Elite / Frontier Elite Ship Chart

[Steve O B Have]

The updated version by Grimble. Very cool stuff. Maybe this is the sort of thing that would be nice to have turn up in a Special ED of E4 with all the ships - Like the old chart that came with Arc Elite. This chart now contains all ships found in Frontier E2 as found in the manual.

 

[Steve]

The updated version by Grimble. Very cool stuff.

Yeah, excellent work. Mind you, I still can't get over the fact that the Anaconda is physically a bigger ship than the Panther, despite having less than a third of the internal capacity. Some strange goings on in the design stage, methinks

 

[DraQ]

Yeah, excellent work. Mind you, I still can't get over the fact that the Anaconda is physically a bigger ship than the Panther, despite having less than a third of the internal capacity. Some strange goings on in the design stage, methinks

Anaconda is almost completely flat triangle. It's not nearly as bulky as Panther.


Constrictor is a bit surprising, but it always felt too big.
I don't know about Viper, though. It seems way too large on the chart, especially given that it felt rather small in game, judging from it's effectiveness when it came to evasive maneuvers.

Edit:
Viper seems about right, though. It's Cobra Mk.III that seems small, but that's mainly because we see it slightly from the back.

 

[Steve O B Have]

Yeah I always thought that the Cobra was a little larger than the viper. She's not a particularly deep ship but she is wide.

 

[turwhitt]

I don't know about Viper, though. It seems way too large on the chart, especially given that it felt rather small in game, judging from it's effectiveness when it came to evasive maneuvers.

Could be due to its immense speed.

 

[DrBaggy]

Any views on whether Elite 4 should keep the angular designs? Obviously they were originally due to processing limitations (I remember them as transparent wireframes in the original!). With current computers they could have huge polygon count, but personally I like the shapes: maybe it could be argued flat surfaces make them "stealth" ships? (Well I know that's nonsense but....)

 

[Steve O B Have]

Any views on whether Elite 4 should keep the angular designs? Obviously they were originally due to processing limitations (I remember them as transparent wireframes in the original!). With current computers they could have huge polygon count, but personally I like the shapes: maybe it could be argued flat surfaces make them "stealth" ships? (Well I know that's nonsense but....)

It could be argued that the shape is entirely down to a design preference and that was the trend at the time. Now (E4 Universe) these ships still exist but are old hat and there are newer design trends.

I just hope with all I am worth that the ships that reared their ugly heads in FFE never come back. They just didn't have the flare that the FE2 ships had/have. The imperial Courier and Traders are beautiful looking ships as were the eagle designs. IMO the FFE ships just didn't feel right, too many fins and sticky out bits.

 

[DrBaggy]

It could be argued that the shape is entirely down to a design preference and that was the trend at the time. Now (E4 Universe) these ships still exist but are old hat and there are newer design trends.

I just hope with all I am worth that the ships that reared their ugly heads in FFE never come back. They just didn't have the flare that the FE2 ships had/have. The imperial Courier and Traders are beautiful looking ships as were the eagle designs. IMO the FFE ships just didn't feel right, too many fins and sticky out bits.

Agreed: those early designs have a classic design elegance. Isn't it interesting that physical constraints/practicalities (in this case limited computing power) so often produce beauty?

 

[DraQ]

Could be due to its immense speed.

It isn't sufficient explanation. Size of the ship seems very important as well. In combat relative acceleration (acceleration/length of theship) is as, if not more, important as absolute one, as it decides how long it will take for given ship to move out of line of fire. Good example would be Adder. It has mediocre acceleration, but it's small enough to avoid enemy fire effectively.

Any views on whether Elite 4 should keep the angular designs? Obviously they were originally due to processing limitations (I remember them as transparent wireframes in the original!). With current computers they could have huge polygon count, but personally I like the shapes: maybe it could be argued flat surfaces make them "stealth" ships? (Well I know that's nonsense but....)

I'd be happy if the models were high poly, but retained overall shape and important features of original low poly models. For example Asp should still have three roughly pentagonal sections on the top, inverted triangle at the bottom and rhomboidal main thruster (or, four smaller thrusters in rhomboidal pattern).

 

[DrBaggy]

I'd be happy if the models were high poly, but retained overall shape and important features of original low poly models. For example Asp should still have three roughly pentagonal sections on the top, inverted triangle at the bottom and rhomboidal main thruster (or, four smaller thrusters in rhomboidal pattern).

...maybe there's something about nature of the hull that it can only be produced in flat sections, like current plate armour! Or maybe I'm giving way too much thought to rationalising a nostalgic desire to see the old ships in HD glory in E4 (someone will do a mod anyway...)

 

[Steve O B Have]

I'm not to seriously bent on there being a faithfulness to the hard lines of the old ships (altho it is preferable), more that they retain the feel and the look of a dated ship that is distinctly of the Frontier design. There should be no question that a Cobra MKIII is a MKIII and the same for all the other ships.

It's the distinctness that makes them classic. That got somewhat lost in FFE, the design became 'cloudy'... IMO

 

[Steve]

Isn't it interesting that physical constraints/practicalities (in this case limited computing power) so often produce beauty?

Or not, in the case of the Lion