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Thread: OK How Big is Space?
Zaket
Fri Oct 22, 2004 10:12 am
#14
Mandril wrote:
13,856 meters on a side X 3 sides (X-Y-Z axes),~= 2.66 trillion cubic meters or ~=2.66 billion cubic kilometers.
Hmmm - I thought each axis went from -8000m to +8000m. That makes each axis 16k. Total volume of a zone would then be 16x16x16 or 4096 cubic kilometers.
Mandril
Fri Oct 22, 2004 1:22 pm
#15
Zaket wrote:
Mandril wrote:
13,856 meters on a side X 3 sides (X-Y-Z axes),~= 2.66 trillion cubic meters or ~=2.66 billion cubic kilometers.
Hmmm - I thought each axis went from -8000m to +8000m. That makes each axis 16k. Total volume of a zone would then be 16x16x16 or 4096 cubic kilometers.
One waypointtick is not equal to one in-game meter. In any space zone, go to waypoint 8000, 8000, 8000 and stop. From there, set a waypoint for 8000, 8000, -8000. The distance you get back is 13,856 in-game meters. You can go to any vertex (8 total) and shoot a waypoint to any other adjacent vertex and you'll get 13,856 in-game meters every time. So the volume is X*Y*Z where X, Y, and Z are equal to 13,856. That's 2,660,195,926,016 cubic in-game meters or ~= 2.66*10^12.
I might be wrong in the way I'm figuring cubic kilometers, though. If we take 13,856 meters, that's 13.856 kilometers. Cubing 13.856 yields 2,660.195926016 cubic kilometers. If I subtract 3 off the exponent 2.66*10^12 above to get cubic km I get 2.66*10^9...and now that I think about it I see my error there - I have to subtract 9 off the exponent (3 for each axis) and that gets me back to 2,660.195926016 cubic kilometers (13.856 km^3). Jinkies! No wonder I had to bail out of of Calculus II twice before I got through it!
Either that or the size of the space zones is actually zero, and we imagine it has volume through shared hallucination or sheer force of will..."Do you think that's air you're breathing right now?"
Or if you're a fan of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the answerto everything is42.
In any event, it takes me quite a few minutes to go straight from one vertex to another in an A-Wing clocking at 912. There's plenty of room for all kinds of stuff in each space zone.
PS: So for any given axis there are 16,000 possible wp's (+8000 -> -8000). So each wp resolves to 13,856/16,000 = 0.866 in-game meters....unless it's Thursday...and raining...then the answer might be different.
Firetracker
Fri Oct 22, 2004 1:40 pm
#16
It is suprisingly small... for space.
Missions at long distances will bounce you up against the sides. Touring space for more than 10 mins will bounce you into an invisible wall (in a non-starter ship). It is small enough that most missions seem to take you near some nasty POI spawn point. It is big enough that you wish that your starter ship was faster.
missimo
Fri Oct 22, 2004 1:51 pm
#17
ok this is concerning flying with the new star ships.
WIll you be able to fly your starships like we use the swoops we have now. for just same planet travel?
WIll you be able to fly your starships like we use the swoops we have now. for just same planet travel?
Message Edited by missimo on 10-22-2004 04:51 PM
JFreeman
Fri Oct 22, 2004 2:01 pm
#18
duncje
Fri Oct 22, 2004 2:08 pm
#19
JFreeman wrote:
Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the drug store, but that's just peanuts to space.
- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
LOL. Classic.
LeBob
Fri Oct 22, 2004 2:08 pm
#21
Space is not nearly big enough. If you have a ship that can go 2000, you can reach the opposite side in minutes. 
but I am still buying the game...
Message Edited by LeBob on 10-22-2004 04:14 PM
Headdead
Fri Oct 22, 2004 2:10 pm
#22
Mandril wrote:
Zaket wrote:
Mandril wrote:13,856 meters on a side X 3 sides (X-Y-Z axes), ~= 2.66 trillion cubic meters or ~=2.66 billion cubic kilometers.Hmmm - I thought each axis went from -8000m to +8000m. That makes each axis 16k. Total volume of a zone would then be 16x16x16 or 4096 cubic kilometers.One waypoint tick is not equal to one in-game meter. In any space zone, go to waypoint 8000, 8000, 8000 and stop. From there, set a waypoint for 8000, 8000, -8000. The distance you get back is 13,856 in-game meters. You can go to any vertex (8 total) and shoot a waypoint to any other adjacent vertex and you'll get 13,856 in-game meters every time. So the volume is X*Y*Z where X, Y, and Z are equal to 13,856. That's 2,660,195,926,016 cubic in-game meters or ~= 2.66*10^12.I might be wrong in the way I'm figuring cubic kilometers, though. If we take 13,856 meters, that's 13.856 kilometers. Cubing 13.856 yields 2,660.195926016 cubic kilometers. If I subtract 3 off the exponent 2.66*10^12 above to get cubic km I get 2.66*10^9...and now that I think about it I see my error there - I have to subtract 9 off the exponent (3 for each axis) and that gets me back to 2,660.195926016 cubic kilometers (13.856 km^3). Jinkies! No wonder I had to bail out of of Calculus II twice before I got through it!Either that or the size of the space zones is actually zero, and we imagine it has volume through shared hallucination or sheer force of will..."Do you think that's air you're breathing right now?"Or if you're a fan of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the answer to everything is 42.In any event, it takes me quite a few minutes to go straight from one vertex to another in an A-Wing clocking at 912. There's plenty of room for all kinds of stuff in each space zone.PS: So for any given axis there are 16,000 possible wp's (+8000 -> -8000). So each wp resolves to 13,856/16,000 = 0.866 in-game meters....unless it's Thursday...and raining...then the answer might be different.
Uhm....what????
Chrisalddin
Fri Oct 22, 2004 2:12 pm
#23
JFreeman wrote:
Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the drug store, but that's just peanuts to space. - Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Dam you Bet me to it,
you miss out a word here or there and it chemist, not "drug store"
should read
Space is big. Reley BIG. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.
- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
KrYpToFoX
Fri Oct 22, 2004 2:33 pm
#25
I agree...space is not nearly large enough...only 16km^3. If your in a SSD you would barly have sapce to turn around....Im fairly dissapoint at the lack of "vastness" in space...if anything, the zones should have been hundreds of km's in diameters...not 16... 
If you want to see how you should have done space(at least in terms of its size), go to mankind.net. While the game play preety much sucks, the scale of there universe is stagering. Thousands of systems, hundreds of thousands of planets...preety amazing stuff...DEV team take a look, this is the scale I would have expected things to be one. (we could actully hide rebel bases on remote planets!)
If you want to see how you should have done space(at least in terms of its size), go to mankind.net. While the game play preety much sucks, the scale of there universe is stagering. Thousands of systems, hundreds of thousands of planets...preety amazing stuff...DEV team take a look, this is the scale I would have expected things to be one. (we could actully hide rebel bases on remote planets!)