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[FAA]

Much more realistic, better graphics and real Solar System. The best flight simulation by far, with all the real perturbations if you’re up to the challenge. With HD textures, it looks MUCH better than KSP ever did. Sadly, not that many craft or space stations.

Best part - it’s free!

Forum (best place to learn more and get advice) - https://www.orbiter-forum.com/
Main site - http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/index.html

[Robsoie]

For some old informations, there was an old thread about Orbiter here , it died in 2016 when Orbiter 2016 was released oddly

Never moved out my Orbiter 2010-P1 setup as it still works good on my window 10 (and i'm so used to it) , but in case you're interested in Orbiter 2016 i'm sure there are still addons to get more content for it on the Orbiter Hangar, there were so many of them on 2010

https://www.orbithangar.com/

edit : it looks like my favorite earth base addon, Wideawake International, does not work correctly in Orbiter 2016 : most of the land mass is invisible, there's an ascension 2016 addon but it's nowhere as cool as WI is unfortunately.
And the ummu addons are not compatible at all with 2016 too, meaning no EVA in space/surface/walk/reentry around the vessels, i'll keep my barrel of Orbiter 2010 P1 then.
apparently there's an "open" mmu addon
https://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=39239
in development in the last 2 years without a release yet.

[FAA]

Yeah, that’s a problem. Orbiter lacks devs who would create new addons, most are more than several years old, many were made for Orbiter 2010 and don’t work anymore. Many of the best addons however, like the XR series, work just fine.

[Robsoie]

I noticed that the author of the most excellent must have ummu started to update his addons to Orbiter 2016 :
http://orbiter.dansteph.com/forum/index.php?topic=14499.0
would be game changer for me.

There's a thread on which people post when old Orbiter2010-P1 addons work fine in 2016, too bad the 1st post that was starting to collect them hasn't been updated since years, so you'll need to browse the thread to see more.
https://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=37446

importantly it looks like the Basesync and Aerobrake MFD are compatible, must have when wanting to do a precise re-entry.
A real pity Wideawake Island isn't compatible, my favorite launching base by far, there is such a "james bond villain secret base" atmosphere to it

edit : if you use the d3d9 client for orbiter 2016 (and you should for better everything, including performance) , make sure to start Orbiter with Orbiter_ng.exe, not orbiter.exe , or else you would be using old dx7 engine despite having installed the dx9 one. Then in the menu go to Modules and enable "D3D9Client" in the graphic engine category (and also the sounds if you want them)

[Ekaton]

It takes a while to set up properly, but it’s definitely worth it. It’s incredibly realistic, and there’s so much to do even without the ability to build craft like in KSP. The addon scenario editor is a must, as there aren’t many stations and ships to travel to. One of my favourite scenarios is my own creation - I just added some satellites and two Deepstars (one in Earth’s orbit and one in Mars’) and it’s a lot of fun flying between them and docking with supplies (mainly fuel and LOX). Deepstars, while technically long-range exploration craft, are also amazing as orbital stations for science, refuelling and resupply. They can also provide some R&R for astronauts before returning to Earth or heading out to the Solar System. It’s also fun to try to intercept satellites and stay close to them to simulate maintenance.

Also, remember to install hi-res textures. They’re a real game-changer.

[Robsoie]

Got a very odd bug.
With the ravenstar after taking off from KSC and getting an orbit using my old fuel sparring method from another thread and was happy to see it still works nice on 2016 :

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Take off Full engine at 100km/h with Attitude Hold autopilot set to pitch 50 degree, then Gear Up.

Wait until you're at 12km, now set the Attitude Hold to 2.5 degree, by the time the XR-2 is now at 2.5 pitch you should be at +/- 20km altitude.

Stay like this until you reach 900km/h then open the Scram doors and set full Scram engine. Now shutdown the Main engine.
Set the Attitude Hold to Pitch 5 degree

In the autopilot panel, change its display to see the hull temperatures, you'll see it increasing (in external view you'll see you XR-2 burning).

No worry the XR-2 can take it, a bit before the temperature reach yellow numbers, lower the Scram engine power until the temperature start to drop.
Then increase it progressively, the goal is to get at full Scram speed and get the temperature green and decreasing, so play with the Scram engine power accordingly until you're in this situation. You should be finished with the temperature / Scram main engine game at between 30 and 32 km altitude.

At 35 km altitude drop the Attitude Hold pitch to 2.5 degree and let it like this until you run out of Scram fuel (if you followed this method exactly, you should run out of it before the scram diffuser temperature get critical).

Hull temperature at that angle will start to re-increase after some time, but don't worry it will start to decrease again soon enough (at +/- 45 km altitude) and will never reach critical (and with this method it should not even reach yellow too).

Just when you run out of Scram fuel, set the full Main engine power and close the Scram door immediately.

Set your Attitude Hold autopilot Pitch to 20 degree and wait until your Orbit MFD display to your LEO Apogee target, by example 230km .

Shutdown main engine, deploy radiator and shutdown APU once it's deployed, you can go Prograde now or wait a bit before reaching the Ap node, but be sure to be Prograde autopilot before reaching that node.

So wait until you reach the apogee/apoapsis node on your Orbit MFD then Full main engine burn to build your perigee/periapsis to get your circular orbit.

At (roughly) 230x230 km with this method you should be over 62% main engine fuel left.

as i wasn't that far from ISS and had enough fuel left i decided to go try to dock to it.
While building orbit intersections to spare more fuel , at some point i went into prograde. After a while my XR2 started to spin a lot and no kill rotation or any manual attempt stopped this. Then after many unsuccessful tries from me to get back the ship into normal, the game just crashed.

logs didn't helped unfortunately so no idea if the problem was orbiter 2016 , the xr2 or the d3d9 client.

Went back to my good old 2010-P1 so at least i could take off from my favorite place, the visual sure changed a lot, the one i like the most in 2016 is the sun effect that mix with the earth atmosphere when it emerge at the horizon and you're in orbit.

Checked quickly the moon too, nice to see all the bumps and mountain being actual mesh instead of only texture like in 2010-P1 (without the meshland or orulex addon)

EDIT : tried again, this time the xr2 and orbiter didn't crashed.

my first KCS to ISS in Orbiter 2016

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

On my ascent, using the previously described method, surfing a bit on the atmosphere


Then on my way to catch ISS, i was trying too hard to get a perfect orbit and intersection sync with the MFD, resulting in many useless amount of orbits, as i could have docked a lot earlier if i had just accepted some approximation and burned more fuel to correct them.
It's not like i couldn't afford to burn more fuel, as once i was in a circular orbit i still had more than 60% of main engine fuel left, thanks to the ascent method.

Anyways, finally reached ISS


Making my approach, made easy thanks to the nice HUD showing me the way to the docking port i had selected in the MFD.




wow, 14 hours , could have certainly been done in 7 if i didn't waste so much orbits to perfect my numbers, and thanks to the acceleration time feature too , still more than 50% main engine fuel left, more than enough for a re-entry (in fact i may even have to drop some in ISS so the XR2  isn't too heavy when entering the atmosphere, it's so easy to fall like a brick instead of gliding down depending on the ship weight)

Anyways , finally docking was done, my first on Orbiter 2016, happy

Though even if i didn't wasted so much time, i would still be very, very very far from those guys and their KCS to ISS in +/- 10 minutes
https://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=14722

Still hoping Widewake International will have a compatible version with Orbiter 2016 one day, and eagerly awaiting for the ummu addon adaptation to 2016, i miss getting out of the ships in space and going into other ships or walking around the bases on the moon or mars when i landed, something i liked to do a lot in 2010P1.

[Robsoie]

My first successfull Orbiter 2016 re-entry, though very underwhelming in the end from ISS to Woomera in Australia.
I decided for Woomera because it was a base that was rather close to ISS orbit (and so mine) judging for the map MFD, needing then very few adjustement and so very few fuel, and because i never went there, so it would be a change from KSC and Widewake island.

But what i didn't thought when i started my procedures is that without specific addons made for the location there's then no buildings and no airfields, nothing represented in the game, it's only the base transponder i guess.
So i landed in the middle of nowhere :/

Oh well.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Undocking from ISS we're presented with a nice scene


Well, it didn't impressed much lady McCoPilot, probably worried i forgot totally how to use the MFD correctly to plan the re-entry.


While there's some truth to that, fortunately i still had some notes from my old tutorial
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=77338.msg1997872#msg1997872
that while sadly the screenshots illustrating the tutorial are lost to time, the text was enough to refresh my memory.
(make sure to take the BaseSync MFD for Orbiter 2016 as the one in tutorial is for 2010P1, Aerobrake is the same and works good in 2016 too)

I dropped some fuel in space, unsure if was still too heavy for a re-entry.

After some MFD tinkering and normal+ and normal- burn , as a result i got my trajectory line to move +/- only 8 meters from the target base center, most excellent


After the Attitude Hold of 40 following the final retrograde burn (from the other side of the world) that would throw us directly to Woomera, time to look at the view, here we're going to move above Africa soon


On the map it looks like Australia will still be in the night for when we'll reach them, confirmed later when we start entering high atmosphere

Hello darkness, my old friend...

It appears we're burning, but don't worry

We're indeed burning, but the shielding is still good


A check on the Aerobrake MFD confirm we're very still on a very good trajectory and would definitively land on location, no over or under shoot.


As said it was there i noticed there's no base at all visually, damn i forgot only a few base have their actual structures by default on Orbiter, should have checked if there was some addon for Woomera.


With that kind of view when exiting the Ravenstar (after accelerating time so the day would come)

i imagine the first reaction of the crew once getting out of the XR2 would be i

You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!

[Robsoie]

Been a year i didn't launched Orbiter, so i missed the news but in summer last year Orbiter had been made open source
https://www.orbiter-forum.com/threads/orbiter-is-now-open-source.40023/

Anyways, will have to check what's new with the addons for Orbiter 2016 and how is the latest snapshot of Orbiter as development is still going.