Jane's Galactic Shipset (6th ed. 3225 pub.) OXP

[Redspear]

After some investigation and trial and error here, I've had a go at resizing and also reattributing (energy banks, recharge rates, pitch and roll rates etc.) for the core shipset.

The new values are calculated by formula based on primary sources including the original elite manual, Ian Bells' preparatory notes for the manual and game data from the BBC and C64 versions of Elite (both programmed by the original authors).

Resizing has knock on effects of course and I'm perhaps of above average experience in that regard but one step at a time. The oxp is done I'm just checking for errors (like the one I found where I'd mixed up the speeds for the worm and one of the vipers )

Meanwhile, a little preview of some of the ship sizes. All ships are shown at approx 5km distance...

The anaconda. Both it and the station remain unchanged but are here for comparison



Orbital shuttle. Considerably larger and granted it's elite cargo capacity of 60 TC.



Python and viper. the python has been slighty enlarged here but is still fairly small at 5km distance (about 1/3 of beam laser range)



The worm. To the right of the crosshairs and visually about the same size as the thargon although more box-like.



Krait and boa. Although the former has been shrunk significantly and the latter inceased fractionally I don't think that the 10TC fighter looks too small next to the 125TC freighter, do you?




Laser ranges and speed changes can compensate for smaller ships but it's more complicated than that in that some ships are smaller than before while others are larger and therefore smaller or larger targets than before. So how to represent something like current gameplay with different ships?

One way would be to give smaller ships reduced laser ranges. They'd still be harder to hit but then in a larger ship you'd have more opportunity with greater weaopn range. I'm well aware that there's much more too it than that as I'm in familiar teritory here. The 'solutions' to these 'problems' may not even make it into this oxp but I'll include them in something or other sooner or later.

Anyway, coming soon...

[Redspear]

v1.0 should now be available from the download manager.

More to come, especially in terms of oxp compatability but main benefit fo me is that it seperates sytem rescaling entirely from ship rescaling, meaning that several of my other oxp are now freed up from trying top accommodate both.

Warning: this will reduce the Cobra mk III's speed to 0.28LM.

This made sense to me when I first saw it in Angus Duggan's Elite-A (the fer-de-lance should be the fater of the two I thought) but I was surprised to find it in the C64 ship stats... Sure, there's the masslock issue but there are several oxps to couter that, 3 of which I've written myself (with all of those being cumulative in effect).

Smaller ships will likely be harder to hit but more fragile than before.

I'm hopeful that there'll be more to come in terms of updating the set to the imagined 3225 date.

[Cholmondely]

... Sure, there's the masslock issue but there are several oxps to counter that, 3 of which I've written myself (with all of those being cumulative in effect).

Are these the three you mean?

Masslock Compensator
Power To Engines?
Traffic Redistributer

[Cholmondely]

v1.0 should now be available from the download manager.

Redspear: I've put up a wiki page for you to hack to death!

http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Jane%2 ... ic_Shipset

[Redspear]

Are these the three you mean?

Masslock Compensator
Power To Engines?
Traffic Redistributer

Yeah. Then there's variable masslock and synchronised torus both of which do their thing. I must try the latter again as it's the one that adds a gameplay element (I suppose power to engines does too, sort of...)

Redspear: I've put up a wiki page for you to hack to death!

Busy as ever I see

Thanks, I will need to change a few things on there but you've saved me quite a bit of time when it comes to it.

[Redspear]

Resizing has knock on effects of course...

Speaking of which, one of the less obvious ones is that smaller ships with less energy make the pulse laser more useful vs the smaller vessels.

Problem iused to be that you'd have to hit them several (sometimes many) times with a pulse laser, all the while taking return fire from their pals. Now the hard part is targeting them but once you get good at that then you should find that they're much more fragile.

Therefore the initial stumbling block is more about skill than armament.

This is potentially good news in terms of gameplay at both extremes of the player's equipment progression.

[Cholmondely]

So, just peeking inside what you did, and with Montana05's discussion about the Moray Star Boat Medical (Oolite) in mind...

Your ships-override reads

Code: Select all

	"morayMED" =
	{
		model_scale_factor = 0.83;
		max_energy = 195;
		max_flight_pitch = 1;
		max_flight_roll = 2;
		max_flight_speed = 250;
		energy_recharge_rate = 3;
	};

I presume that the model_scale _factor reduces the size of the medical moray by 17%.

But the vanilla game dimensions are 59m x 29m x 70m. The original Elite size was 60' x 25' x 65' - or in french metres, 18.29m x 8.84m x 19.8m

A reduction in size of some 70%.

Which does a much better job of explaining why one can fit so many ships into a station. And allows for something more resembling the descriptions in The Dark Wheel:

A Coriolis station is nothing less than a vast city built on six planes and spread, around the wide empty sky of its interior, facing inwards. From South City, the roof on the world is North City. At night, the lights that glow above your head are the lights of streets and buildings.
Alex checked out of the ship's berth and took a sky taxi across the void. The tiny automatic ship slid delicately and smoothly between the incoming and outgoing ships. Alex watched in fascination as the towering buildings of South City dropped away below and the grey sky edged closer. To his left, he could see the pattern of streets and parklands on the inhabited plane known as Commander City. Facing the entrance to the station, on that particular level lived the high ranking officials and various planetary envoys and ambassadors. They enjoyed a landscape which included lakes, rivers and ski-slopes with real snow.
Below him, his ship became a tiny dart-shape on the broad landing pad. Above him, the towering offices and living blocks reached down towards him like geometrical stalactites.
There was an abrupt moment's disorientation and suddenly the roof was the ground and now his ship was a single, winking light in the heavens. The taxi dropped swiftly to street level, between the grey and black monolithic structures. Lights of different colours blinked and shone, and when the atmosphere began, a strange dusty shimmer seemed to envelop the city.
The streets were crowded here and it took Alex only moments to realise that the South City of this particular Coriolis station was the 'down town' area. Illegal trade abounded, in narcotics, robots, slaves, sensuastims, prostitution and frozen organs. Spacers walked slowly, cautiously, most of them still wearing near-full suit, a certain sign that this was the rough quarter. Hookers, of all sexes (the Galaxy counted seventeen at this time) and races, but mostly humanoid, solicited from hovering platforms, ready to escape fast from any over-welcoming, unwelcome client. Advertising hoardings here were almost completely devoted to proclaiming the illicit pleasures which were available in South City. Police cars and remotes roared overhead, as did med-ships. The streets were alive with noise and bustle and filth.
The Magellan building, a dark, squat cube, sat amongst this confusion like a great, brooding monster. It had no visible windows. Lifts rose and fell on its outer walls, slow-moving green lights that gave it an uncanny sense of being alive.
Alex had come without a hand weapon, and now began to regret it. Practically everyone—and everything—he saw carried a gun, in contradiction of orbit-space law. He walked cautiously through the crowds of reptilioids, cloaked amphibioids, armoured insectoids, squat, bristling felines, and the grotesque robo-tanks in which things that looked like giant molluscs, or worms, or branches of heather, moved within the safety of their own environment.
He entered the Magellan building and noticed the stench for the first time, the combined body odours of a thousand alien life-forms; surprisingly some—those who drank raw methane gas— managed to excrete sweat that smelled as sweet as apple blossom. But most did not. <br>
The private trading centre was a vast hall, surrounded by the entrances to offices and warehouses. What was sold in this crowded, noisy place, was anything that was considered too risky, or bizarre, or commonplace to sell on the open market. The trader who loaded up his cargo bay from a private purchase had better check with the planet's export monitoring system before leaving, or his reception, at the other end, might be a little more violent than he'd expected.
Alex scanned the high walls for a hint of McGreavy's warehouse.

The Dark Wheel, chapter 6.

[Redspear]

I presume that the model_scale _factor reduces the size of the medical moray by 17%.

But the vanilla game dimensions are 59m x 29m x 70m. The original Elite size was 60' x 25' x 65' - or in french metres, 18.29m x 8.84m x 19.8m

A reduction in size of some 70%.

Which does a much better job of explaining why one can fit so many ships into a station. And allows for something more resembling the descriptions in The Dark Wheel:

Understand that there is no version of rescaling yet proposed (either by myself or AFAIK anyone else) that both fully meets a conventionally logical size distibution whilst resembling the elite/oolite game-playing experience.

As I've tried to explain numerous times in the rescaling thread and elsewhere: my approach has been to disguise rather than 'fix' the numerous errors/quirks that exist between the different scales (e.g. star to planet, planet to station, station to ship).

Aegidian's approach seems to have been to get one thing 'right' (stations) and fudge everything else to 'fit' gameplay wise (ft converted to m for ships to keep the docking slit a familiar size) in what he called "cartoony" fashion. The task was such a difficult one IMHO because the original ship dimensions he sourced from the elite manual were highly questionable (one man fighters wider than the largest freighter etc).

The whole point of this oxp has been to free the ships up from those original dimensions as explained in the link from the first post of this thread. So quoting the manual sizes back at me (no offence intended or taken) is doubly missing the point because not only am I deliberately ignoring them and regarding them as erroneous, but I'm also addressing the ships' relative sizes to each other rather than their actual sizes as recorded in game.

Whilst it's true that I'm attempting to be rational in my approach it's also the case that I'm limiting my scope in order that my tinkerings still produce something that is playable and recognisable as an elite inspired shipset. Futhermore I have no wish to kid myself (or anyone else for that matter) that I somehow have comprehensive understanding of space faring vessel dimensions of the 4th millenium...

I've tried to explain, several times, but perhaps I'm just not very good at it. Apologies if that's the case.

[Cody]

... ft converted to m for ships...

Another of Giles' mistakes? I'm sitting in the cramped cockpit of an Adder, trying to rationalise its supposed width of thirty metres!


Standby for a new trilogy: Where Giles Went Wrong, Some More of Giles' Greatest Mistakes and Who is this Giles Person Anyway?





With apologies to Douglas Adams.

[Rxke]

Another of Giles' mistakes?

You have been excommunicated from The Church of Giles The Creator

[Cody]

You have been excommunicated...

[Cholmondely]

You have been excommunicated from The Church of Giles The Creator

Wow!

Did you do it yourself? Or as part of a committee?

Are you orthodox CGC or heterodox?

And what is your rank? Presbyter? Archimandrite? Grand Metropolitan?

And what language did you use for the ceremony? "ob_gz zlib"?

[Cody]

<chortles>

[Rxke]

Um... I'll get me coat...

/ scurries off into the night /

[Cholmondely]

Um... I'll get me coat...

/ scurries off into the night /

Hang on... is Cody excommunicated or not? What is going on here?