Getting to grips with Orbiter's state / direction

[samtheeagle]

Hi, I've been a long time user of Orbiter, but over the last year or two I've not really been keeping up with things... I must admit that I'm somewhat bewildered by the apparent divergence of things

Back in the day it was easy, there was a big release from martins, and a few key addons to get. But now, there hasn't been an official release (as far as I can make out) since 2006, and there are multiple things going on in parallel.

I've done some reading around here and understand about the splitting out of the computational and graphical parts etc. But I have found it very difficult to get my head around just where exactly everything is. I see that there are betas 090331 seemingly the most recent... But what about the visualization project?

I think it would be VERY useful if there was some kind of status page of the various development paths so that new users, as well as people coming back to Orbiter like myself, have a hope of figuring out what the heck is going on without having to read every forum post to piece the tiny bits of information scattered about the place together. Just a simple summary, giving an overview of what the project is about, what it's current status is, and a link to more details.

Thoughts? Is it just me not seeing the wood for the trees?

 

[PriestLizard]

I know what you're talking about. I just started with Orbiter some weeks ago and I had a very hard time figuring out which add-ons are necessary, which would be useful to get for my purposes and so on. But I guess thats what the recommended add-ons page in the forums is for.

When it comes to the BETA for the new release or the visualization project, I didn't care too much about it yet because I want to stick with the official and final releases yet before going "experimental".

So I dont know if thats gonna help you but maybe check out the recommended add-ons site (Orbiter -> Recommended Add-ons in the menu on top). There is lots of stuff and its all what you need to do many things in Orbiter.

 

[Usquanigo]

From what I've gathered, the beta is nearly ready for release, but I haven't been following it too closely.

However, regarding the "state" of all the add-ons and such... I don't think it's really as complicated as all that. When you start talking about "necessary" add-on's and such, I think that is kind of missing the point. As it stands, it's actually better than a single, huge but limited download, install. Instead, you piece-meal it, getting only what you want and is interesting to you. For example, I might see Project Mercury 5.0 as a "necessary add-on", but someone else might not care about historic stuff at all.

So take a deep breath and forget all about "direction" and "necessary" this or that, just browse around, see what you like and want, and ignore the rest.

Start with the base install and go from there - sound? Orbiter Sound. Visual enhancements? Loads of those on O-H, just find one you like. New space craft? Ditto. Etc, etc.

The future will come when it comes. It's not like it's something we have to prepare for now, so why worry about it?