[beatspete]

Originally posted by Thunder
I think the ships are to small for the most part... the Orion should be about twice as large as it is to give you a sense of scale when you come across one

Yeah, the orion looks big from a distance, untill you start flying around it and realise there isnt really anywhere to go.

The fighters, although about the size of a house, i think would be about the right size.  They don't look out of proportion, and they carry a lot of weapons and equipment.

[LtNarol]

Since i was the lunatic that brought this up in the requests thread, i'll restate my original plan.

Half all the measurements for fighters and bombers, 24 meters in length being on the short side is rediculous, 12 meters on the other hand is more reasonable.  After reducing the size of the fighters, double the length of a meter so that in the end, fighters dont appear any smaller but everything else appears larger.  This may also require some working with the number of meters that are shown on the screen.

[Star Dragon]

Leave the fighters alone. I use ships from different mods and they seem coparable in size so that alone is not an issue. (screenshots available on request)

If you make fighters smaller will that REALLY make the cap ships look bigger? No in fact it will still take the same amount of time to fly over and past them, they still need to be bigger (example the Galactica needs to be 2 or 3 times bigger).

I just installed the atlantis station and say FINALLY! something that gives a sense of enormity in space! (Great job!)...

                 My 10 Cents... (My 2 cents are free)...

[LtNarol]

Fighters are rediculously big, some bombers are ok though, but there is no way an orion can carry 10 squadrons even if they jam packed them into the hull.  If you make the fighters smaller and change up the game units a bit, fighters wont appear smaller but larger ships will look larger.

[Nico]

fighters are not ridiculously big, go see a F22 or a F14 ( or should I mention the SR71 which is just huge, and is just a recon plane ) then come back

[LtNarol]

Well, its a plane, not a fighter; the Boeing 747 is also a plane, why arent fighters that size?  The AC130 is a a transport plane, are fighters that big?  Some fighters can be big, but not all of them seeing as wings are no longer needed as this takes place in space, so all you really need is a sealed hull, a pair of bigass engines, and guns and a power generator.  Shield generator too.  Also keep in mind, the cockpit sizes, unless these pilots are uber beings at 12 feet tall, they really dont need cockpits that large.  I dunno, i just find most of the fighters in fs2 rediculously large, take the uly, 12 meters long, for something that compact with that big of a cockpit....

[##UnknownPlayer##]

Why don't we just change the tech descriptions?

[Nico]

... check the damn F22. telling me crap like that  won't help much you know .
Note for you, btw, there was an interceptor version of the SR71 in evaluation at some time ( don't remember the name, and I don't care ).
And anyway it's in space, and you have no idea what it requires to have a fighter in space, and that doesn't exist anyway, so don't talk about realism
plus UT has a point there.

[LtNarol]

Think about why fighters in atmosphere are so large: lift requires wings, more payload means more weight which in turn means bigger engines, which means bigger fuel tanks, which usually means bigger wings.  In space you dont have the problem of lift, so you can dump the wings which means you can rearrange the rest of the parts so that you take up less space by using some of the space formerly taken up by the wings (seeing as you dont want something too big in any direction).  The Apollo program was some 20 or 30 years ago, look at the command module, and that had room for 3.  Instrumentation takes up even less room now, how much room do you think they'll take in 300 years?  All you really need in a fighter for FS2 (this is a bit basic but it'll work) are a pair of large engines, supportship docking port and missile transfer system, missile banks, primary mounts, and a cockpit with the instrumentation jammed in there somewhere or nearby.  No reason for fighters 24 meters in length; bombers perhaps.

[Nico]

think about that: a huge secondary payload, guns probably way bigger than your average avenger. engines that require enough gaz to fly through space for hours and recharge afterburners in one minute ( cool, hey? ), a subspace engine ( probably not a small thing ). Hull thick enough to stop lasers and missiles ( think the apollo, it had to do all that w/o shields). add a big ass radar with seemingly unlimited range within a given system. Add all the support system that is needed in space ( those stupid terrans don't even have integral helmets, so the cockpit has to be pressurized. various things to stop the countless radiations you have in space. Clearly, a gravity well ( coz newtonian physics won't apply, if you want to follow the techno babbling, and you want, since you're nitpicking the size ). with all that, your fighter is already very heavy, so you need some powerful engines to move the thing. I don't see anything wrong with a 24 meters long fighter.
Plus you're assuming the tech in FS2 implies extreme miniaturisation. I've seen no proof of that, actually, when I see the size of a bomb ( let's not even talk about the meson bomb ), when I see the computer Bosh uses, when I see, well, the size of the fighters ( and I don't think wrote the sizes w/o even thinking about it ), well, I wonder if there hasn't been a sort of futuristic middle age before the terran/vasudan war, honestly.

[LtNarol]

If you're building a fighter for space combat 300 years into the future, do you want something big, bulky, and easy to hit? NO.  The Apollo went down rather easily without sheilds, hull plating on fighters (with the exception of heavy assault) doesnt appear thick, missiles are death if they hit an unshielded area; lasers dont do that much damage overall because they only do damage to a smaller area.  A gravity well? You're crazy.  Bigass radar? Don't kid yourself, instrumentation like that doesnt take much room.  Weight in space? What are you drinking and give me some because in space weight doesnt exist; engines dont need to be 12 meters in length, and if they are that big, a fuel tank is probably included in the assembly.  Keep in mind that ships in space keep moving even without thrust; think of your standard speed maintaining flying in fs2 as a sort of overdrive like what they have on cars.  Also, if you paid attention to the cb about subspace, the drive looks relatively simplistic, were it big they would have had one hell of a time installing them into already built hulls not designed for them in FS1.  Bosch's laptop isnt meant to fit in the tiniest space possible seeing as its size doesnt mean the difference between whether or not he lives to fight another day, and whats the point of a smaller one, he'd still need a keyboard to type on and a screen to show what he's doing; the computer parts that go into modern fighters are far smaller than those that go into your laptop.  Finally, if you look at the pilot anis you'll notice that they are wearing quite a space suit even though their helmets aren't sealed, this suggests no cockpit heating and relatively little creature comforts within the cockpit.

EDIT: I would also point out that I see no indication of fighters being meant to or capable of flying around for hours.  I'm not saying :V: is wrong, just that I don't think fighter sizes were their top concern but that more likely they were going for playability.

[Nico]

ok, I give up. Weight, I meant mass, if you couldn't translate by yourself, you're helpless and that resumes well this discussion. You don't build what you WANT, you build what you CAN, if you can understand that difference.
FS2 engines DO need to be ignited if you want to move which leads to the second point:  FS2 ships DO have something that negate newtonian physics otherwise you'd fly ala Iwar2. The fact that the helmet isn't closed is WAY ENOUGH to prove that the cockpised is pressurized and all that crap ( the eyes are quite fragile, if you've never noticed ). Try ingame, you can fly for hours ( w/o any aditional info, ingame stuff is the only way to find about stuff, as far as I know). BTW, bigger fighters do have an advantage on small ones, they turn around teir axis of rotation faster on the first move ( after, it's the one which has the best engine power/mass that will have the edge ), but I admit I have no idea if this is true in space.
Anyway, i don't want to argue with you coz it's easy, I give you an exemple, and you say "no it's not", and that argument of :V: paying more attention to maneuvrability than size... yeah, well, I can say the same for any stuff you'll tell me. So think what you want, for I don't give a **** of it.

[IceFire]

If im not mistaken...FreeSpace fighters use fusion engines to get around.  Doesn't that mean that they have a energy supply that could long could fly at maximum acceleration for years?

And it doesn't have to be very big.

In any case, the game engine has a set of units that Volition has called "meters" but that doesn't really mean anything.  They didn't spec their engine out to perfectly match the correct sizing of a space fighter.  They made it so it was fun...that you weren't too big...or too small.

[NegspectahDek]

Originally posted by LtNarol
If you're building a fighter for space combat 300 years into the future, do you want something big, bulky, and easy to hit? NO.  The Apollo went down rather easily without sheilds, hull plating on fighters (with the exception of heavy assault) doesnt appear thick, missiles are death if they hit an unshielded area; lasers dont do that much damage overall because they only do damage to a smaller area.  A gravity well? You're crazy.  Bigass radar? Don't kid yourself, instrumentation like that doesnt take much room.  Weight in space? What are you drinking and give me some because in space weight doesnt exist; engines dont need to be 12 meters in length, and if they are that big, a fuel tank is probably included in the assembly.  Keep in mind that ships in space keep moving even without thrust; think of your standard speed maintaining flying in fs2 as a sort of overdrive like what they have on cars.  Also, if you paid attention to the cb about subspace, the drive looks relatively simplistic, were it big they would have had one hell of a time installing them into already built hulls not designed for them in FS1.  Bosch's laptop isnt meant to fit in the tiniest space possible seeing as its size doesnt mean the difference between whether or not he lives to fight another day, and whats the point of a smaller one, he'd still need a keyboard to type on and a screen to show what he's doing; the computer parts that go into modern fighters are far smaller than those that go into your laptop.  Finally, if you look at the pilot anis you'll notice that they are wearing quite a space suit even though their helmets aren't sealed, this suggests no cockpit heating and relatively little creature comforts within the cockpit.

EDIT: I would also point out that I see no indication of fighters being meant to or capable of flying around for hours.  I'm not saying :V: is wrong, just that I don't think fighter sizes were their top concern but that more likely they were going for playability.

now this is funny
the f-15, which our version of the perseus and the ulysses combined is 19.4m long.  the f22 is 18.9m .  The sr-71 is 32.6m.


Now lets break this down piece by piece
-If you're building a fighter for space combat 300 years into the future, do you want something big, bulky, and easy to hit? NO.-
I agree, but wants don't translate to ability.  Also, is there a need for it?  If a fighter has shields, and decent maneuvering ability, it doesnt need an extremly small profile.

-The Apollo went down rather easily without sheilds, hull plating on fighters (with the exception of heavy assault) doesnt appear thick-
1. opinion, 2. define thick.  there are limits to how much you can armour plate something.  Keep in mind that the apollo is the FIRST terran fighter.

- A gravity well? You're crazy.-
a better explaination would be a computer controlled system of thrusters, but either way, theres thing take up space and have mass.  And while objects have no weight is space, they have mass, and it takes energy to move a mass- its a small thing called inertia, you'll learn about it in physics.

-Bigass radar? Don't kid yourself, instrumentation like that doesnt take much room-  and how do you know?  have you ever opened up the nose cone of a fighter and looked at the avionics? Exibit A - slightly modified 15-B   If you look closely there's a seam in the nose come that allows the cone to swing away.  That entire section houses the radar.  You and about 5 of your frinds could fit in there.  Now I believe the radar on an F-15 has a range of around a few hundred miles.  Have you ever seen a full sized radar station?  They don't even cover the whole planet but are magnitudes of size larger(think radio telescope).  Now scale that up to enable a radar range large enought to cover an entire system.  Then scale that down for 300 years of advancement and take a HUGE leap of faith and you have something that can fit in the nose cone of perseus.

-engines dont need to be 12 meters in length, and if they are that big, a fuel tank is probably included in the assembly.-
Why dont they need to be 12 meters in length?  What do you know about the fusion process that qualifies you to say that?  The engines on a f15 are about 4 meters long and all they are is an intake, a compressor, a fuel injector, combustion zone, and exhaust.  For a fusion powered craft, you'd need the actual fusion reactor, plus the engines.  And strictly speaking, putting the fuel supply near the engine is not the safest engineering practice.  Especially if is hydrogen, one of the most natuarally explosive elements and incidentally, also used to power fusion reactions.

-Also, if you paid attention to the cb about subspace, the drive looks relatively simplistic, were it big they would have had one hell of a time installing them into already built hulls not designed for them in FS1.-
looks simple doesnt mean is simple.  and you dont know how massive it is either

-the computer parts that go into modern fighters are far smaller than those that go into your laptop-
are they really? you sure about that? cause I've seen them.

-Finally, if you look at the pilot anis you'll notice that they are wearing quite a space suit even though their helmets aren't sealed, this suggests no cockpit heating and relatively little creature comforts within the cockpit.-
like venom said- that cockpit is pressurized.  That alone says its heated, if you understood what it means to pressurize a cockpit.  An unheated, unshielded cockpit in earths orbit would be 400 degrees F on the side facing the sun, and -200 in the shade.  The atmosphere in the cockput would condense, and the pilot would die.  All the spacesuit tells us is that command wants their pilots to live if they have to eject.

-I would also point out that I see no indication of fighters being meant to or capable of flying around for hours.-
Pilots run patrols.  And patrols last for HOURS

that being said, it is a game, and not even a simulation.

[LtNarol]

First off: fusion drives (if that is indeed what these fs2 fighters use) can be big -OR- small.  Capital ships can use larger engines, but fighters wouldnt need that much power.  Fusion drives operate on the atomic level fusing atoms together to use the heat generated for power, this is the opposite of fission which splits atoms apart (this is what we use for nuclear bombs and current nuclear reactors in case you didnt know that newbie); fusion takes place at a temperature somewhere around that of the surface of the sun, thats a lot of power generated, you wouldnt need that much of a reactor to push along a decent sized fighter, so therefore most of the space would be given over to shielding of the engines and actual containment.  One way or another, a 5*5*5 meter drive is reasonable, while a 12*6*4 is not (which is about what those on a herc2 look to be).

Second: your assesment of the lack of need for a small profile is severely flawed.  It takes 2 harpoons to take down any shielded fighter short of a herc, if they are unshielded, all it will take is one missile hit to take one down.  why? because they are not heavily armored.  Why let them hit you and then go home for repairs when you can just make it next to impossible for the enemy to him you in the first place? think for a moment, logic prevails.

third: we agree that a computer controling thrusters is the most likely explanation considering using a gravity well on a fighter creates a number of problems.  However, have you seen some of the supercomputers they have these days? huge? think again. This isnt 1980, and the game is set another 300 years into the future, i'll be damned in 300 years from now we still use computers as big as the ones today in combat craft.

Radar: keep in mind that in space radio waves are unobstructed, if you want to compare to modern techology, take a look at what happens in a nebula.  AWACS have radars too, only their's are huge, those on destroyers are pretty big too, guess what? fighters aren't equipped with the best radar available because you cant fit that into a fighter.

Subspace: I may not know how big it is or how massive but if they could stuff them into already made fighters that fast without redesigning half the hull, its got to be compact enough to fit in easily; dump this argument unless you can back it up reasonably.

Computers: individual parts maybe not, but overall they are far more compact.

Cockpit: not the case, it may be shielded and preasurized but not necessarily heated specifically.  If a pilot were to eject he'd die anyway because his flight suit ISNT sealed.  The suit probably has his heating and cooling build in.

[Kazan]

Originally posted by LtNarol
fusion takes place at a temperature somewhere around that of the surface of the sun,

Fusion does not take place at 6,000 Kelvin

A lightning bolt is around 10,000 Kelvin

HYDROGEN FUSION - the fusion with the LOWEST TEMPERATURE AND PRESSURE takes place in a PLASMA at around 15,000,000 Kelvin

[Kazan]

Originally posted by LtNarol
Subspace: I may not know how big it is or how massive but if they could stuff them into already made fighters that fast without redesigning half the hull, its got to be compact enough to fit in easily; dump this argument unless you can back it up reasonably.

since when weren't the fighters designed to carries the drives

[LtNarol]

well, original fs1 ships werent designed to carry intersystem drives, those had to be installed after.  As for fusion, the sun goes through constant fusion in order to produce heat and light.

[Nico]

Originally posted by LtNarol
well, original fs1 ships werent designed to carry intersystem drives, those had to be installed after.  As for fusion, the sun goes through constant fusion in order to produce heat and light.

play FS1 again. You have jump drives for years already, don't mix up with shields.

[DTP]

Originally posted by venom2506


play FS1 again. You have jump drives for years already, don't mix up with shields.

do i have too keep pointing out your mistakes hehehe.

he said intersystem drives, not jumpdrives.

there where no such thing as intersystem drives on fighters when we entered the FS1 campaign.

They where IN-system drives. meaning they could not jump via a jump node(to another star system, aka inter-system jump), but only make jumps inside the planet system.

I think they where installed in the mission just before the final mission.