CELESTIA!

[terrorbyte]

CELESTIA:

I must say that after mucking around in MANY areas on the internet, trying to weed out help with this 'Wonderful' program', I have come to the following conclusions:

1. celestia is nothing more than a badly-animated screensaver.
2. Addons are user-hostile.
3. Is this a game or a "Tool"?
4. Microsoift flight simulator , at least, allows headroom for its users' ability to add on applications to enhance its impact as a wonderful gaming experience.
5. celestia fails with something as basic as this ability . . . .

...just two cents from:
..a.windows XP power user
...with all kinds of memory and graphics resources plus programming experience . . . a very sad outcome. . .
I saw this program touted in some kind of magazine, and I took the leap to get involved with it . . . sadly it has wound up as a profoundly NEGATIVE experience with a lot of wasted time. . .,

Adieu!....................................

[Bob Hegwood]

Terrorbyte...

I am very sorry you feel that way. However, I must ask...

What the hell do you want for nothing? My mind boggles here.

I have paid good money for a multitude of astronomy and science programs
which have nowhere near the capability to explore the Universe as
Celestia does.

Some add-ons can be a bit intimidating, but their purpose is to expand
Celestia's capabilities in whatever manner you'd like to expand those
capabilities.

The program can be a game or a tool, depending on your background
and interests.

Again, what the hell do you want for free? Sheesh!

Even us non-MIT Brain-Dead types can explore the Universe with a bit
of creative effort. If you're such a great programmer, then what's your
problem here?

Sorry, but I just don't understand this criticism. Certainly Celestia could
be made better, but so could MicroSoft's Flight Simulator.

Take care, Bob

[Spaceman Spiff]

1. celestia is nothing more than a badly-animated screensaver.

Developmental, open-source, cost-free Simulator.

2. Addons are user-hostile.

Addons are user-generated.

3. Is this a game or a "Tool"?

Er... Simulator (FAQ?). I prefer 'Planetarium', but in what way is this a 'game'?

4. Microsoift flight simulator , at least, allows headroom for its users' ability to add on applications to enhance its impact as a wonderful gaming experience.
5. celestia fails with something as basic as this ability . . . .

How much did you pay for Windows XP? (bundled? You still paid. Pirated? Naughty boy.) How much did you pay for MS Flight simulator? How much did you pay for Celestia?

Well, I'm sure this chap will be a long term MS customer, all the way beyond the eventual release of Longhaul...

Win XP 'Power' user???' Bloatoid.

Spiff.

[t00fri]

CELESTIA:

I must say that after mucking around in MANY areas on the internet, trying to weed out help with this 'Wonderful' program', I have come to the following conclusions:

1. celestia is nothing more than a badly-animated screensaver.
2. Addons are user-hostile.
3. Is this a game or a "Tool"?
4. Microsoift flight simulator , at least, allows headroom for its users' ability to add on applications to enhance its impact as a wonderful gaming experience.
5. celestia fails with something as basic as this ability . . . .

...just two cents from:
..a.windows XP power user
...with all kinds of memory and graphics resources plus programming experience . . . a very sad outcome. . .
I saw this program touted in some kind of magazine, and I took the leap to get involved with it . . . sadly it has wound up as a profoundly NEGATIVE experience with a lot of wasted time. . .,

Adieu!....................................

Welcome Terrorbit,

I think you may well have a good point.

1. celestia is nothing more than a badly-animated screensaver.

I am afraid, Celestia is not even a good screensaver, since it may well consume 99% of your CPU power!

As an occasional user of Celestia, I also noticed quite a number of imperfections myself, that you perhaps even overlooked.

-- mastering the many controls is really not easy. I keep getting confused quite frequently.

-- I agree, there is very little action going on. One might even call the whole thing 'boring'. Some people suggested to add a few laser guns and other weapons. Perhaps that could pepper up Celestia a bit. But I am not sure whether this could help.

I read that you are from Massachusetts. Is this in the US? I heard they are having a famous university there.
Called MIT or so. Ever been there?

Finally, I am really curious what an american "Windows XP power user" typically does with his computer. You probably own a real gem of a machine? So what do you do with it, mostly? Presumably, you are a great computer and software expert? Or perhaps you are mainly involved with gaming?

Anyway, it sounds very impressive. Yet, when I read your user name and look at your Avatar I can't hide that I find these a little intimidating...But I am sure you must be quite harmless...

Thanks a lot for taking the time to report on your impressions about Celestia.

Bye Fridger

[Christophe]

Thanks a lot for taking the time to report on your impressions about Celestia.

Arf :-))

At least the guy took the time to register to say "Adieu" rather than trolling as anonymous.

[terrorbyte]

..addons that work and don't have to be installed by a C++ programmer...
..ease of use (no multitude oif esoteric "key commands")
..a GUI that's not user-hostile...
...a Joystick Mode that does **something** (besides rotating on the samed axes as the keyboartd commands. . .
..SPECIFIC instructions for enhancing the basic program...
...a newsgroup that is non-convoluted so that it can help new users with BASIC addon installation issues...

'cmon
this program is NOT universally pleasant for the newbie to use!!
(except, of course, as a 'controllable screen saver'

this program gets a D minus with me

[t00fri]

Thanks a lot for taking the time to report on your impressions about Celestia.

Arf )

At least the guy took the time to register to say "Adieu" rather than trolling as anonymous.

Hey, hey Christophe,

once in my life I wanted to respond as politely as good Americans would do naturally...

I instead needed to make use of all my 'builtin controls' while writing this bullshit above

Cheers,

Bye Fridger

[The Singing Badger]

Just wanted to assure Celestians that as a computer illiterate person without a degree in astronomy I never had any trouble figuring out how to use Celestia when I was a newbie. The gentleman who began this thread is unlikely to be representative of the average newcomer.

Furthermore, when things did become complicated I generally found that the process of figuring them out meant that I learned something new about astronomy and/or computers. For example, I now know a lot about orbital elements whereas I was entirely ignorant before. Celestia isn't just eye candy, it's a learning tool for its users, and those who don't enjoy the process of self-education are unlikely to appreciate it.

[Dollan]

..addons that work and don't have to be installed by a C++ programmer...

Eh... they *don't* have to be installed by a C++ programmer. If they did, then I'm more amazed at my abilities than anyone else.

..ease of use (no multitude oif esoteric "key commands")

And Microsoft Simulator doesn't have a ton of keyboard commands? Which version are you using again?

...a Joystick Mode that does **something** (besides rotating on the samed axes as the keyboartd commands. . .

And, no doubt, you're wishing for aliens to shoot....

wsgroup that is non-convoluted so that it can help new users with BASIC addon installation issues...

If you can't navigate around a basic BBS, then I think you may not be quite as proficient as you think.

How about answering some of the questions above, namely, "What do you want for free?"

Criticism here is always welcome. Uncivil trolling is *not*. Please amend your style, or leave. Besides, if you dislike the program so much, then abviously you must have uninstalled it. Which means that you really don't have any purpose being here, right?

Ta...

...John...[/b]

[Rassilon]

Well everyone is entitled to an opinion and we all know the saying....

Quite frankly if you paid for it I could understand some of the comments made and for a free program it really is the best there is EVEN for paid...It blows starry night out of the water without even trying and you pay what? A laughable 50 dollars? I personally would challenge you to put your money where your mouth is....If you think you can do better than by all means go for it....

[Dollan]

I personally would challenge you to put your money where your mouth is....If you think you can do better than by all means go for it....

Considering that a Google search's very first hit showed him being banned from various forums, I wouldn't put too much stock in him putting anything where his mouth is... save his foot.

Admittedly this could be another Terrorbyte... it isn't a very original handle... but I still found it amusing.

...John...

[terrorbyte]

I guess that I've thrown a rock into the Cellestia Hive!!

Many, many responses, but very few of substance! My hardware and operating system? I am using a dream machine: pentium 5; 1 gig of ram, etc. etc. I am a POWER user. I cut myt teeth on a 'system' I acquired in 1983. BEFORE Microsoft .

Please don;'t knock MSFT 2004. The 100 million users speak for themselves!

X

[Rassilon]

Yeah wasted post....still I challenge anyone to outdue what Celestia has achieved....I bust my ass programming a simulator and I find it pretty difficult to get to the level the team has achieved with this program...Hell Im pretty proud to have gotten where Im at so far and not given up...When I see crap like this it gets me heated ESPECIALLY when they say thier a programmer...And believe me its not the first time I have....so yeah I say to anyone that says whah whah Im to stupid to learn how to use winzip ....but Im a programmer to pull thier foot out of thier mouth and try to outdue what this community has achieved...and if I offended any of them with my comments....ts

[Dollan]

I guess that I've thrown a rock into the Cellestia Hive!!

Many, many responses, but very few of substance! My hardware and operating system? I am using a dream machine: pentium 5; 1 gig of ram, etc. etc. I am a POWER user. I cut myt teeth on a 'system' I acquired in 1983. BEFORE Microsoft .

Please don;'t knock MSFT 2004. The 100 million users speak for themselves!

X

Whoopie. You have a huge system. Congratulations! You're up there with most users here at my university.

Don't knock your OS? And yet you come in here and knock Celestia rather than to offer ideas or support or even plain ol' civility? Yeah! We'll get right on that.

So come on. Tell us. What free program would you prefer to make use of for astronomical simulations?

...John...

[Dollan]

Yeah wasted post....still I challenge anyone to outdue what Celestia has achieved....I bust my ass programming a simulator and I find it pretty difficult to get to the level the team has achieved with this program...Hell Im pretty proud to have gotten where Im at so far and not given up...When I see crap like this it gets me heated ESPECIALLY when they say thier a programmer...And believe me its not the first time I have....so yeah I say to anyone that says whah whah Im to stupid to learn how to use winzip ....but Im a programmer to pull thier foot out of thier mouth and try to outdue what this community has achieved...and if I offended any of them with my comments....ts

No offense taken here! Frankly, although not a programmer, I agree with you. Too often I've seen people around here (meaning my university) decide that their level of skill rests entirely on the strength of the machine that they can afford to buy. And when it comes down to it, most of them can't figure out how to use it to their full potential. Those that can, more often than not, are good enough to help folks that need it.

Pretty pathetic, really. Frankly, I'm leaning more towards condsidering this guy a simple troll.

...John...

[Rassilon]

Please don;'t knock MSFT 2004. The 100 million users speak for themselves!
X

The 100 Million users who have no knowledge of computers are recommended Microsoft because of its ease of use...I personally knock on Bill Goats door quite often although he has been quite smart in his proficiant building of the Empire....I personally use Windows 2000 as I cannot stand the lack of compatability of XP and its Fisher Price interface....It truly is a childs OS but for those who like it more power to you as it is without a doubt FINALLY a stable OS....

Indeed for a programmer and one who doesnt mind tinkering with his machine I would recommend Linux...Mandrake would be a good start as it doesnt require too much tinkering and is easy to use....

Thought I would add something constructive to this conversation

I read that you are from Massachusetts. Is this in the US? I heard they are having a famous university there.
Called MIT or so. Ever been there?

LOL

[rthorvald]

many responses, but very few of substance!

Me, too!

-rthorvald

[Cham]

CELESTIA:

I must say that after mucking around in MANY areas on the internet, trying to weed out help with this 'Wonderful' program', I have come to the following conclusions:

1. celestia is nothing more than a badly-animated screensaver.
2. Addons are user-hostile.
3. Is this a game or a "Tool"?
4. Microsoift flight simulator , at least, allows headroom for its users' ability to add on applications to enhance its impact as a wonderful gaming experience.
5. celestia fails with something as basic as this ability . . . .

...just two cents from:
..a.windows XP power user
...with all kinds of memory and graphics resources plus programming experience . . . a very sad outcome. . .
I saw this program touted in some kind of magazine, and I took the leap to get involved with it . . . sadly it has wound up as a profoundly NEGATIVE experience with a lot of wasted time. . .,

Adieu!....................................

I agree totally with Terrorbyte here, Celestia is just a poor piece of useless software, made by some goofies without any real programming knowledge. Me too, I wasted a lot of time with it, more than a year in fact, so it's really a shame. I should buy MS Flight simulator, instead, or any real game.

Geez Celestia is boring, it's useless, it doesn't have any descent graphics like any modern 3D games, it's cumbersome to use, the interface sucks. Yep, Terrorbyte is right guys. Maybe I should go out tomorrow to buy Doom 3 and get myself a life.

[Bob Hegwood]

I read that you are from Massachusetts. Is this in the US? I heard they are having a famous university there.
Called MIT or so. Ever been there?

This gentleman? would be what I'd call a typical MIT graduate...

This is why I'm so "paranoid" and "brain-dead" when I get next to MIT
graduates. Admittedly, there are probably some MIT graduates who
do have the social graces which should be inherent with such
education and experience.

Unfortunately, I have yet to meet one who doesn't act and sound
like the person who started this thread. <Sigh>

Yours, Paranoid, Brain-Dead, Bob

[t00fri]

I guess that I've thrown a rock into the Cellestia Hive!!

I am using a dream machine: pentium 5; 1 gig of ram, etc. etc. I am a POWER user.

X

Really, man, that don't impress me much (know that song?).

I am disappointed. I had such great hopes meeting a REAL POWER user for once...EVEN I, the timid t00fri, has as little as 3GB CL2 RAM in his slow 3.2 GHz P4. My very old FX5900Ultra with 256MB DDR RAM can barely cope with the demands from Celestia.

OK, given that your machine is not sooooo overwhelming, perhaps you own a fast car?

Bye Fridger