Increasing Sizes

posted on March 24th, 2010, 6:35 pm

I'm trying to make everything to scale with what they are in Star-Trek.  I've just about accomplished that with the Borg and Federation ships.  And I'm going to try it with the other races, the planets, moons, nebulas, and asteroid fields as well.  The problem is, just about everything that is not a vessel will need to be scaled by a factor of about 10.  Planets, and nebulas mostly.  That shouldn't be too hard.  But loading a grid on a 75000x75000 unit map with each grid being 100x100 units is going to be tough on a low-end computer.  How would I make the grid say 1000x1000 units so there isn't as much to load?

This size increase is all because of the Borg.  Don't worry, I didn't make the cube 3000 units across.  I made up a unit that is based on the radius of the Earth.  I'm calling it the length for now, but 1 length is 1/1,000,000 the radius of Earth (20.90352 feet (6.37139 meters)) and I'm using that system to scale all of my ships.  That way, the cube is only 476.5 units across.  But it caused some problems in the fact that I have to increase the size of the Borg stations to make it look good.  I scaled the cube by a factor of 4.76 and the yard by a factor of 4.5.  Now I need to make everything else bigger to accommodate the larger Borg stations.  Bigger planets and nebulas to make those look more realistic.  And as a result, I need bigger maps to accommodate those planets.  I will also need to increase the unit's top speed but that's not as important as being able to load a larger map than usual.  And are there any other ways to allow the maps to be bigger without overloading the computer?

posted on March 24th, 2010, 6:38 pm

Very cool idea, but I think you will find the limitations of the Armada II engine will complicate your work .  Many of the map objects like planets won't cooperate very will if they get too big.  Also ... if Borg vessels and stations themselves get TOO big, short range ships will not be able to attack them as the official "target" is the center of the unit (unless I'm mistaken).  I tried to increase the scale of size in my A1 mod as well, but only a certain amount was possible due to this problem.

  Good luck!

[Dominus_Noctis]

posted on March 24th, 2010, 7:04 pm

Last edited by Dominus_Noctis on March 24th, 2010, 10:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Interesting idea... but I'm unsure how you're going to go about any of it  .

The largest map size that's stable is 50k by 50k [is it 70k [sup]2[/sup] for A2 PP?] for starters

As for size... well, you'll have great difficult putting a correctly scaled sun on a map ... and just forget about nebulae - whenever we've seen them in Star Trek, they extend for several lightyears :pinch:

I think making everything 10-100 times smaller would fit your bill more - though it might not be very playable either. Incidentally, the Borg Cube you see is scaled correctly. Just take a look at Voyager. I think you're mistaking the Fleet Ops Cubes for TNG "Command Cubes" - the Cubes in FO right now are Voyager Cubes: weaker, smaller, and less impressive. 

posted on March 24th, 2010, 8:21 pm

Very cool idea, but I think you will find the limitations of the Armada II engine will complicate your work .  Many of the map objects like planets won't cooperate very will if they get too big.  Also ... if Borg vessels and stations themselves get TOO big, short range ships will not be able to attack them as the official "target" is the center of the unit (unless I'm mistaken).  I tried to increase the scale of size in my A1 mod as well, but only a certain amount was possible due to this problem.

  Good luck!

Oh, yes. That makes that, against some starbases, units with artillery range actually shoot from long range, and get torn to pieces by the starbase instead of being able to fire without harassment. Serkas can shoot from artillery range cause their volleys have AoE damage, but most of the others shoot to the geometric center of the structure and get into range of the station guns.

posted on March 24th, 2010, 10:07 pm

I'm resizing only the stock Armada 2 models (Star Trek Armada II - v1.2.5).  The Fleetops mod is irrelevant.

posted on March 24th, 2010, 10:24 pm

Ah, woops - didn't read carefully, sorry about that 

posted on March 24th, 2010, 11:00 pm

No problem!

posted on March 25th, 2010, 12:41 am

I'm resizing only the stock Armada 2 models (Star Trek Armada II - v1.2.5).  The Fleetops mod is irrelevant.

  Ah well then I will re-up my assertion that ships will have to be in range of the "middle" of the target to hit it.  I came up against a problem in Stock A1 where I made Starbases so big (to scale essentially) that ships with shorter range actually couldn't attack them.  I had to come up with a fix for that but it really just ended up being an overall increase in weapon ranges to accomodate.

  I think the biggest problem I had was the Nor Station Model (DS9) was so big that even with decent ranges ships had to be RIGHT next to the shields to reach the targeting point.  On the other hand, the stations weapons situated on the rings could extend FAR beyond the enemy's capabilities because the weapon hardpoints only had to reach the center of the opposing ships .

  But again, I wish you luck!  My massive Borg Command Cube was a site to behold! 

posted on March 25th, 2010, 1:34 am

yeah, its that stupid barrier around stations.  makes ships not bump into them, but causes all sorts of problems.  you can get rid of it, but ships will then just pass right through it.

posted on March 25th, 2010, 12:37 pm

A really intersting task, and as a realism junkie, that leads into a highly favourable direction (direction, nothing more, realism is impossible, sure). Will you increase the attack-ranges to realistic too? The it would not be playable any more, but therefor we have regular FO. This would need you to zoom our much farther and ships bevome invisibly small, so they'd have to be replaced by icons. (Does anybody know the game O.R.B.?)

posted on March 25th, 2010, 1:51 pm

Well, the sizes I may have to skip.  But I'm not giving up that easily.  If I could just find a way to make the grids larger and change a few other things, I'm sure it could be done.  If not, I have a backup plan.  My own Star-Trek game that will use scale models and maps (if I can get permission from Star-Trek to make it).  Well, if I can't find a way to increase the size without increasing the load, I'll put everything back to their normal scale.

PS:  I'm going to try to build my own Star-Trek game whether I can successfully modify this one or not.

posted on March 25th, 2010, 4:16 pm

PS:  I'm going to try to build my own Star-Trek game whether I can successfully modify this one or not.

  Hellz yeah!

  Good luck! 

posted on March 26th, 2010, 12:37 pm

Well, I've modified every variable in STA2 and I still haven't increased the size of the grid.  So the scales will have to be unchanged.  Time to start working on my backup plan.  Every model will be to scale then.

posted on March 26th, 2010, 12:45 pm

Will you increase the attack-ranges to realistic too?

Would you mind answering my question, please?

PS:  I'm going to try to build my own Star-Trek game whether I can successfully modify this one or not.

From scratch? or just with an Graphics Engine, with a game-basis, as a mod of an existing game? As I love programming, I find might your aim very interesting.

[TChapman500]

posted on March 26th, 2010, 2:31 pm

Last edited by TChapman500 on March 26th, 2010, 4:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Attack ranges will be increased as well as firepower (some ships (especially Borg)).  But the actual vessel sizes will not be increased or decreased due to the limitations of the Armada 2 engine.



My Star Trek game will be made from scratch.  After the basic programing, I'll build a few 'maps' and test them out.  Then the rest of the Galaxy.  It'll contain several playable races from each quadrant and a few non-playable races that may try to hinder your efforts at exploration or expansion.  Gravitational sources will interact with each-other if they are close enough even if they are in different 'maps'.  You can go from one 'map' to another without having to do a reload.  And it will have two versions of the galaxy.  The Star-Trek version, and the realistic version.

Preview of some of the playable races:
Federation - Alpha Quadrant
Cardasian - Alpha Quadrant
Dominion - Gama Quadrant
Talaxian - Delta Quadrant

Preview of some of the non-playable races:
Ferengi - Alpha Quadrant
Borg - Delta Quadrant (non-playable for more realism)

This game is all pending on whether I get permission from Star-Trek to build the game.  In the mean time, how does this model look?

By the way, the realistic version of the Galaxy doesn't have life anywhere except for Earth and any planets that have been colonized.  This is based on the overall probability of life forming by chance (1:Infinity).

Attachments

[The extension has been deactivated and can no longer be displayed.]

[The extension has been deactivated and can no longer be displayed.]