Universe Sandbox

General Category => Astronomy & Science => Topic started by: jdknasa98 on March 05, 2011, 10:50:17 AM

Title: Other Space Simulators
Post by: jdknasa98 on March 05, 2011, 10:50:17 AM

I have heard people saying they want a good space simulator. For instance, I saw in the new to-do list that someone wanted spacecraft in US2. I was wanting to tell those people about Orbiter. (I am not advertising, I'm just wanting to tell those people about this.) It's free and You can do anything you want (pretty much). Orbiter has tons of addons out there for it. I'm not saying Orbiter is better than Universe Sandbox because it's not. Universe Sandbox and Orbiter are two different types of programs. Everybody knows what Universe Sandbox is capable of, but Orbiter allows you to fly in space and perform complicated interplanetary trajectories.

Links to more info:
Orbiter download: http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/home.php (http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/home.php)
Addons: http://orbithangar.com/ (http://orbithangar.com/)
http://orbiter.dansteph.com/ (http://orbiter.dansteph.com/) (Get the sound addon from here.)

I figured since this is a space related forum that I would let people here know about Orbiter. I'm sorry if somebody thinks I'm advertising, but I'm not.
Thanks.

Title: Re: Other Space Simulators
Post by: Darvince on March 05, 2011, 10:52:46 AM

You forgot Celestia.

Title: Re: Other Space Simulators
Post by: jdknasa98 on March 05, 2011, 10:53:27 AM

I never really liked celestia. It's just a strange program.

Title: Re: Other Space Simulators
Post by: Darvince on March 05, 2011, 10:53:46 AM

Oh. I see.

Title: Re: Other Space Simulators
Post by: jdknasa98 on March 05, 2011, 10:58:00 AM

On Orbiter, I can fly to the moon land on it, plant a flag there, build a colony, fly back to earth, re-enter, and land at KSC. Celestia doesn't do that.

Title: Re: Other Space Simulators
Post by: Naru523 on March 05, 2011, 11:01:58 AM

Honestly Celestia+ (whatever is it called) is better than the original, but still good.

I'll take a look at Orbiter.

Title: Re: Other Space Simulators
Post by: Darvince on March 05, 2011, 11:05:11 AM

Celestia+? What? I've never heard of it.

Title: Re: Other Space Simulators
Post by: jdknasa98 on March 05, 2011, 12:35:06 PM

Quote from: Naru523 on March 05, 2011, 11:01:58 AM

Honestly Celestia+ (whatever is it called) is better than the original, but still good.

I'll take a look at Orbiter.

I've never heard of Celestia+ either. If you need help setting up Orbiter just ask me. It can be pretty complicated to set up.

Title: Re: Other Space Simulators
Post by: Neon on May 01, 2011, 10:24:41 AM

Just downloaded n played with Space Engine. Now that's Celestia on a whole
new level. Amazing to be able to cruise the entire mapped Universe, going
from Galaxy to Galaxy and even cruising through their stars. Seriously tough
on the old CPU tho, I've got a 3Ghz 4Gb AMD Athlon with Nvidia 9800 GTX card
and going getting within 3500 Parsecs on Galactic Centre dropped the frame rate
down to less than 1 fps.

Beautiful program.

http://en.spaceengine.org/load/core/spaceengine_0_93_full_version/2-1-0-1 (http://en.spaceengine.org/load/core/spaceengine_0_93_full_version/2-1-0-1)

Title: Re: Other Space Simulators
Post by: matty406 on May 01, 2011, 10:48:09 AM

I love Orbiter! ;D
Also, I very much like to use Stellarium to see what's in the sky and when. It's an observation program.
There's also a little aplication named... Gravity. It's an N-Body simulation, where you can choose the amount of galaxies, and it puts them on courses near each other.
Here's a look at Gravity:
(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1649320/holygravitybatman3.gif)

Title: Re: Other Space Simulators
Post by: atomic7732 on May 01, 2011, 10:56:51 AM

I love that one. Yay galaxies!

Title: Re: Other Space Simulators
Post by: SuperNova on May 01, 2011, 12:23:03 PM

Quote from: matty406 on May 01, 2011, 10:48:09 AM

I love Orbiter! ;D
Also, I very much like to use Stellarium to see what's in the sky and when. It's an observation program.
There's also a little aplication named... Gravity. It's an N-Body simulation, where you can choose the amount of galaxies, and it puts them on courses near each other.
Here's a look at Gravity:
(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1649320/holygravitybatman3.gif)

Site please!

Title: Re: Other Space Simulators
Post by: Dan Dixon on May 01, 2011, 01:46:17 PM

Quote from: jdknasa98 on March 05, 2011, 10:50:17 AM

I figured since this is a space related forum that I would let people here know about Orbiter. I'm sorry if somebody thinks I'm advertising, but I'm not.
Thanks.

No worries at all. Celestia, Orbiter, Astrograv, etc... are all applications worthy of mention.

In fact I have them listed in the FAQ:
http://universesandbox.com/faq/

Title: Re: Other Space Simulators
Post by: Stevodoran on May 01, 2011, 02:15:31 PM

Definitely orbiter is on my list. I am pretty much addicted to it :D

Title: Re: Other Space Simulators
Post by: matty406 on May 01, 2011, 04:30:16 PM

Unfortunately, SuperNova, the site for Gravity ceases to exist.
I know, however, where someone else hosted a download

Quote from: That one guy from another forum I visit

Download this incredible piece of time wastery (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1649320/Gravity/Gravity1.55.zip)

And yes, it was originally freeware, just in case this causes some confusion.