The document proposes the idea of a space drone racing simulator. Some key points: - It envisions drone races taking place inside the ISS, with small drones navigating hoops. Races would focus on efficiency and navigating courses before exhausting fuel. - The drones would be modeled after NASA's SPHERES, powered by compressed gas like CO2 with 20-30 seconds of thrust. - An ideal simulator would allow customizing courses, drone properties, control schemes, and physics models to explore different racing scenarios in space. - Rather than developing it alone, the author hopes their idea inspires others to create such a simulator, as they think it could be very engaging if done well.

1. I hope someone makes me a
Space Drone Simulator
Actually I think there should be a bunch of them.

2. I have a very specific and limited style of
drone racing in mind.
• Just like today's drone racing takes place in a small area with lots of
obstacles, so should space drone racing.
• One example would be inside of the ISS. Pilots would set up small
hoops around the interior of the iss, and fly small softball sized drones
around the hoops and themselves.
• The actual changes in speed that would realistically take place from co2
power would be humble and even boring, but the racing for the
pilots would be gripping, and if a viewer understood where the challenges
were, they too would be able to enjoy it.
• A good example is the game Lunar Flight, where rotations take a long time,
but it is very challenging and exciting if you don't require a visually
stunning display.

3. How would the drones look?
• I imagine drones that look roughly or even exactly like the
experimental SPHERES drones made by NASA.
• The drones would be powered by a compressed gas (like co2) and so
be built around a bottle similar to what is used in paintball guns. They
would have an array of relay valves and thrusters, and a front facing
camera the pilots would use for FPV flight.
• The drones would likely be limited to between 20 seconds to 1
minute of continuous thrust.
• The objective would be to have races that lasted roughly the same
amount of time as most quadcopter races, roughly 1.5 - 2 minutes.

4. How would a race look?
• The race would be a short course of hoops that the dones would attempt to fly
through in order.
• Likely the velocity would be low, and the race emphasis would be equal parts
efficiency and speed. It would be critical to make only the correct maneuvers in
order to conserve propellent.
• Likely it would not be possible to expect all pilots to complete the course, and
instead times should be measured from gate to gate, with a total number of
gates traversed being also measured, and a score should be derived balancing
the rate a pilot is able to traverse from gate to gate against the total number of
gates a pilot is able to traverse before exhausting all of their propellent.
• The gates would probably be arranged similarly to how drone racing gates are
arranged today, with emphasis on experimentation and the expectation that over
time popular gate combinations would be discovered.

5. Why can't drones fly fast and long?
• Well,, they probably can, but the NASA SPHERES drone was powered by
co2 and had (don’t quote me) roughly 20-30 seconds of continuous thrust.
• It's possible that other gasses and at higher pressures would allow
for significant improvements on these times, or that larger drones using
more complex propellent solutions might remind an audience of nascar.
• However,, a drone race today only lasts a few minutes, and if the viewer is
accustomed to knowing where the challenges lie during a performance,
can be very exciting,, it is not critical that a race goes on for a long time, it
is only critical that the viewer is able to see a few key moments. Likely the
most important viewing portion will be replays repeated many times to
display moments of prowess or crucial mistakes.

6. So what would the simulator be like?
• It would be almost exactly like a normal FPV racing simulator.
• Actually I wish existing FPV simulators would simply include "space
mode" because otherwise the formula for the game style is already on the path
towards perfection.
• The simulator would focus on players being able to make and share courses in
order to maximize exploration of new gate combinations.
• The simulator would allow a great deal of tuning flexibility for players, who ideally
would be able to arbitrarily change the amount of power or propellent, as well as
the size of the craft, gates, and obstacles.
• The simulator would allow all of the possible control options, as well as thruster
configurations, as well as all degrees of realism or non-realism.
• These settings would also be able to be tied to courses, so that players sharing
courses can include default "recommended" settings to best interpret the
course.

7. Thruster configurations or realism?
• A missile or rocket has a different configuration of thrusters than a docking
craft. Also there are other ideas for thruster configurations that would not
behave like a normal "6dof" or rocket.
• Space games can have realistic thrust physics, non-realistic but thrust
oriented physics, or non-thrust oriented "game" style "non-physics". There
are games that allow incredible fuel performance, but force the player
to cope with acceleration and deceleration, and there are games the
simply move exactly as the control input dictates, as though they are
completely massless and instantly reach top speed in any direction.
• Flying courses with all of these variations would result in significantly more
variety of courses, significantly more interest in player diversity, and overall
more development and refinement of the ideas.

8. How many simulators should there be?
• I have an idea for one that would feel easy to use and remind players
of mariokart
• I have an idea for one that would remind players of Kerbal Space
Program.
• I have an idea for one that would remind players of quadcopter racing
simulators.
• I also feel that some level of such "course challenge mode" should be
available in virtually all relevant "space games", so I also feel that
there should be flight training inspired by racing simulators in all of
them. (for example a combat game, or a space trading game)

9. Why don't I make one?
• I think it's hard and don't think I can well.
• I think if the idea became popular, none of my effort would benefit anyone,
as none of my work would compete.
• I think it would be popular enough that plenty of developers would try to
enter the market and compete against me, so there is no hope of achieving
my goal by wasting my time trying to learn how.
• Therefore the best objective for me to achieve is to convince others that
my controller would make such games fun, and that if people had the
opportunity they would want to try it.
• Actually, in the meantime, there are a lot of really great games that I can
play, there just isn't a simulator that includes a map editor.