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Topic: Scale (Read 38563 times)
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Moronic Maria :D
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Ah. Although not a bad guess, it's a "marsupial lion", at least according to the website he got the reference image from.
Those things always look alike to me, so generally I have the worst time ever finding out what they actually are.
EDIT: Oh, and sorry for dragging this into off-topic land. Continue if you may.
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« Last Edit: April 24, 2005, 11:50:07 am by funkmunkey »
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Arne
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Yak!
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Re: Scale
« Reply #47 on: April 24, 2005, 01:35:37 pm » |
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Glad you like it. I'm not sure what to think myself.
Starbase exterior shipyard & containers.
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Lukipela
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The Ancient One
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Re: Scale
« Reply #48 on: April 24, 2005, 05:14:39 pm » |
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The Chenjesu, Syreen, and Earthling starbases are visually the same in the game. It happens to follow the plans for Alliance starbases from SC1. Chenjesu were defeated first, then Earth, then Syreen just gave up when the Arilou, Yehat, and Shofixti abandoned them. Scale issues: I just realized that Umgah and Shofixti pilots are shown in the SC1 ship images (which should be considered pretty darn official). Of course, we don't know how big the umgah are. One would think that since they are called "blobbies" and not "little blobbies" they aren't tiny. The Scout image puts me to shame; There's not room for 5 more shofixti, and not even enough room for 1 Human, which means the commander is a liar. 
Perhaps it might be a good idea to "grade" canon in this instance? Seeing as SC1 has a lot less story (and assumingly planning) behind it, maybe SC2 should be considered canon where the two conflict? After all, SC1 basically just worked as "Big fight between good and evil" with some small background stories worked in for flavour. SC2 on the other took those story elements and used them to build the epic we all love and know. As such, perhaps the Commanders words and ingame events in SC2 (Tanaka having fuel capacity to travel to VUX&Mycon space) and back) should be considered more canon and conclusive than an artists vision of a Shofixti scout in SC1.
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« Last Edit: April 24, 2005, 05:14:55 pm by Lukipela »
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What's up doc?
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Arne
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Re: Scale
« Reply #50 on: April 25, 2005, 02:22:14 am » |
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Yeah, you could probably fit 6 crew in the SC1 scout, but they wouldn't serve any purpose other than being backup pilots. It would be really hard to squeeze in fuel, engines and life support too.
Irrelevant:
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meep-eep
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Re: Scale
« Reply #51 on: April 25, 2005, 02:46:12 am » |
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The Scout could have multiple purposes.
When used as a scouting craft, there's not really much use to have 6 crew members. 1 or 2 would be enough. The rest of the space could be taken by extra fuel tanks, for a greater range.
As a combat craft, one or two would probably be enough too, especially if you're going for a kamikaze attack, in which case you'll want all the space you can spare for explosives. However, if Shofixti consider it an honour to fight, and there are much more Shofixti candidates than available ships, that in itself may be a reason to put more than 1 or 2 Shofixti in, even though it would reduce the manoeuvrability of the ship, which is limited by what the Shofixti body can handle anyway. Kamikaze might not be something pilots set out to do, but rather something they are prepared to do.
It could also be used as a personal transport. Sort of like the equivalent of a car.
Or it could be used as a vehicle for short-range delivery. A space van.
Or as a motor home for a few Shofixti.
For most of these it would be useful if the Scout can fly in an atmosphere, which we don't know for sure. Its aerodynamic shape does seem to indicate so.
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“When Juffo-Wup is complete
when at last there is no Void, no Non
when the Creators return
then we can finally rest.”
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Moronic Maria :D
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Re: Scale
« Reply #52 on: April 25, 2005, 04:24:51 am » |
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Haha, space kitty, I love it! I'm assuming you referenced my icon for that idea, or at least something like it. Couldn't help but notice the similarities. Very kick-ass man
Cheers!
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Arne
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Re: Scale
« Reply #53 on: April 25, 2005, 06:19:01 am » |
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MM> Yeah, I swiped it. Where is the avatar from?
I think it's a cat-bear btw.
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« Last Edit: April 25, 2005, 06:20:23 am by Arne »
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Art
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Re: Scale
« Reply #54 on: April 25, 2005, 06:51:18 am » |
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The Scout could have multiple purposes.
When used as a scouting craft, there's not really much use to have 6 crew members. 1 or 2 would be enough. The rest of the space could be taken by extra fuel tanks, for a greater range.
Depends on what a "scout" is meant to do. Does it just fly around and take pictures? In order to look for habitable planets or planets worth mining in, one would need to send out landing teams to perform more complex tests, which would be much more efficiently done with a team. This is even more true if the Scout is capable of actually setting up small installations on a planet, as the SC1 Scout is. (In case you've forgotten, the main *reason* for sending a Scout out ahead is because the Scout can make fortifications, mines and colonies.)
As a combat craft, one or two would probably be enough too, especially if you're going for a kamikaze attack, in which case you'll want all the space you can spare for explosives. However, if Shofixti consider it an honour to fight, and there are much more Shofixti candidates than available ships, that in itself may be a reason to put more than 1 or 2 Shofixti in, even though it would reduce the manoeuvrability of the ship, which is limited by what the Shofixti body can handle anyway. Kamikaze might not be something pilots set out to do, but rather something they are prepared to do.
Again, only if you take the way combat works in the game absolutely literally. Who's to say the ship *can* actually be piloted by a single pilot? What if, as would be more likely, one person were needed to pilot the plane and one person were needed to act as a gunner -- and, perhaps, one person were needed to keep an eye on radar and communications? (Even real-life fighter planes often keep 2-man crews, one pilot and one weapons or comm systems officer.) And the Scout is a *self-contained* ship that makes long voyages by itself, which makes it far more likely you'll need an engineer or mechanic on board to deal with the ship's systems since you can't just land at a parent vessel for repairs and refueling. (Indeed, the way flying seems to work in SC1, the ships set down at planets and refuel on the fly, which means fuel has to be synthesized somehow, which means more expertise needed.)
Again: Space is big. Systems for crossing space would probably be more complex and harder to run than the systems for vehicles that we know, even with more automation and such. And the ships in SC1 all seem to be very all-purpose, with each one having the capacity to at least set up small-scale habitats on planets that they encounter -- which would make sense, given that *each single ship* is a highly important and powerful force, and that each scenario takes place among 10-12 ships at most.
I don't see why 2-kilometer-long ships are that silly, honestly. Our modern aircraft carriers are way beyond the scale that someone sailing an old-fashioned clipper ship would have thought possible. I'd expect future vessels to scale *up*, not down, especially since you're going to just plain need a lot more resources to cross those vast gulfs of space *at all*, even with the benefit of magic hyperspace technology.
And these ships are not just vehicles for going from one place to another -- they're great big multipurpose habitats, and treating them that way is the only way SC1's strategy system can even sort of be thought of to make sense. (Even if you don't accept that argument, remember that Tanaka's Scout in SC2 had enough resources to keep him alive for several years while just drifting in space. That means, at least, a big onboard food supply.) To me, it's a lot *sillier* to think that the Great War was fought by a handful of 30-m long vessels crewed by a few dozen people while the rest of, say, Earth's billions of human beings just sat on their hands.
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Art
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Re: Scale
« Reply #55 on: April 25, 2005, 07:04:52 am » |
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- Perhaps the Star Base never posed any threat and was therefor kept around for use after the war
- Perhaps this Starbase survived long enough for the Humans to capitulate
- Perhaps the Ur-Quan ordered the Humans to build one
- Perhaps the Star Base was towed in from elsewhere
- Perhaps the Ur-Quan had one of their slave races construct it
- Perhaps the Ur-Quan built it from Human materials (there may have been hundreds of destroyed Space Stations floatiing around)
"Almost certainly" my yellow Yehat arse.
From Hayes' description of the surrender:
Anyone or anything we left off-planet would be destroyed after the shield went up.
Maybe this Starbase was a special exception, but I see no particular reason why that should be the case. The SC2 Starbase looks like *all* the Starbases from SC1, which all look identical (Hierarchy *and* Alliance), and like the Syreen and Chenjesu/Mmrnmhrrm Starbases, and Hayes explicitly says that the Starbase is specifically designed for servicing Hierarchy vessels, and that it's lucky your ships can take the same fuel as Hierarchy fuel, and Hayes seems to describe the Starbase's automated manufacturing technology as superior to "vac-suited workers" as though he were used to the latter, and it doesn't display any of the standard abilities of SC1 Starbases (firing on planets, moving through Hyperspace, and so on).
It *may* be a converted Alliance Starbase, but we're given no reason to think it to be so -- if it is, it's an Alliance Starbase that was very heavily converted by the Ur-Quan and probably contains little Human technology.
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Art
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Re: Scale
« Reply #56 on: April 25, 2005, 07:09:32 am » |
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Scale issues: I just realized that Umgah and Shofixti pilots are shown in the SC1 ship images (which should be considered pretty darn official). Of course, we don't know how big the umgah are. One would think that since they are called "blobbies" and not "little blobbies" they aren't tiny.
Umgah genetically modify themselves quite radically, for fun. They may vary dramatically in size depending on their function, or mood.
The Scout image puts me to shame; There's not room for 5 more shofixti, and not even enough room for 1 Human, which means the commander is a liar. [/quote]
...And since that image so drastically contradicts *both* the combat simulation *and* the in-game dialogue, which say, respectively, that Scouts can hold 6 Shofixti and that they *do* have enough functions for a Human to serve on one (and be able to fit inside of one), this is a good reason not to consider the SC1 art all *that* official. Everything from SC1 is less canon than SC2 -- hell, in SC2 they changed the *dates* that the game takes place to 400 years earlier, among other things.
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Culture20
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Re: Scale
« Reply #58 on: April 25, 2005, 07:56:19 am » |
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To me, it's a lot *sillier* to think that the Great War was fought by a handful of 30-m long vessels crewed by a few dozen people while the rest of, say, Earth's billions of human beings just sat on their hands. Oh, they didn't sit on their hands; they were busy using their factories to churn out spacecraft:
The Chenjesu expected Earth to play a major role in the Alliance, both as
combatants and suppliers of war material. Even though Earthlings were tech-
nologically primitive, their civilization had thousands of huge modern factories
and millions of skilled workers able to manufacture both munitions and
spacecraft. The tens of thousands of thermonuclear weapon components
stashed away in the Peace Vaults were an additional bonus which surprised
even the Chenjesu.
I suspect a _lot_ of cruisers were made since they used automobile parts...
It depicted some cutesy underwater scene with the cat riding a sea turtle ... Notice that the ship Arne made is vaguely turtle shaped; perhaps he already is familiar with the art in question?
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« Last Edit: April 25, 2005, 07:58:50 am by Culture20 »
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Arne
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Re: Scale
« Reply #59 on: April 25, 2005, 09:00:10 am » |
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The Starbase shape is based on Stardock from Star Trek, which is human built I presume. It's huge too. A few km across if I were to guess.
I'll go for the size I made my Scout earlier, it has something like 8x the volume of a ship half its size. There's space enough to support different crew roles.
I redesigned the interiors. Upper floor is now the data room (sensors and analysis machines). Bottom floor has sleeping tubes, some seats long the walls if things get shaky. Then there's the usual stuff like engines, fuel, generator, life support and explosives of course.
Edit: lowered 2nd floor
Also updated this.
The 'canon' material is contradictive indeed, so I feel like I can pretty much make the ships any size I want. It's more fun to make them smaller because then I have to optimize space and make things work.
As for the turtleship, I just thought a half ufo-ish shape would work. I based it of the green background with lines on.
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« Last Edit: April 25, 2005, 09:10:35 am by Arne »
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