Scale... what if...

Deacan

Commodore
I toyed around with some stuff - some 3d models from WCP. Its quite a sad thing that the game never really figured out the "true" scale between the fighters, bombers and capships...

It would be a great scene if we ever could fly side by side in a small vessel and see just how huge some ships are...
The game itself does not tranfer this very well over the screen.

edit: btw - are there some meshes for the Wasp, the Condor SAR or the Herc LC out there?
 

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That always used to bug me. Those bombers had so much armor yet were pretty much the same size as the escorts. And when you were flying the bombers you never had the sense that they were large enough to carry that much mass. It was like flying a garbage can that weighs as much as a garbage truck. :rolleyes:
 
I toyed around with some stuff - some 3d models from WCP. Its quite a sad thing that the game never really figured out the "true" scale between the fighters, bombers and capships...

Prophecy is the first game that actually attempts to properly scale fighters and capships in the game engine.
 
Prophecy is the first game that actually attempts to properly scale fighters and capships in the game engine.

Yepp - they tried. But on the other hand... I just need to take a look on Freespace, esp. the 2nd part...

Just imagine: you are sitting in your F-106A and on your left you can "feel" and see the 1830 meters of your carrier...

*dream on*
 
Yepp - they tried. But on the other hand... I just need to take a look on Freespace, esp. the 2nd part...

Just imagine: you are sitting in your F-106A and on your left you can "feel" and see the 1830 meters of your carrier...

*dream on*
Errrrrr... but...

Prophecy *did* get the scale right - it's just that they hugely reduced velocities (intentionally, for gameplay purposes). One klick of speed, instead of being one metre*, is 0.1 metres). This means that when you fly past the Midway in WCP in your Vampire, at the speed of 1600 KPS, it takes 11 seconds to fly by, rather than 1.1 seconds. In terms of feeling, the Midway isn't smaller than it should be (as you seem to suggest) - it's actually ten times as big as it should be.

So, what that means is that, assuming Freespace got their scales exactly correct, the Midway would be the equivalent of an 18.3 kilometre-long ship in Freespace - in which case, FS2's 6 kilometre-long Colossus can go sit on a pack of ice :).

(things would of course be much different if WC ships had correct speeds - then WCP's capships would all feel positively tiny. But the game would lose so much as a result...)


*Yes, strictly speaking, one klick should be one kilometre. But never mind that... ;)
 
Well, in the WCP demo I started flying around the midway, and buzzing the tower and the "Reserved for placing possible unknown alien superweapon"-cavity. as i Noticed how big the ship is and everything, including the hangars seems to be up to scale.
 
@ Mace: I'm not sure about this... I had a different feeling flying in circles around the midway.

For instance: given the frontside of the bridge a size of 25 - 30 m (witch seems to fit to the overall given size of 1830 m) any fighter is set to be somewhat bigger...

Yes, I know, its something hard to talk about, but neverless I had somekind of hope to put a comparsion for WCP alltogether...
 

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I agree completely with Deacan. Regarding scale, I feel I have to be a right tit and mention Tachyon. 'Nuff said. :) (And not all that much later than WCP, IIRC.) I-War should also be "to scale", but speeds and all sorts of other things do tend to make things seem smaller than they really are. If WCP was played at X3-velocities, I tell you...
 
*hmpf*

Can someone please tell me if the length of the Wasp (11,66m) includes the booster?

Also: any ideas for the size of the Seahawk? The offical guide to the game say it has a weight of 42 metrical tons...

Should I try to compare this with the Condor (62 mt) and Herc LC (88 mt)?
 
That always used to bug me. Those bombers had so much armor yet were pretty much the same size as the escorts. And when you were flying the bombers you never had the sense that they were large enough to carry that much mass. It was like flying a garbage can that weighs as much as a garbage truck. :rolleyes:
?

Piranha: 200-250 cm Durasteel equiv.
Shrike: 310-340 cm Durasteel equiv.
Devestator: 360-400 cm Durasteel equiv.

Not exactly a huge difference there. Especially as the armor hasn't been Durasteel since at least WC3. Compared to the diffence between my beloved beaten up Scimitar and some other fighters armored with Durasteel that's nothing.

Weight of armor is a function of surface area & thickness. The big design consideration is the extra munitions and armament, which require a larger engine, bigger ship, etc. Things do not however always go that way.

The historical A4D Skyhawk is a prime example. Back when the USS United States-class Super Carrier was being developped massive bombers were required to deliver a nuclear weapon on target and the requirements for the entire package drawn up accordingly. Yet a few years later after Korea the A4D Skyhawk a plane so small it wasn't even designed to fold is actually filling the role.


Honestly I never felt FreeSpace lived up to the hype. Other then the super ships they made a point of having you fly recon on with your often less then 100 m/s velocity fighter, the ships felt exceptionally small. Given the stated speeds and sizes I honestly can't see how they were to scale. There's also the matter that I find WC3 Kilrathi Corvettes more intimidating then the common Shivan Cruisers, and 8km isn't that big for WC3.
 
?

Piranha: 200-250 cm Durasteel equiv.
Shrike: 310-340 cm Durasteel equiv.
Devestator: 360-400 cm Durasteel equiv.

Piranha: 12000kg, 90/90/135 Y/P/R
Devastator: 23000kg, 55/65/90 Y/P/R

My point entirely was that the bombers never FELT that much larger than the piranhas (in scale). Yet the almost double armor plating and additional components, hardpoints, etc. made flying them a chore. It seemed like 11000kg extra made all the difference between the agile Piranha and the "fighting mass slide" you needed to pull to make a hard reverse turn in the Devastator, but I couldn't notice it when in-cockpit. They looked too closely like one another (again, in reference of scale) to warrant that kind of difference in flying.

It was a simple observation on my part, not a scientific venture :)
 
Flying that stupid midway always felt dumb. Never turned like a bengal, and always looked like someone stepped on it on the sidewalk. Plus, there were all these other lame people in my cockpit yelling at me. Since when do you need more than one person to fly a spaceship? Pshaw.


:D
 
I believe the printed lengths is for the Wasp *with* the booster, but I'd have to check (I know this is made clear somewhere).

I agree about the bombers in Prophecy, but I'm not sure how to solve the problem. They're supposed to be huge -- they're covered with turrets that you don't even 'feel' when you're playing the game. The Devastator should feel like you're part of a B-17 crew, not like it's a kinda-muddy fighter.
 
WC2 did get the scale reasonably well with the Broadsword - having powerful neutron gun turrets and not having afterburners to chase enemy fighters around went a long way to give you that feeling. Of course, WC2 also had lots of scenes that let you compare a fighter's size against a person, so it was hard not to notice how huge the Broadswords were - something that WCP was lacking.

Even then, though, it definitely wouldn't have felt like being a part of a B17 crew. For that, what you'd really need is to hear an occasional comm from the turret gunners (did the Devastator even have turret gunners, or were they computer-controlled?).
 
I agree about the bombers in Prophecy, but I'm not sure how to solve the problem. They're supposed to be huge -- they're covered with turrets that you don't even 'feel' when you're playing the game. The Devastator should feel like you're part of a B-17 crew, not like it's a kinda-muddy fighter.

Yeah, what always bothered me was that those single barrel laser weren't actually useful for anything... The broadsword's turrets ripped up fighters left and right, while Prophecy's turrets wouldn't even be able to bring down a Moray's shield.

As for scale I don't think it would be possible to convey it without actual WC2 style cockpits for both actual cockpit and turrets, with or without gunner comms.
 
@ Mace: I'm not sure about this... I had a different feeling flying in circles around the midway.

For instance: given the frontside of the bridge a size of 25 - 30 m (witch seems to fit to the overall given size of 1830 m) any fighter is set to be somewhat bigger...

Yes, I know, its something hard to talk about, but neverless I had somekind of hope to put a comparsion for WCP alltogether...

Actually it is not really, if the bridge is 30 meters wide, it might make the length of a large fighter, but the average flight tower on a conventionale real-life aircraft carrier is not much wider then an F/18 is long? And the Piranha does "dance" when you fly her, she's not much a fighter to take into battle though, just like the ferrets. But you are right on one thing regarding the scale, most of Midway's hull would consists of a multi-store parking lot for fighters and nothing much else.
 
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