Make Orca a Medium

Knite · Dec 29, 2018

Saud Kruger has 3 available ships:

Dolphin
Orca
Beluga

It would make sense for each of these to correspond to each unique landing pad size, since what good is having multiple ships be the same size?

As it stands, the Orca is only landable on Large pads, which seems a little incongruous.

The Orca is totally capable of fitting onto a Medium sized pad:

Why then, is it a Large pad ship?

The answer is its landing gear.

Observe the difference in ship height between the Federal Gunship (the tallest Medium) and the Orca:

You'll notice that they are practically the same height.

Now observe the difference in landing gear height between the Federal Gunship and the Orca:

It is entirely due to the landing gear that Orca is a Large pad ship, and considering that variable height landing gear is a thing (Sidewinder), I hereby request that Orca receive variable height landing gear so that she may fit onto Medium pads.

Here is a comparison between the planetside height difference of FGS and Orca:

Credit to CMDR Bungle Bear for the wireframe images

Lestat · Dec 29, 2018

Not sure if you can tell look at the back end of the Orca it over the landing pad. And the last picture. If we are going by the SRV The Federal gunship SRV seems larger. Try to match it a little better. People are going to use the SRV as a reference point.

Knite · Dec 29, 2018

Lestat said:
Not sure if you can tell look at the back end of the Orca it over the landing pad. And the last picture. If we are going by the SRV The Federal gunship SRV seems larger. Try to match it a little better. People are going to use the SRV as a reference point.

Perspective throws it off a bit; the freecam has a pretty noticeable distortion effect at different zooms. The pictures I supplied are almost a year old, so I could take some better ones, but here is a wireframe of the Orca on a Medium pad:

Again, credit to CMDR Bungle Bear for the wireframes

Lestat · Dec 29, 2018

LOL, I did not start this thread.

I don't know why you deleted your old post. I was just pointing out what some people might also point out.

Riverside · Dec 29, 2018

I suppose the same arguments apply as for the Type-7 and Clipper; time could be better spent adding a new ship. I've no idea how close to fitting on a Medium pad an Orca is but I can see a use for a medium passenger ship that isn't a Python

Lestat · Dec 29, 2018

Riverside said:
I suppose the same arguments apply as for the Type-7 and Clipper; time could be better spent adding a new ship. I've no idea how close to fitting on a Medium pad an Orca is but I can see a use for a medium passenger ship that isn't a Python

I do agree with you Riverside. The Op had some good pictures. just two minor flaws. Which I pointed out on my first post. Then he posted a second set of the pictures wire frame of each ship on top of each other top and side view When I ask about what happened to the first topic the Op deleted that one. So I ended up double posted because they got rid of that post.

But they had a better argument than the Type-7 and Clipper.

Knite · Dec 29, 2018

Lestat said:
I do agree with you Riverside. The Op had some good pictures. just two minor flaws. Which I pointed out on my first post. Then he posted a second set of the pictures wire frame of each ship on top of each other top and side view When I ask about what happened to the first topic the Op deleted that one. So I ended up double posted because they got rid of that post. But they had a better argument than the Type-7 and Clipper.

I'm not deleting my posts. Since I have such a low post count, the mods have to approve them each time I make a new post or even an edit, which is rather frustrating; the full OP should be back.

Riverside said:
I suppose the same arguments apply as for the Type-7 and Clipper; time could be better spent adding a new ship. I've no idea how close to fitting on a Medium pad an Orca is but I can see a use for a medium passenger ship that isn't a Python

It seems to me that shortening the Orca's landing gear when landing in a station would be faster and easier than creating a whole new medium Saud Kruger; I'm not opposed to getting one, but I'd rather see the Orca get some more usefulness if it means a medium Saud Kruger sooner. The OP was updated with another picture showing a wireframe of the Orca on a medium pad, and it's quite clear that it will fit.

Stinja · Dec 29, 2018

People went thru the exact ship dimensions, the dimensions of the landing pads (and height), and looked at the inconsistencies in a thread, but best I can find now is here:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...e-T6-should-be-a-small-pad-ship-and-T7-medium

The T6 and T7 just need to be a little shorter to fit down a pad size. Clipper needs to be narrower and could fit in a Med (retractable nacelles?). I thought Orca should be able to fit too, but it would only be at the max of the pad size?

Para Handy · Dec 29, 2018

Since the Orca is over 130m long doesn't that overhang the medium pad?

Skip Rockbounder · Dec 29, 2018

Lestat said:
LOL, I did not start this thread. I don't know why you deleted your old post. I was just pointing out what some people might also point out.

Yeah, this is crazy, I first read this a couple of hours ago and Lestat was the first post... but replying to something that was not there.

Anyway on topic, I think that the Orca or perhaps a new passenger ship altogether should be medium pad, but before that passenger missions need to be sorted from the ground up and dedicated Passenger ships should be the preference for passengers (after all a few seats fired into the back of a truck don't make it a coach)

Knite · Dec 29, 2018

Para Handy said:
Since the Orca is over 130m long doesn't that overhang the medium pad?

If you look at the wireframe images in the spoiler tag, you'll see the Orca fits comfortably onto a medium pad.

Skip Rockbounder said:
Yeah, this is crazy, I first read this a couple of hours ago and Lestat was the first post... but replying to something that was not there.

Anyway on topic, I think that the Orca or perhaps a new passenger ship altogether should be medium pad, but before that passenger missions need to be sorted from the ground up and dedicated Passenger ships should be the preference for passengers (after all a few seats fired into the back of a truck don't make it a coach)

With the recent changes to Saud Kruger optional internal slots, these ships are much more capable explorers; if the Orca could fit onto a medium pad, it would be able to land at Outposts, and this increases its value as an explorer somewhat. Changing it to a medium doesn't necessarily get in the way of passenger mission reworks.

Robert Maynard · Dec 29, 2018

The maximum of each dimension, considering each ship that can be accommodated by a particular pad size is as follows:

Small; L = 51.8m (Dolphin); B = 48.1m (Cobra MkIV); H = 13.6m (DBX);
Medium: L = 87.8m (Python); B = 72.0m (Krait MkII); H = 22.8m (FAS);
Large: L = 209.1m (Beluga); B = 131.6m (Beluga); H = 45.5m (Beluga);

(this does not include the dimensions for the Krait Phantom; Mamba; Alliance Challenger or Alliance Crusader).

The Orca exceeds the maximum known shiplength for a medium pad by nearly 50% (48.52%) - I doubt there's that much spare in the medium hangar....

Knite · Dec 29, 2018

Robert Maynard said:
The maximum of each dimension, considering each ship that can be accommodated by a particular pad size is as follows:

Small; L = 51.8m (Dolphin); B = 48.1m (Cobra MkIV); H = 13.6m (DBX);
Medium: L = 87.8m (Python); B = 72.0m (Krait MkII); H = 22.8m (FAS);
Large: L = 209.1m (Beluga); B = 131.6m (Beluga); H = 45.5m (Beluga);

(this does not include the dimensions for the Krait Phantom; Mamba; Alliance Challenger or Alliance Crusader).

The Orca exceeds the maximum known shiplength for a medium pad by nearly 50% (48.52%) - I doubt there's that much spare in the medium hangar....

If the medium pad itself can fit into the hangar, the Orca can; length and width wise it fits into the medium pad fine, and medium pads are 150m long:

Consider the Beluga for a second; it is 209m long, and large pads are 213m long. With a margin of 20m, the Orca will be fine.

Additionally, the FGS and the Orca are the same height, and the FGS fits inside a medium hangar because its landing gear allows it to. Just because the Orca's length exceeds the length of every medium ship so far doesn't mean it shouldn't be one.

Lestat · Dec 29, 2018

Knite said:
I'm not deleting my posts. Since I have such a low post count, the mods have to approve them each time I make a new post or even an edit, which is rather frustrating; the full OP should be back.

I don't think it was a low post count. But your pictures that were flagged. They do that so they don't get someone trying to post an Ad or something. So it autoblocks.

Skip Rockbounder said:
Yeah, this is crazy, I first read this a couple of hours ago and Lestat was the first post... but replying to something that was not there.

Ya it was funny and creepy at the same time. Would have been a good April fools joke.

Para Handy · Dec 29, 2018

Knite said:
If you look at the wireframe images in the spoiler tag, you'll see the Orca fits comfortably onto a medium pad.

So you would appear to have constructed the pad in that image to be 150m long - where did you get those dimensions? I ask because I searched and could not find them.

MK Regular · Dec 29, 2018

Para Handy said:
So you would appear to have constructed the pad in that image to be 150m long - where did you get those dimensions? I ask because I searched and could not find them.

The earliest instance of this image that I can find is from Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/59oihv/landing_pad_measurements/

I do not know how accurate the image is, although I suspect that the dimensions are off.

Caliber_az · Dec 29, 2018

FWIW I always thought the Orca should be a medium also. You wonder why they didn't do it that way from the get go. Oh well I really enjoying flying the Orca and maybe they will make a kick butt medium ship of the same make.

Caliber

Knite · Dec 29, 2018

Para Handy said:
So you would appear to have constructed the pad in that image to be 150m long - where did you get those dimensions? I ask because I searched and could not find them.

MK_Regular said:
The earliest instance of this image that I can find is from Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/59oihv/landing_pad_measurements/

I do not know how accurate the image is, although I suspect that the dimensions are off.

The OP of the Reddit post is CMDR Bungle Bear, who also created the wireframe images. They are model rips from the game, so they are all to-scale and accurate. We know that the Orca is 130m long, and looking at it centered on the medium pad in the wireframe image, it is entirely reasonable to see the remaining pad in front of and behind the ship making up the remaining 20m disparity between pad and ship length.

CMDR Bungle Bear is the guy who made the size comparison videos

[video=youtube;-nDYYYqrhp4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nDYYYqrhp4[/video]