Yeah, if they made it to be realistic in every way possible, there is no way people would want to play the game.

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Just my opinion, but I think a game with TRUE newtonian pysics and a space environment with TRUE distances and object sizes, would be incredibly boring

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Well, as I said on the previous page, this is not a black and white decision. You don't have to choose between perfect realism and utter nonsense. There are is a lot of ground in between those extremes, and many fun games can be designed with different levels of realism.

I don't think people are complaining that Freelancer isn't a perfectly accurate simulation of a real solar system. They are complaining that the solar systems in Freelancer are so small that even people who know nothing about astronomy are having to work overtime to maintain their "willing suspension of disbelief."

We seem to be going in circles here.

--milo
www.starshatter.com

I agree with milod. I find it a bit ridiculous that it's so unreal. I don't want something that's perfectly accurate in every way. I just want something a little less... unbelievable.

Thank you,
Raptor013

In any realistic space game I doubt you would have just your lonesome fighter flying around(maybe if you were a smuggler). You would likely have a small fleet to provide food and water and other essential things. And it would also be like a 3-dimensional naval warfare. You know an eney fleet is out there but you can't know thier exact postion for sure. Most battles would likely occur near or at planets and would be between an attacking fleet and the stationed garrison fleet.

Getting back to the discussion:

It seems that the units are in fact metric. If you look at the info screen for a planet it'll give the planet diameter in km and mass in kg. Since a planet like New London is over 10,000 km in diameter it stands to reason that the distance unit K (notice the capital vs. lowercase use) is equal to 1000 km. And with that logic M = 1000 m. If you think about it that way then the scale seems to make a lot more sense. But of course the developers have taken a lot of liberties to make the game playable. I have no problem excepting the game the way it is and find it extremely engrossing regardless of what the units actually mean.

It's clearly not trying to model true physics. It's a far cry from that. So you just have to except it for what it is trying to do. Heck, there's no way that some of those planets and stars could really exist that close to each other with out colliding ... but who cares, it looks great and it's fun to fly around in.

Oon-tee-dee!

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If you think about it that way then the scale seems to make a lot more sense

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Unfortunately, the math doesn't work out that way. As you point out, orbits are way too small for the planet sizes. (And the stars are even smaller than the planets.) The ships and trade rings are way too big if you assume that 1M = 1 km in real life. I don't know exactly how big 1 M is meant to be, but using Trent as a rough guide, 1 M is much closer to 1 meter than it is to 1 kilometer.

Of course, if those assumptions help you to enjoy the game, I'm certainly not going to tell you to stop believing in them. I'm simply pointing out that your suggestion isn't going to work for most of the people who care in any way about realism.

--milo
www.starshatter.com

@Weadge

It's probably meters instead of kilometers. Cruise speed is 300 units/second, so if a distance is 30K units, it will take 100 seconds to fly at cruise speed.

If the units were km, and "M" actually meant 1000m, you would move past stations etc at 300 km/second, or 1,080,000 km/h, which you obviously isn't. But if you go with meters, you would move past stations at 1080 km/h at cruise speed which seems closer to being right.

When ur grandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrand soon
arrive the planet
ur greatgratgreatgreatgreatgreatgreat father
start travelling too, plz send me a postcard of the end of the universe.

IMHO the universe is big enough, and 10 min travelling untill get somewhere is more than enough for me.

Is the universe unreallistic? yes! u dont like it? byebye

FDP, obviously it's possible to have a realistically scaled universe, without having long travel times. All you need are a few made up inventions (warps, high power engines etc) and you're back to travel times more suitable for a game.

One of the advantages of a space sim over the real thing.

I will stick with the imaginary units of measure theory. Since the view of space is as the eye sees it out of the cockpit in FL, then if combat was taking place around you in hundreds of meters per second. lets take non-afterburn speed here 80?/sec equates to 4800?/min. afterburn up to 200?/sec. If this was meters, then head to head passing speed would be double this. I think it would be time to invest in a combat computer to not only give you a very healthy lead indicator, but fire your guns for you to. Think the eye blink theory would kick in here.

Now also take into account that at 300?/sec you can go planet to planet in a metter of minutes, I would think that this unit of measure is a wee bit larger that meters/kilometers.

SO throw out the realism book, and just enjoy the game for what it is, a nice space shoot-em up with great graffix, hehe. Anyway, I like it

Edited by - Zaratomb on 02-04-2003 18:19:11

I wasn't even thinking about the units of the ship speed. And frankly I don't really care if there is any logic to it or not. It doesn't effect the gameplay IMO. I just want to point out that I moticed the metric units in the description and try to rationalize quickly what that might mean.



Oon-tee-dee!

No, no no... you guys have it all wrong.
The M (or m) is the Morgan, a logarithmic relative astronomical unit devised by the creators of the Sleeper Ships in honor of Joseph Morgan, a famous 22nd century astronomer. Due to relativity, distances cannot be measured with our normal units: the faster your speed (the closest to the speed of light), the smaller distances become. Therefore, your perception of distance is invalid due to your speed, and must be calculated by your ship computer, which use Morgans to cope with the compression of space.
The reason why your ship is limited to 300 K (300 000 Morgans) is because you can't go faster than the speed of light or you would become little more than energy. Of course, trade lines let you go beyond that speed because they create magnetic fields which keep your ship hull integrity intact (the same way particle accelerators work and let particles go faster than the speed of light).
Thus, when you go from 15 to 16, or 77 to 78 m/s, your speed is multiplied by the 300th root of c. Your acceleration is not linear, but logarithmic!!

See, it's quite simple!!!





NB: Yes, I made it up. It's a game, use your imagination...

Um... just to add possibly more confusion and debate to this topic (which has occurred over 5 threads now), particle accelerators cannot accelerate elementary particles past the speed of light, or C.

The best they can do is to accelerate an electron past the speed of light in solids (which is not true C). No known technology can accelerate anything past C in vacuum.

And just to fuss a bit more, Newtonian physics is WRONG !!!
It is almost right and applicable in everyday situations, but it is still not perfect.

What I'm trying to say is, there is no absolute realism, but only relative. And since there are always something both better and worse, stop complaining. So what if the units are inconsistant with real life and gravity does not exist in FL? Big deal! Stop making posts about black holes, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, or other scientists, physicists, theorists, mathematicians, politicians, religious leaders, and how their research contradict to the physical reality portrayed in the game.

This forum is dedicated to Freelancer, not reality. Don't let it turn into yet another reality series...