XR Vessels

XR Series vessel add-ons for Orbiter Space Flight Simulator

License

The XR vessels and associated utility projects are open source and licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0. Refer to the LICENSE file for details.

Installing and Flying the XR Vessels

Refer to the XR Flight Operations Manual for details about how to install and fly the XR vessels in Orbiter.

Building the XR Vessels

You do not need to build the XR vessels in order to use them with Orbiter. However, if you want to build the XR vessels from the source, follow the steps below. These instructions assume you are building both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions. However, you may build only one version if you prefer.

1. Install Visual Studio 2019 from https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/.
2. Download and install (or build) OpenOrbiter from https://github.com/mschweiger/orbiter.
3. Clone the XRVessels repository from GitHub to your local machine with:

git clone git@github.com:dbeachy1/XRVessels.git

or

git clone https://github.com/dbeachy1/XRVessels.git

If you're looking for an excellent GUI that makes working with Git easier, I recommend Tower.

5. Create six environment variables, either in your Windows environment settings or by adding them to XRVessels\GlobalShared.props.

• ORBITER_ROOT => your 32-bit Debug* Orbiter root folder
• ORBITER_ROOT_X64 => your 64-bit Debug* Orbiter root folder
• ORBITER_ROOT_RELEASE => your 32-bit Release Orbiter root folder
• ORBITER_ROOT_RELEASE_X64 => your 64-bit Release Orbiter root folder
• ORBITER_EXE => path\filename relative to Orbiter root folder of your preferred 32-bit Orbiter executable; e.g., orbiter.exe
• ORBITER_EXE_X64 => path\filename relative to Orbiter root folder of your preferred 64-bit Orbiter executable; e.g., Modules\Server\orbiter.exe

6. Install or build 32-bit Debug* Orbiter to %ORBITER_ROOT%.
7. Install or build 64-bit Debug* Orbiter to %ORBITER_ROOT_X64%.
8. Install or build 32-bit Release Orbiter to %ORBITER_ROOT_RELEASE%.
9. Install or build 64-bit Release Orbiter to %ORBITER_ROOT_RELEASE_X64%.

* NOTE: you can always compile and test debug (as well as release) versions of the XR vessels against release builds of Orbiter, so can always set ORBITER_ROOT to match ORBITER_ROOT_RELEASE and ORBITER_ROOT_X64 to match ORBITER_ROOT_RELEASE_X64 if you prefer.

10. Download the latest XR vessels binary packages for all the vessels versions you want to build from here on GitHub. Install the XR vessel packages into each Orbiter instance you will use to test the XR vessels you will build. This is necessary so that the associated meshes, etc. are installed to their correct locations under Orbiter so that you can run the XR vessel DLLs you will build. If there are no packages yet, you will need to assemble the file tree manually from the files here on GitHub.

Now you are ready to compile and link the XR Vessels.

11. Bring up Visual Studio 2019 and open the solution XRVessels\XRVessels.sln.
12. Set the desired build target (e.g., Debug x64) and click Build -> Rebuild Solution; this will build all the XR vessel DLLs and copy both the DLLs and the <vessel name>.cfg file for each vessel to their proper locations under %ORBITER_ROOT%, %ORBITER_ROOT_64, %ORBITER_ROOT_RELEASE%, or %ORBITER_ROOT_RELEASE_64 via Post-Build Events. If you get any build errors, double-check that the above environment variables are set correctly and that you restarted Visual Studio 2019 after you defined those environment variables.
13. After the build succeeds, click Debug -> Start Debugging to bring up Orbiter under the Visual Studio debugger, then load your desired XR vessel scenario. You can now debug the XR vessels you just built.

Creating an Installable Zip File for an XR Vessel

Prerequesite:

Ensure that you have WinRar installed and added to your Windows path environment variable.

Creating the zip file:

1. Open the XRVessels project in Visual Studio 2019 and rebuild the release version of the XR vessel for which you want to create an installable zip file.
2. In a Command Prompt, CD to XRVessels\dist and run the makedist command for the desired XR vessel, passing the package version as the first parameter. For example, to assemble a zip file for the XR1 version 2.1, run this:

makedistXR1 2.1

3. When the batch file completes, navigate to XRVessels\dist\out\XR1\2.1. You should see four zip files:

• DeltaGliderXR1-2.1-dll-x64.zip => 64-bit DLL only
• DeltaGliderXR1-2.1-dll-x86.zip => 32-bit DLL only
• DeltaGliderXR1-2.1-x64.zip => 64-bit installable package
• DeltaGliderXR1-2.1-x86.zip => 32-bit installable package

4. Be sure to test your newly created installation package in a clean installation of Orbiter by extracting it to the root Orbiter folder and verifying that it runs normally.

Obj2Msh

Regarding the Obj2Msh C# project in the Obj2Msh folder: Obj2Msh is a relatively quick-and-dirty utility I originally wrote to convert the XR2's and XR5's meshes from .obj format into Orbiter's .msh format. It is not needed to build the XRVessels.

Note regarding the XR2 Ravenstar's copyrighted mesh and textures

Due to the fact that the XR2's mesh and textures are still under a proprietary license set by the original XR2 mesh and texture author, (Steve Tyler, aka "Coolhand"), that license only grants build and distribution rights to the original XR2 vessel author (Doug Beachy). As such, people forking this repository CANNOT build and release a version of the existing XR2 without violating this project's GPLV3 license terms (and those mesh and texture files are not present in this repository, nor may they be added). You could however create brand-new XR2 mesh and texture files and release them under GLPV3 in your fork. Refer to the GLPV3 license information in the GPL FAQ for more information about GPLV3 license restrictions regarding closed-source code: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html

GPLV3 license as it relates to the closed-source Orbiter 2016 version

Per the GPLV3 license terms, you CANNOT build or link this project using any closed-source libraries, excluding "system libraries" as explicitly defined in the GLPV3 license. As Orbiter 2016 is closed-source, the GPLV3 license terms explicitly prohibit building or linking this code with Orbiter 2016. You may only legally build this repository using an Orbiter version whose license is compatible with GPLV3, such as the MIT license that OpenOrbiter here on GitHub is using.

Support

For more information and support regarding Orbiter and the XR vessels, visit https://www.orbiter-forum.com/.

Happy Orbiting!