Vote the Kilrathi Dreadnought

[Darkmage]

hehehe, port them to vegastrike, and help me get more ships ingame. I really wanted all the ships done before release.

 

[Viper61]

I always wondered how they were supposed to take out that DN in False colors until I read that part. I don't think it could be "destroyed" any other way.

I'd have to vote for make it a good size but don't be restrained to the 22km. I never saw this scene myself (even though I went up against teh DN in WC3 with both losing and winning reults) but apparently there is a scene with the dreadnaught with the Victory in it (ramming it or something). I'd say just take teh length of the Victory and extrapolate the DN size from it.

Something has always bothered me about the DN and I sat down with my trusty TI-89 and did some figuring and found out why. THe dreadnaught is not massive enough ot be that long. The DN is 22 times longer than the Bhuntkara carrier but only 3 times as massive. If you do this comparison with other Kilrathi Capships you'll find the same disproportion. THe mass seems to correspond to a 2.2km ship.

C-ya

 

[Chernikov]

just watch the losing cutscene from WC3... the Dreadnought is most definitely 22 KM long...

use the second cruiser model.

As for the low distribution of FS2, did they not release the sourcecode several months ago? Caused enough of a stir to crash the forums in several of the major FS sites, IIRC... would there be a way to legally distribute said sourcecode and a playable game with it?

As for choice of engines, definitely have to go FS2 if you rewrote the physics model... the Vision engine was and is amazing for the time but I remember an annoying number of problems with larger battles, unlike FS2 (30+ ships on your side... and probably upwards of fifty for the enemy, not to mention the biggies...)

 

[gevatter Lars]

-> FS2 Sourcecode
Yes it is released, so it is possible to mod it in any way we want it. Also there are rumors that someone has managed it to include DivX Movies into the engine. That means that is would be possible to have handmade cutscenes which are quite small.

-> FS2 No one has it....
I think thats not completly true...there are quite a number of poeple who own FS2.

-> Why FS2 and not Vision engine???
We wanted to use the FS2 engine for some reasons.
1) Easy to mod. We have a lot of tools, that are easy to use. The table files are so easy to write that even an newbie could do that.
2) The Missionbuilder is quite comfortable. Just drag and drop, then select the "what to do" list and tell the ship. Also you can see the whole scene befor you are ingame. As far as I know for Vision you should be able to program with Pascal.

-> Tonnage and lenght
I know the problem between the size of a ship and the lenght, but remeber that the designer where...just designer! They didn't made the ship with a diplom in physics and to close to reality. So I think that we could look over this little problem.

I think that it for now...anything I have forgotten?

 

[KrisV]

Freespace 2 was one of the games that sold really, really horribly at a time when all new space sims were getting very poor sales. I think I remember some 50,000 copies being sold (Prophecy sold some 700,000 units).

The reason the Dreadnought weighs so little is because it's mostly empty inside.

 

[Ijuin]

Originally posted by Viper61
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I'd have to vote for make it a good size but don't be restrained to the 22km. I never saw this scene myself (even though I went up against teh DN in WC3 with both losing and winning reults) but apparently there is a scene with the dreadnaught with the Victory in it (ramming it or something). I'd say just take teh length of the Victory and extrapolate the DN size from it.

Something has always bothered me about the DN and I sat down with my trusty TI-89 and did some figuring and found out why. THe dreadnaught is not massive enough ot be that long. The DN is 22 times longer than the Bhuntkara carrier but only 3 times as massive. If you do this comparison with other Kilrathi Capships you'll find the same disproportion. THe mass seems to correspond to a 2.2km ship.

C-ya

I agree. First of all, in the scene where the Victory rams the dreadnought, it seems to be maybe four or five times as long as the Victory. Second, it is listed as having a mass of 290 kilotons. A 22 km long ship with that much weight would be about as dense as the average Zepplin airship (lighter than earth's air at sea level) I estimate a density of about three or four GRAMS per cubic METER--compare this to one TON (one million grams) per cubic meter for water. Both of these seem to imply that the ship is 2200 meters long, not 22,000 meters.

 

[Viper61]

Originally posted by gevatter Lars
[B
-> Tonnage and lenght
I know the problem between the size of a ship and the lenght, but remeber that the designer where...just designer! They didn't made the ship with a diplom in physics and to close to reality. So I think that we could look over this little problem.
[/B]

If we overlooked that little tid bit of information, why can't we overlook the length of the DN as well? I was also curious to how founded the 22km is. How many sources do we have about the DN? If I reemember correctly some time ago there was a thread that stated that the length could be a typo in some source.

The reason the Dreadnought weighs so little is because it's mostly empty inside.

So is a Bhuntkara carrier, and the Kilrathi Heavy Destroyer has teh similar "mostly empty space" design (kind of reminiscent of the TNG Romulan Warbird ) and the mass comparison is still off by alot.

C-ya

 

[Bandit LOAF]

The ship is *not* 2,200 kilometers long, as various people thoerize for some reason. Its size plays an important role in the novel False Colors.

 

[TC]

That should read 2 200 meters, not kilometers. (I assume )

 

[Darkmage]

freespace2 sourcecode basically said you could make game with it, but all artwork is still owned by volition. hence you'd have to make your own data files for everything.

 

[Starkey]

Originally posted by Bandit LOAF
The ship is *not* 2,200 kilometers long, as various people thoerize for some reason. Its size plays an important role in the novel False Colors.

I did not read that book. How does the DN size plays an important role in FC?

 

[Bandit LOAF]

A rogue Kilrathi warlord has one, and it's supposed to be the ultimate weapon: 22 times larger than the heavy carrier that can be thrown against it... the book is full of descriptions about how big and powerful it is.

 

[Ijuin]

Well if it is twenty-two kilometers long, then its mass should be two hundred and ninety MILLION tons, not thousand. Even if there is lots of empty space in it, it should not be only three times as heavy as the 920 meter long Bhantkara class carrier. 290 thousand tons would make the dreadnougt less dense than air on Earth.

 

[TC]

Eh, it's quite possible that there are huge empty areas in the middle... I'll also point out that none of the other densities of ships truely approach 'realistic' in any sense.

 

[Darkmage]

hmm....there's an idea for a fan mission... taking out the warlord's dreadnought... could be set before WCP... sounds like fun. I'd set it after false colors.. maybe have some damage around the front.

 

[Concordia]

Originally posted by Bandit LOAF
A rogue Kilrathi warlord has one, and it's supposed to be the ultimate weapon: 22 times larger than the heavy carrier that can be thrown against it... the book is full of descriptions about how big and powerful it is.

Hey LOAF, can you punch up the book-stats?

I don't think the game engine quite does it justice.

-Concordia

 

[Wolfman]

The manuals (WC3 and Saga and PS.WC3) all state a length of 22,000 metres, I'd say its simpler to say the Mass is wrong?

After all its just over 22times the size of the Kiltethi carrier and only about three times the mass.

As for in game thats in game I think everyone's found a fault in scaling and such. I agree in WC3 it never looks to be 22km long but it is. But seeing it in all its glory will make me run from it (I mean really 38 laser turrets!?). I'm gonna have to try and find some of these WC books.

Anyway I vote for FULL LENGTH BRINGER OF DOOM AND DESTRUCTION!!!

 

[Wedge009]

It's argued that the ship is mostly hollow, but I'm a bit unsure on that too. As well as the relatively small number of turrets. And certainly it's 22 km long, but there's no way it looks like that in WC3.

 

[gevatter Lars]

For the people who want to know how 22km would look like ingame take al look

The screenshots are only for size comparsion!!! So don't ask why its so bad textured, where are the turrets and so on. It just to show that it can be done and the it it huge.

 

[Dark Tower]

Lights Lighter and starts swaying.
Thats one big mother.
Can't wait to see it fully textured and with death dealing turrents.