Oolite scales (no, honest, read it!)

[Selezen]

I think I may have worked out some sort of workable compromise to the scaling problems in Oolite and how to "rationalise" them.

I'd appreciate it if some of you kind people could read through it and see if it holds together. It's not 100% complete yet, but it seems to achieve some sort of compromise...

http://hughesd.co.uk/elite/index.php/Spacecraft_Scales

Thanks, bods.

[Bazabaza]

I'd always assumed that the escape pod was part of the "cockpit" given the time taken from pressing ESC to ejecting. If the escape pod is actually the cockpit, this will give even more room?

[Cmdr James]

Nice effort, but it doesnt really address the size of planets, inter-system distances, or relative sizes of ships and stations etc.

I think its a beast best left undisturbed.

[Smivs]

Hi Selezen.
Firstly, kudos to you for trying to sort out the un-sort-outable!
However just three or four paragraphs in, I hit a brick wall. I think you have made a fundamental error basing your cargo pod capacity on water.
A 1TC container can hold 1TC of anything by weight, but not by volume, and water is quite a dense material. A container that will hold 1TC of water when brim full will not hold 1TC of any less dense material.
Look at food. Lets say 'my' food is meringues. Now 1TC (by weight) of meringues is going to have much more volume than 1TC of water.
Put simply, you should base your calculations on the least dense and most voluminous of materials. This will give you a size that will work for everything, but it will be BIG. And cargo pods are big. If you've ever watched a scavenger Adder scoop a cargo pod, you will see why they only have a 2TC capacity....the cargo pod is nearly half as big as the Adder. (And yes I know NPC Adders have a 5TC capacity, but that's just a bit of game handwavium). Indeed my direct visual observations suggest that a 1TC cargo pod is probably more like 25m long, which also sounds about right for transporting those less-dense materials.
One final point. Slaves. You often scoop slaves in cargo pods. Generic slaves, that may come in all shapes and sizes. But let's assume the slaves are human or at least of a similar dimension. You'd be very hard pressed to get a 'human' and the minimum life support it needs into your 2m long pod.
Sorry to be a party-pooper, but, nice idea as it is, it just doesn't work for me.

[ClymAngus]

I think I may have worked out some sort of workable compromise to the scaling problems in Oolite and how to "rationalise" them.

I'd appreciate it if some of you kind people could read through it and see if it holds together. It's not 100% complete yet, but it seems to achieve some sort of compromise...

http://hughesd.co.uk/elite/index.php/Spacecraft_Scales

Thanks, bods.

I say go for it! Let the intelligent questions come, point by point let them be looked at "what iffed" over and maybe even incorporated. In the defence of trying to find a solution, it is an inevitable symptom of the terminal intellectual disease called science!

I have some ideas on the size of the stations that spawn from a clever manipulation of space time.

Impossible? Well quite possibly an impossible postulation, but since when has possibility got in the way of a good brainstorming session? Don't do it because we might find a solution, do it because it's fun!

If you don't mind me starting?

OK the "ton" what could it be? Well what do we measure and attribute a named scale too?
I'll even up the anti, I'll play devils advocate with something truly outrageous: Could one ton be a named scale of length, roughly equivalent to 2 metres?

The insanely large size of pods. Could the view screen built into all ships automatically double the size? To make them more easily viewable and easier to scoop?

In fact could the exterior stimuli be being filtered to better fit the planet bound capacity of the pilots? Is what you actually see in game that which is actually there?

Could this go some way toward helping the perception vs actuality issue? Maybe, maybe not. but if this issue is going to keep on popping up and tickling the minds of the great and good. If we can't solve it then we should at least have some fun with it. Think of it as a crossword puzzle, brain exercise.

Ok I'll admit, I blow hot and cold on this issue depending on my mood. Still an opportunity to get away from the right/wrong of programming, have a bit of a laugh, crack open a beer, you know cut loose intellectually for once. Hell, something plausible might even "pop" out after we've finished having fun.

[Selezen]

A 1TC container can hold 1TC of anything by weight, but not by volume, and water is quite a dense material. A container that will hold 1TC of water when brim full will not hold 1TC of any less dense material. [...] Put simply, you should base your calculations on the least dense and most voluminous of materials.

Why? My decision to base the size of a TC on water is down to the need to transport the most vital thing a colony will need (apart from air, of course), which is water. It's as good a basis as any, and as the later parts of the "theory" read, it creates a size that is workable.

If you've ever watched a scavenger Adder scoop a cargo pod, you will see why they only have a 2TC capacity....the cargo pod is nearly half as big as the Adder. (And yes I know NPC Adders have a 5TC capacity, but that's just a bit of game handwavium).

See, that's what the theory as written eliminates, is that bit of handwavium. A TC at the size it is in game would, as you say, fit nearly half the Adder. With 2TCs in tow, where would the equipment be? How would the crew (of 1) fit in alongside the canister? How would the canisters actually get inside the Adder? How big would the cargo scoop have to be in order to scoop a canister in this case?

Here's how big:

The red square in the left plan view is the interior surface that would have to be left clear for the scoop to be able to operate. Doesn't leave much room for anything else, especially if you include the NPC adders (which I didn't count as they are not "canon").

One final point. Slaves. You often scoop slaves in cargo pods. Generic slaves, that may come in all shapes and sizes. But let's assume the slaves are human or at least of a similar dimension. You'd be very hard pressed to get a 'human' and the minimum life support it needs into your 2m long pod.

Elite "canon" has the remLoc mask, which is all the life support you need to survive in space, and it's smaller than a crash helmet. Add some long-term survival equipment (oxygen cylinder) or even a small freezer unit, which would be quite small after another 1000 years of "making things smaller" and that should adequately cover the needs for slaves. OK, the "slaves" designation is plural, but nowhere does it state that each cargo pod contains more than 1 person...

Thanks for your feedback. Some good points there.

I like ClymAngus's idea about pods being "visually enhanced" on viewscreens. Nice thinking, Batman!

[Killer Wolf]

some interesting points and i like the interior plans (always wanted to do this for my ships, to add a little backstory/colour but i've never bothered, given that most people never bother reading teh back stories anyways, lol).
thing that knocks it for me tho, is...what's the point? it's all very well theorising, but unless it's going to change the game i don't see what benefit it is. i still have "problems w/ the size of stationes etc, and the planets still really bug me. at that point, whether we're talking metres or feet, or some imagined GalCop variant is immaterial, because it doesn't change the fact that the stations look like they could only hold 4 or five ships comfortably rather than be a "city in space" and the planets still look like large asteroids rather than planets.

[Smivs]

Yeah, I don't want to be negative. I think we all try to justify these things in our minds.
Personally I don't hold with the TC as a measure of weight. OK, the Elite manual describes the pod as a 'Tonne Cannister', but doesn't specify a tonne of what. You thought about this and (very reasonably in my opinion) you considered water. It is the obvious candidate for all the reasons you state, and probably more.
However, being the obvious candidate doesn't necessarily make it the successful candidate. To be honest the most logical candidate from a scientific perspective is probably Hydrogen. Yes, of course that would make the cargo pods the size of planets so clearly it's not that either.
My point is, and I think ClymAngus touched on this, I personally believe that 1TC is a volume. I don't know what volume, but to 'accept' it in my mind when I'm immersed in a game, it's got to be bigger than 2m long.
It's a personal thing as I said.

[ClymAngus]

Your not being negative Smivs, your asking pertinent questions based on measurable, visually replicable observations. Awkward questions its true, but when it comes to the nature of the actual universe, there are currently at least 3 questions that physicists have been forced to create three inperceptable types of reality to answer:

Dark energy
Dark Matter
Dark flow

So if you are the antithesis of this specific man made order, fuelled with the evidence of what is seen. Then sir, you stand shoulder to shoulder with scientific giants!Any dissent from you when supported by visual evidence should be welcomed as a challenge, that necessary imperatively needs to be answered. (still all in fun)

As for the tonne issue:

Obviously it's a measure of something, I dislike the idea of weight (like Smivs, and this is why) as that is dependant upon your relative gravity well. (basically where you are in space and what is near you) 1 "Tonne" on earth is not one "Tonne" on the moon. Bad idea when calculating worth. So what else could it be? Mass? Density? Length? Volume? What else is measured and how is it measured? More importantly what allows the most creative "give".

Right! I'm getting my gcse physics textbooks out because I really don't think this is even an A level physics question. I have the brash idea we might be able to "sort" this! I could be wrong but either way; I'll re-equate myself of the nature of things, whilst relearning just how fallible I might have been; and irrespective, a solution may yet find me (quite by accident of course).

[Fatleaf]

Your not being negative Smivs, your asking pertinent questions based on measurable, visually replicable observations. Awkward questions its true, but when it comes to the nature of the actual universe, there are currently at least 3 questions that physicists have been forced to create three inperceptable types of reality to answer:

Dark energy: Hate it.
Dark Matter: Hate it
Dark flow Hate it.

Hate all three theories and don't accept for a moment any of them. But that of course is only my personal opinion. Which doesn't mean much

[DaddyHoggy]

I just think a TC is a specific size of cargo pod - much in the same way that modern trucks, cargo planes, freight trains, Cranes, ships, docks, are based around the ISO Container. Doesn't matter what's in the ISO container - Potatoes or polystyrene beads, air, bottles of water or smuggled cars - it's all about the container.

For me (and I but this in Lazarus for this reason) when you by 1TC of food for 2.3Cr - you're buying a generic container of food - that fills the container - it's not its weight - when you sell it - you sell it for a generic price too - because the guy/bug/lizard buying it off you at the other end takes the risk that he can find buyers for all the different food products inside your container. He may make a huge profit but you as the general hauler - buy at 2.3 and sell at 4.6 and are grateful for the small profit margin because the Galcop basic trade system makes it quick and easy to buy and sell. (but that's a different story)

[Amaranth]

I was thinking the same way as you DH, that a standard container is the ooniverse equivalent of one of he shorter ISO containers. You would need to bear in mind that unlike an ISO container, an ooniverse container could not just be constructed from hefty corrugated steel plate. The container would need to be 100% airtight, to avoid spoilage of some cargoes, thermally insulated against both heat and cold, likely with its own on-board refrigeration and heating units and power supply, extra strong to increase the survivability of the container (think something like the 'nuclear flask' for transporting high level nuclear waste on Britain's railways, which despite its bulk, does not actually contain that much - the rest is for structural integrity in the event of an accident) and also hold 1 standard ooniverse ton of the least dense traded material. From the list of standard traded items, I would reckon that either food, textiles, narcotics or furs would be the least dense. Luxuries, machinery and computers would probably be supplied with a lot of extraneous packaging (seem familiar).

Hence I'd expect the container to be pretty hefty. One of the OXPs introduces new container types, some of which are smaller and generally carry precious metals or gems, which do not require so much protection and are denser anyway.

Regarding the other comments about the pilot astrogation console which seems to be more like a startrek viewscreen, rather than an actual window (although some fighters may actually have a cockpit canopy) it would make sense that the computer controlling the viewscreen would magnify important surroundings, such as containers, stations, other starships etc in order to help the pilot navigate or dogfight. Also, the viewscreen would reduce stellar flare, otherwise heading anywhere like towards the sun would serious inhibit pilot visibility.

Lastly, something I have thought about, and I know that this has been done in order to 1) replicate original Elite where some physics matters were overlooked due to gameplay and computer limitations) and 2) to actually provide a little bit of a challenge to the player, is that the sped of rotation of the big stations is such that the outer edge would be subject to about 500g, assuming 1km diameter. (1 rotation = 10 seconds or 6rpm). Reducing rotation velocity to 1 rotation in 30 seconds (2 rpm) would generate 1g simulated gravity approximately 2/3 of the way out. Is the rotation speed hardcoded or can it be manipulated? In addition the rotating arms on the oxp transhab are even more extreme and would need to be slowed down to less than 2 rpm also.

[RyanHoots]

I was thinking the same way as you DH, that a standard container is the ooniverse equivalent of one of he shorter ISO containers. You would need to bear in mind that unlike an ISO container, an ooniverse container could not just be constructed from hefty corrugated steel plate. The container would need to be 100% airtight, to avoid spoilage of some cargoes, thermally insulated against both heat and cold, likely with its own on-board refrigeration and heating units and power supply, extra strong to increase the survivability of the container (think something like the 'nuclear flask' for transporting high level nuclear waste on Britain's railways, which despite its bulk, does not actually contain that much - the rest is for structural integrity in the event of an accident) and also hold 1 standard ooniverse ton of the least dense traded material. From the list of standard traded items, I would reckon that either food, textiles, narcotics or furs would be the least dense. Luxuries, machinery and computers would probably be supplied with a lot of extraneous packaging (seem familiar).

Hence I'd expect the container to be pretty hefty. One of the OXPs introduces new container types, some of which are smaller and generally carry precious metals or gems, which do not require so much protection and are denser anyway.

Regarding the other comments about the pilot astrogation console which seems to be more like a startrek viewscreen, rather than an actual window (although some fighters may actually have a cockpit canopy) it would make sense that the computer controlling the viewscreen would magnify important surroundings, such as containers, stations, other starships etc in order to help the pilot navigate or dogfight. Also, the viewscreen would reduce stellar flare, otherwise heading anywhere like towards the sun would serious inhibit pilot visibility.

Lastly, something I have thought about, and I know that this has been done in order to 1) replicate original Elite where some physics matters were overlooked due to gameplay and computer limitations) and 2) to actually provide a little bit of a challenge to the player, is that the sped of rotation of the big stations is such that the outer edge would be subject to about 500g, assuming 1km diameter. (1 rotation = 10 seconds or 6rpm). Reducing rotation velocity to 1 rotation in 30 seconds (2 rpm) would generate 1g simulated gravity approximately 2/3 of the way out. Is the rotation speed hardcoded or can it be manipulated? In addition the rotating arms on the oxp transhab are even more extreme and would need to be slowed down to less than 2 rpm also.

I think you can change the rotation speed, but I'm not sure how. Probably in the Shipdata.plist file...

[Smivs]

I think you can change the rotation speed, but I'm not sure how. Probably in the Shipdata.plist file...

Yes, you're right.

Code: Select all

station_roll = 0.15;

for example, will give a slower rotation.

[Cmdr. Maegil]

Serendipitously (had to check dictionary.com on this little monstrosity), a side effect will be to make it easier for new Jamesons to dock, while making little to no difference on the veterans.