Planet size issues

[-splosives-]

If the planets get bigger, the cloud textures should also be more high resolution. They're already pretty low res now.

In my opinion, the increase in planet scale didn't have any negative effect on the gameplay in EM 2. I certainly wouldn't mind them being even bigger. People complaining about them being too big to fly around, don't forget you have a jumpdrive.

To keep things realistic, however, I think the gravity should be increased aswell. It should take about an hour to orbit a planet like earth on orbital velocity, and to maintain higher orbital velocity (which will be needed as the planets get bigger), more gravity is required.

[DaveK]

If the planets were bigger and, therefore, harder to navigate (takes longer to make planetfall and the possibility of burning up or crashing is greater), there needs to be a good reason for making planetfall in the first place. Some possibilities might be:

• Cities with docking bays and tunnels and other things you can fly in, through, and around. Sort of like the asteroid cave ... only man-made. With hidden items stored away in some side corridor.
• Canyons and valleys you can actually hide behind when being chased by a horde of enemy ships. Or you can hide behind in a TW to avoid a barrage of missiles.
• Hostile cities with defenses. Destroy the defenses before flying down those corridors and retrieving what's stored in the hidden crates.
• City corridors again ... make some of them too narrow for anything except a TW. But make using a TW worth the trip (some of the time, anyway).
• Add more planet-only contracts. High-paying ones.
• Add a few high-tech items to the inventory which can only be bought planetside.
• Make some inventory items cheap to buy at a trade station but expensive to buy (and, therefore, sell) on a planet. Like precious metals ... make them less available for mining on a planet ... forcing planets to pay exorbitant prices, compared to what stations would pay.
• Make other items, like water or biologicals for instance, cheap to buy or mine planetside but expensive to buy or sell in space.
• Allow mercenaries to build colonies on planets. Where one colony is worth as much (for territory control) as two or three stations.

I agree. I also think there are a load of great suggestions from Marvin!

At the moment planets and especially those that are city free are a bit sparse when you get to the surface. The addition of containers falling from the sky, terrain walkers (in particular) and planet based contracts make exploring on a planet worthwhile.

Cities obviously are useful for refuelling, WL etc. Their other use (in MP) is pVp or group fights in TW's. It's also fun to take on ships from a TW but really only in a city where you can play hide and seek. Equally atmospheric combat is another aspect of the game.

A multi sector planet with the present amount of veg and sparsity of cities would be like playing a game in the Sahara Desert with a few oases and the odd city to visit. The present size works because you can fly in the atmosphere to places in a reasonable amount of time. You can even walk around a planet it a session. There are things to do on the planet and then you can go back into space and continue.

A much much much larger planet would "need" to have things like equivalents of the grand canyon, buried asteroid caves into mountains, having really hilly terrain (high, steep mountains) with twisty canyons to fly through,more variety in plant life, perhaps having mining stations and other outposts (resupplying them might be another contract type) would make the surface more interesting and give more things to to. It might even be interesting (from a "why bother to visit" point of view if there were some "farms" near cities - harvesting might be a new contract - they could be crop fields or lots of dome "greenhouses".

And oceans quite a lot deeper - you could use the jump jets to pop up and ambush passing ships and plop back down to hide!!

The odd sign dotted around reminding people that they are space pilots would help as well

One final point. If you give them real size planets the next request will be of real size stars and the sector coverage of those defies imagination I suspect they would more than full whole big systems!

[sapperhedge]

My thoughts seem to echo several here already. As is I believe increasing what you can do on planets is the way to go.

It would be interesting to be able to find the ruins of a city or colony on a planet and explore in your TW looking for anything left behind. I wouldn't complain about a bit more variance on vegetation and scenery to look at while flying to a city either.

While I would enjoy larger scale on pretty much everything "natural" in the universe. It would possibly be a bit much for the current systems of a lot of players to handle and possibly a whole new game where there are already large changes to make it worth while.

[-splosives-]

One final point. If you give them real size planets the next request will be of real size stars and the sector coverage of those defies imagination I suspect they would more than full whole big systems!

If one sector is 2000 kilometers (which I think it is) then earth alone would take up 6x6x6 sectors (minus the edges). I estimate about 30 sectors in 2 dimentions.

[Jk-77]

I have no problem in planet sizes increasing, but i think that increasing then too much could hinder gameplay in terms of performance and the time taken to navigate, stars and nebulae need increasing, the natural wormholes could do with a little work too, they look like a gate without the structure round them.

I also agree that we need more things to do on planets, for example caves and ravines, the idea of flying at below normal ground level through tight ravines, especially when the weather is bad sounds challenging and fun, combat in ravines with other pilots chasing you, and even a new type of planetary race contract flying through the ravines and swooping in and out of caves would be awesome. Some cave entrances could be too small for standard ships, so TW's will be essential and your judgement will be tested when attempting to swoop into a cave that is too small or that leads to a dead end, but caves will be dark, so headlights will be needed for the TWs. I think ravines should be dangerous to pilot through and if you hit the edges you get destroyed, but just scraping them could take your shields down completely on that given side.

The height of mountains and cliffs on planets could be increased to locate cave enterances on the side and imbetween them. Tunnels in the caves could even lead to secret underground cities or areas which harbour higher level equipment and pay more for certain neccesities, such as food. These underground cties could offer different types of contracts, for example, the classic lost item contract but you have to use your TW to navigate the caves many areas to find it. Defeat enemy TWs converging to take the city over etc. Some of these cities could be compatible for TWs to dock, as the entrance to the cave may be too small for ships, so pop down there with your TW do some underground contracts and or scavenging then come back up to your ship.

larger cities that you could have fun piloting through, with multiple docks, this would help in MP when three or more pilots fly together to a particular station and want to land and will add to the scale, maybe even a variation in city styles and heights, for example high economy systems will have cities with many skyscrapers and futuristic looking structures but lower economy ones would be less large buildings and more lower buildings with a different style and texture to them, this would add more variety to what you look at on different planets, and make them more interesting to explore and land on.

Building gates is a great idea, although these should be made expensive, and restrictions on where you can build them, this would open up more tactical possibilities for clans and combat, placing gates suitable for attack and defense, and trade routes made easier. I also agree with making the atmosphere effect more high res and raising it a little.

These are just some of my many suggestions lol, trying to keep relavant (sorry if i went off topic), and are meant to provoke thought from the developer and other pilots to grow them further, and eliminate the ones that would be unsuitable.



EDIT: I also agree with Marvins ideas, some of which i have repeated in my post...

[Edited on 10-4-2013 by Jk-77]

[Marvin]

larger cities that you could have fun piloting through, with multiple docks, this would help in MP when three or more pilots fly together to a particular station and want to land ....

Good point.

[Jk-77]

larger cities that you could have fun piloting through, with multiple docks, this would help in MP when three or more pilots fly together to a particular station and want to land ....

Good point.

Thanks

I would also like to higlight my ravines idea as it is my most important suggestion from my last post (as well as the larger cities with multiple docks), i think it would be suitable for even the current planet size, make the terrain look more interesting, and open up different planetary race contracts that take place in the ravines and maybe through some larger tunnels, some of these tunnels could have some goodies hidden in them for pilots to find, this would go a long way to add to the quality and variation in planet terrains making them more fun to pilot through and give the pilot more to do planetside.

[Edited on 11-4-2013 by Jk-77]

[Marvin]

The only problem with combat while weaving in and around the Grand Canyon is: enemy AI pilots are a lot smarter than Hollywood enemy pilots. They don't glom on your tail ... they climb above the canyon and use shoot-down capability to blow you out of the sky with missiles. If they run out of missiles, then they usually pull up and away, head back into space and think to themselves, "No problem. Space is full of easy prey. Besides ... if I book, that mercenary will never complete his contract."

[Jk-77]

The only problem with combat while weaving in and around the Grand Canyon is: enemy AI pilots are a lot smarter than Hollywood enemy pilots. They don't glom on your tail ... they climb above the canyon and use shoot-down capability to blow you out of the sky with missiles. If they run out of missiles, then they usually pull up and away, head back into space and think to themselves, "No problem. Space is full of easy prey. Besides ... if I book, that mercenary will never complete his contract."

Good point . For combat contracts located through the 'canyon' the enemies could be coded to stick to your tail, much like the 'form' function us players use.

Even if combat is not a good use for the 'canyons' you could still use them for exploration and race contracts, the green 'tube' designated for race contracts could go through the 'canyon' so the npc pilot then cannot swoop above as he will be missing the rings and therefore always loose the race.

The idea was to add more aesthetically pleasing places to see and explore, and maybe even enable some different contract possibilities, to add to the things you can do planetside. The Race through the canyon idea was to add to the planetary possibilities.

For example: you dock with a planetary settlement and scroll through the availiable contracts, you could see something like: A local Pilot has challenged you to a race, fly through the rings faster than your opponent to win the race. Pay 100,000. The rings would start low into a canyon and would be completed much like the ones in space. You would be paid more as the planetary race contracts would be harder to complete, and in hostile areas if you win the NPC could turn hostile and try to take the winnings from you by force, resulting in some combat.

Even if the 'canyons' have nothing to do with contracts, they would look good and would be fun to pilot through, and open up some fun PvP possibilities.

[Edited on 11-4-2013 by Jk-77]

[DaveK]

One final point. If you give them real size planets the next request will be of real size stars and the sector coverage of those defies imagination I suspect they would more than full whole big systems!

If one sector is 2000 kilometers (which I think it is) then earth alone would take up 6x6x6 sectors (minus the edges). I estimate about 30 sectors in 2 dimentions.

and the Sun itself? it would fit into a cube of sides 700 x 700 x 700 sectors (around 390K sectors in 2D)

As a comparison, Sapphire to Thuban is only 500 sectors

[Rubber Chicken]

One final point. If you give them real size planets the next request will be of real size stars and the sector coverage of those defies imagination I suspect they would more than full whole big systems!

If one sector is 2000 kilometers (which I think it is) then earth alone would take up 6x6x6 sectors (minus the edges). I estimate about 30 sectors in 2 dimentions.

and the Sun itself? it would fit into a cube of sides 700 x 700 x 700 sectors (around 390K sectors in 2D)

As a comparison, Sapphire to Thuban is only 500 sectors

So basically the sectors themselves would have to be resized as well as the planets/stars in order to make all of the proportions/distances work out.

Sounds tedious. I really don't want to know what a 3 1/2 year trip from Earth to Mars is like in real time.

[Marvin]

Even if the 'canyons' have nothing to do with contracts, they would look good and would be fun to pilot through, and open up some fun PvP possibilities.

I haven't done this in awhile so I don't know if it's still possible ... but you can try initiating a PvP race while hovering about 8,000 above the surface of a planet. You'll be just high enough for the game to create a race track ... but low enough so that there's the possibility of smashing into the ground while racing.

[Jk-77]

I haven't done this in awhile so I don't know if it's still possible ... but you can try initiating a PvP race while hovering about 8,000 above the surface of a planet. You'll be just high enough for the game to create a race track ... but low enough so that there's the possibility of smashing into the ground while racing.

Nice that sounds like a pretty awesome feature, shall have to try it out some time, i assume the race is initiated via the trade console?

[Marvin]

Yup. Since "hovering" between 6,000 and 8,000 is almost as difficult as jumping through a black hole, you'll probably need to practice a bit.

[andysonofbob]

Why can't you make the ships etc. smaller? Then everything would increase relatively. Wouldn't it?

[49rTbird]

Oh Please, don't get Maars started on "relatively" speaking (lol).

[DaveK]

Why can't you make the ships etc. smaller? Then everything would increase relatively. Wouldn't it?

Vice has just made them bigger so we can see them!

[DaveK]

One final point. If you give them real size planets the next request will be of real size stars and the sector coverage of those defies imagination I suspect they would more than full whole big systems!

If one sector is 2000 kilometers (which I think it is) then earth alone would take up 6x6x6 sectors (minus the edges). I estimate about 30 sectors in 2 dimentions.

and the Sun itself? it would fit into a cube of sides 700 x 700 x 700 sectors (around 390K sectors in 2D)

As a comparison, Sapphire to Thuban is only 500 sectors

So basically the sectors themselves would have to be resized as well as the planets/stars in order to make all of the proportions/distances work out.

Sounds tedious. I really don't want to know what a 3 1/2 year trip from Earth to Mars is like in real time.

That sums it up - just make jumps 1/100th sector and slow us down to 50 max rather than 5000 and we can "feel" the scale - oops that doesn't solve the curved horizon problem though!

[Marvin]

No, it doesn't solve the curvature problem. Pixels are like atoms ... you can shrink everything down only so far. After that you're stuck with really long floating point computations.

[Nigel_Strange]

OK, the thing is, Vice has already been down this road.

Those of you who might remember Arvoch Conflict might recall that the planets were much larger. They were so large, in fact, that planetary descents took a long time to do, so you were in the air a good long time.

Well, suffice it to say that people didn't like the large planet size, so Vice scaled them back a bit.

There is no pleasing everyone, so the current size is what Vice settled on as being the most generally agreeable.

[andysonofbob]

It seems planetary descent time is one of the main concerns about increasing the sizes of planets. I think the Prophets of Sci-Fi, as always, have the answer.

Build taller docking buildings. Increase the planet's radius /atmosphere then build the city's star ports taller to compensate for distance travelled. (Tall buildings seen in Star Wars, 5th Element, Deus Ex 2 etc.)

Or increase velocity in atmospheric conditions to compensate.

My solution?
A combination of both: triple planet's radius / atmosphere so it fills 1.5x1.5 sectors instead of 0.5x0.5, then build the city's starport tower so it reaches 1/3 height of atmosphere AND then double the allowable velocity in atmosphere to compensate for the rest of the increase in descent time!

This would result in starport descent times being favorable, starport towers wouldn't look odd or defy lore, speeds would only be increased by 2/3 (relatively) and the planets (and atmosphere) would be noticeably larger.

[Edited on 4-12-2013 by andysonofbob]

[-splosives-]

The planetary descent times don't have to be longer. As for now, the atmosphere is extremely thick compared to the size of the planets.
If you compare this with real life, atmosphere of earth is but a very thin layer of air around it.
You can compare it to the thickness of the skin of an apple compared to the apple itself.

So if the planets are made bigger, but the atmosphere stays the same, not only will the descent time be the same, but the size of the atmo will also be more realistic.

[andysonofbob]

I would like the atmosphere to be thicker to fly in! I would love to see far FAR greater draw distances when messing about on planets.

The atmosphere might not be realistic but so what? Lots of other things aren't in EM either. Because the planets are quite small, the atmosphere (dispite being unrealitically thick) is too thin as a result. To increase draw distance that there must be more of it so you can get higher before going into the clouds.

What I was trying to argue for was a way to increase atmospheric headroom whilst trying to come up with ways to hopefully negate any (or all) increase of planetary descent times, which might annoy people. The suggestion above (planetary cities having starports on tall towers and increasing planetary speed) should allow for increased thickness of atmosphere to play in with zero time penalty for those purely wanting to trade on cities!

I also think planets with a greater radius would look so much more impressive than they already do! Image planets spanning 2x2 sectors and stars 8x8 instead of 0.5x0.5 like they do now! Wow! (The stars would still not be to scale, I know, but bigger enough I reckon especially with large coronas!)

What do you think?

[Edited on 4-12-2013 by andysonofbob]

[Marvin]

I don't get this problem with "head room" ... I do almost all my combat while planetside and never have problems maneuvering underneath the clouds.

[andysonofbob]

I am still blown away by the fact EM has seemless space AND planetary combat. Awesome!

I admit, this is purely aesthetics and clearly has NOTHING to do with gameplay. I guess I am used to flight sims and combat flight sims where you can see for miles and fly up for ages. (Technical terms.)

http://speedy.sh/8XCrJ/Planet-View-Draw-Distance.jpg (posted elsewhere) I guess it is the curvature of the planets which is restricting draw distance. I am hoping the curvature should be softened with larger worlds.