I was tempted to put this thread in the 'space' section because orbiter is not in your typical game catagory.
If you havnt heard of this yet, but enjoy space, you don't know what your missing. Orbiter is a free download for the Basic game engine. It comes with some decent textures (earth, mars, and the rest of the planets and moons, space shuttle atlantis, plus a few extra other ships). Although the game engine comes with textures, this is NOT the extent of its features.
Orbiter is a completely customizable "game". You can download all kinds of add-ons. Such as, textures, ships, rockets, hi resolution ground textures (such as australia) and you can bascially design and make your own series of Orbiter folders, each with different graphics, or atmospheric enhancements. The list goes on.
So you can dl and create your own custom game folders, but what else? What is the game all about?
The game is a very accurate space flight simulator. That requires a lot of know how in order to accomplish even the simplist of missions.
Here are some examples of things you can do.
Download the scenario pack of the apollo 11 mission and re-live it the events the astronaughts experience. I was reading a persons tutorial on the mission and they had set all the dates and times to match the apollo 11 mission. He ended up landing back in the ocean only miles from the actual landing site in real life.
You can, build your own space stations, or add onto the international space station (iss), either by taking the more realistic hands on method of actual space vechicles that launch modules up into orbit and then deliver the payload at the ISS after synchronizing orbits, then use a variety of tools such as the canadian remote arm on atlantis, or a concept ship called the dragon fly that can zip payloads around and dock them to the station. Or you can take an easier route, using the scenario editor program which can build things much easier.
You can fly to any planet in the solar system, or any moon. And if higher graphics textures of that body are out there to download, you can install them and get some astonishing graphics.
You can even just sit back and just check out earth from various distances or leave it like a screen saver focused on a planet.
Basically, the game is unlimited and you can use it and do with it almost whatever you want to and is a great way to enjoy space, stars, astronomy, ... I can't say enough for it...Just an incredible job by the creator. I understand the creators are professionals. They must be some kind of rocket scientists or physicists... If you wanna know what is behind rocket science this game is for you.
Getting the basics on installing the game, setting up the game, and actually controlling the game is a complicated process that will take a few hours time to get settled with.
There are forums out there on the web to help with everything. However, it can be a little, hit and miss to find what you need.
So if there is some interest in this program, I will post a bit of a guide to follow to set up orbiter so it looks good and sounds good, and also list the basic know how so you can jump into action and fly a few ships into space, and know your way around the program to see if you like it at all.
Here is the official website, gallery section:
ORBITER Image Gallery
Here is some of the addons Gallery browsing section:
Add-on Image Gallery
I'll try to snap screen shots that show many of the features.
