Jane's Galactic Shipset (6th ed. 3225 pub.) OXP
Posted: Mon Jul 12, 2021 12:36 am
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...
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...