Yes but I can't replicate that in game from my cockpit.
Sense Of Scale
- Thread starter Old Duck
- Start date
Yes but I can't replicate that in game from my cockpit.
I thought we all agreed that the game can't do that (unless you have VR) during the course of this thread ;-)
From the blueprints I have (don't ask!) the AIM-9 is 112 inches long - 2.85m
AMRAAM 3.66m
AIM-54 Phoenix 156 inches - 3.96m
Wow, never realised it was that long!
Edit for derpitude in conversions
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If they start making ridiculous assumptions - yes.
At no point in the history of Elite have ships like the Cobra, Eagle, or Sidewinder been pitched as "pop canopy" craft AFAIK.
This is true, but the Imp Courier, for example, looks like a "pop canopy" craft. Even though the canopy is the size of a house. This is the problem.
This is why I love the Python's cockpit. Regardless of how large it is, it feels properly cramped due to the low angle of the wind shield and the massive bulkhead separating pilot from copilot.
While you can say that the Eagle, Vulture, and others can look like "pop canopy" craft (without consideration for well known scale concerns) they obviously are not when you actually consider the full context (and I am not talking about anything visual here).
Just because there is a high degree of glass-like surface does not mean the craft is pop canopy in nature and external detailing is mostly irrelevant when considering scale perception (ED is primarily a cockpit view virtual environment). However, if you do factor in external detailing then you should also consider it's relationship to internal detailing which is visible from the in-game external view.
All in-all however you try to rationalise it the "assumption" that ANY of the craft upwards from the Sidewinder are pop-canopy in nature or terms of scale is absurd and irrational.
Not all of them are, it depends on the craft and general design. We could over analyse things and try to pick at details but overall it is largely irrelevant how tall, wide, or long the internal cockpit spaces are, except in terms of "minimum size". The lore based minimum size means that internally the cockpits should probably be at least the height of a small flat roofed building - after-all based on lore people are expected to move about inside their ships in an upright posture when under nominal gravity conditions.
Anything bigger than that could be for any of a number of potential reasons.
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But, we are only talking about the visual. I know how big the ships are, I have 3D models of some of them. I can measure the sizes. This is all about how they look.
Not sure I follow this, but I would point out that internal details are irrelevant when you see a ship from a distance. If I am coming through the slot and a Courier is coming towards me, I am not looking at the pilot...
No-one is suggesting this, as far as I can tell. All I am saying is that they look like "pop-canopy" craft. As such, from the point of view of conveying a sense of scale, they are a failure.
I think this is a case of convergent design. Both "pop canopy" aircraft and the cockpits of spaceship like the Imperial Courier are designed to maximize visibility for their pilot. The main difference between the two are the size of the craft in question, how much human accessible space is available, and how the cockpit is accessed.
In the case of the former, it's a small aircraft where the only human accessible space is the cockpit itself, and the only way to access that space is via the canopy.
In the case of the latter, its a "small" spaceship that is the size of a medium sized airliner, the maximum amount of human accessible space are the cockpit, the Commander's living quarters, at least five of its internal compartments, at least one airlock, plus the internal corridors that connect them all. One the those corridors is what connects the cockpit to the rest of the ship, and how the ship's Commander accesses it.
The question then becomes, "How do you design that corridor?"
Option one is to actually eliminate it, and move the cockpit to right in front of the door to the rest of the ship. This has the advantage of reducing the apparent size of the "canopy" relative to the ship, but comes at the expense of reduced visibility.
Option two is to enclose that corridor with hull plating rather than transparent material. This also has the advantage of reducing the apparent size of the "canopy" relative to the ship, but also comes at the expense of reduced visibility. The only difference between this and option one is that the forward position of the cockpit doesn't reduce the visibility as much, which is a good thing IMO.
Option three is the one chosen by whoever designed the Imperial Courier: extend the "canopy" backwards towards the door to the rest of the ship to maximize visibility. You won't see it on a 2D monitor, but speaking as a VR player, I love the fact that I can track singular targets by looking over my shoulder, as opposed to having to rely instrumentation.
It maximizes visibility.
At least until you look behind you in VR, and realize that you could probably seat at least a dozen people in the space behind you.
If I didn't already own a Python, I'd be tempted to purchase a Krait just for its cockpit, but I do, and I'm not willing to sacrifice a size 6 internal for just better visibility on my main mission runner.
Not entirely. People perceive the game world through their tiny monitor. Independent of the size of your screen, ED always shows the game from the same perspective and the same information (with regards to the HUD). Having played both in VR and 1m away on a 42" screen, I can say that any smaller screen contorts the sense of scale. Cockpits displayed on a 24" screen appear, of course, far too small as does the game world. Wrong FOV settings affect size and distance perception.
I disagree wholly on the second and mostly on the first with a caveat.
Despite the size of craft like the Imperial Courier their role is much the same as current real-world "pop-canopy" craft therefore the visibility criteria is largely the same. That essentially means that "pop-canopy" visibility aspects would notionally need to be scaled up, this may give some the impression from a purely external context in open space with no mid visibility reference points (like the slot for example) that something could be of the size of a pop-canopy craft but common sense should basically dismiss that notion before it forms - we all should know by now that the Sidewinder is not a pop-canopy craft and is the smallest of the directly pilotable craft.
In your reference case of passing through the slot, you have the reference point of the slot itself to make a judgement of the scale thus external detailing of the craft is irrelevant.
The fact that FD have managed to produce a space-superiority craft experience that maps well on to current pop-canopy air-superiority craft experiences despite the well known absolute size differences means they have done something right - not wrong.
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The default FOV settings are not necessarily wrong, but you are right about scale being perhaps perceived differently if the rendered FOV does not match the real world optical FOV. Some people can compensate for such differences mentally if they are aware of it but ultimately, the responsibility for ensuring a monitor/TV is positioned at the correct distance from the operator to achieve the correct/desired optical FOV is down to the individual in question - not the developers. You can customise the rendered FOV if necessary but given the general nature of flat screens if you do you may notice rendering distortion effects (e.g. fish eye) - that is not a game developer issue either.
Games in general will typically have to make some natural aggregate assumptions about the environment in which their game is played and the defaults of ED are fully compliant with the nominal industry wide standard for 1080p/FHD (and similar 16:9 displays) from what I can tell.
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Agreed. But apart from this purely technical side, I think, folk is also right about in-game assets. Lack of detail can also lead to false sense of scale, but I think that is far less of a problem, if you play with properly set up equipment.
Only recently had time to look at these aspects in-game so....
WRT internal hand holds in the Diamondback Explorer (DBX) and others that may be dotted around the cockpit - Zero G motion aids... you do not necessarily need to have more than one hand hold accessible at any given time (if any at all in that specific context). In some craft like the DBX I can see the potential relevance-of/need-for them, in some others perhaps less so.
WRT the keyboards, they are not necessarily intended to be used from the pilot chair - not all craft/chairs have them (Pilot seat of the Asp Explorer for example) - but in the case of the DBX it is clearly intended to be a telescopic armature both in terms of the vertical post (gas/oil actuators or similar - c/f Standard computer desk Office chairs) and the arm off that post (mechanical telescopic extension - c/f slide rule, telescopic ladder, or some articulated monitor mounts).
As for the chairs, in some cases they may be elevated (c/f the Krait) but that seems to be far from a universal case. As for the chair "seat" size itself, they are at worst a good match for the size of our in-game avatar. Regardless, what does it matter if the chairs do elevate after being sat in? It is not as if the seat size is disproportionate in any shape or form.
As for things being unclear or misleading, I totally disagree.
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In my opinion, a part of some people’s feeling that the scale is wrong stems from a baseline assumption of theirs: that these are terrestrial atmospheric craft, as opposed to spacecraft designed to operate in a multitude of hostile environments found in space, including in the vacuum of space and in a zero-g environment.
Earlier in the thread, someone pointed out that a pair of grab-handles near the canopy of the Eagle looked like they were scaled fo a much bigger human being. My first instinct was to agree, but right after I hit post I realized those wouldn’t be sized for someone working in shirt sleeves on the surface of an Earth-like world, but instead they were sized for someone wearing a Hazardous Environment Suit working in zero-g.
Yesterday after the patch, I finally returned to Cemiess from The Pleiades after unlocking Selene Jean and another Engineer I hadn’t gotten around to. First thing I did was hop into that Eagle, and check out those handles in VR. Sure enough, I was right about the design of those handles.
Also, I discovered that if I clip my head through the canopy, I can see the whole ship, though it uses a relatively low res texture that includes the dirt around where those handles should attach to, but the handles themselves are missing. Thankfully, I know a few tricks to get close to them without resorting to using an SRV.
I think people in general need to be more realistic with their expectations, especially where expectations of a greater degree of detail in the cockpits is concerned. Personally, I do not feel there is any lack of necessary details. The cockpits may be a bit spartan but I have come to expect that kind of feel from general sci-fi and other games. In addition, nothing that is there either feels scaled wrong or out of place.
When space legs eventually gets introduced perhaps that will appease at least some of those complaining about scale.
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Is there a video of someone slowly walking under some of these ships while looking around? I don't have a PC capable of running this demo