Speed on planets

Athanos · Nov 28, 2015

After watching David's videos on flying around the surface of a planet, I must say I was left disappointed with the Speed of things (or the scale in which speed is represented), I understand that when you do the math, on paper your going really fast. But it just doesn't make me believe I'm actually going fast at all. Everything "feels" slow and just a bit off scale (how fast something passes by on screen at max speed). I hope I'm just tripping and the "feeling" will be different when we actually get to try it out our selves. Has anyone else noticed or feel the same way when watching the videos?

Here are the links to the vid's for reference.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/bFYqfhMfVCk
https://www.youtube.com/embed/uyPoaVRErE0

I'm not here to argue with any of you so Please stay on subject and be sensible.

edited to fix video links.

Mr_Blastman · Nov 28, 2015

I guess you've never played many flight simulators. It looks fine to me.

GeoFalke · Nov 28, 2015

It's likely just the scale that's throwing you off. even flying an eagle is like flying a midsized passenger plane and won't feel that fast.

Cynaqq · Nov 28, 2015

GeoFalke said:
It's likely just the scale that's throwing you off. even flying an eagle is like flying a midsized passenger plane and won't feel that fast.

Yeah. Yet another thread proving the only thing we are discussing is having the galaxy in 1:1 scale. Since we are not backtracking on that, it being the major feature setting the game apart from others in the genre, people should either accept this game as what it is and learn to love it, or admit this game is not for them and play something that feels like whatever they have in mind.

777Driver · Nov 28, 2015

his rad/alt is showing an average of 600ft when passing the mountain, on flat terrain he's initially at around 1600ft diving to around 900ft, he's not skimming the terrain, it looks fine.

Look at the sense of speed you get in the SRV on the ground when only traveling at 32 m/s, put that same SRV at 600 ft above the ground and it would feel like it's crawling along

Bacalao · Nov 28, 2015

Unless I look straight down at the road going by outside my window, it looks like I'm going really slow on the freeway. 20mph on a bike feels faster than 90mph in a car because of perspective, same in ED. As more objects to introduce scale come into the game, it will feel more right, that or get a VR.

Cmdr Lassan · Nov 28, 2015

Yes, the speed seems to be ok regarding the scale of things.
It is still, and perhaps you meant that a very long travel to reach a point in space. Like supercruise where you "loose" many minutes to reach a certain point. I am nit generally opposed to that as it gives the universe a feeling of scale and takes away from the ( today often demanded) constant action gameplay.
Still, while watching the landing, i thought to myself that i hope that i can enter the atmosphere in a way or point i reach the base or point of interest a bit sooner.
I think we have to play for ourselves to really feel if it is "right or wrong".
I can imagine small celestial bodies being more interesting in the beginning if you want to get to know an object in its entirety

VR Morgan Grimes · Nov 28, 2015

I'll bet flying an Eagle through a base entry tunnel will not feel slow...

Ydiss · Nov 28, 2015

You can get a better sense of the speed when he looks left at low altitude.

When you get into the game, do a boost fly-by past the settlement. You'll get it then.

When all is said and done, he travels 45km in 2 minutes. Which is a little slower than Concorde (it's the equivalent of London to New York in 4 hours, Concorde did it in 3.5 hours).

He's travelling slower than the fastest aircraft in modern times. So it won't seem Omg super fast at altitude.

Normal flight is restricted for a very good reason. But Glide is another matter entirely. That's over 5k miles an hour. Or London to New York in 40 minutes.

It's not going to be easy to really feel the speed until you go to Earth. But even then, you'll need to glide at stupidly low altitude to feel it.

[VR] Deggial · Nov 28, 2015

I wouldn't mind, though, if the gliding phase' lower altitude limit would be about 2 km.

monkeymagoo · Nov 28, 2015

Agree, it seems slow at high altitude but that's similar to when you exit supercruise too early in a ring system and you have to spend ages boosting towards the asteroids. Maybe the boost could be twice as fast at high altitude or something (although that might conflict with other game mechanics). At the end of the day any ship has a top speed so on a massive planet even the fastest ship is going to feel slow flying over it.

Closer to the ground though, I think you do get a good sense of speed. In fact trying to fly through a canyon I imagine may be quite challenging especially if boosting the whole time!

As Ydiss mentioned the small details you see closer to the ground add to the sense of speed and in the game (not the compressed YT version) you'll hopefully see a lot more of those details and feel a lot faster.

BanzaiZAP · Nov 28, 2015

In favor of "looks good to me," the Kaleri Outpost as they fly directly through the outpost (1:10) feels pretty good. In the second video, it mostly feels slow as they stay above 100m altitude. Any time they get below 100m, like at around 3:00, that you feel a better sense of speed. I hope they do a shot of canyon racing, but hopefully I'll try it myself on Monday night!

Mark Lock · Nov 28, 2015

Athanos said:
After watching David's videos on flying around the surface of a planet, I must say I was left disappointed with the Speed of things (or the scale in which speed is represented), I understand that when you do the math, on paper your going really fast. But it just doesn't make me believe I'm actually going fast at all. Everything "feels" slow and just a bit off scale (how fast something passes by on screen at max speed). I hope I'm just tripping and the "feeling" will be different when we actually get to try it out our selves. Has anyone else noticed or feel the same way when watching the videos?

Here are the links to the vid's for reference.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/bFYqfhMfVCk
https://www.youtube.com/embed/uyPoaVRErE0

I'm not here to argue with any of you so Please stay on subject and be sensible.

edited to fix video links.

It's only about details, the guy is flying too high to see the details you see when driving an srv, also the smallest details only appear when you are very low above the ground, you can clearly see the smallest stones appear when he lands, if it wasn't like that you would experience severe stuttering when flying on planet, also considering the guy flies above 100m, speed seems well scaled to me

BoggiBlanko · Nov 28, 2015

I'll search for a really small Canyon.... It must be out there somewhere.... Then it'll feel fast I think....

Gryphorim · Nov 29, 2015

Deggial said:
I wouldn't mind, though, if the gliding phase' lower altitude limit would be about 2 km.

Which would work out great in the himalayas!

FuZion · Nov 29, 2015

Ydiss said:
You can get a better sense of the speed when he looks left at low altitude.

When you get into the game, do a boost fly-by past the settlement. You'll get it then.

When all is said and done, he travels 45km in 2 minutes. Which is a little slower than Concorde (it's the equivalent of London to New York in 4 hours, Concorde did it in 3.5 hours).

He's travelling slower than the fastest aircraft in modern times. So it won't seem Omg super fast at altitude.

Normal flight is restricted for a very good reason. But Glide is another matter entirely. That's over 5k miles an hour. Or London to New York in 40 minutes.

It's not going to be easy to really feel the speed until you go to Earth. But even then, you'll need to glide at stupidly low altitude to feel it.

Agreed here too. The scale of space, planets & everything else really is hard to comprehend. Even just the first few seconds of this video are deceiving. The ISS is travelling at some 17k mph (Just over 7500 m/s), but it doesn't really feel like it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALNEJ35TzZ4

[VR] Deggial · Nov 29, 2015

Gryphorim said:
Which would work out great in the himalayas!

Sure! Nothing more fun than ploughing a nice hole into a mountain, isn't it?

Seriously, though, nothing forces you to fly at this dangerous altitude, if there are mountains beneath you. Some danger (therefore skill in order to avoid it) wouldn't be the worst thing to introduce, would it?

Additionally, the current lower glide altitude isn't exactly safe. The maximal mountain hight is dependent to the planet's gravity. The Himalaya is about as high as mountains can raise on Earth - higher mountains will sink into the crust due to their sheer weigth, effectively prohibiting taller ridges.
On planets with less gravity, however, mountains can raise way higher than here on Earth. Mars, for example, has only a third of Earth's gravity. This is the very reason, Olympus Mons can reach its altitude of 22 km - which is way, way more than the current lower glide altitude limit. So, nice holes are alreday possible with the current settings!

Finally, we don't know (at least, I don't) if the glide altitudes are absolute values (towards an imaginary "sea level") or relative higths beyond the current ground level. If the later is true, it doesn't matter if we fly over a flat terrain or some mountain ridges. If the altitude over ground reaches a certain threshold, we will exit the glide mode - no matter how high above "sea level" we are.