Getting the size right by exampling the Lambaa

[IansterGuy]

So one the noticeable dis-consistencies in VegaStrike is the size of ships. Since sizes are not really nailed down, it would be good to get it just right as if done from scratch. I think that the Lambaa is an excellent example, because as a cargo vessel it should be bigger than a fighter and currently it is not in game. Both fighters and cargo ships are humungous right now and I think only cargo vessels should be so big. This way fighters are harder to hit without the need to make them any faster.

I propose that as a unit of measure one should consider the actual size of cargo modules and equipment on a ship relative to a fully grown human. Equipment should be big, but if it is expected to be moved as cargo it should not take up anywhere near as much space as almost any ship has for cargo area. Available upgrade volume should be shrunk for every ship in my opinion and the upgrade volumes would shrink too.

For some examples I could draw some basic interiors of other ships as references to proper sizes, along with descriptions of the drawing and how it should be interpreted. All images would be done quickly and include basically what is needed to get proper perspective. Cargo areas would be identified along with the docking port and surface loading ramps. Upgrade space access would be marked or descried as such. The interior would reflect the ships shape, and the general cockpit shape and the window would be good to show too.

In every picture there should be a simple human drawn for size reference. If it is cargo space a standard shipping crate would be desirable to draw as a box or more elaborate design. Containers for intersteler space travel would be different than moden shipping containers, but none the less it should be a modern standard size for comparison. Lets say all containers are 20 or 40 foot space rated inter-modal containers.



Actually I have decided to quickly do this myself for the Lambaa, so here are some pictures with descriptions to aid in their interpretation of size and perspective.

This first picture is not that interesting, but is is a good place to start the tour. This is the perspective right behind the cockpit room looking toward the upper central docking bay with a mechanical opening in the floor. There is a door at the end which is the main human access for the bulk of the upgrade space at the back of the ship. There are three small rooms to the left and the right for a small living space and other purposes. In the back you can see a large central cargo bay. The next image will move into the docking bay.

Lambaa-Personal Quarters-behind pilot rooms-level 2.jpg

This is the docking bay, when the ship is using docking clamps this is where the cargo comes in. Containers are lowered either mechanically or by a contact-less method. Cargo can go either left or right out the side doors down the ramp to the other compartments sliding on some mag lift tech or something. Or the floor can open up down to the lower center section where many of the equipment upgrades are stored. There are two Omani-directional elevators which can be conveniently ridden through the docking tube to the welcome platform or to other places on the ship. Hidden in the upgrade room is a combination of ladder and spiral staircase for emergencies that can be climbed even with no power and zero gravity all the way out of the ship to where the stations docking tube may either have gravity or a similar system for emergencies. Notice this hole room is proportional in width to the center portion of the outside of the ship. In other rooms the walls my be narrower because the space inside the walls are extra room for upgrade space.

lambaa-Docking bay-Inside center compartment-looking back toward upgrade room-Level 2.jpg

This next picture is of the room to the right down the ramp. On the left side of the ship from the back looking forward. This is the surface loadable cargo bay on the left. Feel free to visually count up the cargo space and tell me how much space it looks like altogether. The far wall folds down as a ramp for surface loading after the collision tip of the ship folds up. Notice on the roof the extra space necessary for the thruster, and on the left side wall on the platform those three small windows visible from the outside of the ship. The unused rounded corners of this square room is upgrade ship component and upgrade space and should be accessible by air tight doors along the walls and large swinging doors for moving in equipment.

lambaa-Surface Loading Cargo bay-Inside left compartment looking forward from ramp.jpg

To get to this last room the long way one would go down the platform where the closest stick man is standing, and hang a right U-turn. This will bring you to the lower central level entrance. It is the opening on the right in the image, witch ramps upwards slightly because that is the way the ship is designed according to the model.

Most unused upgrades and replacement parts would be stored in this smaller room. The walls are filled with vital ship equipment and at the rear is a huge door for potentially large equipment that needs to go into that upgrade space. There is a mechanical opening in the roof from the docking bay so that emptied equipment containers can be taken directly out. I would not get into the specifics of where equipment would be installed because that may change and lets just say that component locations are somewhat interchangeable

lambaa-inside_center compartment level 1 front to back perspective.jpg

As you may have noticed I have not put much detail in, but the proportions should be correct. Rooms I did not show are the cockpit, equipment rooms, living quarters, engine room, access ports, and such things that require a lot of detail not really related to the ships shape.

So here is some math to figure out how many 20foot cargo containers would fit on the ship. A modern inermodal container is 20'x8'x8'8.8125". I'm assuming they would be all close to this size due to the convenience of walking into one, and the small size for space. In metric this is 12.192m X 2.438m X 2.591m for a volume of 67.5m^3 the ship on paper is capable of carrying a volume of 2000m^3 so simply dividing by a container volume of 67.5m^3 we fit 29.62 or approximately 30 containers on the ship. So lets estimate the stack in each room.

There is not cargo space right behind the cockpit. But in the docking bay even though the roof is slightly higher. Cargo containers can be flipped sideways as they come in and out of the ship, so the upward stack is only 1, the length should be around 4 and the width is 1.2 lets say, because some more containers can fit sideways to fit extra in the room. So 1x4x1.2 equals 4.8 approximately 5 that's 5/30*100=16.66% of the ships cargo containers.

In the left compartment there is much more space. Containers can be stacked 2 high and 2 wide and 3 long for a total of 12 minus 1 because of the space taken up by the thruster in the roof so 2*2*3-1=11

Since the right compartment is identical times that by 2 or add 11 for a combined left and right compartment capacity of 11+11=22 this just leaves the under part of the central modal.

The bottom center module is not as big as the upper center module because much of the underside is ship systems and upgrade space in the walls, and under the floor. One container almost fills the space wall to wall so 1 wide 1 high and for convenience lets say 4 long so 1*1*4=4

Totaling up the ship, we get this math 5+11+11+4=31containers and so we have only one extra, so lets just say it is just wiggle room and not non prescience on my part

[Hicks]

So what would you estimate the size of the ship to be? you need to take into consideration extra space for the structure and the cabin etc

[IansterGuy]

I was just trying to reflect what the data says about the ships size. (2000+350)*(.15*2+1)*1.10=2972.75m^3

Where:
2000m^3 hold volume
350m^3 upgrade space

And where my made up nonsence figures are 15% for thrusters and supports
15% for built in ship components
On top of those two
10% for crew space.

Ship components, upgrades and thrusters would consume too much space in my opinion for this ship. Or maybe it is just right if the least expensive underpowered components where also the largest. The Lambaa is supposed to be a junker, and if it had large and underpowered components installed, it would look like one on paper. Currently it is always the opposite, which makes no market sense, because people are willing to pay more for smaller versions of the same thing.

I would size ship components and upgrade space on fighters proportionally to the other and price them according to best performance per size and weight.

[IansterGuy]

Seems I have made some mistakes in my perception that Deus Siddis has pointed out to me on "Acceleration, physics, and other ship enhancements/rebal"

If you take into account the huge size of the Lambaa and Robin in their specifications,

...especially fighters like the Robbin which is almost the same size as the Lambaa, a transport vessel.

What specifications? Looking at the two in blender, the robin appears to be roughly less than half the volume of just the center section of the llama (i.e. the smallest section of the llama).

I looked at the numbers while in game again at the asteroid base, and found it a bit embarrassing that I was off by so much in two or more of my posts, a new Llama's volume is 2000meters^3 and a Robbin is 900meters^3 , but then I found out why I visualized this a bit off. First of all the players ship Lama seems to have 2000meters of not only volume but also cargo space. What? No room for crew, hull supports and equipment? Also when I was looking at the robin model in game the funny camera angles made them seem exactly the same volume, but I found one was closer to the camera when I put on my Stereoscopic 3d glasses. Just kidding I never bothered with using the iz3d driver, rather I simply missed when I tried to lateral thrusted into it, which is a lot easier with the controls I am using now.

I'm going to quote this post and continue it on Getting the size right by exampling the Lambaa

What do I think now? Well now I think that the picture I drew could be up to 1/3 off the intended size. The Robbin visually by volume looks indeed about half the volume of the center section, but it's span on it's largest plane looks about 2/3 the size of the Llama. On paper though a new Robbin is 45% of the Lama's volume. Something is screwy here between the Llama's volume and cargo space or just the labeling or all three. I can't tell if the players Llama is bigger than a new Llama but the evidence seems to show it may be.

This confusion stem from when I first started the game. I could never actually visualize how big the lama was because I every time I looked at it in space on in the upgrade center or docking bay it was a different size, even the in game stats between the players ship and the purchasable one is not the same.

I could get off topic now, but after these patches I think it would be useful to standardize the Llama's size so that it can uniformly appear a certain size in the hangers and only in upgrade centers that are large enough for it to fit in. I personally think the Llamba should be around half that volume at 1500m^3. The space consumed by cargo containers in the picture should actually be 3 wide by my eye, so if that was halved it would be 1.5 containers wide. Since the front sides are narrower and the back sides wider 1 wide in the from and 2 wide in the back. The rest of the ship would likely store all containers longways too then. Not only this, but if half the size then the Llama would still fit inside much of the base artwork as one of the largest of the ships to still be able to park inside, instead of using docking clamps.

[Hicks]

its a problem with all the ships in the game, with regards to thier size and cargo bays. Some ships have a larger cargo bay then the calculated size of the ship itself. Making a few changes to either model scaling or cargo size could be the next balancing after the acceleration patch

[pheonixstorm]

All ships need a full rebalance.. the llama should not have so much cargo space. When you look at them and what equipment they have and where it is you can't help but think WTF?!?

We also really need to redo a lot or all of the models for accurate scale. No more upscaling the models in-game. Its kinda sad that some of the largest ships have the smallest models.

Also, there isn't much reference to what the actual sizes are supposed to be as a canonical reference in the wiki or really on the forums anywhere except for a vague few.

[IansterGuy]

All ships need a full rebalance.. the llama should not have so much cargo space. When you look at them and what equipment they have and where it is you can't help but think WTF?!?

We also really need to redo a lot or all of the models for accurate scale. No more upscaling the models in-game. Its kinda sad that some of the largest ships have the smallest models.

Also, there isn't much reference to what the actual sizes are supposed to be as a canonical reference in the wiki or really on the forums anywhere except for a vague few.

I actually have been saying that equipment and upgrade size should not be so big, so that fighters with only equipment and upgrades can be much smaller than a cargo vessel. Upgrades should not only be more expensive the bigger and more output they have, they should also be more expensive the smaller they are with more performance.

I agree that models should be higher poly for larger ships, so for any modellers interested in improving current ship designs would have that support.

[Deus Siddis]

All ships need a full rebalance.. the llama should not have so much cargo space. When you look at them and what equipment they have and where it is you can't help but think WTF?!?

We also really need to redo a lot or all of the models for accurate scale. No more upscaling the models in-game. Its kinda sad that some of the largest ships have the smallest models.

For quite a lot of reasons, to fully rebalance the game's ships and modernize their graphics, there will need to be far fewer of them. Approaching VS as a game, the number of ships should be determined by the number of distinct, fun and useful roles you can mold out of the columns in units.csv. Instead Units is filled with ships that have nearly identical stats.

So something I want do in the future (for ships and weapons and upgrades and even factions actually) is completely redesign the arsenal of ships from the game-play perspective of roles. Every role in the new design must play test well or it will get cut. If there is an unfilled game play supported role, a ship blueprint will need to be created to fill it, but more likely will be the case where there is a ship or ship model that has no distinct role and it will need to get the axe. And then the art must be made to fit these roles and it must be built to the standard scale of meters as you suggested and then the scale column should be deleted from Units.

So for example in VS as it is now the llama falls into the larger role category of SHUTTLE. And there are many other shuttles, but what makes the llama unique compared to the rest of them? It isn't very clear and so the llama isn't very distinct in how it plays, it isn't clear why or when you should use it or another shuttle, and the visual design isn't necessarily consistent with it's stats.

[pheonixstorm]

I agree that models should be higher poly for larger ships, so for any modellers interested in improving current ship designs would have that support.

I'm not referring to the poly count here, I am talking about the actual size of the models and the fact that some of these models have to be scaled in game to a certain size. Instead of using something like 1 grid = 1 meter in blender and building the model to size the models are built haphazardly with each model being the same grid size and then scaled in game depending on the actual ship. So a 10k ship may only take up 100 grid units (at perhaps a 1 meter grid and then scaled UP by the engine from 100m to 10k rather than building a 10k model in blender using I would think a 10 or 100m grid setting. The smaller the grid the higher the details as well for some of these larger ships.

[IansterGuy]

I think this is a good idea. I don't know much about programming but I imagine that any time an unnecessary external variable is used it creates confusion in the future when someone else is not sure where to look for it.

This makes me think. If one was to mind map Vega Strike with a program like Xmind or FreeMind would the image look like an unholy mess? Would map help new developers hit the ground running? Programmers here keep on saying the problem is that Vega Strike such a huge code base, so maybe some sunlight on how it is designed would help. If interested, there are even collaborative wiki style mind map applications now, but I would only recommend converting to HTML and posting the good ones, once in a while.

EDIT: Removed Crazy talk. :EDIT

EDIT:units.csv is great for making widespread balance changes easily, but if the numbers in units.csv directly relied on yet another number set somewhere else, it would require a goose chase though the code to find the extra variable. If not this way already, I think it is good bring the hole variable into the configuration files as a real world unit of measurement. For models I think that they ideally would be the right size from the start, but that is not realistic. I almost with all the data would be in a models meta data or something like ID3.
:EDIT

[klauss]

I agree that models should be higher poly for larger ships, so for any modellers interested in improving current ship designs would have that support.

I'm not referring to the poly count here, I am talking about the actual size of the models and the fact that some of these models have to be scaled in game to a certain size. Instead of using something like 1 grid = 1 meter in blender and building the model to size the models are built haphazardly with each model being the same grid size and then scaled in game depending on the actual ship. So a 10k ship may only take up 100 grid units (at perhaps a 1 meter grid and then scaled UP by the engine from 100m to 10k rather than building a 10k model in blender using I would think a 10 or 100m grid setting. The smaller the grid the higher the details as well for some of these larger ships.

Well, upscaling by the engine is not a bad thing per-se.

Why I do agree it's a problem, is that it's a tell-tale of a misconception. The author had in mind a different size when modeling the ship, so you can expect inconsistencies.

[pheonixstorm]

Thats why the ships should have been better designed in the docs as far as a general length width etc. We shouldn't have to up scale the models, not when you can design the same size model using differing grid sizes. Though now that I think of it i'm not sure if that is something you can set in blender.. I know its possible in 3ds max and gmax...