Orbiter Racing.

[n72.75]

So I had an idea.

Remember the ORRL: http://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=5490

It's like that only better.

My idea is as follows.

There will be a race, say for example from KSC to Brighton Beach. I will publish a set of rules and developers will develop vessels according to this rule-book(ISP deltaV etc.). There will be a set amount of time allotted for development, e.g. 30 days. Then the race will commence, each developer will race their vessel along the course and record a replay file. There will be a submission date and the pilot with the highest score(according to a scoring system) wins.

There might be a prize but I haven't worked out how I would do that yet.


What are people's thoughts, questions, feedback?

 

[Pablo49]

Isn't having it just devs a little limiting? Take how many devs we have, minus how many would be interested, minus those who have the time, and the pack is kinda small. Not to mention how many people may be interested but are unable to create addons (even with sc3, if that's new to you and you don't know how to mesh etc, it can take awhile.) Though, I think the base idea is creative.

 

[Loru]

Every vessel will have the same maxed stats and will differ only in visuals.
Given perfect launch/trajectory (can be done via autopilots) it's not possible to determine the winner that way. Every differences in time of arrival will depend only on computing accuracy of each machine.

 

[Artlav]

Nice idea.
Details need refining - 30 days limit is meaningless, since people won't be working full-time on that.
Development would be meaningless if the piloting is bad, and vice versa.

What about designing a vehicle out of available parts - Velcro rockets style - and flying it?
We can put a limit on parts that can be used, and their total "price".

Think KSP, only in Orbiter and with realistic parts.

 

[Tacolev]

Agree to suggesting a focus more on piloting skill than developer prowess.

To add to Artlav's idea perhaps instead of maintaining a list of available "parts" a volunteer judge or panel could vet a given vehicle for adherence to realism and other parameters for each race?

 

[Goth]

If you want the thing to actually run, just let the partecipants choose from a list of pre-settled rockets/probes (giving the download links).
This is enough to allow a bit of freedom and, at the same time, to not having people quitting the race because they have not finished developing or assembling velcro rockets scenarios etc.

You basically provide different scenarios all with the same date and the same launch location but with different rockets (and the eventual required addons links). Then you provide a RL date limit to send the flight. And you will have people partecipating.

You'll have to select different rockets with not so much discrepancies so that a guy will not have too much advantages respect the others choosing a rocket despite another. And that's the fun part about organizing such a race. You can also select only realistic rockets / only sci-fi vessels, etc.

 

[Pipcard]

Google Lunar X Prize, anyone?

 

[Goth]

So what?

 

[RisingFury]

If you'll pardon the pun - Orbiter Racing is going nowhere fast

 

[Pipcard]

So what?

This reminded me of the GLXP.