FD wrote:Ships land on pads within the yellow marks (shown here is one of the largest dock-able ships in the game – more details soon!). …
What the team liked about this solution was how grounded and mechanical it felt; there’s nothing fictional about how it operates and for that reason adds a level of believability to a world that is firmly rooted in a science-fiction setting. Whilst this is still only proof of concept and will be subject to a lot more refinement before the game is released, being able to look out the window of your cockpit and see exactly how the functions of a station operate will add a layer of depth to the game that will make the Elite galaxy a much more believable place.
Re: Elite: Dangerous - and the return
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- Commander McLane
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Re: David Braben's Elite: Dangerous
I do like the idea they've got for docking, though:
Re: David Braben's Elite: Dangerous
I like it. I like the way they keep a common design theme for the different factions, and I think this one fits in.Cody wrote:Not to my taste, that's for sure!
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(Gold Medal Award, Zzap!64 May 1985).
(Gold Medal Award, Zzap!64 May 1985).
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Re: David Braben's Elite: Dangerous
The docking pad is very reminiscent of Space: 1999 and the Eagle launch pads on Moonbase Alpha.
(Oh, and I took a look on the wiki for their new Anaconda design... "No sir, I don't like it." It just doesn't feel big enough )
(Oh, and I took a look on the wiki for their new Anaconda design... "No sir, I don't like it." It just doesn't feel big enough )
Commander Ranthe: Flying the Anaconda-class transport Atomic Annie through Galaxy 2.
Combat Ranking: Dangerous
Combat Ranking: Dangerous
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- Selezen
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Re: David Braben's Elite: Dangerous
The Anaconda isn't actually that BIG, scalewise. It's only ten metres or so longer than the Cobra 3 is wide...Ranthe wrote:(Oh, and I took a look on the wiki for their new Anaconda design... "No sir, I don't like it." It just doesn't feel big enough )
I'd have to check to be sure...
Re: David Braben's Elite: Dangerous
Actually, the docking animation is very similar to the planetary landings in the Frontier games when you landed on a planet with no atmosphere and was thus taken into an underground bay.Ranthe wrote:The docking pad is very reminiscent of Space: 1999 and the Eagle launch pads on Moonbase Alpha
Author of Tales from the Frontier - official Elite 4 anthology.
Author of Marcan Rayger adventures - unofficial fan-fic novellas set in the Frontier universe.
Author of Marcan Rayger adventures - unofficial fan-fic novellas set in the Frontier universe.
- Selezen
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Re: David Braben's Elite: Dangerous
Just wanted to mention that Episode 11 of Lave Radio is now live at http://www.laveradio.com
Notable because yours truly is a guest presenter and managed to mention Oolite at least three times...
Notable because yours truly is a guest presenter and managed to mention Oolite at least three times...
- drew
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Re: David Braben's Elite: Dangerous
Good man. Hopefully listen in the car tomorrow morning on the way to work.Selezen wrote:Just wanted to mention that Episode 11 of Lave Radio is now live at http://www.laveradio.com
Notable because yours truly is a guest presenter and managed to mention Oolite at least three times...
Cheers,
Drew.
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Re: David Braben's Elite: Dangerous
drew wrote:Good man. Hopefully listen in the car tomorrow morning on the way to work.
Aren't you driving to work by train (and writing your novel while doing so)?
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Re: David Braben's Elite: Dangerous
Monday to Thursday I take the train, Friday's I currently have to go to a satellite office by car - no writing other than my blog in the lunch hour.Commander McLane wrote:drew wrote:Good man. Hopefully listen in the car tomorrow morning on the way to work.
Aren't you driving to work by train (and writing your novel while doing so)?
Cheers,
Drew.
Re: David Braben's Elite: Dangerous
Well, the Elite one isn't that big. The Elite Dangerous one, on the other hand ...Selezen wrote:The Anaconda isn't actually that BIG, scalewise. It's only ten metres or so longer than the Cobra 3 is wide...Ranthe wrote:(Oh, and I took a look on the wiki for their new Anaconda design... "No sir, I don't like it." It just doesn't feel big enough )
... is huge. It looks about the length of an Elite Coriolis, since the Sidewinder is still about the same size as in Elite.
It'll be interesting to see how it works in a fight. The Frontier (or Oolite, for that matter) approach of treating them like very big fighters doesn't seem plausible, but point defence weapons are much trickier to make fun for everyone.
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Re: David Braben's Elite: Dangerous
cim wrote:The Elite Dangerous [anaconda], on the other hand is huge. It looks about the length of an Elite Coriolis, since the Sidewinder is still about the same size as in Elite.
The Sidewinder in Elite is 35/15/65 ft (10.6/4.5/19.8 m)
The new Sidewinder is about the same (15/5/21 m). The big ships in relation to a Coriolis (which is 1km in diameter) look like this (with an Elizabeth Tower thrown in for perspective):
Apologies for the roughness of the drawing and the use of mockups rather than accurate ship shapes. Coriolis is blue, docking bay (approx) is black, Big Ben tower is brown, Anaconda is green and Panther is yellow. All scales here depicted (apart from the docking bay, which is approximated) are accurate.
Sorry, but I have to refute your claim. The Anaconda is still a relatively small ship.
Re: David Braben's Elite: Dangerous
Is it? I assumed that like every other object in Oolite it had been scaled up from feet to metres, so the Elite Coriolis would only be 1000 feet in diameter....interestingly, the Elite manual claims they're a kilometre wide. If so, then you should be able to fit a foot-scale Cobra III into the docking port sideways. Time to go back to the emulator and see how long it takes to cross the station from one side to the other, I think. (Does this mean that the Oolite Coriolis stations are around 40 times smaller than they should be, then?)Selezen wrote:The big ships in relation to a Coriolis (which is 1km in diameter)
Hmm, checking my maths I do appear to have put one more foot/metre conversion in than I should have . With the clock tower for scale, the Anaconda looks around 125m long, 40m high, 60m across, which is around 300-400 times bigger than the Sidewinder, and around 15 times bigger (by volume) than the Elite Anaconda. I don't think that counts as "small"
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Re: David Braben's Elite: Dangerous
I do think that the stations in Oolite could be bigger in relation to the ships, but not so big as to allow a Cobra to dock sideways. On the other hand, increasing the dimensions more than threefold (foot to metre), would make them far too big in relation to the planets, which is visually very important, because we see the station next to the planet.cim wrote:Is it? I assumed that like every other object in Oolite it had been scaled up from feet to metres, so the Elite Coriolis would only be 1000 feet in diameter....interestingly, the Elite manual claims they're a kilometre wide. If so, then you should be able to fit a foot-scale Cobra III into the docking port sideways. Time to go back to the emulator and see how long it takes to cross the station from one side to the other, I think. (Does this mean that the Oolite Coriolis stations are around 40 times smaller than they should be, then?)Selezen wrote:The big ships in relation to a Coriolis (which is 1km in diameter)
Thus I think that the current station size is a good compromise between the scale of ships (which is too big) and the scale of planets (which is too small). Naturally, stations are between those two scales and therefore have to compromise between the two opposing aberrations in scale. There is no way out of this trap. And this means, that while we can make small adjustments to their size (making them 1200m wide would work), a big change (making them 3300m wide) would break their relation to planet size.
Last edited by Commander McLane on Fri Jun 21, 2013 12:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: David Braben's Elite: Dangerous
Remember that in THIS thread we're talking about Elite Dangerous, not Oolite or even Elite. The scale issues have been given some attention, and metres are metres, not some cobbled variant thereof. Measurements are in metres for the most part, and my measurements are taken from a preview of the official ship specifications (which I neglected to mention before, sorry).
No, as far as I am aware, in Oolite the stations are the right scale compared to the ships. It's the measurements that are screwy all over the game (as we all know).cim wrote:(Does this mean that the Oolite Coriolis stations are around 40 times smaller than they should be, then?)
That all looks about right. Interestingly, the Frontier boffins HAVE scaled up the Annie compared to the Elite version - almost a 1 for 1 replacement for feet to metres. It's now canonically (in 3300) comparable in size to the Panther, which accurises the cargo capacity.cim wrote:Hmm, checking my maths I do appear to have put one more foot/metre conversion in than I should have . With the clock tower for scale, the Anaconda looks around 125m long, 40m high, 60m across, which is around 300-400 times bigger than the Sidewinder, and around 15 times bigger (by volume) than the Elite Anaconda. I don't think that counts as "small"
Yup, again, about right.Commander McLane wrote:I was thinking the same. The Anaconda looks about twice as long as Big Ben is high. And one thing I know for sure is that Big Ben is not 500 metres tall. (Wikipedia gives its height as 96 metres, which would make the Anaconda roughly 200 metres long.)
- drew
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Re: David Braben's Elite: Dangerous
Accurises! Accurises?Selezen wrote:which accurises the cargo capacity.
I'm pulling my pledge, sir!
Cheers,
Drew.