Sense Of Scale

[lenna]

see something above the huge dashboard.

How big do you actually think the dashboards are?

Based on the bobbleheads and the avatar's feet (bobbleheads probably being about the size of a UK Size 8.5 men's shoe/trainer - a bit bigger perhaps - certainly about the size of the Avatar's boot) I would estimate the typical main console area to be about the size of a nominal office desk (600mm deep by 1200mm wide), maybe a little bigger but not by much. Based on what I have seen in-game, with the Cutter I do not believe we are talking a metre off the floor for the chair stands either - 0.5m tops if I were to guess (probably not even that).

I think the problem with people's expectations and the size of ship cockpits is that other than the SLFs and SRVs the cockpits are intended to accommodate movement with-in the cockpit space (c/f the Eagle/Viper being about the size of the Space Shuttle in scale terms). They are not just cockpits but a form of living space too... think more like a runabout/shuttle in Star Trek and less like an earth bound jet fighter (or the typical fighters from Starwars).

Also consider the size of the bridge of the Dilligent in the film Wing Commander. The Wing Commander fighters are probably comparable to the ED SLFs in that comparison case, while the bridge of the Dilligent is possibly about the size of the Cobra's cockpit... if not a bit bigger.

 

[CMDR CMDR Clarkson]

When playing on a monitor most ships felt very small to me, in part because of how large the exterior of the cockpits were in relation to the hull. Once I started playing in VR I was blown away by how large everything actually was.

Even then, I knew everything was big, but I still couldn't quite tell how large they were supposed to be compared to objects in the real world. So I used an area measurement app and overlayed the length and width of several ships onto one of the hayfields here. That's when the scale really sank in.

I also noticed that when compared to Star Wars, the Python is practically the same length as the Rebel Transport and the Anaconda is slightly longer than a Corellian Corvette. Now I see Pythons and Anacondas when I see pictures like this:

 

[NecasekO]

How big do you actually think the dashboards are?

They are enormous. See this picture from a Diamondback:

Notice these things:
- How high above floor level the chair is - it would be pretty uncomfortable to climb into in normal gravity
- That the lower side glass panels actually extend below floor level, so the cockpit floor itself is much higher than one would expect when looking from outside
- How much space there is above the door (even though the floor is high) - there's more than 3 m clearance between floor and ceiling, total waste even for very tall people
- That you can't even see the dashboard in this picture - that's how far in front of the chair it is

The dashboard itself is as wide as the front window, I'd say around 3 m. Just the scanner circle is around 1 m in diameter.

 

[777Driver]

Hey NecasekO, pretty sure you use VR? Personally I wouldn't go as far as saying it would be anywhere near uncomfortable to get into the seat. My Asp is about 40 mins away, just had a walk around my T9 in VR.

All ships in game have the same size cmdr chair. Here's a few pics from on the bridge in VR - Again stating the obvious, the screenshots look like a photograph, what I am seeing in the rift is the same as being there with everything in 1:1 scale and true depth.

Pic 1, as you can see the height of the chair isn't that high, am kneeling in the pic, my real office chair seat is around knee height, so easy to get into ( like pretty much all office chairs) The Cmdr chair seat is only a little higher than that. I can comfortably stand next to the chair in VR and rest my arm on my real seat headrest, it almost matches with the virtual chair.

Pic 2 The Lakon table is about the size of a single mattress. The drop to the hangar floor below the canopy doesn't look far in the picture. In VR you know you would break your legs jumping from that height.

Pic 3 This is a classic example of how non VR makes it difficult to judge scale. The pic is standing next to the cmdrs chair looking up at the canopy. The canopy is at least a good 20ft away from me.


Pic 1

Spoiler

Pic 2

Spoiler

Pic 3

Spoiler

 

[VR StarLightPL]

(click for source)

 

[NecasekO]

Hey NecasekO, pretty sure you use VR? Personally I wouldn't go as far as saying it would be anywhere near uncomfortable to get into the seat. My Asp is about 40 mins away, just had a walk around my T9 in VR.

All ships in game have the same size cmdr chair. Here's a few pics from on the bridge in VR - Again stating the obvious, the screenshots look like a photograph, what I am seeing in the rift is the same as being there with everything in 1:1 scale and true depth.

I have never played ED in VR, and I do believe that everything makes much more sense when viewed in VR.

I was pointing out that ship shapes, and especially the canopies are misleading when compared to today's aircraft and spacecraft.

Maybe the chair is not as tall as I think but the simple fact that pilot's feet are maybe 50 cm above the floor just looks unnatural. Instinctively I would think that my feet would be close to floor level, as is the case in today's cars and airplanes.

Similar thing with the dashboard - from the pilot's POV it looks like an ordinary dashboard that is within arm's reach, with pilot's feet underneath. But the dashboard is in fact 1-2 m in front of the pilot, much lower and way bigger. It does work but it's very different from what I would expect based on today's vehicles.

So while everything is indeed correctly scaled, because of the art design it throws many players off - cockpits (the thing that players are most exposed to) are much bigger than one would expect from just looking at the default 2D viewport. That in turn makes ships feel smaller, and in extension everything else.

 

[playfuldreamer]

(click for source)

Looking at it now, I'm starting to think the inclusion of wings and recognizable plane features might be contributing to the scale problem.

 

[Zed]

For scale to look 'right' on a 2d monitor it has to be somewhat distorted. If ED is to be the correct scale in VR then it will look off on a monitor, despite being accurate.

Close one eye, does the scale of your home now look off?
The only thing that's going be different on a 2d screen over VR apart from a 2nd rendering of the same view offset by a few CM is field of view, you can adjust this if you feel you need to.

 

[reti]

“Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”

 

[lenna]

I was pointing out that ship shapes, and especially the canopies are misleading when compared to today's aircraft and spacecraft.

Only if you make incorrect assumptions about relative size, the 1980s era US Space Shuttle is essentially the correct frame of reference for the smaller craft as opposed to something like the F-22, F-14, or F/A-18. The Sidewinder might be close in general scale to larger fighter jets but the internal cockpit is still going to be closer to the Space Shuttle than the fighter jet.

See the video I referenced back at post #92 to see what I am getting at.

When you consider that all the human designed space craft in ED can carry at least one ground roving vehicles internally (SLFs excluded) and that the cockpits have one or more door ways/hatches at the rear that are of comparable proportions to real world doors the scale of these craft should be even more apparent.

 

[Darkfyre99]

Yeah the Avatar is quite small, but that is likely because they don't allow us to create an avatar with varying height etc. The avatar is just as small on a 2D screen, the chairs themselves are scaled correctly, I actually ordered a chair that is roughly the same height width as the ingame seat.

???

I've never understood that complaint. Our avatars are huge. Standing beside my Avatar in VR, I have to look up, and I'm pretty tall (173cm).

 

[Maro-Val]

???

I've never understood that complaint. Our avatars are huge. Standing beside my Avatar in VR, I have to look up, and I'm pretty tall (173cm).

I think the game looks different to each rig lol. RNG at its greatest.

 

[Darkfyre99]

I think the game looks different to each rig lol. RNG at its greatest.

I think its more likely that each human is different, with different heights and IPDs. The people who have naturally have a height and IPD close to the in game avatar's probably feel that the avatar is normal sized.

RNGenetics at its greatest.

 

[lenna]

???

I've never understood that complaint. Our avatars are huge. Standing beside my Avatar in VR, I have to look up, and I'm pretty tall (173cm).

See the 3.0 Scale video I reference back in Post #92...

based on the Video it is more like about 182cm (or about 5' 11" in old money).

If you are a 6 foot something, the Avatars may seem small to you. Personally, I do not find them particularly short or tall and I am only around 5' 6" (or about 167.5cm).

It could be in part due to what people are used to regarding relative limb sizes? If you are sufficiently far off the 75th Percentile relativistic values then you may find your perception of scale in VR feel "off" to at least some degree. In a 2D environment, this may also apply to some degree. I am not convinced adding more customisation factors to the Avatars would make a significant difference though.
​

 

[Old Duck]

So I've done a few of things that help me personally feel the scale in Elite Dangerous:

1) I've changed my home station to a "Disney World" styled station (the one with palm trees and domed gardens). This station has lots of visual points-of-references that help with scale - trees, buses, well-illuminated areas, etc. Even the sides of the walls between the 'surface' and the hangar feel more to scale than what I experience in some of the industrial stations. Oh how I wish we were given a posh station like this at Jameson Memorial, instead of a cheap Motel 6!

2) I'm mothballing certain ships that are improperly scaled IMO. This includes ships like the DBX and the iCourier. When I look at my DBX sitting on the pad next to those nice palm trees, it just doesn't feel right to me. It looks like a helicopter / harrier hybrid that got zapped with Pym Particles (ie - it looks like it was artificially enlarged). The cockpit of the iCourier looks equally ridiculous to me. There are other ships that feel like they were actually built to scale, including large ships like the Orca. Of course some of this is subjective, but it's my fleet, so I can do what I want.

3) I'm flying appropriately for the ship I command. Take my Orca, for example - while highly maneuverable for a large ship, I try to fly like I actually have passengers on board, especially as I'm landing. I find diverting all pips away from engines while landing, and dropping the gear early, helps with this.

While not a perfect solution, these things have helped quite a bit!

 

[Shackram]

I wrote it before, but the scale in ED is fine, people just fail to realize how big or small things are and how distant they are. Specially at planetary sizes and distances.

When you're 1Ls away from something, you're 300.000 KM from it, 10Ls is 3.000.000 KM, 100Ls is 30.000.000 KM.

The other day i took some pictures that i thought somewhat useful for comparing sizes, at least on a lower but more common and relatable scale.

Spoiler

Conda over a planetary scan base

SRV on a Conda

Conda on a Farragut

Conda in a tourism station

And i'm sure someone will say the scales are still off, to which i ask, is that a problem of the game or of the players? I believe it's the latter.

SRV is large, big ships are huge, stations are huger. Let's not even talk about scale of planets and distance between solar system bodies. The scales are right and mostly follow know real life data, we just struggle to comprehend them, specially in a 2D screen. But i don't think tweaking the scaling to increase wow factor is the answer.

Are the ships too big? I don't think so, we don't know large FTL capable ships would be in reality. The one thing i think is wrong is that their mass is too low for their size.

 

[Tarman]

I wrote it before, but the scale in ED is fine, people just fail to realize how big or small things are and how distant they are. Specially at planetary sizes and distances.

When you're 1Ls away from something, you're 300.000 KM from it, 10Ls is 3.000.000 KM, 100Ls is 30.000.000 KM.

The other day i took some pictures that i thought somewhat useful for comparing sizes, at least on a lower but more common and relatable scale.

Spoiler

Conda over a planetary scan base



SRV on a Conda


Conda on a Farragut


Conda in a tourism station

And i'm sure someone will say the scales are still off, to which i ask, is that a problem of the game or of the players? I believe it's the latter.

SRV is large, big ships are huge, stations are huger. Let's not even talk about scale of planets and distance between solar system bodies. The scales are right and mostly follow know real life data, we just struggle to comprehend them, specially in a 2D screen. But i don't think tweaking the scaling to increase wow factor is the answer.

Are the ships too big? I don't think so, we don't know large FTL capable ships would be in reality. The one thing i think is wrong is that their mass is too low for their size.

I don't think the measurements are off in terms of distances. For me it's waaay more about the manmade object models, though to be fair this has vastly improved over time.

I think the original models used for firstgen stuff were built for larger doods and then were redone on the inside for tinier doods. For me it's most noticeable with the station pad greebles, and the ship interiors compared to their exterior greebling; it's just outscaled sometimes, like trying to use car-scale parts for military-scale modeling. Some parts just look... off-scale. In the Eagle especially, I feel like a 1/72 pilot sitting in a 1/32 spaceframe.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

The visual cues are there if you look for them - inside Orbis/Coriolis stations there are those car type things that move around the internal circumference for example, in space though there is naturally going to be a lack of recognisable reference points that give you a clear indication of both size and distance. The instrumentation readouts do supplement that though as can the Orbital path plots.

It's just that they aren't enough. I didn't notice the sheer size of ships until I saw the size of some staircases inside a medium hangar.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

About the height of a Barbie doll. Not big at all.

Still, that's far bigger than the RL bobbleheads.

Replace PS4 with PC, and I'm on the same page.

I do believe that the scale is correct, however the game (in 2D) does not transmit the scale. And players should not have to use rulers, calculators and microscopes to find the hidden little details that give off the scale, it should be completely apparent, like in all other games. It isn't though, mostly because of the reasons that were already mentioned in the topic.

Exactly.

I do not have to perform any mental gymnastics at all - the sense of scale is so obvious you would have to have it on the tip of a nuke fired straight at you personally for it to be any more obvious.

Maybe that's because you already used VR which I won't be able to for a long time.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

I am seeing a blatant trend in those that agree with you - they typically ignore the "little details" that are there.

I didn't ignore those detatils willingly. Why would I? I'd kill to feel the sense of scale VR users talk about with my cheap'o 1080 panel.