Firefly
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Project home: Firefly at orbithangar.com |
The Firefly is an addon for Orbiter meant to simulate the Firefly class spaceship found in the TV show of the same name. The Firefly is a very versatile cargo ship capable of inter-planatary travel and atmospheric flight. The unique design of the ship features two main engines that can pivot a full 180 degrees from the bow to the aft. The main engines also allow a certain amount of manouevrability during atmospheric flight, while facing straight down they enable the ship to hover. In addition to the main engines, the Firefly features a unique Firefly Thruster, which enables the ship to produce enormous amounts of thrust in a short amount of time. The Firefly Thruster gives the ship it's unique shape and colour, when the Firefly Thruster is activated (an action called a "full burn") it glows green, a trait which gives the ship it's name.
There are some differences between the Firefly ship addon and the Firefly ship of the TV show. The most notable is the way the Thruster is used. Due to limitations in the way Orbiter is programmed, the thruster can't be used in the same way as the TV show. In Orbiter the thruster and the main engines fire at the same time with the thruster acting mainly as an aesthetic device. While openeing up the engine covers (using the O key command) does enable additional thrust, it does not accurately duplicate the way the Thruster operates. For example the Thruster would never be used in atmo due to it tendency to light the air on fire in a massive explosion (althought this is handy in evading Reavers), but in Orbiter one is incapable of firing the main engines in atmo without firing the Thruster.
Additional differences include the addition of hover jets, used to stabalise the ship in Orbiter, due to the fact that the ship is very difficult to hover using the main engines alone. The lack of the two smaller shuttle crafts capable of atmospheric flight is a notable ommission.
Special commands unique to Firefly
- G = Main Engines to HOVER
- Alt-G = Main Engines to MAIN
- Ctrl-G = Main Engines to RETRO
- K = Main Engines increment towards MAIN
- Shift-K = Main Engines increment towards RETRO
- , = Main Engines rotate towards MAIN
- . = Main Engines rotate towards RETRO
- O = Open Firefly Thruster
- J = Cargo door
- Shift-J = Lights