ship/station size 'scale'

Galaxian · Post by **Galaxian** » Fri Jan 28, 2011 6:22 pm

I'm sure this has been covered, but my weak search-fu didn't turn up anything useful so I'll inquire about a curiosity/observation regarding relative ship and station size 'scale'. It doesn't take anything away from the gameplay, it's just an observation.

The scale of stations, Jump point rings and NPC ships (Cap ships in particular) 'feels' smallish relative to my own ship.

I'm sure there's some logic behind this that escapes my little walnut of a brain.

[Edited on 1-28-2011 by Galaxian]

49rTbird · Post by **49rTbird** » Fri Jan 28, 2011 6:37 pm

The bigger the more data required I would say is one point. The stations are rather large compared to planets so I guess it is a balancing act.

Scavenger4711 · Post by **Scavenger4711** » Fri Jan 28, 2011 10:28 pm

I think the size of stations and caps themvselves are okay, but imo their windows are too small in comparison to a civilian or military frame's cockpit window. There should be less but bigger windows to make it look right.

Nigel_Strange · Post by **Nigel_Strange** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 3:37 am

I think the ships are all a bit on the smallish side (except for cap ships). The thing is that you can't really get close enough to other ships to see anything more than a very small outline, when you know that they must be fairly close.

I think the issue is not so much ship size, though, but viewing angle. The viewing angle is fairly wide, which makes everything seem smaller.

soulsacrifice · Post by **soulsacrifice** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 6:18 am

I don't think it's a problem of size, it has more to do with perspective. From inside the ship objects tend to appear smaller than they actually are. If you go to the external view and zoom out it gives you a better idea of the size of things.

Have a look at the images below:

When you zoom out you can see the station hanger is much bigger than it looks from inside the cockpit.

Now i've switched to another ship aproximately 1500 away from the ship parked in the hanger. You can barely see the ship (i've left the engines running so you can). Even the hanger looks small compared to the rest of the station in this pic.

Galaxian · Post by **Galaxian** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 7:55 am

Ah, yes indeed. Hadn't really considered the FOV as being a factor. That 'splains it nicely.

Galaxian · Post by **Galaxian** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 6:46 am

I fiddled about with the sw.cfg and ended up setting the FOV line to "1.6".

Not sure exactly what that means exactly, but the net effect was that it widened the horizontal FOV just enough to give the impression of being closer to the instrument panel and windscreen without making things look 'fishbowly'.

Post by **DaveK** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 9:58 am

Hi Galaxian - which line is the FOV value on?

Post by **Marvin** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 5:00 pm

How about a "before and after" screen shot?

Galaxian · Post by **Galaxian** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 8:45 pm

From post: 101327, Topic: tid=7214, author=DaveK wrote:Hi Galaxian - which line is the FOV value on?

*disclaimer - I stumbled across this and don't know if it's officially supported, so use at your own risk*

5th from bottom. Default is '0'. I stumbled across that in a forum search.

I really have no idea what the range is, I just started plugging numbers in until I got what I wanted...

It *seems* like 0~2 is the useful range. Anything larger doesn't seem to have much effect on my system, but YMMV.

Screens is an idea if I remember all the way till tonight...

Post by **DaveK** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 11:41 pm

Thanks