Proportions of space

A home for tales of personal killcounts and engagements between vast armadas, as well as the odd recounting of that time you saw an alien capship taking out a mining base while trying to parallel park.
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Xante
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Proportions of space

Post by Xante »

To me it seems that in VS all planets and stars are about the same size. I know realism is not a priority, all it has to be is believable, but since this is something one is rarely aware of, and just to remember how small and unsignificant we are, I'd like to show you this picture.

Image


But please don't rescale the stars of VS!! It'll take hours to fly around Antares, even with max SPEC :D
jackS
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Post by jackS »

(Not sure which version you're using, but the following certainly applies to >= 0.5.0)
FWIW - if you take a look at the system definition file for Cephid 17, you'll see that Cephid 17(A) has a radius of ~746,000 Kilometers whereas Atlantis has a ~5,000 Km radius

Glancing briefly at one of the auto-generated systems (your mileage may vary) shows the primary in Oldziey with a radius of ~830,000 Kilometers vs. a number of rocky bodies in the 5000-6000 Km range.

Now, I think our scale for stars is clamped (or at least distributed) in such a way that we aren't going to get much, if anything, anywhere near the Antares range, but the planets and suns are certainly set to be in different ballparks.
Xante
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Post by Xante »

I dindn't notice it since I have read very little of the code of VS. Fact is that it doesn't really strike the eye ingame. Then again, I didn't pay much attention to the distance I looked at those object.

I know it would be impossible to integrate a red giant such as Antares, because a jump point near such a star is just unrealistic (to hot, to bright), and anyway planets are very unlikely to exist near such a star, and even if it would be impossible to land there.
jackS
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Post by jackS »

Yes, distance certainly can alter perspective :)
(fwiw, Atlantis is ~9 lightminutes from Cephid 17(A) )
rigelan
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Post by rigelan »

I don't know if it would be possible to determine size of a star visually

Either in game or in real life. You just have to know distances via numbers.

Its not like you can see more detail if you get closer. We can't really see anything in a flaming ball of plasma anyway. Planets, on the other hand, you might be able to tell the difference in size visually as well as the amount of time it takes to get to or the slowing of your ship because of SPEC.
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Nesmontu
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Post by Nesmontu »

Planets, on the other hand, you might be able to tell the difference in size visually as well as the amount of time it takes to get to or the slowing of your ship because of SPEC.
I think this is the case in 0.5.0/svn; some planets (like Atlantis) you can dock to at a distance of +/- 1000km; smaller planets you have to go to 300 or even 250km, and you do indeed approach them faster...
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