Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: General Battuta on May 17, 2012, 10:09:00 pm
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[22:41] <Thaeris> And for the record, since you enjoy anal matters
;7
Gay sex aside, here's a matter of interest. We know FreeSpace ships are pretty damn big - 17m for a Perseus, compared to 15m for an IRL F16, and 10m for a Viper Mk. 7. How large is the dude(tte) in a Perseus cockpit? A Herc, an Ursa?
Here's a makeshift lineup to show the remarkable phenotypic variation at work in Freed Space: A Zentraedi Simulator
(http://i.imgur.com/rWnQG.jpg)
Obviously these dudes were introduced by the MVPs, so there's nothing of, uh, canonical interest here. But it's fascinating to see what seems to be a caste system at work: Perseus pilots are selected for their diminutive size, whereas Ursa and Herc pilots are totally roided out.
I'm too lazy to find an absolute reference and judge their real size, so tell me this, HLP detectives: how big are these people in absolute terms? Precisely how much chance would we stand in a Harlem Globetrotters + Bill Murray vs. Epsilon Pegasi Pegasi space jam?
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I suspect that GTVA pilots train in low gravity for years, making it APPEAR that they are taller. This is to intimidate the Vasudans, since going by the Silent Threat out-takes, the Vasudans have them beat in that area. However this has the bad side effect of weakening their bones to the structural integrity of wafer thins.
This may actually explain their poor combat performance. When they try to do any combat action, they break their arms within seconds.
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Best. Topic. Evar.
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Good point. I'll put $20 on the Globetrotters.
Here's a comparison of what I assume is a realistically scaled pilot in a Diaspora Viper vs. our lineup, with the camera positioned at the same height above the cockpit:
(http://i.imgur.com/8xiWz.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/tdkWM.jpg)
wait how did this get here i mean
(http://i.imgur.com/Ofe9D.jpg)
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I think it's more that the Perseus was designed to only be pilotable by pilots with Achondroplasia.
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Obviously these dudes were introduced by the MVPs, so there's nothing of, uh, canonical interest here. But it's fascinating to see what seems to be a caste system at work: Perseus pilots are selected for their diminutive size, whereas Ursa and Herc pilots are totally roided out.
But then how is Alpha 1 able to fly such a wide variety of ships during the FS2 main campaign? :nervous:
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He must be one of the smaller ones and then just used prosthetics for the larger fighters. Yub yub commander.
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Simple, the size difference is an illusion caused by the warping effect of the cockpit glass. :p
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****! I'll never be able to use the MediaVPs again.
Just great. :doubt:
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Hang on a sec. What if the Perseus pilots are child soldiers?
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no, its THE FUTURE.
they have size-alteration tech. you mentioned zentradi, think that, but any size any time.
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Micloning!
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no, its THE FUTURE.
they have size-alteration tech. you mentioned zentradi, think that, but any size any time.
Like a more sophisticated (and better controlled) version of this?
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WLFeJtbsDcg/S0ToQmfvsSI/AAAAAAAAAG8/nk5TBKKQSK0/s400/alice,in,wonderland,drink,me,alice-6cf08064588cf30ba3b5bd1b67410a73_h.jpg)
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Yes but its built into the cockpit. Blows you up/shrinks you down so you fit perfectly!
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(http://i.imgur.com/tdkWM.jpg)
wait how did this get here i mean
what is i don't even
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Yes but its built into the cockpit. Blows you up/shrinks you down so you fit perfectly!
That sounds rather jarring, if not outright unpleasant. :eek2: The sacrifices that GTVA pilots make to keep their worlds safe are greater than I could have ever imagined.
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you most make update
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they've already known the ancient art of vacuum sealing food so i don't find this surprising.
on the bright side, the **** spacemen are eating nowadays could taste better since they've been brought down to size. guys in perseus must think liver flavoured toothpaste is a delicacy.
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Good point Battuta. This has been something I've complained about in the past, and the reason why I've suggested that all fighters receive two pilots - for scaling reasons. Plus the only canonical cockpit seen in great detail has two pilots in it, not that that really means too much, but still.
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you mean the apollo from the first intro that was supposed to be a bomber?
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Yes but its built into the cockpit. Blows you up/shrinks you down so you fit perfectly!
That sounds rather jarring, if not outright unpleasant. :eek2: The sacrifices that GTVA pilots make to keep their worlds safe are greater than I could have ever imagined.
Not really, its far more comfortable to be "adujsted" to the appropriate size than to try and fit into something too small or deal with something too big!
Why wouldn't the designers agree on a size?
BUREAUCRACY.
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you mean the apollo from the first intro that was supposed to be a bomber?
"Supposed to be" is more like "What the fans think it may be", it was never set in stone (canonically) that it was meant to be a bomber or pure bomber variant. I really doubt it was meant to be, too, as it doesn't appear to have a heavy payload. It strikes me as more of a heavy assault variant, a more specialized variant.
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well i thought that was speculation left over from the freespace bible as well as miscommunication between studios.
Not really, its far more comfortable to be "adujsted" to the appropriate size than to try and fit into something too small or deal with something too big!
Why wouldn't the designers agree on a size?
BUREAUCRACY.
as if fringe science of armegeddonish proportions wasn't enough. :sigh:
perhaps we can thank them for never using the shrink technology on vasudans when it really mattered.
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you mean the apollo from the first intro that was supposed to be a bomber?
"Supposed to be" is more like "What the fans think it may be", it was never set in stone (canonically) that it was meant to be a bomber or pure bomber variant. I really doubt it was meant to be, too, as it doesn't appear to have a heavy payload. It strikes me as more of a heavy assault variant, a more specialized variant.
Strange. I remember the semicanon FS Reference Guide stated it was supposed to be a bomber.
I even used some sketches I extracted from the credits as reference material for my "Apollo Bomber" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uxjmBzVaSk) model (as you may guess, I'm obsessed with the Apollo).
(As a side note, it would be cool to have a heavy assault variant. Think about it, it supposedly was the mainstay of the fleet for many years, so it makes sense for it to have some specialized versions).
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they've already known the ancient art of vacuum sealing food so i don't find this surprising.
on the bright side, the **** spacemen are eating nowadays could taste better since they've been brought down to size. guys in perseus must think liver flavoured toothpaste is a delicacy.
Taste aside, if their nutrition is significantly better than today's "first-world" nutrition, then I think the expected average height of humans would be somewhere around 6 to 7 feet tall.
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Strange. I remember the semicanon FS Reference Guide stated it was supposed to be a bomber.
I even used some sketches I extracted from the credits as reference material for my "Apollo Bomber" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uxjmBzVaSk) model (as you may guess, I'm obsessed with the Apollo).
(As a side note, it would be cool to have a heavy assault variant. Think about it, it supposedly was the mainstay of the fleet for many years, so it makes sense for it to have some specialized versions).
huh, never thought of it that way. except at one point they most have thought heavy assault was pointless explaining why they only had recon/intercept (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Angel) and space superiority.
now i'm curious how big guys flying athenas are.
el_magnifico do you work for Han Ronald Corp? :D
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el_magnifico do you work for Han Ronald Corp? :D
Damn! My cover's been blown up. The honeymoon is over! DIVE DIVE DIVE
*jumps through the window*
(Funny trivia: Han-Ronald manufactured 6 of the 9 Terran fighters of the FS1 era, and some other craft too. Lobbyists anyone?) :nervous:
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el_magnifico how about something relevant to the topic for a change like how many sandwiches will fit in the cockpit with the pilot on your finished bomber, taking into consideration whether you'll mesh out Wilt Chamberlain or Mini-Me in there. i expect the spaciousness will be luxurious since it's a bomber. :lol:
lol in fs2 they only made one. Herc2 is actually RNI Systems (which in my own fanon universe defected from HRC when the latter joined the NTF.) How the mighty have fallen especially after they designed the flagship fightercraft of the alliance
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Not really much to say apart that I hate cockpits anyway, and I would have much preferred if they would have been left black, like a polarized glass.
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Since when is polarized glass black?
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Well back on topic, assuming the diaspora pilot is the right size, then the only pilot remotely in the vicinity of proper human proportions is the Perseus pilot.
I know that when I build my ships, I stand the dudes up and make sure they're 2 m tall, and then keep rough proportions as I pose them in the cockpit.
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Since when is polarized glass black?
Whatever you guys call this (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_DmNBvUqyQwc/S8n1-ENjg6I/AAAAAAAAAGE/84TLv5r-raM/s1600/polarizado.jpeg). We call it "vidrio polarizado" (polarized glass) in Rioplatense Spanish.
I liked to imagine cockpit glass was made of something like that before the MediaVPs introduced cockpit models.
Well, I guess it's my opinion against the majority here, so I'll just sigh...
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isnt that just a tint?
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Obviously these dudes were introduced by the MVPs, so there's nothing of, uh, canonical interest here. But it's fascinating to see what seems to be a caste system at work: Perseus pilots are selected for their diminutive size, whereas Ursa and Herc pilots are totally roided out.
But then how is Alpha 1 able to fly such a wide variety of ships during the FS2 main campaign? :nervous:
He is a shapeshifter! The Dominion has infiltrated the GTVA!
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While we're drifting off topic, I'd like to point out that, contrary to the OP, anal sex != gay sex (http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_nature/2010/10/the_riddle_of_the_sphincter.html). [Interesting article from Slate.]
Moving back on topic, though, Droid's explanation for how Alpha 1 can fly all those different ships (including Vasudan ships, which presumably weren't designed with Terrans in mind) is fairly compelling, or at least I can't come up with a better one, unless Alpha 1s just have to be small so they can fit in ships of any class.
High-tech versions of the kind of adjustments found in cars today could probably fix the case of someone being too small to pilot a given ship class, but I don't think they could fix the case of someone being too big.
And I guess this pilot-shrinking technology can't propagate through space, since otherwise the GTVA would have a weapon that'd make enemy pilots itty bitty so they couldn't pilot their ships. ;7
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Moving back on topic, though, Droid's explanation for how Alpha 1 can fly all those different ships (including Vasudan ships, which presumably weren't designed with Terrans in mind) is fairly compelling, or at least I can't come up with a better one, unless Alpha 1s just have to be small so they can fit in ships of any class.
High-tech versions of the kind of adjustments found in cars today could probably fix the case of someone being too small to pilot a given ship class, but I don't think they could fix the case of someone being too big.
And I guess this pilot-shrinking technology can't propagate through space, since otherwise the GTVA would have a weapon that'd make enemy pilots itty bitty so they couldn't pilot their ships. ;7
I'd like to think that the larger craft have extra seats for passengers, cargo, and robotic help. And, IIRC, the average Vasudan was comparatively larger than the average Terran (By girth if not by height)
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While we're drifting off topic, I'd like to point out that, contrary to the OP, anal sex != gay sex (http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_nature/2010/10/the_riddle_of_the_sphincter.html). [Interesting article from Slate.]
but it is if it's with thaeris!
after going carefully through the root VPs i think i've found an answer. portrait of alpha 1 discovered
(http://i.imgur.com/TqF6o.jpg)
get yer coat, wilford brimley
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Awww... I JUST cleaned that floor!
Sheesh.
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How does the GTF Pegasus pilot compare to those?
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How does the GTF Pegasus pilot compare to those?
Open FRED and find out
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How does the GTF Pegasus pilot compare to those?
The concept of a physical body size probably doesn't apply to the transcendant.
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Maybe Alpha 1 is Mario.
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Hmm, that would explain a few things, but what if s/he gets wounded mid-flight?
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Probably keep a cache of shrooms in the cockpit.
Come to think of it, that probably explains a lot of FS2 vanilla AI behavior.
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It's because the cockpit glass differs from fighter to fighter both in materials and thickness. What you're actually seeing is the magnification effect of the light being fractured.
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No wonder the AI cant avoid the broad side of an Orion if the effect is that strong
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and make sure they're 2 m tall
Why not 1.75m? 2m is really big, that's Darth Vader size.
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Not really much to say apart that I hate cockpits anyway, and I would have much preferred if they would have been left black, like a polarized glass.
Find glass.dds in the Assets_3612\maps. Extract it and open it up. Make RGB pure black. Make alpha light grey, or white if you want it to actually be opaque. Tweak to your liking to emulate smoked glass. Fixes most models, but some of them use their own glass textures (herc 1, etc), so you have to hunt those down yourself in the VPs.
(FSPort by default gives black tinted glass as well)
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But then how is Alpha 1 able to fly such a wide variety of ships during the FS2 main campaign? :nervous:
how was he able to fly vasudan stuff? :drevil:
giving royal treatment for terrans on exchange isn't new. bring on the XXL mega-cushioned stadium seats; third herc on your right under that red medusa. :D
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It's specifically mentioned in FS2 that a number of Vasudan craft where modified so that Terrans could pilot them.
They probably just swapped out the seat and gave him more cupholders.
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i knew that. i just forgot the exact quote :p
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They probably just swapped out the seat and gave him more cupholders.
But the Zods already had 7!!!
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They probably just swapped out the seat and gave him more cupholders.
But the Zods already had 7!!!
The number of cupholders is never enough for a Terran! Moar Cupholders!
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(http://verydemotivational.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/demotivational-posters-cup-holders.jpg)
if your think about it, the future may take our cupholders and give us tubes instead :shaking: for all kinds of reasons including more space for oversized terrans.
tentacles... :eek: :nervous: :shaking:
EDIT: wait a sec. there is no gravity to keep drinks in cups! water in space looks like bubbles so who needs cupholders or anything? all your stuff is floating around you, now that's service!
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The bubbles only float around when the ship is at 0 G, any maneuver and non secured objects will change their position relative to the ship and hit a wall/display/canopy/pilot.
The cup holders are needed, and they must prevent the cups from going in any direction- including upwards, same thing applies to the cups holding the drinks.
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Use duct tape then. It solves everything.
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If you have soda in zero G, which way do the bubbles go?
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If you have soda in zero G, which way do the bubbles go?
Ask the Russians, they had fun drinking fizzless champagne and passing it off as apple juice.
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I actually had to sit and think about that one for a minute...
My first thought was that they would stay still, but then I thought the reason bubbles rise is because they are less dense than the liquid they are in and are trying to move to a lower-pressure area, so I think that their behaviour would not change in that respect, they would move towards the opening of the glass, because of pressure. But if you held the glass upside down, they would still head towards the opening.
Problem is, then the thought occurred to me that if you tilt a glass of soda, the bubbles still go 'up' relative to the person holding it, not the glass, that might be related to the fact that the gas is less dense than the air outside the glass.
I still think they would head towards the exit, because it is the pressure of the fluid on them that causes them to move, they displace more than they weigh, but I'm not entirely certain of the details, they may even head in every direction, depending on which edge is closest...
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Bubbles moving towards the surface a matter of displacement, where bubbles displace less weight than water so they get pushed upwards.
Since there is weightlessness in space, the bubbles remain immobile.
Here's proof:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXsvy2tBJlU
Now if you want to get rid of the bubbles, perform a maneuver... Water will gain weight as a result of the G forces acting on the space ship, and the bubbles (which also gained weight, but much less) will get pushed upwards.
Anything that doesn't get pushed out will once again become stationary within the water when the space ship finishes the maneuver- the resistance of water will stop the bubbles quickly.
Edit: Here's bubbles in water being pushed "upwards":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxyfiBGCwhQ&feature=fvwrel
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Fascinating videos, thanks for those :)
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right, i forgot all about inertia.
i've been a bit misinformed since my only source of 0G science was from Tintin. on second thought, water flying out of a cup seemingly by magic has a flaw.
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Oui, [hic] That taint be water outta that cup. [hic] THat be meh-dee-call spirits!
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i kinda did this for all my cockpitted ships. lined em up in fred and compared the size of the cockpit interior (i still havent gotten around to modeling a human in a pirate flight suit). i tried for the most part to be consistant, but some discrepency still remains on a few ships. i even went as far as having my sister measure my dimentions in a seated position, granted most pilots would be much smaller than me, but it gave me a rough approximation of how bit to make a ship's interior. i also want to redesign most of the cockpits, with low poly ship integrated cockpits and standalone hi-poly cockpits. its on my todo list right under htl everything.
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what are the advantages of having high poly standalone cockpits vs. just having integrated cockpits?
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working ejection system?
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what are the advantages of having high poly standalone cockpits vs. just having integrated cockpits?
A high poly standalone cockpit can be enabled in first person view so that the player can actually see it when flying the ship. Then you can use the low poly cockpit on other ships of the same class to avoid a performance hit. Detail boxes might also enable this, I dunno.
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what are the advantages of having high poly standalone cockpits vs. just having integrated cockpits?
A high poly standalone cockpit can be enabled in first person view so that the player can actually see it when flying the ship. Then you can use the low poly cockpit on other ships of the same class to avoid a performance hit. Detail boxes might also enable this, I dunno.
Detail boxes would work beautifully for this sort of thing.
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my original reasons for selecting the show ship method were fairly simple. i liked to mont gatling guns forward of the cockpit so you could see them spin about when firing. to give the impression that your flying a machine instead of just a camera floating around in space. then i wrote scripts for control animations, so you could watch the cockpit controls move in reaction to your inputs. this involved a subsystem handle which is not available in the cockpit models which were implemented later on. i argued against the deprecation of the show ship flag for this reason. then i developed rtt code which required some texture replacement, and at the time there were no texture handles for cockpit models. i believe these limitations have been overcome since then, in one way or another. you can also now render objects on top of the cockpit model, this allows better animation (like translations) inside the cockpit. switching over to the "more efficient" method is now plausible and desirable and will probibly be done when i find the mood for modding.
detail boxes in this case, i think, is kind of a misuse of the feature. a low poly cockpit can have lods, and these lods can be adjusted to best align with the ship model at each detail levels.
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So does using standalone models still allow you to see external weapons in first person view?
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If they're modeled in, sure. Hell, you can have a naked hula lady on the dash if you model it.
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Well, I mean would those models still be dynamic. Ie, respond to animation code, and be swapped in an out dependent on weapon.
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If they're modeled in, sure. Hell, you can have a naked hula lady on the dash if you model it.
I now demand this for every cockpit.
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detail boxes in this case, i think, is kind of a misuse of the feature. a low poly cockpit can have lods, and these lods can be adjusted to best align with the ship model at each detail levels.
I disagree on the misuse bit, you can have a detail box of the cockpit per LOD.
If your really ambitious, you can use detail boxes for sub-levels of detail. I think this would be only really useful for large warships and installations, however.
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So does using standalone models still allow you to see external weapons in first person view?
not sure, but this is something i could probibly hack in with scripting.
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detail boxes in this case, i think, is kind of a misuse of the feature. a low poly cockpit can have lods, and these lods can be adjusted to best align with the ship model at each detail levels.
I disagree on the misuse bit, you can have a detail box of the cockpit per LOD.
If your really ambitious, you can use detail boxes for sub-levels of detail. I think this would be only really useful for large warships and installations, however.
you could still throw in detail bits into the first cockpit lod, but i wouldnt use the detail box as like lod -1, for example. mainly because lod0 will still be drawn. this could lead to some ugly overlap. it would be ok if you want to add 3d buttons and knobs on top of a flat control panel, which would otherwise just be part of the texture. detail boxes should accentuate whatever lod is currently being drawn, not replace it, was the main point i was getting at.
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...If your really ambitious, you can use detail boxes for sub-levels of detail. I think this would be only really useful for large warships and installations, however.
...detail boxes should accentuate whatever lod is currently being drawn, not replace it, was the main point i was getting at.
That's what I meant by sub-lod's... they don't replace the entire ship, just something relatively small like a comms dish or another subsystem