Size comparison between ships!

Literalyte

Literalyte
I have created a fairly accurate size comparison image between ships. This contains all of the ships currently within the game.


9P9Oejk.jpg


From left to right:
Anaconda, Lakon Type 9, Cobra Mk. III, Eagle Mk. II, Sidewinder Mk. I, F63 Condor, navigation beacon, standard canister.

I spent a fair amount of time trying to get the ships' position and rotation in the right zone. If you've seen CMDR Literalyte hanging about, that's me, and that's why!

I haven't submitted to fan creations as this is a more pragmatic scale, for judging relative scale.
 

Yellonet

Yellonet
Huh, never knew that the Cobra was that big. When I face it in battle it seems about the same size as my puny Sidewinder, but maybe that's just me having poor sense of scale...
 

Stachel

Banned
Stachel
Awesome! +rep

The Anaconda doesn't look its size at all in game from a sidewinder. I made a video of one the other day and I was take aback by how unimposing it is .. :D
 

tresch

tresch
One of the things that probably makes things look smaller in game are the accelerations involved.

Consider that 200 miles per hour (320 kph) is about 90 meters/second.

The sidewinder can accelerate to 90m/s in what.. less than a second?

Even if it took a full second to get to 90m/s, that's 10 Gs

10 Gs is a lot. 10 Gs is like... you just pass out. Potentially deadly. 10 Gs is obscenely fast. Mind bogglingly fast. Unfathomably fast.

For reference, a top-fuel dragster submits the driver to about 4.0 Gs of acceleration.

The fact that we have accelerations like this without them really feeling like a big deal makes everything seem much smaller, because you can just dart around. You can't really get close to a Cobra to see the scale because the slightest touch of your thrusters sends you rocketing toward or away from it like a missile. Visually, the scale is right, but all the movement cues make everything feel like toys.
 

tresch

tresch
I was trying to think of how to deal with this, whether to not bother and leave the accelerations in and give it up to being 'a game' or to do something to make it seem a big more intense.

I was thinking it might be nice to have two different modes of thrust.

One mode for 'cruising/maneuvering thrust' where the thrusters are throttled way down. Top speeds wouldn't need to change, but accelerations would be significantly reduced. This would create a nice smooth feel with little drama, and allow for easier docking and close ship-to-ship maneuvering.

The second mode would be 'combat thrust' where the thrusters are cranked up to full power all the time. You'd get full maneuverability, but with an accompanying amount of noise, cabin-shake, and possibly some pilot black-out effects (maybe not enough for full blackout as would be realistic, but just enough to realize that you're really being flung about)

A third mode could possibly be 'docking thrust' which gives you very fine control for ship-to-pad and ship-to-ship docking procedures.

You could switch manually, or automatically assign different thrust modes to other things. Like, when landing gear out, docking thrust. when hardpoints out, combat thrust. Otherwise cruising thrust.
 

Henri

Henri
Literalyte said:
I have created a fairly accurate size comparison image between ships. This contains all of the ships currently within the game.
9P9Oejk.jpg


From left to right:
Anaconda, Lakon Type 9, Cobra Mk. III, Eagle Mk. II, Sidewinder Mk. I, F63 Condor, navigation beacon, standard canister.
Click to expand...
except the hauler.

Stachel said:
Awesome! +rep

The Anaconda doesn't look its size at all in game from a sidewinder. I made a video of one the other day and I was take aback by how unimposing it is .. :D
Click to expand...

smaller ships should have more of a fish eye perspective
 

Kemo

Kemo
tresch said:
One of the things that probably makes things look smaller in game are the accelerations involved.

Consider that 200 miles per hour (320 kph) is about 90 meters/second.

The sidewinder can accelerate to 90m/s in what.. less than a second?

Even if it took a full second to get to 90m/s, that's 10 Gs

10 Gs is a lot. 10 Gs is like... you just pass out. Potentially deadly. 10 Gs is obscenely fast. Mind bogglingly fast. Unfathomably fast.

For reference, a top-fuel dragster submits the driver to about 4.0 Gs of acceleration.

The fact that we have accelerations like this without them really feeling like a big deal makes everything seem much smaller, because you can just dart around. You can't really get close to a Cobra to see the scale because the slightest touch of your thrusters sends you rocketing toward or away from it like a missile. Visually, the scale is right, but all the movement cues make everything feel like toys.
Click to expand...

Interesting post, I wonder how FD will handle in atmosphere flight based around these sorts of numbers. I assume there would be a limiter applied.

Scale is always a difficult aspect to get across in games. I did think the adding of npc characters wandering around the stations in an earlier ED trailer really helped.
 

Kambalo

Kambalo
Oh, boy OP you did it, now I can see the young whipper snappers measuring their ships against each other, "my ship is bigger than yours", "my ship guns are bigger than yours", etc etc, etc :D
 
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