Planet sizes and map ideas

[Erk]

Hi all, i was just wondering if anyone else was every bugged by how small the planets are. Is it possible to resize them to something a little more realistic? I dont mean have a planet take up an entire map though, but when you play at the Earth map, shouldn't Earth be right there? Its almost as if the Starbase is drifting in space, far from the planet, and that the base is too big to orbit the planet. I dont know if anyone is working on this, and if not i think it should be looked into, itd be cool to have nearly realistic planets in this game




-Erk

[Bren]

If it's Dasher 42's map, editting the system files to make everything (including distances) x10 bigger ought to do it, I remember that his vast Sol system is only 1/10 the size it ought to be. :arms:

For practical graphical applications, though, we'd need really beautiful X3-style textures for the planets and much better atmosphere effects. Not to mention that by the time you reach the other end of your orbit, you'd be able to take command of a REAL starship and fly in REAL space, plus the ship in BC would be shakin' like a rattlesnake due to the distance from Origin bug in BC's hardcoded core physics engine.

[MLeo]

As Bren mentioned, the shaking issue is a big problem with realising this. Another "fix" could be to scale everything else 10x smaller. But that too can result in similar shaking problems. ;)

[Erk]

Bren, funny you should mention X-3, because that was exactly the image i had in my head for maps. I just dont think the games engine is capable of that but what do i know? i just do retextures. With all the next-gen consoles and graphics cards coming out it could be very do-able. If BC could do that, it be cool to set up the Utopia Plantia over mars! like 15 dry-docks and starbase just above the planet, like at the end of Nemesis when the Ent-E was over Earth. If thats all possible i dont see why making BC a cool online rpg type game. The possiblities are nearly endless.

[MLeo]

Bren, funny you should mention X-3, because that was exactly the image i had in my head for maps. I just dont think the games engine is capable of that but what do i know? i just do retextures. With all the next-gen consoles and graphics cards coming out it could be very do-able. If BC could do that, it be cool to set up the Utopia Plantia over mars! like 15 dry-docks and starbase just above the planet, like at the end of Nemesis when the Ent-E was over Earth. If thats all possible i dont see why making BC a cool online rpg type game. The possiblities are nearly endless.

With the big problem that the MP code for BC is very buggy, and suspected that it was implemented at the last minute.
Bridges for example lag a lot in MP, so much, that it was taken out of KM (where they were first enabled).

[Erk]

o yeah, ur right. o well. it was still a cool thought. i bet that all the different ships and mods people have would make an online game impossible. ah, i feel im getting off topic of maps and planet sizes. ive never actually done maps or scripting other than ships and other little things. would it be possible to have a set up like this ?: http://www.startrek.com/imageuploads/200303/voy-218-the-utopia-planitia-sh/320x240.jpg

ive looked around at BCU and im not sure if this is a current project or part of a mod. id like to do work on it if possible but i only have photoshop elements and little knowledge of the games dynamics. the best ive ever done is modify the CG sov to my liking (cannon to nemesis i hope)

[MLeo]

The image you posted is CGI (from one of the series it seems).
The filename suggests Voyager season 2 episode 18, but isn't the case (atleast, I don't remember seeing utopia planitia in this episode: http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/VOY/episode/68878.html).

The exact effect isn't possible. But the ammount of models and set up should be possible.

[Erk]

Do you know if adjusting the planet size would effect ships orbits? in BC the standard orbit is aprox. around the planets equator, where in the show they usually are up higher than that, so on the view screen you get the top roundness... to.. it.. if that makes any sense at all... im gonna post this, but that doesnt mean im not confused about what i just said!

[MLeo]

Do you know if adjusting the planet size would effect ships orbits? in BC the standard orbit is aprox. around the planets equator, where in the show they usually are up higher than that, so on the view screen you get the top roundness... to.. it.. if that makes any sense at all... im gonna post this, but that doesnt mean im not confused about what i just said!

I know what you mean, but that doesn't effect the orbit. It requires different AI to do that.

[Erk]

ok, maybe that should be looked into as well. by the way i want to thank you MLeo, and i wanna say that i really love the 3rd era bridges, they make the game come alive. thats why id like to see/work on making the galaxy cannon and alive.

[Erk]

well, ive been playing with the Earth map for a while now, and the results are upsetting. i finally made the planet the size i wanted, and create a drydock to orbit, i also go the spacestation to stop colliding. but, when i looked at the planet, it was a mess. as bren stated the planets textures were stretched way out, and the plant was just a bunch of apparent straight lines in a ball shape. what would probably have to happen is that the planet model would have to be redone in like milkshape or 3dmax, then given new textures for it to read.

[Rob Archer]

well, ive been playing with the Earth map for a while now, and the results are upsetting. i finally made the planet the size i wanted, and create a drydock to orbit, i also go the spacestation to stop colliding. but, when i looked at the planet, it was a mess. as bren stated the planets textures were stretched way out, and the plant was just a bunch of apparent straight lines in a ball shape. what would probably have to happen is that the planet model would have to be redone in like milkshape or 3dmax, then given new textures for it to read.

What was the size you used for that earth, ill take a look at it i might be able to do something with it..

[BES]

How is the map size increased?...since I cant open the starsphere.nif file..is ther another one that has to do with the map size?

I could play with that if someone can tell me where to look..I wanted more room anyway and better suns and planets(eventually).

Basically im saying I can help out with this if someone directs me on where to look for the map size...I also have a program that can extract models from X3 I could try to port one and fiddle with it..but the map size needs to be bigger..

[MLeo]

The map size is "fixed".

The starsphere itself is big enough.

How do I know this?
Since I still haven't reached it (you would know when you did) after half an hour on 32x speed increase + super boosted warpcore + super boost for engines (1000%). I did get massive shaking since floating point accuracy dropped a lot.


The super boost was done through the console btw.

[BES]

Yeah was just wondering since I never put a planet into BC before, figured it would be easier to open BCs starphere and place it in there, instead of importing the model and making a solar system with the SDK, or replacing one in a map thats already made..

[Erk]

heres the planets specs:


        ######
        # Create the Planet - 127,560 km diameter
        pEarth = App.Planet_Create(6289.1, "data/models/environment/earth.nif")
        pSet.AddObjectToSet(pEarth, "Earth")

        # Place the object at the specified location.
        pEarth.PlaceObjectByName( "Earth" )
        pEarth.UpdateNodeOnly()

the starbase will hit it at first, i still havent gotten it right where i want it tho, over the planet and slanted like so: