Orbital Dogfight is a project I have been toying with ever since Kerbal Space Program, War Thunder and Elite Dangerous changed the way I viewed Virtual Reality gaming.

SCOPE: Simple Version

A single player game that incorporates orbital mechanics, atmospheric flight and dog fighting. Aiming for about 2 hours of game play with extras like practice flying and target practice. The major SCOPE CLAMP is not to go multiplayer yet.

The game is set on a moon sized planet with a low artificial atmosphere. From [i]Home Base[/i] missions will request the player fly out and engage enemy targets and return home safely. The player can always return home and re-equip fuel and ammo as they feel necessary. Missions will get progressively more difficult and reward the player for braving the perils of space.

Since orbital mechanics are a little tricky to master the game will be winnable without ever achieving an orbit. However players who are keen enough to take to space will be rewarded with upgraded shields, weapons, and of course superior position. The rewards in space will be set at a variety of orbits who's difficulty to achieve will reflect their value to the player. IE. A shield buff would be in low orbit whereas a nuclear bomb upgrade would be in a higher orbit with some inclination.

ELEMENTS ACHIEVED (in the raw)

Atmospheric flight around a spherical planet. Variation of flight conditions based on atmospheric density, sea level height and altitude. Flight control authority continues to fall off in upper atmosphere until orbital systems take over.

Orbital Mechanics - Spherical gravity- - Orbital Prediction including hyperbolics. - Space flight Navigation - This is a BIG ONE and addressed in the flight aids and options section

Flight Navigation Aids and Thrust Options: These include flight instruments, stability assists, navigation assists and their management in the cockpit with buttons and voice commands. 

Thrust Types: Standard Thrust, providing forward acceleration VTOL - Vertical Stall or Vertical Take off and landing, provides acceleration in the ship's local up direction.

In Atmosphere Flight & Navigation Aids: Stability: (standard SAS) keeps you pointed the direction you are facing Hover: Starts to align the ship to the horizon disregarding Yaw, good for VTOL Space Navigation aids (below) work 'in atmosphere' but with reduced effect due to drag.

In Space Navigation Aids: Stability: (standard SAS) keeps you pointed the direction you are facing Prograde: Align the ship to the direction it is traveling Retrograde: Align the ship to the opposite direction it is traveling Radial: Align the ship to the direction opposite of gravity Anti-Radial: Align the ship to the direction of gravity Normal: Align the ship to the direction of the orbit plane's normal .. direction of angular momentum Anti-Normal: Align the ship to the direction of the orbit plane's negative normal

Cockpit Elements: The cockpit is made up of instruments and interfaces.

Instruments Standard: For standard flight in atmosphere. Altitude: Radar Altitude: Fuel: Vertical Acceleration: Speed: (not ground speed) Heading:

Instruments Advanced: For Space Navigation and Control: These two instruments alone can be used to navigate the ship to any desired orbit.

Flight Director (or Navball for Kerbal Fans) Basically shows everything in one nice instrument including the ship's heading and the six directional vectors, prograde, retrograde, radial, anti radial, normal and anti normal. Orbital Instrument:  It calculates and shows the ship's orbit in relation to the body it is orbiting while also overlaying the apogee, perigee, ascending and descending nodes. It shows this information directly in front of the user. As the orbit increases the instrument visual will decrease proportionally to stay in frame of the instrument panel. So you can always see your orbit and yourself at glance.

Buttons and Voice Commands Each button in the cockpit has a corresponding voice command that will toggle an action. These actions, their buttons and their voice command (one in the same atm) are listed below:

General Buttons/ Actions / Voice Commands Cockpit Lights: Toggles cockpit lights Brakes: Toggles ground wheel brakes VTOL: Toggles vertical thrust to normal thrust Stability: Toggles SAS Hover: Toggles Level Flight 

Orbital Navigation Buttons / Actions / Voice Commands Prograde: Toggles align to (this) vector Retrograde: Toggles align to (this) vector Radial: Toggles align to (this) vector Anti Radial: Toggles align to (this) vector Normal: Toggles align to (this) vector Anti Normal: Toggles align to (this) vector

All the instruments and controls combine to form a system that make it easy to achieve a desired orbit.

ENEMIES

So far there are only two enemies of the same Tower class.

Ground Tower: Tracks hostile ships and begins to fire if their range is infringed.

Vacuum Balloon Tower: Same as a normal tower but mounted to a vacuum balloon sitting in upper atmosphere

ELEMENTS THAT ARE PLANNED:

Updating this list to be comprehensive:

The game is currently in a blocking out phase to refine some of the mechanics. All art assets will be undergoing updates.

The planet size will be increased.

Enemies: Flying enemy drones.. some capable of orbit. Love to use ML Agent AI.

Score: Musical Accompaniment and sound scaping.

 STRETCH GOALS:

Multiplayer LAN Multiplayer WEB

More then one gravity body (like an orbiting moon)

ELEMENTS THE COMMUNITY THINKS SHOULD BE ADDED: Please Post  "SB ADDED" in comments and i will add here)

ELEMENTS THE COMMUNITY THINKS SHOULD BE REMOVED:  ( Please Post  "SB REMOVED" in comments and i will add here)

ELEMENTS THE COMMUNITY THINKS SHOULD BE ALTERED:  ( Please Post  "SB ALTERED" in comments and i will add here)

More to on the way! A downloaded playable will be available as soon as anyone thinks its a good idea. Woot - MOGA

Control Scheme: