Plasma Reactor Engine

DigTech co.'s Research & Development Staff unveils what they've been working for months. DigTech Developted its first prototype of a direct Helium-Deuterium fusion reactor which has the optional feature of a Liquid Oxigen afterburner.

The new reactor is designed specially for interplanetary spaceflight, but it's able to atmospheric flight using fly-by-wire built-in systems. The Atmospheric flight performance in a theorical blunt spacecraft model is expected to be greater than the Mark IV Engine used in Spacetech's DeltaGliderIV. It has got an ISP value similar to NASA's Saturn V rocket's engine, but more redundant and therefore less likely to fail plus its fusion process produces Water and Lithium that may be collected for crew's resource needs.

The downfall of this new reactor is that it weights about 11 tons and therefore it will only be used by a secret spacecraft codenamed "Crane" that's being constructed by Alrik (from the Orbiter-Forum Community), yet.

UCGO Gold Release.

Daniel Polli (AKA DanSteph) released his long waited Universal Cars and Cargos (in a strange acronym) for Orbiter. I've downloaded it today which is Tuesday, therefore it's a historic moment for Orbitenauts. Apart from a repetitive tendency to be read "humain" instead of "human" and other minor-tiny-sized spelling issues, the AddOn is very good and full of the detail and quality as we may expect from DanSteph. It's still a 'Gold' (although he says he's about release 'Final') so I'm still looking forward to read the revised documentation to find "If you experience Crash to desktop during EVA ingress or [DeltaGliderIV destruction] any other problem it is 99.99% probable that you have another addon MFD or module that has kept a handle on [DGIV] UCGO or Ummu after is deletion." written on it.

Enjoy it! And, by the way, just so you know, seems like that Artlav's Orulex doesn't like UCGO's cars or any other non-flying apparatus.

Release #3

This is one more skin for the DeltaGlider IV skin pack I'm developing. It was published yesterday and I'll upload in Dan's website when I find time.

It's a skin based on paintings made on few FAP's ("Força Aérea Portuguesa") actual airplanes. Once I've found one airplane with jaws painted on the engine intake (one of those old nose-less jets; maybe North American F86 can't remember) in a exposition, but can't find it on the web. Apart from that you could try to match different traits of this skin with paintings shown on FAP's website being the only difficulty my lack of experience with camoflage patterns and there being several actual aircraft painted in the same way ;-) .

It can be found here:

http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=4179

I would like to recieve critics on this skin. For that go to Orbiter-Forum and find the OrbitHangar Thread of this skin. Also I may update this skin later from several factors.

DanSteph started working on UBO again

Remember an old project from DanSteph and Picto?

http://orbiter.dansteph.com/forum/read.php?f=1&i=20873&t=17793

Better watch the videos.

The Advanced Cars for Orbiter and Advanced Buildings for Orbiter was halted in 2008, but at least Advanced Cars for Orbiter is back and running. Only DanSteph is working now on it but it announced the beta testing very soon! You could check more information on Tex's Forum here:

http://orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=6634

Returning Project

Seems I disapeared from the Orbiter Community like a Stalker in a novel from the brothers Strugatsky (a good book indeed), but the development of DigTech Co. continued (somehow) aside of the Space Program. Anyway, I'm back now, and because I halted my major projects during so much, I'll start again from something simpler to strech out.

This time DigTech engineers stol... I mean took with license a concept draw from Artlav (username at Tex's forum) and, inspired by the good old Ladas, tried to make it a cheaper and more robust* design. The spacecraft is called Pella Tug, a general-service (for civilian as military use) asteroid tug/transporter.

Pella (from Capella) is the brightest star of the Auriga Constellation.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Finding_capella.png

This ladybird-like ship is able to move rocks about 3 times it's size, but the maximum weight it's still confidential information.

Another non-confidential caracteristics are the following:

Length Size: back to confidential

Main Propulsion System Type: Nuclear Fusion Drive

RCS/Auxiliar Control System Propulsion Type: Ammonium Chemical Combustion

Cooling System: Fluid transports the heat into a powerplant for electrical production (excess is drived to heat sinks to storage until the deployment of radiators.

Docking Ports: one (for fuel only; Crew enters through the "Door")

Communication System: Omnidirectional Long-Range MF-EHF (365Kh to 35Gh) Radio Antenna

The following is a list of caracterist's changes from Artlav's design:

Number of Propulsion Reactors: Change from 4 to 3 in a triangular theme for economic purposes.

Number of Asteroid Claws: Change from 4 to 3 in a triangular theme for economic purposes.

Shape of the Body:

-Left from being round to be edge-full to deflect high speed rock particles in the same way that the F-117 Nighthawk deflected RADAR waves (to the sides)... or just for the style (beware that the reactors may change).

-Added the "Door", a refueling docking port and different, (supposely) more efficient radiators.

-The Claws have a metal ring too to avoid smaller asteroids to escape and to hold in place additional RCS thrusters.

-The Crew cabine has a controled enviroment (no need for lead pellets to cover).

RCS Thrust Model: Added additional RCS thrusters for forward and backward translation.

Gauss Gun's Pellets Storage and Material: The pellets, now, are made not from lead (toxic and precious) but iron (found in almost any asteroid) so the gun itself uses more convetional magnetic fields for the shot. The pellets may be used to project the asteroid out of the claws, but I'm not sure if it still could be used in deaccelaration (less density, less energy; now we have additional RCS for that anyway).

Development Piece of the Message Post:

This is the development news page, useful for suggestion and opinion sharing.

Pictures of what's already done (beware of outdate):

Anim8or's model Version 1.0 (Still untextured; With radiators extended; For demostration purpose)

This is a vegetal paper made concept art that mimics Artlav's original draw, but with changes included (unless it's too complicate to draw within 15 minutes, or I changed mind while modelling). (Note that if you think I'm a poor drawer, then send me a better one that I'll appreciate)

29th July Development Notes:

-Mesh has some mis-alignments fixed.

-Now the asteroid claws are part of spacecraft's body rather than modified separated parallelepipeds.

-Claw's Ring is optimized to place the RCS thrusters.

-The Gauss Gun now has a hole in it (might be removed later to reduce poly-count).

30th July Development Notes:

-Due suggestion of Artlav there are new engine reactors (see todays poll and screenshot).

-Engine Reactors' grid has been made.

-Textures have designed and worked, but not applied to the mesh due some 'technical problems' *siffle*

-Some minor cleaning of the mesh.

-New screenshot:

2nd July Development Notes:

-Making the Engine Reactors better (new look will try to make them really fitting the ship)

-Working on Textures (70% Complete).

-Handling the 3D modeller's bad mood to work :P .

4th to 6th July Development Notes:

-Modeling, sketching, Drafting.

-Advertisement Experimentation.

7th July Development Notes:

-Working on Textures (80% Complete)

-Advertisemente Experimentation Phase 2

DigTech's Engineer's are still on holidays, so these workers are proefficient mecanics and tinkers. (click too enlarge)

9th July Development Notes:

-Added RCS

10th July Development Notes:

-Updated RCS.

-Started the "Armor".

-Because of Anim8or denying to work propely today (again) I'll post 'bloppers' instead:

What the DigTech's Markting Department don't wants you to see

Several minor flaws have been determinated during the constuction of the Pella Spacecraft (click to enlarge)

1st November Development Notes:

-Updated the "Armor".

2nd November Development Notes:

-Nothing major. Today I'll post some pictures (a bit outdated)

21st July Development Notes:

-Finished RCS Thrusters. A good note here is that I've modelled a simpler thruster system than planned.

28th July Development Notes:

-Lattice Structured Claws have been already finished.

29th July Development Notes:

-Minor Claw structure corrections.

*I've never experienced a Lada, so this is based on my father's and wikipedia claims.

Creating the "perfect" Orbiter.

When Orbiter is full of AddOns it may start to give problems. Crash To Desktop (CTD) and freezes are the most common problems. Some, when confronted with these problems go back and erease all malfunctioning files. Now that's a worst problem: what are the files and where they are?

So what to do to isolate bad AddOns and keep the sistem out of incompatibilities?

1. Some create several Orbiter Directories. Eg.: "Desktop\Orbiter\with StarTrek AddOns" and "Desktop\Orbiter\with Space:1999 AddOns" and "Desktop\Orbiter\with Space Race AddOns" all directories in the same computer.
2. Other control the impulses. Eg.: Imagine going to watch your Orbit Hangar Mods RSS Feed's news and you see the great shinning-brand-new spacecraft smiling at you: the Hail Probe Version5.4! You think "Oh, I gotta have that!" but... Hold on, what are the features? What's the quality; is it from a trusted developer, is the folder structure and documentation alright? Incompabilities? Is it that better from the last release? After checking all that you think "Oh the only new feature is RCS thrusters... it's still a pun only." So no download. Less AddOns less probability of malfunctioning.
3. Create a sandbox extra directory. This is what I do: There's the main directory fully funcional, then you have the one where you test for incompatibilities and CTD's frequency before installing it over the funcional one. If the new one bugs the simulation, then erease this folder and start it again keeping the main safely still funcional.
4. Diagnose your directory. In my opinion (please tell if you don't think so) this don't always work but it's still useful. You know how Orbiter works (file structure, AddOn's "gears", how the magic in a computer and programming is done) then go browsing all your files in the directory! Are they in their places? Is some Configuration line wrong? Etc....? Simple as boring! Don't worry, a cool developer called Pablo Luna (or AR81 in the Community) made Orbiter Diagnostic which notices the inconsistencies so you can fix them yourself.

Currently I'm working on for the best directory and file structure without errors. This "Perfect Orbiter" will be released as soon I get good results doing so unless for some reason it loses worthness and/or interest in the community.

You may comment and give information at Tex's Forum here: http://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=7990

Good luck and keep the RAM usage low :P .

ORRL may change it's name

Looks like the ORRL is frozen, but it's still under development. Anyway, the lastests news show there's a problem with the project: someone denounced the project as a breech on registered trademark. Read more at: http://orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=5969

Wehaveaproblem's AIA blog as got some information too: http://wehaveaproblem.wordpress.com/2009/03/09/rebranding-of-the-racing-project/

Sponsorship of the Rocket Racing League

Party! Play some Bob Sinclair Music and let's celebrate the incoming, costless and fast race organized by the same AddOn developer who made one of the best Earth bases for Orbiter: the Ascension Island Wideawake International Spaceport by wehaveaproblem. So there should be some billboards; And all those equipment for billboards installation, seats for watchers and security systems/inspectors are expansive, so Digtech's is proud to be represented on some of the billboards.

For more information see: http://orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=5969

ORBITER ADDON COMPETITION

This is the results of a thread started by the now banned Nickmick95 from Orbiter-Forum in which was organized a contest for AddOn developers (not much different from this: http://orbiter.dansteph.com/forum/read.php?f=1&i=18684&t=18626#reply_18684 (yes Ar81, I've not forgot that). But the Nickmick95 was banned while running the contest, so Talon1 took over the thread running it quiet well until some of DigTech's best judges and analist (it's actually just one person) joined on running the contest with Talon1.

Here's the original thread: http://orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=4285 if you need more information.

And Here is the first results by NukeET:  http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=3646

So the file structure looks well done specially by adding the documentation on "AddOn's doc" and it can easly be installed. The description at Orbit Hangar mods is really detailed and worth reading with no notice of grammar mistakes and the title is not overappealing.

But after testing the given scenarios, I noticed some problems, like the MapMFD don't show the location of the base on it, just "know" the base is there. 

Anyway the overall is great: a big well designed base with many pads and the symbolicLazy D's Tribute near.

So by now the stars are:

Talon1 Stars: 4.75 stars (9.5 out of 10)

Nettiquete: 4.9 stars

User-friendlyness: Not Considered for ground bases

Realism: 5 stars

Funcionality: 5 stars

Overall view: 3.8 stars

This Competition Has Been Canceled

Release #2

New release!!! Yupiiiiiiiiii!!!!!! I think... but still without a good idea for the Orbiter Adventures...

More information hiden behind that picture ;-) :

P.S.: 3 downloads after release!!! Amazing I'm getting famous!