save your day FYI. Also try mod planes, they have some nice cool features but you need to pay attention to the crew's safety (since they're not Kerbals)

[@korbit360]

What are MFD's? I'm familiar with MOD's but MFD's are new to me.

[@miguelviola7264]

Hey Scott, if you're willing to play Orbiter, you should definitely watch David Courtney's channel. It's a preety interesting tutorial series that actually made me go somewhere in Orbiter.

[@berzerk1450]

Without Davids Tutorials i would have been completely lost.

[@kg4boj]

FINALLY! No more super flat earth/planets/moon as in orbiter all the way through orbiter 2010! I've been waiting for that upgrade for nearly a decade! I thought orbiter was pretty much closed source and abandoned by its creator.

[@alicehaupt8261]

4:12 not true, the ISS rotates and adjusts for incoming and outgoing crafts. crafts dont come from below during orbit but from the sides. Now depending on which dock they are supposed to grapple on to.

[@MrFooFoo14]

I remember orbiter. I used to play it back in '09.

[@delayed_control]

Scott, you should check out SSU, it already has a branch for Orbiter 2016

[@vgames1543]

I managed to land on Mun at a velocity of 600 m/s. One of 3 brave Kerbals survived. God I suck at such games, but I love them anyways.

[@JackSinger]

Installed orbiter fine, but when I launch it the game is stuck at the loading screen. (I waited about 30 minutes for it to load.) Anyone have any advice?

[@scottmanley]

It has a hard time working with modern graphics cards - get this mod d3d9client.codeplex.com/

[@tibsimm]

Scott Manley Hey Scott, any way to contact you privately here on KZbin? I'm retired NASA and wanted to give you two pointers on your landings.

[@vikkimcdonough6153]

I wonder if the shuttle orbiter would have been able to maintain powered flight on Titan using its OMS engines?

[@carpetmonk]

Affix the Total Velocity Vector/Flight Path Marker on end of the runway where you intend to land.

[@NishimuraKensei]

The Orbiter 2016 Is Here,

[@Cosmitaur]

I play orbiter on my yt channel if ypu want to see tutorials

[@NishimuraKensei]

@@Cosmitaur Why, *Speaking Cybertronian About Tutorials Of Orbiter 2016*

[@jamespfp]

1:32 -- "Space Geeks" -- Hey Scott! *Great pick for content*, an excellent simulator. RE: The manuals from real NASA missions, there was a full Apollo mod for a previous Orbiter version which would be at least as good as an old-style NASA mock-up that allowed astronauts to play with the flight computer for specific things, as in on final approach for Moon landing. Orbiter is better than that in many ways, because of the 3D element. It was fun to play it with head tracking, while scooting about over the lunar surface. Orbiter's other great feature is the non-realistic ships that are included, let alone the mods which get released. Frankly, the Delta Glider with a Scramjet engine - SSTO - followed by a leisurely 48-hour lunar transit, and I can be sitting in my private moonshed on the west side of Picard crater. The Shuttle-A (not the Space Shuttle) is a great challenge too, especially for leaving Earth, but really shines in Lunar gee, because it has secondary engines mounted port and starboard, and which can pitch forward, down, or back, three of the four directions for meaningful course correction!

[@jamespfp]

2:23 -- Not meaning to cut you off, but hey Scott, I hope you don't forget to talk about the *pre-existing* atmospheric engine, which worked first, before he ever worried about terrain effects. There were open source alternative rendering engines being developed in parallel to this terrain effect, prior to this release, to help that happen I suspect. The atmospherics in this game have always been great. Leaving Earth's atmosphere is easily noted by the outside air pressure gauges; similarly, max Q and Mach 1 are easily spotted if the ship has instrumentation. The other thing is that, *unlike Kerbal Space Program*, this one calculates Lagrange points; so if you're really space geeky, putting something into a stable, very-long-term orbit is possible. It's not a multiplayer experience, though; it's not a "continuing universe" game experience either, to be honest. It is very much a "by the numbers mission" simulator where things could be made as realistic as "SYSTEM FAILURE!" Next Phase: *Bring Back the Dyna-Soar!*

[@jamespfp]

3:55 -- "Never stop learning!..." - then you point out this is incorrectly being modelled? That's *technically* true since there's no explicit control being effected upon the ISS to (A) Station-keep, and (B) Orient. Both these functions require humans, IRL. Otherwise, the ISS is calculated by known position, as extrapolated by nothing other than it's mass and *how much the Sun perturbs it*. Do solar sails work in KSP, Scott? Also, I think (but I don't know for sure, Scott) the new changes to the flight computer for Atlantis are system-wide, as well, in the sense that there's a scripting language which would allow for any user to code their own ISS flight computer, *if they're geek enough.* P.S. If I were a malicious sort, I could see a way of making a bonus look like a drawback.

[@jamespfp]

7:03 -- "Oh." -- Yeah, Scott, the HUD is limited and simplistic, but it *DID* have a landing gear indicator, which is three little blocks which will display on the middle of the screen. ; ) [edit: I checked myself here -- the Space Shuttle, maybe not! The DG - pretty sure. Shuttle-A...? For Sure.] So, If I go back in the video.... I can also read the vertical velocity, not only the forward velocity, so even if you had the landing gear indicator showing (I can't see it) you may have been fast enough to collapse them. Not that I'm saying they didn't fail. If you're not trying for outrage - what are you trying to do? And if it isn't the first, you wonder why you were ever hacked? P.S. If you had been using a hand-written checklist on your lap, that had a clear time to drop gear command on it, that you then echoed as you hit the key to drop gear... *then* I might have believed you.

[@jamespfp]

9:51 - "I Can't See My Descent Speed!" -- You have an open MFD on the righthand display. That Has Your Descent Speed, forward and down. You can use your *Instruments* to fly. Also think that Orbiter has options for changing the size of things like the MFDs, but YMMV, for sure.

[@jamespfp]

10:28 -- Argh! Well done!! Scott, I'm shutting up now, I swear. :D

[@spaceflightsmith7740]

When I get my computer I have to get this game

[@marshalcraft]

+1 for no other reason than you landed a space shuttle on titan. God why can't we bring Atlantis, Endeavor, Discovery, and Endeavor out of retirement for a mission to titan. They would be perfect for it.

[@josephegleston8834]

Previously the entire world was perfectly flat? Don't be silly Scott, the world is flat!

[@ciarancooling3014]

Scott just enacted the whole of Stephen baxters book Titan in just a few minutes

[@Maxxe4th]

Hey Scott, as you said that the space station always has the US module oriented prograde I was asking myself: Do they always have to apply thrust to keep the orientation right? This seems like a waste of fuel to me.

[@scottmanley]

They use control moment gyros for attitude control.

[@Maxxe4th]

Thanks for your answer! That makes sense!

[@kampkrieger]

lol, the mods are awesome, they even provide audio and graphics :-P

[@danilooliveira6580]

HAHAHA pretty much, you should think of Orbiter as a community project, one enters with the base engine and people develop around it

[@legoclone0965]

+Danilo “Dantiger” Oliveira So free Kerbal Space Program?

[@xponen]

+legoclone09 . Kerbal Space Program allow you to design & play with your own spacecraft, in Orbiter 2016 you can't do this.

[@legoclone0965]

xponen Yeah, I was comparing it to how Scott said Orbiter was like a platform, Kerbal is quite like a platfork for mods.

[@kampkrieger]

well i wouldn't mind if its patchwork as long as its not too difficult to install and run. I tried it once, it was not so stable :/ KSP with all the realism mods is very unstable too. so I don't know any cool realistic space simulator. I started programming my own, but I only had a (in some ways better) editor I got a job and stopped doing that

[@StaK_1980]

Pulling a Jingles landing, eh Scott? ☺ (No gears deployed and hard touch down )

[@industrialdonut7681]

That looks pretty cool! I'm really not a fan of the space shuttle though... Now flying a Saturn V full-sim though like you mentioned there was a mod for would be incredible!

[@persephonesmith3556]

You are Like the best Scott!

[@kdmq]

Imagine all the RCC tiles they would have had to replace if a shuttle landed on its belly.

[@silverfortytwo9506]

"Landing gear! Why aren't you listening to me? I told you to get down! Do you think I meant for you to dance around in your bays? Like 'get down'? Like James Brown?" ~Scott Manley, 2016

[@TheHenryFilms]

Hey Scott what do you think of EVE Online going F2P-ish in November? Will you make videos for the newbies?

[@fedaykinwolf]

+Scott Manley, have you played Freespace 1 and 2? They are great games that I grew up with. and I 've tried some recent mods which make them look like games from ~ 2007-10 ... if you haven't played them I think you would like them, and now with these mods they look fantastic (2560x1440 and recent)

[@akshayc6163]

The best thing is this sim is FREE !!!

[@MrAdrianSW]

"You are not clear to land!.. Go around."

[@boweneveritt3400]

Where can you get the checklists???

[@nash1429]

I once listened to a shuttle pilot talk about their only mission, which landed from the north. Is there a particular reason you landed from the south? Does it just depend on how many orbits you have made before you reenter? Your are also going much slower than the actual shuttle would. (100ish knots vs. the actual 190ish knots.)

[@digitalnomad9985]

I suppose that, like aircraft, it depends on the wind. You land INTO the wind to minimize ground speed at your stall wind speed. Also it is effectively like lengthening the runway.

[@PTNLemay]

If I remember correctly, the game is also noteworthy in that it has a much higher physical time acceleration to KSP. So you can physical-time-warp up to... how high can it go?

[@fpm1979]

Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing.

[@km5405]

that tank is going to make a big spash in the indian ocean...

[@DaveF.]

I'm remembering trying to workout wtf all the button's did playing the Virgin 'Shuttle' game back in the early 90's. This really takes me back - in a bad way :-/ I'll stick to KSP I think,

[@JamesJohnson-ok1hn]

i really love the water landing..

[@ryleighs9575]

Orbiter kind of seems like it sits somewhere between KSP and Universe Sandbox.

[@ScottyLovey]

Scott, why can't we have esthetics like these in KSP?!

[@DFX2KX]

You could mod KSP to look like this, but KSP doesn't have them because it was made to be a more approachable Orbiter at first.

[@gfbtfbtfilyfxbtyewqqef]

SVE, AVP, Scatterer, EVE, SVT

[@thearmadilliestone]

Orbiter can be very Kerbal if you want it to be.

[@waterlubber]

Hailprobe

[@Mafuskas]

Hail Probe!

[@legoclone0965]

:hailprobe:

[@eurybaric]

:hailprobe:

[@waterlubber]

:hailprobe:

[@SolarLiner]

:hailprobe:

[@comradeivan2352]

Solid Water? KSP! Hehe... it's funny thinking that the water in KSP was solid..

[@nsepofdoggerland6831]

Orbiter is my game bro.

[@alphaadhito]

Do you thing kraken involved in this morning anomaly

[@saczhnalaparan4877]

scott manley you play ksp too right i saw your video this orbiter 2016 is free or buy

[@agentorange153]

Where can you get it?

[@RyuAzuku]

What ever happened to Orbiter??

[@Gekkibi]

I don't need Orbiter any longer, there are enough buttons in Rogue System. :)

[@arunkharart6329]

which is best satellite comand or kebral space proggrame

[@MedicFilms]

Anton Hand changed my life forever, so I'm going to do the same to anyone that sees this: the central reticle for the landing hud or whatever is a frowny face XP

[@michaelt3172]

Isn't Titan's atmospheric pressure great enough that you'd only need an ultra heavy jacket and an oxygen mask to live there?

[@digitalnomad9985]

Don't forget your insulating gloves, if you touch anything you'll flash freeze your digits. I think on Titan you could have a blimp where the lifting gas is a breathable mixture of oxygen and neon (or even maybe oxygen and nitrogen) at room temperature.

[@mr.mjoelnir1988]

I have one important question. How did you make your Saitek work again after Win10 screwed it? I wasn't able to connect it since :(.

[@danilooliveira6580]

don't you know Scott ? when there is no clearance to land the space bus lands on a river in Los Angeles

[@The1wsx10]

does titan actually have more atmosphere? or is it more volume at a lower pressure where thee actual mols are less?

[@The1wsx10]

i was confused for a minute but that infographic reminded me its much much colder on titan, hence more dense gas. but why is the pressure higher if titan has less gravity?

[@jort93z]

1wsx10 the pressure is higher because there is more gas pushing down on the gas below it. its very simple. if you have more gas being pulled to the planet/moon that means that the gas close to the surface has a higher pressure.

[@sponduli]

it was easier to plan trajectories in orbiter than kerbal when I played

[@nitrorulezzz]

You should get the Altea Aerospace XR mods and fly them to the iss or the moon.

[@thenerdyouknowabout]

6 years since orbiter 2010 Wowww

[@slap_my_hand]

So..... this is completely obsolete already?

[@thewhatisthis]

Control for Game?

[@waleedahmed4591]

and your head is same as Titan!

[@ice12d]

7:01 - That moment when you realize you just did a gear up landing... lol

[@dutchuniverse]

Any way to install it onto OSX?

[@therenaissance8322]

Shame I couldn't get it to work on my laptop...

[@jonathanmoothart8038]

how hard is it?