Split: Re-scaling experiment

[Redspear]

A thought: our orbital space stations are officially 1km x 1km x 1km. And there is a lot of discussion over the years about how this is incompatible with fitting in thousands of spaceships.

Imagine a coriolis station of those dimensions orbiting the Earth...

The station would have a diameter of approx 1km while the planet would have a diameter of approx 12,700km.

How would the default, standard oolite currently reflect that?

Stations are at full size, so that's a good start but planets are at 1% size, so instead of 1 : 12,700, we get 1 : 127.
So if those orbital stations look a tad on the big size (or the planets on the small size) then no wonder.

Im focusing on alleviating the ratio, not fixing the sizes. What's the difference, the first can be obviously glaring when out by orders of magnitude, the second only requires two measurements to be taken in order to be so.

So, currently, my planets are four times larger than typically rendered within oolite. Instead of 1 : 127, that puts them at 1 : 508

That's still woefully short of the 'correct' ratio but then coriolis stations no longer appear as if medium sized moons that can be observed from up to half way from the witch point. Rather you will almost certainly, genuinely need the compass in order to find them.

That, I would argue, represents a much more realistic experience without requiring realistic, potentially game-breaking, measurements.

So if realism is the concern then I'd worry about how those tiny planets populate so many people more than I would about how the coriolis supposedly services so many ships.

Worse still, I'm (again, currently) halving the reported distances in order to address the otherwise truly enormous ships and cargo pods as I have further justified up thread.

Get the ruler out in standard oolite and only one thing is correct (the station). Do so in my build and nothing is correct, however the relative sizes are closer to being so.

In short: it's not supposed to be realistic, it's just supposed to be less glaringly unrealistic...

If station sizes get realistic (or if we accept that they are just a glorified swap market for tens rather than hundreds/thousands of ships)

So, maybe somewhere in the middle

In that case, you probably should test the built in "Nova" mission in your rescaled Ooniverse

a_c has mentioned that before... but first I'll need to tweak the starting conditions for my currently 'harmless' test pilot

[szaumix]

If station sizes get realistic (or if we accept that they are just a glorified swap market for tens rather than hundreds/thousands of ships)

So, maybe somewhere in the middle

Might be a good time to revisit the concept before things start getting resized, resizes become standard and standards start getting man-hours put into being reskinned!

Beginning with what I assume everyone agrees on:

• stations are essentially somewhere between giant space warehouse and space skyscrapers

• stations function, essentially, as swap meets/ commodity spot markets, and politically neutral/protected GalCop zones

• as big as they may be, their bigness must have (and encompass) their various things.

Branching out from (what I assume is) consensus, but which I still consider rational, I presume to suggest that the things that they encompass are:
Ship capacity (I always imagined this roughly like storied city car parking), cargo capacity, food and equipment stocks, large staff and their various quarters and needs, administrative space, life support systems, hallways and circuits, and I always assumed large amounts of living quarters (not unlike the ISS) and some comforts. And that's not including police barracks, ships, equipment, security, admins space etc.

For these bare basics alone, the disbelief needing suspension is incredible given their default ship-to-station size. I don't even care about ship to planet half as much as ship to station. There is no astrophysics rule that I'm aware of that says a planetary body has to be a certain size to support life or be considered a planet, therefore there is technically no "too small" for a planet for me -- I think we stipulate this because we are real life earthlings and our solar system is our point of reference. So I can forgive and ignore all kinds of planet sizes, but ship to station is a long standing emergency!

EDIT: and that's just a long way of saying, I hope your altitudes and positions account for this. I don't think you mentioned station resizing but, skin resolution aside, this is the perfect opportunity as long as unbelievable sizes and distances are being addressed.

[Cholmondely]

For these bare basics alone, the disbelief needing suspension is incredible given their default ship-to-station size. I don't even care about ship to planet half as much as ship to station. There is no astrophysics rule that I'm aware of that says a planetary body has to be a certain size to support life or be considered a planet, therefore there is technically no "too small" for a planet for me -- I think we stipulate this because we are real life earthlings and our solar system is our point of reference. So I can forgive and ignore all kinds of planet sizes, but ship to station is a long standing emergency!

EDIT: and that's just a long way of saying, I hope your altitudes and positions account for this. I don't think you mentioned station resizing but, skin resolution aside, this is the perfect opportunity as long as unbelievable sizes and distances are being addressed.

I totally agree with this. A believable orbital station would be much bigger.

It would be nice to know if others disagree.

Cody? Phkb? Killer Wolf? Cmdr. Wyvern? ...

NB: the lack of response to KW's HUD question is something I find rather disturbing.

[Old Murgh]

I totally agree with this. A believable orbital station would be much bigger.

It would be nice to know if others disagree.

Cody? Phkb? Killer Wolf? Cmdr. Wyvern? ...

(Though an unsolicited opinion) I’m a supporter of a more massive station, as long as the dock dimensions stay the same.

NB: the lack of response to KW's HUD question is something I find rather disturbing.

I’d certainly help if I thought I had a clue about HUDs.

[Cholmondely]

I totally agree with this. A believable orbital station would be much bigger.

It would be nice to know if others disagree.

Cody? Phkb? Killer Wolf? Cmdr. Wyvern? ...

(Though an unsolicited opinion) I’m a supporter of a more massive station, as long as the dock dimensions stay the same.

NB: the lack of response to KW's HUD question is something I find rather disturbing.

I’d certainly help if I thought I had a clue about HUDs.

Your opinion is certainly not unsolicited.

As regards HUDs I'm worrying that we may no longer have people with the necessary knowledge to answer KW. You, Wyvern and KW have rejoined us after a long absence. The programming skills required to do things have changed - but the people who changed these things seem to have fled. And the information on the wiki seems inadequate to bridge the gap. I'm sure that the requisite information is somewhere in these threads. But it is unfair to expect you and KW to spend hours plumbing them on the one hand, and I'm too ignorant to do anything useful on the other. Not a good place to be.

[Old Murgh]

Your opinion is certainly not unsolicited.

Just being cheeky

As regards HUDs I'm worrying that we may no longer have people with the necessary knowledge to answer KW. You, Wyvern and KW have rejoined us after a long absence. The programming skills required to do things have changed - but the people who changed these things seem to have fled. And the information on the wiki seems inadequate to bridge the gap. I'm sure that the requisite information is somewhere in these threads. But it is unfair to expect you and KW to spend hours plumbing them on the one hand, and I'm too ignorant to do anything useful on the other. Not a good place to be.

Yes it’s worrying if that area of expertise has had a brain drain. One can only hope that before too long, new talent will join and old dogs will feel the temptation of returning. It happens.

[Redspear]

There is no astrophysics rule that I'm aware of that says a planetary body has to be a certain size to support life or be considered a planet, therefore there is technically no "too small" for a planet for me -- I think we stipulate this because we are real life earthlings and our solar system is our point of reference.

This is Raoror.

It has an average radius of 3,851km making it a little bigger than Mars. Although density is unknown one might reasonably assume significantly reduced gravity compared to Earth, and with a population of 3.5 billion that population has reached not inconsiderable levels for its size.

Now imagine it at 38.5km (how it appears in the default game),that's a little smaller than Cressida, one of the moons of Uranus. Can you still imagine a population of 3.5 billion and a gravity sufficient to support an emergent ecology (terrformed or not) that might in turn support human settlers?

To be clear, I'm not solving this with my x4 planets (or even with my x10 planets of the previous ittereation) but then I'm not trying to either.

So I can forgive and ignore all kinds of planet sizes, but ship to station is a long standing emergency!

Addressed both in oxp and in previous versions of the experiment (with scanner and speed changes to balance gameplay the latter, more extreme variance).

I totally agree with this. A believable orbital station would be much bigger.

It would be nice to know if others disagree.

Cody? Phkb? Killer Wolf? Cmdr. Wyvern? ...

(Though an unsolicited opinion) I’m a supporter of a more massive station, as long as the dock dimensions stay the same.

Larger planets grant more room to facilitate larger stations, which do the same in order to facilitate larger ships. So bigger planets don't hurt this ambition at all (unless that is, you actually want smaller planets relative to the station...)

EDIT: and that's just a long way of saying, I hope your altitudes and positions account for this. I don't think you mentioned station resizing but, skin resolution aside, this is the perfect opportunity as long as unbelievable sizes and distances are being addressed.

This thread is an attempt to show 'here are the dials and here's what you can do with them', rather than some dictat of 'here are the settings'.

Sun size
Sun distance
Sun skimming
Scanner range
Scanner scale
Ships
Stations
Speeds (that's a lot of S's)
Torus speed
Planetary masslock
Planets
Asteroids
Witchpoint distances
Atmosphere heights
Atmosphere shaders
F6 planet depictions
Visible ranges
Reported distances
Orbital altitudes
Docking behaviou
Plasma shot speeds
Laser ranges
Lane widths
Lane placements

Potentially all of these require adjusting depending upon what exactly it is that you wish to rescale and by how much. Although I've had a lot of help along the way, I think it's fair to say that I have not inconsiderable experience of juggling all of them within the context of oolite.

In other words I can show you how to rescale to your tastes within the confines of oolite's design resilience but if you're expecting realism then (even from my very first ambitious/hopeful postings) that was never a goal.

[szaumix]

This thread is an attempt to show 'here are the dials and here's what you can do with them'

In other words I can show you how to rescale to your tastes within the confines of oolite's design resilience

Ah but that's even better! I have skimmed this thread numerous times in the past but I admit to barely skimming recent posts lately so I apologize if my questions and comments rehash old ground.

Although I've had a lot of help along the way, I think it's fair to say that I have not inconsiderable experience of juggling all of them within the context of oolite.

I doubt anyone will disagree with you there. Bless your tireless cotton socks mate.

[Redspear]

I have skimmed this thread numerous times in the past but I admit to barely skimming recent posts lately so I apologize if my questions and comments rehash old ground.

No worries. 50 pages of trial and error later and it's all but innevitable

Bless your tireless cotton socks mate.

Thanks.

[szaumix]

So coming back to station sizes.
I am in the camp that sees stock ship:cargo sizes and ratios, Sun distances, and station sizes as "emergency level" wrong -- in approximately that order. Two of these (1.Suns 2.ship size/cargo) I have ameliorated with mods to my happy satisfaction placation until superior conditions present themselves or I eventually tweak them. But -- I double checked -- JGS doesn't resize stations. I have tried to resize stations myself before and gotten wierd and uncertain results, and AFAIK no mod has prepackaged station resizes. I don't know how to do it.

Again, station sizes are the long standing "emergency" many of us who care have long had to just pretend isn't happening. I see from your (Redspear) previous posts that you would like stations to be hard enough to see/find that they more or less require ASC or a lot of flight time searching and spacefaring. Please truly pardon me if I'm incorrect about this being a "this is how I want my game experience" goal? To each their own Ooniverse! (EDIT: incidentally, I feel exactly the same way about almost every dockable except GalCop. And your list of things that "require adjusting" is definitely noteworthy!)

However the implications of (anywhere near) current ship:station sizes is obvious: Stations are essentially no bigger than a local police station hosting a never ending garage sale to a handful of ships at a time. At their sizes it is the only logical, physical conclusion. For them to graduate to all the functions we are used to believing -- and market quantities we are used to seeing -- they would have to be many times larger. I am less interested in the 1km/1km/1km claimed specs than I am in their size correlating (more) believably to their function. As you said, not perfect realism, just more believable. And while this discussion is over a decade old, what stops us from proposing and settling on some more realistic station sizes in your size expanded Ooniverse?

[phkb]

what stops us from proposing and settling on some more realistic station sizes in your size expanded Ooniverse?

Answer: this

"this is how I want my game experience" goal? To each their own Ooniverse!

[szaumix]

Hard to argue with my all-time favourite Oolite modder
In which case it's high time I asked or figured out how to resize stations myself! I've looked into it before but something about the docking port itself causes unusual problems and I gave up after trying exactly not very hard at all

[phkb]

In which case it's high time I asked or figured out how to resize stations myself!

You could try this:

In a shipdata-overrides.plist, put:

Code: Select all

{
	"oolite_template_coriolis-station" = {
		model_scale_factor = 1.5; // station 1.5 times bigger
	};
	"oolite_template_dodecahedron-station" = {
		model_scale_factor = 1.5;
	};
	"oolite_template_icosahedron-station" = {
		model_scale_factor = 1.5;
	};
}

I think that will rescale the core stations. Worth a shot, although look out for issues with things like Station Ads, and possibly even ILS.

[szaumix]

You could try this:

In a shipdata-overrides.plist, put:

Code: Select all

{
	"oolite_template_coriolis-station" = {
		model_scale_factor = 1.5; // station 1.5 times bigger
	};
	"oolite_template_dodecahedron-station" = {
		model_scale_factor = 1.5;
	};
	"oolite_template_icosahedron-station" = {
		model_scale_factor = 1.5;
	};
}

I think that will rescale the core stations. Worth a shot, although look out for issues with things like Station Ads, and possibly even ILS.

I've tried these before, the dock opening failed to render and that was when I realised that there was more to it that I'll have to pick at until I figure out. Also ILS already causes crashes around some RH and Scavenger Gangs so I would have to bugtest and cap to whatever the NPC ships could handle. I'm more worried about the fact that since I don't tweak the Oolite populator, I do not understand the three-point XYZ position system very well and the buoy/YAH might need moving back. Or worse, the entire station and/or planet needs moving a few kms!

Also it took a while but I found https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=13343 again. Haven't read that in a while. I love stuff like this, but Cim said:

A standard Coriolis, in Oolite's scale, is almost a cubic kilometre of space. You can fit a thousand Cobra IIIs inside one with plenty of room to spare - even allowing for the station being more than a giant parking bay, you could easily fit a few hundred ships around the main axis (bearing in mind that the Cobra III is a large ship and most are considerably smaller) and still have room for a wide range of other facilities (fitted out as habitation, it could easily support a million people)

I believe him, but it's hard to believe! I'm still going to shoot for 50% enlargement eventually. If problems and viability questions persist I'll shelf this project with all my other wishlist items for the time being.

[Redspear]

OK... So, the stations.

The canonical 1km

1km doesn't sound much for somewhere supposed to accomodate a city (or even cities) and no city I've ever visited has been that small but then none of them have been cubic either.

Imagine if every domicile was a 1km high tower block - that's a lot of space. Now you'd still need rooms for docks, shipyards, storage and whatever else a city might need but there's certainly a lot of space in there.

This size is reflected in both the default game and in JGS.

Relation to cargo pods and ships

In the default game these entities were sized up (by a factor of approximately three) in order that the expected docking behaviour of matching rotation could be preserved while the station still maintained recognisable proportions. Proportionally we now have a station trying to accommodate three times as much ship and cargo mass.

On the face of it that presents an easy mathematical fix except that the ship sizes inherited from elite are quirky to say the least. One of my favourite examples of this being that the "one man fighter" that is the krait is wider than the 40-72 crew "largest known freighter" that is the anaconda. So some ships are probably too small while others may even be slightly too large based on their elite measurements alone.

JGS attempts to fix this using a (rather than the) logical method to calculate new measurements for all default ships, pods and salvage thereby freeing me from having to make core adjustments to the same with the consequence of mass oxp incompatibility.

Making stations larger

This can be done (I'd have to check my notes) but do it by too much and NPC docking tends to go awry. x3 is about the maximum for it to be workable with other changes but pythons and boas (in particular) tend to dock like a (insert derogatory term of choice here).

The next verson of JGS will likely scale around the boa (rather than the anaconda) to help with this issue.

What looks right is often important
What would be right is often impractical
What you imagine to be right is sometimes the easiest to change

EDIT: cim was quoted above and his next line (from that thread) was:

The problem is that at the speed your ship goes you can zip past it in three seconds, and that just makes it look really small.

Early versions of this experiment halved speed but in doing so one needs to consider both scanner size and oxp compatibility (only the former of which was truly addressed).