Scaling WC-2 Ships to Conform To WC-1 and WC-3/4 Size Standard

howabout you download it from the link that Dund was nice enough to put up not 3 posts above this one.
 
Miracynonyx100 said:
Where can you download that from?

Victoria Kent
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This explains so much.

I even linked to the main WCA page instead of just the episode list so that all the documents that the CIC has on WCA would be right there too. Yet, you overlooked the one link I posted? It even says in giant print on the WCA page "Episode Downloads."

What amazes me more is that not even two weeks ago these episodes were front paged in order to use up CIC bandwidth. There is a wealth of information right in front you. You really might want to check it out. Have you even read Star*Soldier yet?
 
I must agree with general opinion here. How are you expecting to do mod which requires serious work and investigation, when you're expecting that people take you by the hand and show you what to do?
Do some legwork of your own, especially for such blatantly available info like academy downloads... There was even a link in this thread for it for chrissake!
 
That and it was front paged last week so that we could suck up some CIC bandwidth. At least read the front page. Christ.
 
The fighters in WC-2 are absolutely tiny. It doesn't mesh with WC-1 and WC-3 which preceed and succeed it respectively. While many of the WC-3 fighters are old, the Excalibur was brand-new, so was the Longbow and they both were large. Additionally the Rapier from WC-1, was a different size in WC-2, and the Wraith from one WC-game was like 16 meters, and was 36 in Armada.
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I see these threads need me, though I'm obviously loathe to dive into all this once again. There is no reasonable way to rescale the ships between the different games, nor is there reason to do so.

The only 'realistic' ship lengths (where realism can be defined as the ship matching its apperance compared to characters and *nothing else*) are the ones listed in Wing Commander II, Wing Commander Prophecy and the Confederation Handbook. Wing Commander I set a precedent for having ships that were 'too long'... and, with the three exceptions above, all other games follow its example in their fiction rather than trying to 'fix' the universe.

Are there aircraft with large cockpits? Yes (though not as large as those implied in Wing Commander.) This is beside the point, though, because the problem is that we frequently (you might say consistently) *see* the pilot in the cockpit and know that it is not enormous.

There is no way to 'scale up' the ships in Wing Commander II, because the concept doesn't make any sense... nor is there a way (or an excuse) to reliably 'scale down' all the others.

Despite what you indicate above, there is no 'magic number' - the shared Wraith and the Rapier II scale between 'real' and 'Wing Commander' by completely different factors. Making up a new number, inventing an average, etc., etc., etc. will serve to do nothing but anger and confuse everyone. Multiplying the length of every ship by 1.544 is no different from multiplying the length of every ship by 800. You can technically perform this math, but it will ultimately be entirely meaningless and farcical because the pillar upon which you advanced your theory was just a number you made up.

As for the 'mod' issue... I don't even know where to begin. People: there's no mod. This is Concordia posting the same inane complaints as he did a year or two ago under a new guise. So lets get this out of the way right now: claiming that your building a mod for the community is not a get out of jail fee card; if *anything*, it is a license for everyone to apply even greater scrutiny.

But that little technicality dealing with the reality of the situation aside, this discussion isn't even remotely germain to building a game. We have exactly this 'conflict' because this is the sort of information you decide later. In game design you cut first and then measure. Here's how you make your game: you build your ship models and then you scale them so they appear correctly. Gameplay, fun, interaction, etc. all trumphs how adherent you are to the fiction manual created in 1991. Want to treat that manual with respect (like you *should* - a lesson you've yet to learn) - then when you make your ships database, duplicate the original lengths no matter how long the ships actually are. It doesn't matter to the experience - as in Wing Commander II, no one literally measures the ships in flight and cries foul.

If you're actually building Wing Commander I and II in the FreeSpace 2 engine (and, lets be clear - we know you aren't) then it doesn't matter how long the ships are... it matters how long they are to eachother. There's no 'meters' in a video game... if the Rapier is 10 blorgs long and the Concordia is 100 blorgs long all that matters is that the Concordia model be ten times the length of the Rapier. That, more than anything, comes across through the current data.

As an aside, it is my opinion that WC-1, and WC-2 carrying weapons on external mounts is outright ridiculous. They can be shot off for one, and in the event of weapons like torpedoes which carry anti-matter in them, is outright dangerous. The ships have bussard-intakes which draw in hydrogen which is used to fuel the spacecraft as it flies, also providing aerodynamic effects. While I'm pretty sure there's a variable geometry component to these things to allow for small asymmetries, carrying missiles would produce significant drag at the velocities the ships would be traveling at. External hard-points make it easy for enemies to figure out exactly what kind of weapons you're carrying, and can increase or reduce your radar cross section. Carrying them internally however results in no radar cross-section change, no drag changes, no risk of them being shot off, etc. Considering the size of the WC-1 and WC-3 fighters, internal carriage is not a serious problem. For the WC-2 fighters resized it is still possible to carry weapons internally.
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I have no idea what you're going on about - weapons can't be shot off in Wing Commander I & II... the bitmaps are too small for you to even see them and the game engine certainly doesn't let you target them. If this *were* a gameplay feature, though, your comment still wouldn't make sense - because the purpose of a remake isn't to make a game easier... it's to create the same experience.

I, for one, have seen inside the Wing Commander I fighters and know what all the space is used for. :)

The older destroyers were fairly big 490 - 500 meters (Durango was around 500 if I recall). By WC-1 they were smaller around 360 meters and had small fighter compliments, and in WC-2 had become a little bit smaller at 312.1 and no data on fighter compliment. In WCP they've increased to 589 meters again with a small fighter compliment.
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You don't recall that at all; you were on IRC not a week ago asking how long the Durango was and you were specifically told that it had no stated length. We do not know the ages of *any* of these destroyers, so any weirdo revisionism about them is entirely pointless.

The older cruisers were around 530 meters with minor fighter compliment, and by the 2650's cruisers reached sizes in excess of 700 meters with at least some cruisers having fighter compliments of around 30 fighters, then shrunk down to just a little over 500 meters with fighter compliment going up to 40. By WCP They ballooned up to 777 to even 1,200 meters with capacity varying from model to model from a few to as much as 30. The 1,200 meter figure I would exclude since this was almost certainly the result of newer jump drive technology allowing larger ships to jump.
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Here's another problem with your thinking (other than that you simply aren't): ships aren't defined by exactly how long they are (or even by how massive they are)... you're complaining (?) about some 1,200 meter ship without realizing that you're referring to a particular design that's built as a specific type of weapons platform. I don't know what you're picturing in your mind, but the situation here isn't ships balooning in different sizes every few years... it's a set of ships existing all at the same time, each with a size that fits its purpose.

Carrier wise, whether it be through the game, or through the movie, or even novels stated that many of these ships were supposed to have a fly through deck. The Tigers Claw had a fly through deck in the movie, as did the Ranger and Concordia Classes in the games and apparently the Confederation-Classes did (In WC-4 Novel).
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I don't think you understand what a fly through deck is or how completely irrelevant it is. In fact, I'm at a complete loss here, since you've included the movie Bengal on your odd list (... and the Wing Commander IV novel? What the heck?)

'Fly through deck' refers to the ability of the RealSpace engine to let you fly through the geometry of a ship - something that was emphasized in the two games where that feature was 'fresh'. The three Confederation carriers with this 'ability' are the Yorktown, Concordia and Vesuvius classes. Note that I put little sarcastic quotey marks around ability: this is because it is in no way, shape or form an ability. Having a "fly through deck" isn't something that anyone in the Wing Commander universe cares about. It's a fun little toy you get to play with in WC3 and 4. Colonel Blair notices that the Victory has a fly through deck in the same way that Lieutenant Casey notices that the Nephilim are 3Dfx Enhanced.

In the Wing Commander universe every ship has a deck that you can 'fly into'... and a few ships (Yorktown, Vesuvius, Concordia) have multiple points you can exit the deck. If there were a big 3D Tiger's Claw in 2007 you would be able to fly into the front of the ship just like you can on the Victory or the Midway - and it's entirely irrelevant to anything, ever.

Cruiser Wise: 530 meters is fine for the Talahassee-Class Cruisers. The Gettysburg-Class should be in excess of 700 meters, but, I honestly think scaling it past 884 though is ridiculous. The thing would by no means be a cruiser, it would be a dreadnought. Awhile back, LOAF one time suggested that perhaps the Gettysburg-Class would be a Concordia-Supercruiser sized vessel. With that said 855 meters sounds like it would be at least a good start. As for the Waterloo, a lot of people have thought of it's flight-deck set up as being like a "mini-Concordia"-- the dreadnaught. And since the Concordia in WC4M had fly-throughs, the Waterloo should have them as well -- at this moment. As for resizing the Waterloo, it does sound to be a reasonable idea. The Waterloo can carry 40 fighters, and probably support craft like shuttles.... but some versions can be converted into carriers with capacities of ~65 to ~75 fighters.
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All we know about the 'Gettysburg class' is that it's larger than the Tiger's Claw. I know we're all obsessed with length here, but that's not what that means at all - in all likelyhood, it's simply more massive.

Using the 24/19 ratio would put the Exeter at 454.75 meters. A more than acceptable size for a Destroyer with a capacity for between 8 - 17 fighters. Keep in mind the Exeter is a much wider ship than the Southampton. The Gilgamesh using the same ratio comes in at 394.25 meters -- still retaining it's more compact design and sports-car like performance even though if it has any fighter capacity, it's minimal at best.
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Speak plainly and people will treat you like less of an idiot - the Exeter carries 18 fighters.

Me and LOAF talked about this yesterday in chat, and he told me that he hasn't really seen the ship much up close. However, I've thought about that and have found that technically we have seen enough of the Gilgamesh to determine a difference between typical trends in fighter-carrying destroyers.
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I talked, you didn't listen. What I told you was that *we* haven't seen the ship close up. The canon includes no high resolution picture of the Gilgamesh - this is the most we ever see of it (and this image has been pixel resized to be twice what appears in the game):

wc2gilgamesh4.gif


I can't tell you whether any particular green or black or red splorch on that ship is or is not a flight deck. There's absolutely no way to know. Repeat after me: absolutely no way to know. All we know is that Blair's first assignment out of Flight School was aboard the TCS Gilgamesh - which suggests but does not state that the ship had a fighter complement.

I must also echo the other calls for you to do your research -- not so much for us, but for you. You haven't seen Academy? Haven't read Star*Soldier? Etc.? My God, what I wouldn't give for the ability to do those things again for the first time -- what are you sitting around here for, complaining about the same things you did years ago for when you could be experiencing parts of the Wing Commander universe that are new to you? I'm somewhat amazed that you could not have found them on your own... the very reason we dedicate ourselves to maintaining this site is to make exactly that material available to people in exactly your situation. Go and enjoy.

(Also, before you post this for the six-zillionth time under some other claimed purpose, do one thing: GO OUTSIDE AND MEASURE HOW LONG ONE METER IS.)
 
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Well, since LOAF is clearly in favor of re-scaling WC ships, I suggest that we follow my new 4 Steps to Scale Greatness:

1. Measure all ships in concentric cirles starting with their center of gravity as defined by "the point of pixel propogation." Each circle shall be seperated from the former by 1/3 the circumference of the largest engine exhaust, so long as the largest exhaust is not separated from the fuselage proper by any limb or extremity.

2. Then, selecting the WCI Tiger's Claw as the known absolute through the scientific process 'arbitrary selection,' we'll go ahead and use the above formula to determine Bengal's Constant, or BC.

3. Next, our team of expert scalesman will quickly ensure that all of the other ships in the WC universe conform to BC standards....a demanding job, but hey, "who if not us?"

4. Finally, we'll go ahead and measure everything in feet and inches, because it's another step to do and makes everyone feel they've accomplished even more than perhaps they would have (and let's face it, who knows what a meter is? Joan sure doesn't seem to, among others...:D)


Trust me wingnuts....follow this guide, and all your bogeys and friendlies are guaranteed to fill your windscreen just as your heart always intended!
 
Well, since LOAF is clearly in favor of re-scaling WC ships, I suggest that we follow my new 4 Steps to Scale Greatness:
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Just make sure that whatever happens they're longer than the ships from Star Wars - in case they ever get in a fight.
 
Miracynonyx100 said:
Ricochet,

Perhaps you're right, but I can't seem to get my mod moving at all. So I got nothing to do but float ideas around.


Victoria Kent
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Why don't you start working on your mod then to get it moving? Or start learning about the different game engines and programming tools to make the mod you want to make? That way you can get your mod moving.
 
The picture you show me, while not the most detailed shows me plenty of things.

The Exeter and the Southampton have an area on the centerline in the back where a bay can be fitted. The Gilgamesh has engines on the centerline... no room for a fighter-bay.


Victoria Kent
 
The Exeter and the Southampton have an area on the centerline in the back where a bay can be fitted. The Gilgamesh has engines on the centerline... no room for a fighter-bay.
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The problem here - the specific problem, anyway - is that you've set some kind of idiotic standard and are applying it even though it makes no sense. An empty space is not the same thing as a fighter bay... at all, remotely.

In fact, I think you can make a pretty unbeatable argument that seeing *nothing* somewhere means that there isn't something there. I can't believe that I would even need to explain this. I can't imagine how someones brain could not-work *so hard* that they would look at a big complex graphic, find the point where there isn't anything and say "boy, that *has* to be the big complex fighter launching system." To wit, the fact that there's *nothing* between the engines on an Exeter means that there *isn't* a fighter bay there. Drill this over and over.
 
Sigh. Vicky (or whatever your name is), it's clear now that you're a stats fiend. Not a modder, not a programmer, not an artist - just a stats fiend who's bothered to the gills that not all the numbers from an old (yes! it's old!) game don't fit well with your spatial sensibilities. Well, tough. You have no more authority than anyone else here and you can't change what's already been published.

You want to do something with that obsession? Have a look here, then. Now *this* is cool.

https://www.wcnews.com/news/update/8323

Does it bug you whether everything's the right size? Whether everything will fit into ship of X length? About all these ridiculous details that you spend so much time obsessing over instead of READING the CIC archives or LEARNING how to mod, if that was ever your intention? Then try doing something like that. Give that obsession of yours some real expression and maybe we'll think that's cool, because that's *content*.

If you play Standoff, you'll notice all kinds of "changes" to ship schematics. Altered Turret layouts on the Exeters. Close-range lasers and particle cannon turrets on Kilrathi capships, Gilgameshes, and the Concordia that weren't there before. Landing bays in 3D models of Exeters and Gilgameshes that are clearly not part of the original bitmapped models. You want a license to make changes? Make something yourself. But make something real.

Until then, you're obsessing over something nobody else cares about. We cared about the size of the Raptor in Standoff because it's something we can play and it affects the experience. Until then,

it. does. not. matter.
 
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By the way - if you don't know *why* nobody is jumping on board your mod project, the answer should be evident from everyone's replies. You're not doing anything to even begin preparing a mod. Everything you're talking about, makes more sense to talk about once you have models to tweak and some proof-of-concept testing you can do. Can you fly around the inside of a ship to see if the dimensions make sense? No! You don't have an engine, you don't have any models, you don't have any missions scripted.

Once you're working with even a very incomplete product, it becomes clear that some of the ideas you had in the beginning make sense and others don't. You're wasting an awful lot of time spinning your wheels on things that I'd be willing to bet money on will either not get implemented or thrown out the window in favor of better or more workable ideas down the road.

Everyone from Eder to LOAF has told you the same thing - if there's no mod, there's no point. Everyone knows this. This is why you're alone here. Until (if ever) you start talking about things in a way that makes sense from the point of view of a *game developer* nobody here is going to believe that you're serious about making a mod... and for that reason, nobody is going to devote any of their time to help you with it.

Well, that's perhaps not entirely true. LOAF especially has gone to great lengths to talk sense into you. And you're not listening.
 
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