| Author |
Size scale in the game. |
II
Vice Admiral
Joined: December 19, 2001
Posts: 420
From: NJ, USA
|  Posted: 2003-09-03 18:54
This game is totally out of scale.
First, SOL needs to be fixed so planets are proportional to their true size AND the distance between earth and the planets needs to be correct.
NOW, this will make SOL Incredibly LARGE like it should be. The vastness of space is, well... vast.
To fix this, jump drive speed should not be constant. It should accelerate along a polynomial equation. That way if you are going to jump a short distance, you would not reach a fast speed, but long distance would give your ship tremendous speed. So a jump of 10,000 gu would take 10 seconds and a jump of 100,000 gu would take 30 seconds. Someone would have to work outt he proper way to calculate the speed, because there should be breakpoints for system jumps and intersystem jump distances should eventually get tremendous speed going.
With these changes a scout next to the Luna will LOOK like a minute ship and a dread next to luna won't look like a small moon.
I do know theG is making a new SOL map and hopefully he's included the proper sizes and distances to make everything proporational, but the jump drive speed definately needs to be reworked so larger maps can be produced and the game can be to scale.
--Tracker
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Bad_Skeelz
Cadet
Joined: October 18, 2002
Posts: 359
From: The Lobby
| Posted: 2003-09-03 19:03
Just a thought but I think the planets/suns/intersystem distances are out of porportion because Faustus didn't want to have huge distances that take forever to reach. Earth And Beyond made their game somewhat scaled and people ended up spending 70% maybe of thier time watching the Warp Speed. Now true you could boost up the jumpdrive speed but remember, if Sol is to scale I presume it would take a whole lot more server space than it does now and 99% of that space would be given over to well space.
Also, if system gaps were to scale then we would need an incredibly fast JD, I think to get to Alpha Centauri going at light speed it takes 4 years or so. I could probebly reach Admiral by then.
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Eledore Massis [R33]
Grand Admiral
Templar Knights
Joined: May 26, 2002
Posts: 2695
From: tsohlacoLocalhost
| Posted: 2003-09-03 19:11
bad the can change the speeds
just hink of it at warp 1 (for all non STers warp 1 is the speed of light)
it takes about 8 seconds to reach the moon from earth
we do it in less than 10 seconds to hopp orbit and that a sub light speeds ??
i think ya the need an overhall but only in 1.483 !!
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Tbone
Grand Admiral
Joined: July 21, 2001
Posts: 1756
From: Vancouver
| Posted: 2003-09-03 19:38
Planets like Earth would have to be the size of Jupiter for this game to be proportional.
And that would require a major overhaul of the way planets are built and their infantry and structure limit.
In other words, not worth it.
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Roger
Fleet Admiral
Sundered Weimeriners
Joined: November 07, 2001
Posts: 105
| Posted: 2003-09-03 21:41
Here is a hint:
MAKE SHIPS SMALLER
Although homing projectiles as well as speeds of ships and everything else will have to be revised.
Probably just changing it all by some factor will sufice.
stations with the size of current scouts should work.
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Narrator
Ensign
Joined: July 23, 2003
Posts: 16
| Posted: 2003-09-03 21:52
i think the game engine (Medusa if im right) cant take that
zooming for once
as wel for detaild 
scaling up planets and distances can be done
but making is smaller :S dont know
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Tbone
Grand Admiral
Joined: July 21, 2001
Posts: 1756
From: Vancouver
| Posted: 2003-09-03 22:06
Quote:
| MAKE SHIPS SMALLER |
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Uh, can you say same difference?
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Lith Ragond
Cadet
Galactic Navy
Joined: November 25, 2001
Posts: 1854
| Posted: 2003-09-03 22:17
you want scale? go to EVE or E&B where half the time is spent traversing space. i much rather prefer the cheesiness to wasting my time, sure, make the planets a lil bit bigger, sure, make distances a lil bit more realistic, but be sure to leave everything in the bounds of what DS is... a game. i dont want to pretend i am traveling through the infinite universe, i want to pretend i am mere seconds away from exiting a jump where a large planet will LOOM in the distance and start shooting at me with a fleet of ships heading my way.... which sounds more fun?
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Tbone
Grand Admiral
Joined: July 21, 2001
Posts: 1756
From: Vancouver
| Posted: 2003-09-03 23:56
Here's another thing. In Star Trek, it was mentioned that at Warp 5, it would still take 6 minutes (or so) to travel to Uranus and back. I don't know how fast our Jump Drives are compared to warp factors, but do you want to spend 3 minutes just to get to another planet?
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Fleet Admiral Tbone
Commander of the NSS Red Lobster
[ This Message was edited by: Tbone [NSS Pandora's Box] on 2003-09-03 23:56 ]
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Koda
Marshal
Fatal Squadron
Joined: August 29, 2002
Posts: 1384
| Posted: 2003-09-04 00:14
Quote:
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On 2003-09-03 23:56, Tbone [NSS Pandora's Box] wrote:
Here's another thing. In Star Trek, it was mentioned that at Warp 5, it would still take 6 minutes (or so) to travel to Uranus and back. I don't know how fast our Jump Drives are compared to warp factors, but do you want to spend 3 minutes just to get to another planet?
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if i could give my ship an order to go to the next system over and the Nav Com told me that i would arrive in 46 hours, i would log and come back in 46 hours. now if it could give me a text message on my new phone that my ship was in orbit,.. now that is just PimPiN
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Pimpalicious Nerd {C?}
Marshal
Galactic Navy
Joined: January 15, 2003
Posts: 885
From: Connecticut, USA
| Posted: 2003-09-04 00:31
How do you know that it is not to scale? How do you know exactly how big a gu is?
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slice
Admiral
Joined: October 18, 2002
Posts: 164
From: UK
| Posted: 2003-09-04 03:20
I like ships the size of moons, scale be screwed its a game
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Selvarian {IMC}
Cadet
Joined: August 18, 2001
Posts: 1242
From: GA, USA
| Posted: 2003-09-04 06:27
From a personal standpoint, I would love to play a space game that was accurate in terms of looks and scale; more or less a "spaceflight simulator" that would have a realistic physics engine as well as full 3D movement.
That said, DarkSpace is not that game; it was never meant to be that kind of game. The scale and movement is the way it is for two main reasons:
1) Playability.
The scale is the way it is so that there are not huge disparities between ship speed and travel time to get anywhere. A realistic scale would have ships moving so fast that combat would be impossible, or else it would take many minutes/hours to get anywhere. Also, 2.5D was chosen because it is easier for humans to navigate in a flat plane because that is the way we and our genetic ancestry have been doing it for millions of years. This is not to say we can't learn to navigate in 3D, but simply that it adds to the learning curve; unnecessarily so in the case for DS.
2) Game Engine limitations.
When dealing with realistic astronomical distances, the numbers involved get REALLY big, but there is a limit to the precision of numbers stored in a computer, even with 64 bit doubles (about 15-16 decimal digits of precision). With a resolution of around a meter (which is still too coarse for small craft like fighters and weapons like missiles), the solar system is over 15 TRILLION meters (1.5 x 10^13) in diameter by itself, which is near the limit of such a number in terms of precision. Modelling accurate distances between stars is out of the question, using the same coordinate system for everything. We could use different coordinate systems for different scales of objects in the game, but that makes the game code much more complex and bug-prone.
DS primarily uses 32-bit single precision numbers (which translates to 7-8 decimal digits of precision), because they take half the bandwidth (and slightly less CPU/memory to process). Thus, because of this design, modelling realistic star systems is not possible, so the scale has to be "adjusted", making it a little "toony", but not overly so. DS is a caricature of a realistic space sim in the same way Monopoly is a caricature of a realistic free enterprise economic model.
The upshot is really what the game is intended to be. If it was meant to be a realistic spaceflight simulation, then it would appear more like one. If it was meant to be simply a shooting gallery in a space-like setting, then it would appear more like one of those. Thus, you can conclude that DS was never meant to be realistic and, consequently, if you are seeking the former, you will probably have to look into another game; preferably, one which bills itself as such a beast.
If you find one, let me know. :o)
Edit: corrected double type sig digs
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Selvarian
Prime Engineer
Caitian Defense Corps
Founding Member - Interstellar Mercenary Corps
[ This Message was edited by: Selvarian {IMC} on 2003-09-04 09:29 ]
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Selvarian
Prime Engineer
Caitian Defense Corps
Founding Member - Interstellar Mercenary Corps
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Eledore Massis [R33]
Grand Admiral
Templar Knights
Joined: May 26, 2002
Posts: 2695
From: tsohlacoLocalhost
| Posted: 2003-09-04 09:15
Tbone [NSS Pandora's Box
here you are
and Selvarian {IMC}
try Battlecruiser Milenium
i find it FULL scale nice game
but in a lack of a GOOD tuturial like DS
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Selvarian {IMC}
Cadet
Joined: August 18, 2001
Posts: 1242
From: GA, USA
| Posted: 2003-09-04 09:34
Actually, that chart has a few problems with it, most notably the typo in the solar system size makes it off by a factor of 1,000. The orbit of pluto is about 6 BILLION kilometers, making the size of the solar system (by their measure, anyway) 12 billion km, not 12 million km. I include about 25% more space outside the orbit of the last planet since that space is present in most systems here in DS.
..and yes, I have BCM, though I haven't played it much yet. It still is not 100% accurate in terms of planet sizes and distances, plus it really isn't a MMORPG, and only VERY recently multiplayer. Not holding anything against it in particular, just pointing out the specific criteria I was using when I made the above statements.
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Selvarian
Prime Engineer
Caitian Defense Corps
Founding Member - Interstellar Mercenary Corps
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