Split: Re-scaling experiment

[Redspear]

"Hey this isn't E.D. this is Oolite! Our inspiration is the original Elite..."

Do spare us the sarcasm - it becomes tiresome.

No bitterness or mockery intended I assure you (although I can see how it might have appeared as such).

On reflection, it way a lazy and unnecessary way to make my point.
I apologise.

Gameplay implication: you'll come out of torus with the pirate pack on the edge of scanner range rather than at the edge of laser range, which gives you more time to react. Conversely, of course, packs more to the side of your position will be able to successfully masslock you. I do quite like the way you can be rewarded now for paying attention to the parallax of the little specks of light against the background and dropping out of torus manually, but it's probably not crucial to keep.

I suppose the current drift from stopping the torus drive could be useful for sunskimming too (i.e. getting a little further to the sun before overheating when mass-locked by the sun)...

[Commander McLane]

All ships are to scale, and everything works as it was originally intended to.

Maybe I'm already too late to the party, but still:

I think that Paradox misinterprets what the problem is. In order to illustrate this, I'd like to ask a simple question regarding the emphasized part of the quote: To which scale?

As cim explained in quite some detail a couple of days ago, Oolite is using three or four different scales side by side. So to which scale should the ships be in order to make everything work?

• The in-built ships (and most sensible OXP ships) are to ship size scale, which means they're scaling well compared to each other. A small fighter is smaller than a big freighter. There is no problem here that need solving. Everything is working as intended. The only thing required from a ship builder is to be aware of this ship scale, and build their models accordingly. This is really nothing more than knowing the tools of the trade, and can be expected from a ship builder.
• Other than the ship size scale there's the planet size scale. Compared to the ship scale, it is much smaller, thus all ships are too big compared to the planets. But different planets are scaling well with each other. Small planets are smaller than big planets.
• Then there is the sun size scale. Compared to the planet size scale, it is yet smaller, thus planets are too big compared to the suns. This also means that ships are way too big compared to suns. But different suns are scaling well with each other. Small suns are smaller than big suns.
• Finally there is the intra-system distances scale. Compared to the sun size scale it is much smaller, thus it's even more small compared to the planet size scale, and ridiculously small compared to the ship size scale.

That's four different scales. The only one it makes sense to scale ships to is the ship size scale.

However, Paradox wants to scale ships to yet another, a fifth different scale, namely a human size scale. Note that this scale doesn't even exist in Oolite, because there are no models for human bodies in the game. Thus the first question is whether there is any good reason to introduce it to Oolite in the first place.

A good reason would be if this new, fifth scale would solve any of the problems stemming from the existence of four different existing scales. So, does it?

The human size scale is bigger than the ship size scale, thus it is much bigger than the planet size scale, while at the same time being ridiculously much bigger than the sun size scale, and ludicrously much bigger than the intra-system distances scale. From this follows that scaling the ships to this new and biggest-of-them-all scale would make things worse with regards to ships in comparison to all other scales. In other words: not only does it not solve the issue at hand (which is simply the failure to stick to the ship size scale when building ships), but it makes the whole scaling even more messy.

Conclusion: It's not a solution to anything at all.

[spara]

Don't want to join the actual party, but I have a little remark about the solution. Would it be possible for the experiment to scale the ships in the code?

[Cody]

... due to a terrible miscalculation of scale the entire battle fleet was accidentally swallowed by a small dog.

<wanders away, humming that tune>

[Paradox]

All ships are to scale, and everything works as it was originally intended to.

Maybe I'm already too late to the party, but still:

I think that Paradox misinterprets what the problem is. In order to illustrate this, I'd like to ask a simple question regarding the emphasized part of the quote: To which scale?...

I knew it!.. I knew and was just waiting! ...Commander Mclane. So good of you to join us!

I was referring to the scale... the scale that says that one predefined unit = another predefined unit. In this particular case, the first unit I refer to is the one all modeling programs use. Most will actually refer to it as a "unit" rather than "foot" or "meter" or whatever. The second unit I refer to is the predefined unit that Oolite uses, and currently refers to it as a "meter". The purpose of a "scale" is so that a person can plan/design an object, be it a house or a spaceship or whatever, in such a way that all parts of said object, can remain in correct proportion to one another no matter what other "scale" it is translated into. By definition, this means that an object built in a modeling program using 1 unit = 1 meter, should be able to be brought into Oolite without further guessing/enlarging. However, as we all know... this is not the case.

Commander McLane. Please answer the following questions:
1. Were Elite ships originally designed to be a specific size, using the scale of 1 "foot"?
2. Did the creator(s) of Oolite, base their program on Elite (be it loosely, tightly, or sideways)?
3. During this process, did the creator(s) change the unit of scale to "meters"?
4. Did the creator(s) then re-scale the ships to coincide with that change?

Yes
Yes
Yes
NO

Fix it... or else forever read the never-ending messages about the "Oolite scale issue".

P.S. I could readily get into why all the other scales in Oolite are acceptable/understandable, and it is only the ship scale that is affecting model builders, but come on people, you already know the answers, and I have already wasted far too much of my time here explaining that 1 + 1 = 2.

Besides, I just downloaded Torchlight 2 and need to go play.. buhbye.

[Commander McLane]

I was referring to the scale... the scale that says that one predefined unit = another predefined unit. In this particular case, the first unit I refer to is the one all modeling programs use. Most will actually refer to it as a "unit" rather than "foot" or "meter" or whatever. The second unit I refer to is the predefined unit that Oolite uses, and currently refers to it as a "meter". The purpose of a "scale" is so that a person can plan/design an object, be it a house or a spaceship or whatever, in such a way that all parts of said object, can remain in correct proportion to one another no matter what other "scale" it is translated into. By definition, this means that an object built in a modeling program using 1 unit = 1 meter, should be able to be brought into Oolite without further guessing/enlarging. However, as we all know... this is not the case.

Yes, that is indeed not the case. And the reason—as I was trying to explain—is that the unit means something else and different, depending on which game object you apply it to.

• If applied to ships—and if you also want to reconcile them with the average size of RealLife™ humans (note however, that RealLife™ humans are not part of the Ooniverse, thus it's a little arbitrary to introduce their size as a fifth scale)—1 unit ≈ 1 foot. This is what you may keep in mind when designing ships, or porting ships from other fictional universes.
• If applied to ships and you don't bother with RealLife™ humans, 1 unit ≈ 1 metre.
• If applied to planets, 1 unit ≈ 100 metres. (I get this from taking the median diameter of an Oolite planet (100.000 units) and putting it into a relation to the diameter of Earth (roughly 10.000.000 metres).)
  • Note that already here you're running into trouble if you insist that your unit should be 1 foot, period. If you accept the ship unit to be 1 metre, planets are "only" 100 times too small for humans to live on them. If you view the ship unit as 1 foot, planets become 300 times too small for humans to live on them. So you're increasing the corruption of the scale instead of decreasing the problem.
• If applied to suns, 1 unit ≈ 7000 metres. (I get this from taking the diameter of a smallish Oolite sun (200.000 units) and putting it into a relation to the diameter of the Sun (roughly 1.400.000.000 metres).)
• If applied to intra-system distances, particularly the distance between planet and sun, 1 unit ≈ 150.000 metres. (I get this from taking the distance between Oolite planet and sun (roughly 1.000.000 units) and putting it into a relation to the distance between Earth and Sun (roughly 150.000.000.000 metres).)

As you see, in Oolite the unit is not uniform. It translates into a different amount of metres, depending on which object or distance you're talking about.

You want to talk about RealLife™ humans, which have the disadvantage of not even being in the game. I say: forget them, and talk about the entities which are in the game.

And regarding the entities which are in the game, there is only one guideline you should follow: if you have two entities that belong to the same class (for instance two ships, or two planets), make sure that the units mean the same for both. In practical terms: if you want to port a ship into Oolite that for all intents and purposes seems to be equivalent to the Boa, make sure that it ends up being roughly the same size as the Boa. How many units this size is, is irrelevant to this problem. And how many metres or feet one of these units is meant to indicate is even more irrelevant to the problem. Nobody needs to bother, as long as the proportion, the relative size to the existing ships, is right.

[Redspear]

Maybe I'm already too late to the party, but still:

Not too late in my book, constructive criticism welcomed

My impression is that Paradox was coming at it from more of a modeller's perspective.
Thus his argument (if I understand it correctly) is that metres in a modelling program should match metres in the game.

Now of course, humans don't appear as such within the game, so it could be argued that this is a moot point, but they might naturally occur in a ship-modeller's mind when designing a ship and certainly when trying to convert a ship from another fictional universe.

Oolite ships are quite big: roughly three times bigger than the supposed dimensions of the original Elite ships. Maybe the freighters aren't particularly big but the fighters are...
Planets, suns and distances are small (mostly with good reason), but big ships further highlight that. So there is the inter-scale relationship to consider too.

Paradox (again, if I understand correctly) is only claiming that it will 'fix' things from a modeller's perspective, so that a 'realistic' scaling of a ship (if there is such a thing) will appear reasonable within the game rather than being dwarfed by a native one-man fighter. Thus, as you correctly point out, nothing is truly solved within the game itself, rather it is the modelling to game transition that is made smoother when designing ships for human pilots.

Or, I could be completely wrong (sorry Paradox)

My motivation is to address the inter-scale relationships within the game, not as a 'fix' but rather as an exploration of 'optimisation' and what that might mean to different people (me in particular, I admit ). One way to explore that is by shrinking the ships; and rescaling them to feet rather than metres is not only a nod to their original design but also a way to make planets, suns and systems appear much more imposing than they currently do in game.

This is not a simple matter, as many are aware, but I'm fool enough to try it

Don't want to join the actual party...

You're probably wiser than me

...but I have a little remark about the solution. Would it be possible for the experiment to scale the ships in the code?

I think cim has already shown how to do this for the models and it might also be possible for the speeds too. However, position coordinates for views, scoops, missiles, subentities etc. would still, I think, need to be done within the shipdata files.
If I'm wrong here then please tell me!
Thanks.

Commander McLane:
Only had a quick read of your last message so apologies if anything in this one is no longer relevant/useful but I've got to dash...

[spara]

...but I have a little remark about the solution. Would it be possible for the experiment to scale the ships in the code?

I think cim has already shown how to do this for the models and it might also be possible for the speeds too. However, position coordinates for views, scoops, missiles, subentities etc. would still, I think, need to be done within the shipdata files.
If I'm wrong here then please tell me!

Sorry, can't really help here. Don't know a thing about the source and quite honestly I try to keep out of it as I value my time too much . Consider my remark as a total outsider's remark who really knows nothing about the matter. That being said... I see them all as numbers, vectors and quaternions. Re-scaling and re-positioning should be just maths.

[Commander McLane]

My impression is that Paradox was coming at it from more of a modeller's perspective.

Yes, that's my impression as well. And there is nothing wrong with coming from a (ship) modeller's perspective.

However, in the game, what ultimately counts is the player's perspective, under which all other perspectives ultimately have to submit. The (ship) modeller's perspective can therefore not be the defining measure for the game.

The different scales in Oolite are not an accident. They are designed to give the player the best possible game experience.

Giving the player the best possible game experience is the reason why the suns and planets are far too small. If they were even remotely realistically big, the planet would totally dominate the screen. You can make a small experiment: launch from a main station and fly straight down to the planet, until your altimeter goes red. This is (roughly) the optical impression you would get during your journey from the witchpoint to the station if the planets were to scale with the ships (100 times bigger in diameter, if ships are measured in metres; it gets worse if ships are measured in feet). As a player, I wouldn't want to see that in my game, especially with the current resolution of planet textures.

Giving the player the best possible game experience is also the reason why planet and sun are so close to each other. This time I can't even offer you an experiment. I can't even begin to imagine what it would feel like to make the journey to sunskimming 150.000 times as long as it is now.

Giving the player the best possible game experience is also the reason why the ships are as big as they are. Again a small experiment: Look at a ship 10.000 metres ahead of you. Now imagine it to be only one third of its size. Repeat with other distances, if you like. Is this the experience you want to have as a player? Flying in a hoard of other ships and practically not seeing anything of them, except when you get really close? Again, as a player I wouldn't want to have that in my game.

So, this is in a nutshell why the ships are too big and everything else is too small in the game.

Thus his argument (if I understand it correctly) is that metres in a modelling program should match metres in the game.

I understand it the same way, but I think that this argument is invalid. As I wrote above, the ship models are as big as they are for a very good reason. Giving the players the best possible game experience by far outweighs giving ship modellers what is merely a convenience, namely being able to translate human meters to game units 1 = 1. And at the end of the day, the only inconvenience that ship modellers have to go through is to multiply all lengths by a factor of 3, if their measure is the size of an average contemporary human. That's literally all they have to do to make everything right. I believe that this can be asked of them.

[Paradox]

Maybe I'm already too late to the party, but still:

Not too late in my book, constructive criticism welcomed

My impression is that Paradox was coming at it from more of a modeller's perspective.
Thus his argument (if I understand it correctly) is that metres in a modelling program should match metres in the game.

You bet your sweet bippy! At least as far as ship building goes, it's kinda common sense isn't it... 1 meter = 1 meter?

Now of course, humans don't appear as such within the game, so it could be argued that this is a moot point, but they might naturally occur in a ship-modeller's mind when designing a ship and certainly when trying to convert a ship from another fictional universe.

Of course humans appear in the game! Many planets claim to be inhabited by them, and, [whisper] don't tell anyone, but I am one too! [/whisper] As a matter of fact, I bet most of us that play Oolite are! (except maybe Smivs...) Hard to get that whole immersion thing going if you are imagining yourself as a lobster... Well, at least for me...

Oolite ships are quite big: roughly three times bigger than the supposed dimensions of the original Elite ships. Maybe the freighters aren't particularly big but the fighters are...
Planets, suns and distances are small (mostly with good reason), but big ships further highlight that. So there is the inter-scale relationship to consider too.

Paradox (again, if I understand correctly) is only claiming that it will 'fix' things from a modeller's perspective, so that a 'realistic' scaling of a ship (if there is such a thing) will appear reasonable within the game rather than being dwarfed by a native one-man fighter. Thus, as you correctly point out, nothing is truly solved within the game itself, rather it is the modelling to game transition that is made smoother when designing ships for human pilots.

Or, I could be completely wrong (sorry Paradox)

You pretty much nailed it there Fluffy! Though in a far more "politically correct" way than I can manage anymore. };] And I would argue about whether it "solves" anything or not. };] You so "PC" it makes me giggle!

My motivation is to address the inter-scale relationships within the game, not as a 'fix' but rather as an exploration of 'optimisation' and what that might mean to different people (me in particular, I admit ). One way to explore that is by shrinking the ships; and rescaling them to feet rather than metres is not only a nod to their original design but also a way to make planets, suns and systems appear much more imposing than they currently do in game.

This is not a simple matter, as many are aware, but I'm fool enough to try it

And I appreciate that! I guess you (oh and Diziet Sma) are the only other persons who actually gets it!

[Paradox]

My impression is that Paradox was coming at it from more of a modeller's perspective.

Yes, that's my impression as well. And there is nothing wrong with coming from a (ship) modeller's perspective...

...Giving the player the best possible game experience is also the reason why the ships are as big as they are. Again a small experiment: Look at a ship 10.000 metres ahead of you. Now imagine it to be only one third of its size. Repeat with other distances, if you like. Is this the experience you want to have as a player? Flying in a hoard of other ships and practically not seeing anything of them, except when you get really close? Again, as a player I wouldn't want to have that in my game.

So, this is in a nutshell why the ships are too big and everything else is too small in the game.

Thus his argument (if I understand it correctly) is that metres in a modelling program should match metres in the game.

I understand it the same way, but I think that this argument is invalid. As I wrote above, the ship models are as big as they are for a very good reason. Giving the players the best possible game experience by far outweighs giving ship modellers what is merely a convenience, namely being able to translate human meters to game units 1 = 1. And at the end of the day, the only inconvenience that ship modellers have to go through is to multiply all lengths by a factor of 3, if their measure is the size of an average contemporary human. That's literally all they have to do to make everything right. I believe that this can be asked of them.

Absolutely hilarious that every one of your quotes here was aimed directly at me...
Why do you people feel the need to keep bringing planet/sun/moon/distances/etc. sizes and scales into this discussion? No one, not even I, have suggested they be made "real" size. This is about the ships only. As you have stated, they have their own scale.

I asked you four simple questions McLane... you haven't answered a single one...

And as for that statement about seeing a ship over 6 miles away blah blah blah?! Ok, now imagine it also 2/3rds closer at 3,333meters (a.k.a over 2 miles), which, in my opinion, is FAR more realistic that your 10,000 meters... Guess what, it looks identical. It's called physics... pretty cool, might want to check it out...

Too many things here I am so tempted to respond to, but I have to keep telling myself that it's just not worth it. I will, instead, ask just one more question...
Since this is a topic that started as a means to discuss an experiment in re-scaling, and since no one is saying that you or anyone else has to participate or take part in this project in any way... Why are you here? You , and others seem to think that coming here and telling us that we are wasting our time, and that you like things just the way they are etc. etc. etc. is in some way contributing to this project...? Why even CIM, who obviously doesn't think this is a good idea, is at least willing to offer constructive criticism and even thoughts and suggestions!!! What have you done McLane except to take shots at all of my reasons for being here? Readspear thanks you for your constructive criticisms, however, I don't see a single thing you have yet said that qualifies... Only comments on why you think this is a waste of time/unnecessary/etc... That is criticism.. where is the constructive part? You sound like:

Wow.

You know what? I play Oolite. It works.

I don't care if thing X is eleventy-three times bigger/smaller/more purple than it "should" be or not. I don't care if things from fictional universe A don't match up with things in fictional universe B without having to adjust their scale or specifications. The game works...

You're a little longer winded perhaps, an a little better spoken, but the meaning is the same... And just as "constructive...

[Smivs]

Of course humans appear in the game! Many planets claim to be inhabited by them, and, [whisper] don't tell anyone, but I am one too! [/whisper] As a matter of fact, I bet most of us that play Oolite are! (except maybe Smivs...)

Don't worry, at 2m tall this Cucurbitan is very much 'human' size.
And as I explained in a previous post, so are the ships as far as I am concerned. A NASA space shuttle (orbiter) is about 37m long - a Cobra III is a bit bigger at around 65m. All things considered that sounds about right in my book.
I do understand your point, Paradox, and even have some sympathy with it, but the fact is, unlike the RL shuttle, many SciFi ships are actually too small to be realistic in the real World (and Oolite) so will never work unless they are 'adapted'. And if the only thing that is needed to get these ships into Oolite is to multiply the measurements by three (which is what many others have done many times before) I really think this is a lot of fuss about nothing.

[spara]

Since it seems quite obvious that changing the scaling in the core game will have so many consequences that it might just be next to impossible to do, I have one more idea for Paradox's ship builder dilemma. How about writing a script that will triple the dimensions in the dat file and shipdata file? That way you could design your ships the way you do and they would work in Oolite the way you intend them to work.

[another_commander]

Before changing all ships sizes by hand, maybe it would be worth to investigate the ShipEntity method - (void) rescaleBy:(GLfloat)factor. Right now it is used in the code only for rescaling wreckage meshes, but it might be worth experimenting with it also during new ship spawns, just before adding them to the universe. No guarantees, but it would be easier than re-dimensioning all existing ships. Note that the method takes care of subentities rescaling too.

[Griff]

ShipEntity method - (void) rescaleBy:(GLfloat)factor

That sounds interesting, could it be applied to asteroids and boulders too so that they come in a variety of different sizes?