Orbiter... with Hangar Mods, flying the Bebop

Today I bring you a Space Simulator called Orbiter.

Orbiter it’s designed to be an accurate space flight simulator, to recreate space misions, discover new things about space flight and… have fun with the add ons.

Orbiter is free and you can download it from it’s webpage. Unfortunately, it’s only for Windows, but it’s ok. Once downloaded, just unzip it and install.

Running it is quite easy, maybe the only thing a little bit difficult is setting up the controls (and fly of course).

This is how you can take of with the Space shuttle. Awesome! Thinking about the requirements of the system, they did an amazing job. I mean, my netbook doesn´t have a dedicated graphic card, it runs on the main core, and it can run this simulator!

And… ladies and gentlemen… you can simulate from take off to space.

Voilá!

Ok, now the difficult part (hey I have just take the space shuttle to the space, what can be more difficult than that?).

Setting up the controls is the most crazy thing I have ever seen, because, you need to edit a file. go into orbiter folder and look for a file named keymap.cfg. right click on it and open with notepad. Here is the complete keymap for the simulator. And here you can change the keymap configuration. Don´t desperate and just try until you manage to get all the keys you need. It depends on what spaceship you are going to control, but if you have used a fligth simulator before, you realize soon what keys are enough and what you need for each ship.

Here i have marked the main controls. The control of the ships should be the same in air and in the vacum of space, but sometimes the controls change according to the add-on.

After fixing the controls, you need to fix the sound, because by default it is deactivated, or has not sound module at all. To get the sound module, go to Dan webpage:

Download the sound module and install it. And after installing it, don’t forget to enable it in “modules”.

Hmmmm ok ok, So now we have it running. Let’s go for the big isues. What about a star destroyer?

Let’s get some add ons for the game. And the best place to get them is Orbit Hangar mods.

There is more mod webpages on the Orbiter webpage, but today we are only going to use Orbit Hangar.

To install a new ship just go to the ship description. In my case I’m going to pick a P-38 Lightning, one of the most beautiful planes ever made. (I have fligth this one in all kind of simulators and it’s always smooth, fast and agile, a deadly configuration).

Once you have downloaded the zip file, open it and add the files and folders to orbiter folder. Just fit each folder with the same folder and it will be ok. next time you run the program, the new plane will appear on the list.

I have to admit it, the model is not quite good… but don’t worry, the others are better. How about… some ships from Cowboy Bebop!

Cowboy Bebop spaceships.

I’m going to land with the Swordfish into the earth, like one of the episodes…. Maybe on Sahara desert. Note: Ctrl+D to undock the Swordfish and F3 to select ship in the simulation.

(Actually trying to reenter earth with the Swordfish is very tricky and maybe impossible with the realistic simulator).

So… what else do they have in the hangar?

Well… just the Yamato with the Wave Motion Gun and the Wave Motion Engine.

you can find it here.

And check this Minecraft model. Awesome!

Ok, so it’s enough of anime. Time for classics…

How about some Star Trek Ships? (only cool ones)

Enterprise TOS. The inertial moments of the ship are not correct, but there is many other mods about this ship, you can try another one
Klingon cruiser

Enterprise XI

And don’t forget to check the complete list of related Star Trek mods (17 pages of mods).

Star Wars (only cool ones also)

The first one must be the X-wing of course.

And then the Millenium Falcom.

Also add some Tie Fighters to have some fun…

And check the complete list of Star Wars ships. They have the Death Star so…

But don’t think that big is the best. What about dropping some Clones? You can use this LAAT and it’s also funny.

They have also some ships from Star Gate, but since I don’t know about them, I just mention it.

And about mentioning things, I have to say that they have this cool ships from 2001 Space Oddysey

2001 A space Odyssey

2010 Space Odyssey 2

Hmmm but Space Odyssey is ok… but how about some Sci-fi Terror? Something like… Alien.

Try the Sulaco. From Alien 2, or the  Alien pack.

Hey. I know that many people will not like this, but… Feel like Clint Eastwood on the film Firefox and… think in russian.

You can get the here the Firefox.

The next one is from Michio Kaku “Sci-Fi Science- Building a Starship”. Working on matter-anti mater anhiquilation.

Colibrí.

Enough? No? Try something complete different, like…

The Solar Sailer from TRON. Pick it here.