(not complaining...)

The scale of the game does peck at my mind sometimes. I can deal with bases being a bit small, or cap ships being a bit small, but the planets really should be a bit larger. Perhaps inhabitable planets, like Manhattan, could stay the same size, but a gas giant should be a lot bigger. Just take a look at our own system:

A side-by-side comparison of Jupiter and Earth

Maybe Manhattan doesn't need to make me feel like a gnat when I approach it, but some of these so-called "gas giants" I've come across are laughably small. Seriously.

Regarding the posts about the game being unplayable if they chose a more 'realistic' scale. That's nonsense.

It would play identically, it wouldn't cause more lag/less lag or anything.

They could just scale all their display units by, say, 10000. Then anything that's 1K now would be 10000K. 50 K / per second would be 500000 K / per second. It's only the value you read that would change. The game would play the same.

The game wouldn't play anywhere remotely the same. Changing the scale of the speed and distances would have a PROFOUND effect on gameplay. There would no longer be ANY dogfights. Try to imagine dogfighting at over 10000kph. The main issue is the vastness of space. If the distances and speeds are increased but the size of the ships themselves are kept the same, then no one would ever see each other unless they picked each other up on scanners. And then it would take great focus to eventually end up in the space vicinity of space.

Flying around in space is NOT at all the way it is depicted in these games. And that is NOT a bad thing. Anyway, I could go on and on (as we all continue to do). I just wanted to point out that the game would not play the same if you simply changed the scale of the distances and speeds. It doesn't quite work that way.

I think the problem is that we really have no way to wrap our heads around the unbelievable vastness of space. Imagine that your ship is a speck of dust and space is the ocean. Try to imagine navigating and the amount of time and effort it would take to FIND anything. Sure, you could use scanners and such, but moving at incredible speeds would just make it even more difficult to find and and engage in combat with another speck of dust. Now to put it in perspective, imagine your ship is still a speck of dust but the ocean is actually a million times bigger. You get the idea...



Those are my thoughts, not yours, I'm WapCaplet[!

I agree, if things were realistic things wouldn't work, Star Wars is popular because its not realistic, the TIE Fighters give off fighter sounds, you can hear the lasers and the dogfights are WWII style thus making things more enjoyable, imagine if it was hyper realistic....

Oh look, we've come full circle twice now... Shall we go around again?

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The game wouldn't play anywhere remotely the same.

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Sure it would. All people are talking about is making the planets and solar systems closer to life size, not changing the ship performance by much.

Granted, some parts would be different. All of the annoying stuff that doesn't make any sense would have to be removed and replaced with something that makes at least a little bit of sense. No more endless junk fields, no more aimless wandering about empty space looking for loot spawns. Trade lanes would have to become networks of FTL jump gates.

But the fundamental activities of the game -- space flight, mouse control, dogfighting, trading, scavenging loot, docking -- all that stuff could stay exactly the same as it is now.

Look, it's definitely D.A.'s perogative to design Freelancer however they want to. Some people will like the arcade-y feel, others won't. I'm only objecting to the notion that having semi-realistic solar system sizes in an arcade-y game is impossible. It's not impossible. It's not even particularly difficult.

--milo
www.starshatter.com

No one said it was impossible or difficult. We just stated that the enormous size of a realistic system/galaxy/universe would make the game useless. You must really try to grasp the sheer enormity of space. It wouldn't be as easy as just flying to a planet and docking at a base with everyone else. Your ship, in comparison to the planet, would be a speck. The planet itself, in comparison to the rest of the galaxy would be smaller than a speck.

It IS possible, but dogfighting would be done with. Dogfighting does NOT happen in real space. Space is too big and the ships would be travelling WAY too fast. You can't just "scale" everything down. It doesn't work that way.

If DA made the game as realistic as real space, no one would play it. Anyway, it's a moot point. I think there are just some people out there who cannot even begin to understand how phenominally big space really is. You could literally travel at 5 times the speed of light for a thousand years and not encounter ANYTHING.

It's really, really big. And Freelancer fighters are really, really small in comparison. It would not work.



Those are my thoughts, not yours, I'm WapCaplet[!

Deja vu all over again... Everyone wants a different version of the game... some want realistic everything, others want realistic something, the rest want realistic nothing...

We live in a democracy (well some of us do anyway), what that means is: if you don't like it, go make you own.

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No one said it was impossible or difficult.

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You, yourself, said "it would not work." In this very post. To me, that sounds like you think it is infeasible, if not impossible.

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We just stated that the enormous size of a realistic system/galaxy/universe would make the game useless. You must really try to grasp the sheer enormity of space. It wouldn't be as easy as just flying to a planet and docking at a base with everyone else. Your ship, in comparison to the planet, would be a speck. The planet itself, in comparison to the rest of the galaxy would be smaller than a speck.

It IS possible, but dogfighting would be done with. Dogfighting does NOT happen in real space. Space is too big and the ships would be travelling WAY too fast. You can't just "scale" everything down. It doesn't work that way.

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I know exactly how big space really is. I have a link to the Nine Planets website in my favorites so that I can look up orbits and radii when I need them. I have a Gliese near star catalog on my hard disk.

You absolutely can have dogfighting in a space that is realistically sized. You can let the fighters and other ships travel at reasonable, playable speeds for dogfighting and use deus ex machina FTL drives to get from place to place.
This isn't a hypothetical scenario. I can say with complete confidence that this works because I've already built a game that does exactly what I'm talking about.

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If DA made the game as realistic as real space, no one would play it.... It's really, really big. And Freelancer fighters are really, really small in comparison. It would not work.

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For the fourth(?) time, no one is asking for a copy of Orbiter here. Just believably large planets and semi-realistic orbits. Yes, a few details would have to change. But it would work. It does work. It's already been done.

--milo
www.starshatter.com

arrrghhhh who actually read all these repeat posts!!!!

this is a totally pointless topic, we will move on to a mini opinion war

"no it means kilomile"

"no, its centon and kilomegacenton"

"no the k stands for the kick i just put in your face after the 497th time you all said these tings!!"

seriously, stop beating the poor dead horse....

mods lock it off!!

Remember, on a scale of 1 to Awesome, I'm Totally Great

Everyone has their own idea of what the game should be. Why not let each other dream. Stop fighting over it. Geez.

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mods lock it off!!

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Not necessary. I surrender.

--milo
www.starshatter.com

You cannot possibly know how big space is. You may be able to measure how big the matter in the visible universe it, but the universe as a whole is in constant expansion.

However this would not pose as a problem as no simulation (at least not in a while) can cover more than a few star systems or perhaps sectors. It is really unlikely that a game will come out any time soon that contains the entire visible universe.

p.s. I'm just rambling since it's 2 in the morning and I had too much coke... no not the drug damn it...

and even if u CAN measure it, how do u measure where it stops??? snicen it's near vacuum anyway, what defines the edge?? a huge wall of pink fluffy cows (has to be, i mean duh!!) might be, but seriously, FL is supposed to only be the sirius sector anyway, and earth/Sol is far far away and a long time ago (literally), so DA is not claiming that the FL verse is total and complete...

**above is an example of classic raving and ranting**

and milod its not the prob of the orig or even popular posters, its that SOOO many new people will come and tell their views as well, and it will clog up the already sticky forums...

Remember, on a scale of 1 to Awesome, I'm Totally Great

here are my to credits

*clinc*
*clinc*

LoTR is not realistic, but it is verry actrictive to belief it is real, Harry Potter isnt real but theire are pepele that belief in magic anyway, Starwars/trek is made in a studio basment but pepole take it for real.

Al these things are taken for real, and if not in the real world then it is real in the fantasies of the reader/viewer/listner, so why dont we take the FL univers for real when playing? 1k is just a small distance, 300K is far, lets just keep it that way.