Sense Of Scale

operant

O
Old Duck said:
As an American, my sense of speed is intrinsically tied to MPH. With Alexa's help, I ran some conversions, and it really kinda shocked me. For example, 100 m/s is over 200 MPH. Back when I was a young lad who was into sports cars, I experienced some pretty serious acceleration. Going 0-60 in around 5 seconds will push you back in your seat - you really feel it. With the boost on some of these ships, my eyes should be bloodshot. I get that we might experience this in an SLF or Eagle, since I'm sure pilots catapulted off of an aircraft carrier experience some intense acceleration. In Elite Dangerous, it's the aircraft carrier itself that's being catapulted as if it were an F-18, and that just doesn't "scale".

At least I can control this somewhat. See #3 from my post: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/429422-Sense-Of-Scale?p=6787400&viewfull=1#post6787400
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I suspect nothing compared to the acceleration due to curved space around the objects we get close to.
Those who visit SagA* probably come back longer than when they left.

Since the game is pure bunkem compared to reality, none of this matters of course.
 

Shinji Ikari

Shinji Ikari
Jaiotu said:
It's easier to get the sense of scale if you are using VR or some form of head/eye tracking. When your view is static it really does kind of feel like you are sitting at a table top (especially in something small like the Sidewinder). You don't grasp the size of the cockpit unless you look down and realize just how far away from the dashboard you really are.
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Yeah, and either way, it makes no sense to have HUD that far away from you.
 
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Shinji Ikari

Shinji Ikari
rlsg said:
If you think the acceleration of pilots off a catapult launch system is bad then you should also consider the relative acceleration of vertical launch space launch vehicles and such vehicles can be far heavier than a fighter jet and possibly heavier than a carrier.

According to one source on the internet the catapult launch system has an aggregate acceleration of 2.5Gs but according to another the instantaneous force could be as high as 4Gs. During a space launch apparently the sustained force on a Shuttle before separation of the SRBs is around 3Gs (according to at least one source).
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Well, in most ships in ED you accelerate more than 10 Gs when using the boost button.
 

Darkfyre99

Darkfyre99
BL1P said:
That line is very relevant, I cant remember who it was but someone did the calculation for an anaconda of size and mass.
Because of its size the anaconda must be made out of a material that is lighter than air. Or something along those lines.

Anyway when I sit in an Anaconda I do not feel like im sitting in the Control room of a modern day aircraft carrier sized ship nor do I feel like it handles correctly for its size.
These things distort my sense of scale in Elite.
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Out of morbid curiousity, and because I kind of like doing this kind of thing, I've been doing a bit of research to see how true that is, and to compare that to an aircraft carrier.

Aircraft carrier:
  • Displacement: 106,000 tons
  • Box Volume: 578,000 cubic meters (not including tower)
  • Shape Volume: 433,000 cubic meters (estimate based on the front profile taken from here)
  • Density: 183.39 kg/m3 (box) 244.80 kg/m3 (shape)

Anaconda:


  • Mass: 1517 tons (multi-role build)
  • "Box" Volume: 292,000 cubic meters
  • "Shape" Volume: 101,000 cubic meters
  • Density: 5.13 kg/m3 (box) 14.83 kg/m3 (shape)

Density of Air at sea level: 1.23 kg/m3
So, the Anaconda certainly isn't lighter than air, let alone made of materials lighter than air. It is, however, 6% of an aircraft carrier's density.

Out of additional morbid curiousity, I'm now kind of curious how a Cobra Mk III and a Type-7 compares with them both:

Cobra Mk III:
  • Mass: 328 (multi-role build)
  • "Box" Volume: 9420 cubic meters
  • "Shape" Volume: 3191 cubic meters
  • Density: 45.82 kg/m3 (box) 102.79 kg/m3 (shape)

Type-7 Transporter:
  • Mass: 822 (multi-role build)
  • "Box" Volume: 116,000 cubic meters
  • "Shape" Volume: 55,000 cubic meters
  • Density: 7.09 kg/m3 (box) 14.94 kg/m3 (shape)

I'm kind of getting the feeling that Frontier really didn't think things all the way through when it came to the larger ships...
 

lenna

lenna
Kurama 1100 said:
Which doesn't excuse the fact that there are games that convey scale much better than ED. If it really was impossible then I wouldn't mind but that's not the case.
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Perception of scale is based on assumptions regarding frames of reference, while some games may convey "perceived scale" better than ED it is arguable about whether they are allowing scale to be perceived correctly or distorting perception with artistic license.

I would argue against any move that distorts perceptions for artistic reasons - arguably such moves are unnecessary and would not improve ED at all.
 
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lenna

lenna
Darkfyre99 said:
Anaconda:


  • Mass: 1517 tons (multi-role build)
  • "Box" Volume: 292,000 cubic meters
  • "Shape" Volume: 101,000 cubic meters
  • Density: 5.13 kg/m3 (box) 14.83 kg/m3 (shape)

…

Cobra Mk III:
  • Mass: 328 (multi-role build)
  • "Box" Volume: 9420 cubic meters
  • "Shape" Volume: 3191 cubic meters
  • Density: 45.82 kg/m3 (box) 102.79 kg/m3 (shape)

Type-7 Transporter:
  • Mass: 822 (multi-role build)
  • "Box" Volume: 116,000 cubic meters
  • "Shape" Volume: 55,000 cubic meters
  • Density: 7.09 kg/m3 (box) 14.94 kg/m3 (shape)
Click to expand...
This does not exactly surprise me, I would expect something like a Mk3 to be denser in terms of mass-to-volume when compared with trade vessels like the T7 and bigger.

We can overanalyse things you know and find "apparent" inconsistencies in almost any work of fiction, that does not mean that such perceived inconsistencies are not explainable.

I would not expect ships in games such as ED to comply with the level of accuracy of real world engineering models, but it is worth keeping in mind that ED is staged over 1000 years in the future and some of the "license" used in such things could be explained by advances in technology and material science.
 

Shinji Ikari

Shinji Ikari
rlsg said:
Perception of scale is based on assumptions regarding frames of reference, while some games may convey "perceived scale" better than ED it is arguable about whether they are allowing scale to be perceived correctly or distorting perception with artistic license.

I would argue against any move that distorts perceptions for artistic reasons - arguably such moves are unnecessary and would not improve ED at all.
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Well, ED doesn't give good asumptions. I'd have never thought that the canopy in my AspX is the height of a two story house for example or that the HUD is unreachable with my arms.
 

Hellfire85

Hellfire85
The only problem you guys have is that there is no RL counterpart to compare the scales of ED to. An eagle or a sidey are both way bigger than a fighter jet because it needs to house an FSD engine, a cargo bay, a living quarter for long travels etc...
 

Kemo

Kemo
babelfisch said:
The question is, why are our cockpits 5-10 meters tall?
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I've always considered it to be like this due to the zero G environment. We're (currently :) ) all strapped in to our seats, but assuming you were to unbuckle yourself from the seat, it'd be rather handy to have some room for you and crew to move about, maybe.

Anyway, that's my penniesworth on that.
 

Darkfyre99

Darkfyre99
rlsg said:
This does not exactly surprise me, I would expect something like a Mk3 to be denser in terms of mass-to-volume when compared with trade vessels like the T7 and bigger.

We can overanalyse things you know and find "apparent" inconsistencies in almost any work of fiction, that does not mean that such perceived inconsistencies are not explainable.

I would not expect ships in games such as ED to comply with the level of accuracy of real world engineering models, but it is worth keeping in mind that ED is staged over 1000 years in the future and some of the "license" used in such things could be explained by advances in technology and material science.
Click to expand...
But overanalysing things can be so much fun! ;)

Did you know that a Python has nine times the internal volume of a Cobra, but only three times its mass, and carries only five times as much cargo. On the flip side, a Python's power plant puts out only twice the power of a Cobra's, but weighs eight times as much?

I could care less about the discrepancy between a real world aircraft carrier, and a 34th century space ship. I can easily assume that between improvements in materials science, the miniaturization of power production (a Cobra Mk III's 5 ton power plant generates the equivalent of three of these), as well as needing only a crew of one as opposed to 5000 or so, most of a ship's volume is empty space.

But when in-universe engineers designed the Python, they apparently decided that having one large, inefficient power plant was better than having multiple smaller, more efficient ones, despite the advantages they would bring both in terms of redundancy, and the savings in mass. I know it was done for game balance reasons, but it does break my sense of verisimilitude.
 

Stigbob

Stigbob
Darkfyre99 said:
Out of morbid curiousity, and because I kind of like doing this kind of thing, I've been doing a bit of research to see how true that is, and to compare that to an aircraft carrier.

Aircraft carrier:
  • Displacement: 106,000 tons
  • Box Volume: 578,000 cubic meters (not including tower)
  • Shape Volume: 433,000 cubic meters (estimate based on the front profile taken from here)
  • Density: 183.39 kg/m3 (box) 244.80 kg/m3 (shape)

Anaconda:


  • Mass: 1517 tons (multi-role build)
  • "Box" Volume: 292,000 cubic meters
  • "Shape" Volume: 101,000 cubic meters
  • Density: 5.13 kg/m3 (box) 14.83 kg/m3 (shape)

Density of Air at sea level: 1.23 kg/m3
So, the Anaconda certainly isn't lighter than air, let alone made of materials lighter than air. It is, however, 6% of an aircraft carrier's density.

Out of additional morbid curiousity, I'm now kind of curious how a Cobra Mk III and a Type-7 compares with them both:

Cobra Mk III:
  • Mass: 328 (multi-role build)
  • "Box" Volume: 9420 cubic meters
  • "Shape" Volume: 3191 cubic meters
  • Density: 45.82 kg/m3 (box) 102.79 kg/m3 (shape)

Type-7 Transporter:
  • Mass: 822 (multi-role build)
  • "Box" Volume: 116,000 cubic meters
  • "Shape" Volume: 55,000 cubic meters
  • Density: 7.09 kg/m3 (box) 14.94 kg/m3 (shape)

I'm kind of getting the feeling that Frontier really didn't think things all the way through when it came to the larger ships...
Click to expand...

Space Marines don't carry spare ammo either, never mind.
 

insanephoton

insanephoton
Darkfyre99 said:
Out of morbid curiousity, and because I kind of like doing this kind of thing, I've been doing a bit of research to see how true that is, and to compare that to an aircraft carrier.

Aircraft carrier:
  • Displacement: 106,000 tons
  • Box Volume: 578,000 cubic meters (not including tower)
  • Shape Volume: 433,000 cubic meters (estimate based on the front profile taken from here)
  • Density: 183.39 kg/m3 (box) 244.80 kg/m3 (shape)

Anaconda:


  • Mass: 1517 tons (multi-role build)
  • "Box" Volume: 292,000 cubic meters
  • "Shape" Volume: 101,000 cubic meters
  • Density: 5.13 kg/m3 (box) 14.83 kg/m3 (shape)

Density of Air at sea level: 1.23 kg/m3
So, the Anaconda certainly isn't lighter than air, let alone made of materials lighter than air. It is, however, 6% of an aircraft carrier's density.

Out of additional morbid curiousity, I'm now kind of curious how a Cobra Mk III and a Type-7 compares with them both:

Cobra Mk III:
  • Mass: 328 (multi-role build)
  • "Box" Volume: 9420 cubic meters
  • "Shape" Volume: 3191 cubic meters
  • Density: 45.82 kg/m3 (box) 102.79 kg/m3 (shape)

Type-7 Transporter:
  • Mass: 822 (multi-role build)
  • "Box" Volume: 116,000 cubic meters
  • "Shape" Volume: 55,000 cubic meters
  • Density: 7.09 kg/m3 (box) 14.94 kg/m3 (shape)

I'm kind of getting the feeling that Frontier really didn't think things all the way through when it came to the larger ships...
Click to expand...


It's interesting to look up what materials are in the same density range as the larger ships, once you discard the non solids it's mostly plastic foams like expanded polystyrene , polyurethane or polyethylene.
 
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