The ship concept topic

[SandJ]

a blacked-out ship would look very odd in the game, like a floating monolith

... and one that doesn't appear on the scanner either. But can be docked with. And can sell you tech level 15 equipment, despite only ever existing in low-tech systems and well away from the space lanes. Maybe it is only visible at all because it is really near the sun and so you see its silhouette, if you get close enough.

[Thargoid]

Odd as in potentially bad, not odd as in unusual or interesting. Black ship textures don't usually work so well in-game, and they'll always be somewhat reflective which will spoil the effect somewhat.

But yes, 30m high lettering could make it more interesting

... and one that doesn't appear on the scanner either. But can be docked with. And can sell you tech level 15 equipment, despite only ever existing in low-tech systems and well away from the space lanes. Maybe it is only visible at all because it is really near the sun and so you see its silhouette, if you get close enough.

All of that is do-able though, fairly easily. The only issue the dock has to be in the Z-axis, which either puts it on top as a bay (which aren't that practical as NPCs tend to want to fly through the hull beneath into them sometimes) or in the ends (which doesn't do the unlit idea any favours).

[Commander McLane]

That's what the Emerald is kinda (including the restaurants if you read Drew's work), although there's not a planetarium skin for it (although there could be if you bribe PAGroove with enough Euro).

Quoted for emphasis.

@ SandJ: reading your description I thought immediately: that's the Emerald he's describing. So it already exists.

[SandJ]

That's what the Emerald is kinda (including the restaurants if you read Drew's work), although there's not a planetarium skin for it (although there could be if you bribe PAGroove with enough Euro).

Quoted for emphasis.

@ SandJ: reading your description I thought immediately: that's the Emerald he's describing. So it already exists.

Aha, within liners.oxp - thank you. It is indeed very similar to what I was thinking of (but with the dark bits along each side of the ship rather than one flank, and dark green rather than brilliant white hull, and with escorts and shuttles rather than on its own and often in orbit rather than continuously cruising, but yes, much the same thing).

[submersible]

To while away the time as my planet textures are rendering, I've been trying my hand at Wings3d. Here is a model that does not even have a concept.




This ship started life as a workaday octotoad and grew from there. I'm particularly happy with the recessed cockpit screen.

[Commander McLane]

Looks nice, but I suppose in-game it would be tiny.

[Disembodied]

It could be an advanced (steerable?) Escape Pod ...

[Gimi]

A military personnel transfer shuttle or even a small drop ship.

[submersible]

Looks nice, but I suppose in-game it would be tiny.

Inspired by the Asp - at least, I think that rectangle looks like a window.

[Commander McLane]

What's its dimensions? Judging from where Wings places the coordinate letters it seems like 18m long and 16m wide. That would be roughly 1/15 the size of an Asp, or barely bigger than a cargo pod (about 5 times as big).

But of course the screen capture from Wings may be deceptive, and my estimation may be completely wrong. It's just because I can see the 'x', 'y' and 'z' outside the ship that I assume it would be tiny in Oolite.

I can absolutely imagine it as an Asp-siced ship (the Asp is 70m long and 60m wide), I just don't know whether it currently is.

[submersible]

What's its dimensions? Judging from where Wings places the coordinate letters it seems like 18m long and 16m wide. That would be roughly 1/15 the size of an Asp, or barely bigger than a cargo pod (about 5 times as big).

But of course the screen capture from Wings may be deceptive, and my estimation may be completely wrong. It's just because I can see the 'x', 'y' and 'z' outside the ship that I assume it would be tiny in Oolite.

I can absolutely imagine it as an Asp-siced ship (the Asp is 70m long and 60m wide), I just don't know whether it currently is.

Sorry - I misunderstood you originally... it's dimensions are 16.038 x 4.846 x 17.947 according to the obj2dat comment. I have not actually got this model in game yet - or I might have noticed.

Thanks. That was a pretty good estimate - guess you're a wings3d Elite?

[Commander McLane]

What's its dimensions? Judging from where Wings places the coordinate letters it seems like 18m long and 16m wide. That would be roughly 1/15 the size of an Asp, or barely bigger than a cargo pod (about 5 times as big).

But of course the screen capture from Wings may be deceptive, and my estimation may be completely wrong. It's just because I can see the 'x', 'y' and 'z' outside the ship that I assume it would be tiny in Oolite.

I can absolutely imagine it as an Asp-siced ship (the Asp is 70m long and 60m wide), I just don't know whether it currently is.

Sorry - I misunderstood you originally... it's dimensions are 16.038 x 4.846 x 17.947 according to the obj2dat comment. I have not actually got this model in game yet - or I might have noticed.

Thanks. That was a pretty good estimate - guess you're a wings3d Elite?

Not really, but I have used it, and remembered that it gives you a 20 x 20 grid with the coordinate arrows, and places the axis names next to the arrowheads. Therefore I guessed that your ship's nose is placed pretty close to (0, 0, 10), because the 'Z' is placed just in front of it. With a bigger ship the 'Z' would be invisible somewhere inside its belly. I wasn't sure, however, whether the grid can be scaled to other dimensions.

Anyway, the main point is that you have (perhaps unintentionally?) created a very small ship. If you're new to Oolite's internal workings you should know that sizes and distances are totally messed up. The two short rules of thumb are: (1) ships are very much oversized, and everything else is very much undersized; and (2) none of the sizes makes sense in relation to human size.

Therefore, when modeling, you should never take human size as a reference point. The only reference points you can take are other objects in the game which you imagine to be of a similar size as your model. So, if you want to create a ship of roughly an Asp's size, it's best to look up the Asp's size, and run with the values you find there, without asking yourself how a cockpit "window" would be many times bigger than the pilot.

The scales of sizes in Oolite are bent deliberately because of playability. Ships are much bigger than it would seem sensible in order to allow the player to see them (and hit them). Realistically sized ships would practically always be just single pixels on your screen. Almost impossible to see any detail, almost impossible to hit. A waste of beautiful models. Planets and distances between bodies in space, on the other hand, are much, much smaller than it would seem sensible in order to allow the player to ever interact with anybody. A realistically sized space would be so huge and empty that you would spend most of your time completely on your own on very boring journeys. Both would make for terrible gameplay. Thus the lack of realism is the price we have to pay for making Oolite a playable game in the first place.

But perhaps you knew all that already and wanted to create a tiny ship. In that case I apologize for the umpteenth repetition of already known facts.

[maik]

Planets and distances between bodies in space, on the other hand, are much, much smaller than it would seem sensible in order to allow the player to ever interact with anybody. A realistically sized space would be so huge and empty that you would spend most of your time completely on your own on very boring journeys. Both would make for terrible gameplay.

Reminds me of playing Flight Simulator 2 on my C=64 with the Western European Scenery set. It came out after Matthias Rust landed on the red square in Moscow and there was the rumor that the red square existed in this set. So, one evening I started flying the Cessna just by instruments all through the night together with a friend to find the red square. As it was Western European scenery, nothing was modeled in between. Which made for very boring gameplay. But how we felt like explorers and revolutionaries! I just wondered the next morning why my parents had absolutely no understanding for this...

Anyways, sorry for derailing the thread

Oh, and it is my 1000th post. Makes me feel somewhat Elite

[Smivs]

Oh, and it is my 1000th post. Makes me feel somewhat Elite

Right on, Commander

[CommonSenseOTB]

But perhaps you knew all that already and wanted to create a tiny ship. In that case I apologize for the umpteenth repetition of already known facts.

Piloted by tiny little cats.