By next year prices should have dropped a fair bit, the Vive Pro is already out, the next Oculus is due this year. Even a second hand DK2 is worth it just to get inside the ED world for a bit, those are going cheap, I have one sat in storage like an old Amiga.
Sense Of Scale
- Thread starter Old Duck
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By next year prices should have dropped a fair bit, the Vive Pro is already out, the next Oculus is due this year. Even a second hand DK2 is worth it just to get inside the ED world for a bit, those are going cheap, I have one sat in storage like an old Amiga.
The issue is that in ED every single thing is huge, there are barely any small objects in the whole game, so it's very hard to get a sense of scale in 2D.
In all the other game's mentioned in this thread there is a healthy mix between object sizes, from tiny to huge. In ED there are very few visible objects overall and nearly all of the existing ones are enormous, so without VR it's pretty much impossible to grasp the actual size of things. Ships are huge, stations are huge, station buildings are huge, hangars are huge, planetary starports and it's buildings are huge, planetary landscapes are a mix of completely empty huge plains and huge montains and craters, nothing really stands out, there are no references to get the idea of size. If everything is huge, then nothing is huge.
For instance, when flying to land on a planetary starport, when you feel like you're nearly there you're actually around 10km from the ground, which is roughly the cruising altitude of a commercial airline. But there is no weather, no clouds so you don't even realize how high you are. Plus, the only thing visible is that gargantuan mammoth sized starport, with only empty land around it, with 2km high towers. So you feel like you almost at the ground even though you're still at a very high altitude, several km away from it. Due to all that you can see being bloody enormous, then nothing feels big or afar. And there isn't a single thing in sight, no traffic, no small buildings, no people, no moving small vehicles, that might help you realize the actual size of those things.
This is also the reason why ED ships seem so slow, the near complete lack of small objects (and overall lack of objects), it feels like you're barely going forward.
In all the other game's mentioned in this thread there is a healthy mix between object sizes, from tiny to huge. In ED there are very few visible objects overall and nearly all of the existing ones are enormous, so without VR it's pretty much impossible to grasp the actual size of things. Ships are huge, stations are huge, station buildings are huge, hangars are huge, planetary starports and it's buildings are huge, planetary landscapes are a mix of completely empty huge plains and huge montains and craters, nothing really stands out, there are no references to get the idea of size. If everything is huge, then nothing is huge.
For instance, when flying to land on a planetary starport, when you feel like you're nearly there you're actually around 10km from the ground, which is roughly the cruising altitude of a commercial airline. But there is no weather, no clouds so you don't even realize how high you are. Plus, the only thing visible is that gargantuan mammoth sized starport, with only empty land around it, with 2km high towers. So you feel like you almost at the ground even though you're still at a very high altitude, several km away from it. Due to all that you can see being bloody enormous, then nothing feels big or afar. And there isn't a single thing in sight, no traffic, no small buildings, no people, no moving small vehicles, that might help you realize the actual size of those things.
This is also the reason why ED ships seem so slow, the near complete lack of small objects (and overall lack of objects), it feels like you're barely going forward.
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^Exactly, when I am trundling along for the last 5km's at the 100 m/s speed limit in my T9, it feels quite slow due to sheer scale and distances, even in VR.
This is what 100m/s looks like in a cramped environment with plenty of visual cues nearby.
Internal view at 25 seconds
[video=youtube_share;DDSo_1xHxzA]https://youtu.be/DDSo_1xHxzA?t=35s[/video]
This is what 100m/s looks like in a cramped environment with plenty of visual cues nearby.
Internal view at 25 seconds
[video=youtube_share;DDSo_1xHxzA]https://youtu.be/DDSo_1xHxzA?t=35s[/video]
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Yea i should probably grab one set next year, thats a good idea. It is just that i also need a graphics card and the cost goes off the roof.
I understand what people are saying about VR, but there must be something more to it than that. I believe it was FreeSpace and FreeSpace 2 that I played long ago with epic capital ship battles, and even back then those ships felt HUGE! Today, a simple freighter in NMS very big, yet I think it's actually smaller than a typical megaship in ED which does not feel "mega" at all.
People are giving plenty of good reasons why this may be, yet I also wonder if there isn't a 3D "camera" setting in ED that's off (which some of you also believe). The Hitchcock zoom comes to mind (warning - annoying!):
I've adjust FOV (only setting I have on PS4), and it can help a little with the sense of scale, but it adds a weird fisheye lensing effect that I don't like.
People are giving plenty of good reasons why this may be, yet I also wonder if there isn't a 3D "camera" setting in ED that's off (which some of you also believe). The Hitchcock zoom comes to mind (warning - annoying!):
I've adjust FOV (only setting I have on PS4), and it can help a little with the sense of scale, but it adds a weird fisheye lensing effect that I don't like.
One of my favourite games, the combat was intense. Yes the ships where huge, you would fly small ships only slighter larger than an SLF, combat would be against enormous capital class ships.
To give you an example of size difference, the interdictor class capital ship in ED is gigantic at nearly 2km long, it would be dwarfed by the Freespace Capital ship that are up to 6km+ long.
Freespace capital class ships are the size of Coriolis space stations. From a small ship dogfighting perspective it works great on 2D monitors.
Thanks for reminding me about that game, a great resource for finding interesting ship names for ED.
http://wiki.hard-light.net/index.php/FreeSpace_2_Terran_Ship_Database#GTCv_Heraklion
It also helped that those large capital ships in Freespace would fight each other using massive beam weapons that look amazing and really conveyed the sense of capital-scale weaponry. Unfortunately in Elite we still have underpowered fighter-scale weapons on the Farragut and Majestic cap ships that slowly paper-cut each other down to 0% health instead of seeing massive exchanges of firepower. Hopefully they will address this at some point so we can see Elite capital ships finally look like they're carrying proper firepower.
I've thought about this, too. The ships do seem smaller than they are, for some reason, but I can't really figure out what you could change to make them seem larger.
I think the problem is that there is no reference when you're just staring out a window at limitless space.
It's an interesting psychological question, though.
I think the problem is that there is no reference when you're just staring out a window at limitless space.
It's an interesting psychological question, though.
Running with ED defaults here on a VIVE, the Eye Separation measure is more too do with focus and eye strain than sense of scale. On the VIVE there is a physical single axis analogue control to adjust it. I got my inter-pupil distance from my optician but the value they gave me was half what it should have been and may have been inaccurate based on my experience with the VIVE - though wearing glasses may mean the value needs to be tweaked due to the weird prescription I have.
If the eye separation is wrong, then it can cause headaches and nausea due to eye strain. In addition the visual definition suffers.
WRT the scale of the smaller fighters - The Courier, Eagle, and similar ships seem good to me, you should check out the SLF for comparison.
Beluga, Orca, Corvette, Anaconda, and similar cockpits feel appropriately huge.
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:S:S:S
Of course the scale is right, and when you see it in VR the eye imediatly understands the scale, but when you play in 2d objects often look to small.
Without 3d the human eye requires some aids to estimate distance (and therby size) the most important one being objects of known size. Humans, trees, houses... stuff like this. Unfortunately these things are realy rare in game. On some of the landigpads you have some stairs, containers or small vessels, and these imediatly give you a proper impression of the scale.
The other problem is speed, or rather acceleration. Our ships just move way to fast. The maximum speed for stations is 100m/s, thats 360km/h! (I think maximum taxi speed on airport is 25 knots, around 50km/h. Maximum speed for ships in ports is 5km/h). If I boost I can get my 2500t ship to 500m/s within 3 seconds. That acceleration should kill me, and my brain simply tells that this cant be, so the distance (and thereby the speed) must be much lower.
Edit: Some size reference
Without 3d the human eye requires some aids to estimate distance (and therby size) the most important one being objects of known size. Humans, trees, houses... stuff like this. Unfortunately these things are realy rare in game. On some of the landigpads you have some stairs, containers or small vessels, and these imediatly give you a proper impression of the scale.
The other problem is speed, or rather acceleration. Our ships just move way to fast. The maximum speed for stations is 100m/s, thats 360km/h! (I think maximum taxi speed on airport is 25 knots, around 50km/h. Maximum speed for ships in ports is 5km/h). If I boost I can get my 2500t ship to 500m/s within 3 seconds. That acceleration should kill me, and my brain simply tells that this cant be, so the distance (and thereby the speed) must be much lower.
Edit: Some size reference
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The stars do not look small IMO, the 3D perception element of VR does make the scale more obvious but even in 2D you can tell the differences in scale between a White Dwarf/Neutron Star, Sol type star, and Canis Majoris type stars (for example).And me thinks you do not know what a star is...
What may make them seem small is the speed at which we typically travel in super cruise.
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That's interesting as they look real small to me. So are you real happy with how they look when scooping - does that look like the size of a sun to you? I certainly imagine it to be much, much bigger. Again, forget gamey VR. Most of us play regular.
That's interesting as they look real small to me. So are you real happy with how they look when scooping - does that look like the size of a sun to you? I certainly imagine it to be much, much bigger. Again, forget gamey VR. Most of us play regular.
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The photo you posted shows quite nicely one of the major issues with scale: To the far left we see a hand railing, presumably scaled to keep you from falling off the edge of the platform. But then note the size of the light. From a design perspective, it looks like any ordinary light you might find around your home or along the path of a business park, but it's so ridiculously oversized that it destroys any sense of scale. Still farther, to the right, we see the cables strewn across the deck. Those cables are big enough around to fit a person and almost as tall as the hand rail at left.
There's just no consistency. It's maddening.
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Even just consider the slope of the boarding ramp. That would be akin to walking up multiple flights of stairs. It's completely impractical; a ship of that size would need to be boarded through a hatch not unlike modern airliners are boarded.
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It has nothing to do with VR, the scale is correct in both 2D & VR. Take a look at the distance you are from the star whilst scooping, then take into account the radius of the body.
As a joke I was going to post a link by flat earthers proving the sun is only a a few hundred km's wide... Wish I never clicked on that linked. If you ever need proof of how certain minds are incapable of understanding scale and distances, visit a flat earth forum.
No, they are stadium sized lights, the same lights you see on all pads. Those pads are gigantic. Edit - Apologies, thought you meant the lights on the stands, those floor lights are definitely not the size of lights you would find around a house.
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it's a mix. low quality textures in vr (or low vr resolution). lack of references and familiar small objects. lack of ambient fading and ... artificially big desings.
when you look at the eagle you just see a single seat fighter, not the behemoth it's supposed to be. there is no point in making a figher that big. likewise the fdl, it has an unnatural shape for a ship more than 70 meters long. that's the length of two house blocks! the details on the ships aren't realistic in size either, most ship designs appear just scaled up per se.
it's also the lack of atmosphere, dust or convincing ambient lighting, which makes rendered objects just float there with little relation to one another. when you look at a fdl parked on a red planet it often somehow looks just pasted in there, the terrain looking sort of irreal and low in resolution doesn't allow for much continuum. so you just see the familiar shape of a small ship, your brain makes it smaller than it is in terms of game scale.
stations also have this problem, they do seem huge but not as much as they are supposed to be. as has been mentioned, the fast animations, the lack of detail of the trucks (almost just little boxes), and the lack of ambient fading you would expect across such large distances contribute to that. the mailslot even looks constraining, because the ships are artificially big.
that said, elite's rendering is gorgeous, in vr it's mind boggling, but for me it has always had this scale problem, both in 2d and vr.