Will planets be full size/scale?

[AndroidVageta]

OK...having played Bridge Commander and Legacy (which I KNOW is but a fraction of the Star Trek space sims) one thing that always bother me is small/unrealistic planet size/scale.

With Bridge Commander and its dated engine, not mention the PC hardware that was out at the time, it is understandable that the planets can't be full sized...but with Legacy I was just horrified! I mean, the planets in the game were like 3x the size of the ships once you got close and this was with a newer engine and MUCH better hardware!

That brings me to my question...will Excalibur have full, true to scale planets? I am perfectly fine with not having planets you can explore real time or land on (I wouldn't expect that)...but please tell me we aren't going to have tiny little BS planets!

In X3 its so awesome to come up close to a planet and have it fill your whole screen up because its actual scaled to the ships instead of the poor excuse for "planets" in Legacy.

Thanks!

[Mark]

AFAIK there hasn't been a game to date which has fully 3D, 1:1 scale planets, but as you say there are some games that are worse than others. All we can promise is that the whole game will feel realistic, which means that there is no way you will be seeing the beach-ball planets from Legacy .

[AndroidVageta]

Alright good!

Question though...what exactly is the reason for the limitation of a 1:1 scale universe? Graphics? Needed storage space?

[Jon Deane]

The fact that planets are so big in RL?

[John]

It comes down to the maximum values you can store in a 32-bit floating point number.  When you get to those crazy sizes, the numbers are big to be processed by the processor in the small 32-bit format.   Since graphics cards operate on position in 32 bits (by default) it creates some problems.  I think even 64 bits gives us to about Pluto using mm accurate scales..  The solution is to approach things a bit differently using hierarchical coordinate spaces.

[Daedalus]

Doesn't a 32-bit float allow something like 1x10^12? Surely that's enough.

[John]

The problem is that the error increases with the size of the exponent.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_precision_floating-point_format

[TahPaghTahBe]

Hi people and developers,
your project looks very interesting. 

About 3D, full scale planets, isn't the I-Novae engine (http://inovaestudios.com/) capable of supporting those once it is finished?
I am sure you have heard of it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fO7XhaTGDYg

Anyways, looking forward to a descent Star Trek game.

[Mark]

Yes, some lovely looking tech demo's from that engine. I'm not sure whether they gave a scale size for the planet in that video, but it looks much much smaller even than earth.

[Vlad]

Except the bugs with the 32 bit floats think about how hard and slow could be if you try to fly around a huge planet at ofcourse impulse speed.

[Black Patriot]

Except the bugs with the 32 bit floats think about how hard and slow could be if you try to fly around a huge planet at ofcourse impulse speed.

Well full impulse is approximately 1/4 the speed of light, so not long, but even a regular orbit around earth only take like 20 minutes, and that's unpowered, so a starship could do it a lot quicker than that.

[Nebula]

Well full impulse is approximately 1/4 the speed of light, so not long, but even a regular orbit around earth only take like 20 minutes, and that's unpowered, so a starship could do it a lot quicker than that.

takes 90 min to orbit earth not 20.

[BFGfreak]

Well full impulse is approximately 1/4 the speed of light, so not long, but even a regular orbit around earth only take like 20 minutes, and that's unpowered, so a starship could do it a lot quicker than that.

I thought it was closer to half of light speed, given the dialogue in the first star trek movie where kirk orders sulu to go at warp .5 on impulse power. But than again, continuity isn't exactly trek's strong suit, and they have number ranging from a fraction of light speed to nearly 80% according to memory aloha.

Now watching that infinity video, is that about what you were thinking with planets, the ability to zoom down close enough to swerve through canyons and skyscrapers then being able to zoom back into orbit seamlessly? (assuming you decel'd enough to avoid ripping the ship apart in atmosphere of course.)

[Black Patriot]

takes 90 min to orbit earth not 20.

Hmm, could have sworn I'd heard 20 minutes, might have been in relation to something else to do with orbit. I suppose it also depends on what orbit you're talking about.

I thought it was closer to half of light speed, given the dialogue in the first star trek movie where kirk orders sulu to go at warp .5 on impulse power. But than again, continuity isn't exactly trek's strong suit, and they have number ranging from a fraction of light speed to nearly 80% according to memory aloha.

Now watching that infinity video, is that about what you were thinking with planets, the ability to zoom down close enough to swerve through canyons and skyscrapers then being able to zoom back into orbit seamlessly? (assuming you decel'd enough to avoid ripping the ship apart in atmosphere of course.)

The impulse engines are capable of getting the ship to high sublight speeds, but the faster they go the more relativistic effects they feel, that's why theres a safety cap of 1/4 the speed of light (which Kirk ignored). If you have working warp engines then you can ignore that limit, but at the same time if you have working warp engines you could just use them instead.

[groo567]

according to memory aloha.

...I'm sorry, I just had to point that out because it made me laugh. 

Yes, some lovely looking tech demo's from that engine. I'm not sure whether they gave a scale size for the planet in that video, but it looks much much smaller even than earth.

In that demo I'm not sure whether they were using the full scale, but I've been following Infinity for quite some time (though not as closely as many others, I admit), and I know the intent is to use the engine to create a 1:1 scale galaxy with every object in it also being full scale, meaning stars, planets, nebulae, etc.. It's one of the selling points of the game/engine. The size in the demo might also be hard to perceive since they sped up time at a few points including approaching the planet.

[mtheumer]

What game, what PC could possibly have the juice to run a full scale galaxy with a game mechanic on top?

[Black Patriot]

What game, what PC could possibly have the juice to run a full scale galaxy with a game mechanic on top?

Depending on how it's optimized (and what degree of accuracy you're aiming for) it could be done on a desktop machine, but an easier (computationally speaking) solution is to have a distributed network of gamers, so that different players in different regions simulate the area around them and synchronize with a central server, so if they move to another area they get the latest data.

[Jon Deane]

My college has a blade center that could do it.  It has a total of 1 TB hard drive space and 2 TB of RAM.

[MajorD]

Full impulse has been over 90 PSL. The speed limiter of 25 PSL has never been stated nor displayed in the series. Considering they can reach those speeds in seconds, it should be possible to maintain an absurdly high orbital speed if they can turn the ship fast enough to accelerate into the planet constantly without over shooting.

[OneEyeMick]

What about the game Orbiter (More like a simulation). http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/
It has full size planets and realistic phisics and it isn't too processor intensive. The engine was custom built by the guy and it is free. It is really realistic so it has a steep learning curve.
This is an example that full size planets are possible by today's hardware.