Map Scale

It's late and I can't even math properly when it's late so I'm probably doing something horribly horribly wrong.

PA Maps are measured in meters and SupCom maps in kilometers, so when finding surface area you must multiply the SupCom map size by 1000.

Seton's Clutch in SupCom has a side of 20,000 meters. The resulting surface area is 400,000,000 meters^2. To get this surface area in PA, the map radius must be roughly 5645.

To get even the same surface area as a 5 km map in SupCom (25,000,000 m^2), your radius must be 1410.

And you're telling me that PA is on a smaller scale than SupCom? The maps are smaller, but the scale is much larger.

Or I can't even math and need to be slapped right now.

Spoiler

2525 radius planet = 80 km squared about.

80 km ^2 = 80,000 m ^2 = 6,400,000,000 m^2
2525 m radius = 80,000,000 m^2

A radius 22560 would be required to have the surface area of an 80k?

if you totally ignore the fact that units in SupCom actually
a) are bigger
b) move faster

compared to the map yes.
You need to compare the ratio between unit size/speed and map size.
Not the map size alone. Those numbers are completely arbitrary.

uber PLS we want bigger maps!
basically all that's necessary is the removal of the radius limit.

There are a few units that do not follow this pattern...
The scout plane, for example - in PA it is ridiculously quick, but its supcom equivalent takes a really long time to move across the map - even the t3 variant.

just remove the radiuslimit he says ...

Take the side of a SupCom map in meters and divide it by 3.5, that gives you the needed radius to get the same area on a sphere.

But, as cola_colin put it, the size of a meter is arbitrary. What matters is the size, speed and range of the units in game.

Cola_colin is right, planet size is in relation to unit size and speed.

My theory for fixing this issue was doubling the surface area size of the individual tris/mesh segments that the planet is made of..

Edit...
Just realized that "Shrinking the units" or "Expanding the planet mesh so tris count is unchanged" is the same thing really .. lol

Direct size comparison is tricky if you're basing it on the given units of measurement. There's also the matter of multi planet systems meaning that the play are can sometimes feel bigger even if the actual area is smaller.

One final matter is also the inability in PA to see the entire theatre of war. In SupCom you can zoom right out and see the whole map and with suitable intel see everything that's going on. In PA even if you have advanced orbital radar covering the surfaces of every planet the most you can see is half a planet, you can more readily hide your plans from your opponent than you could on even the largest supcom maps.

Size and speed stuff is all relative. Its all a matter of ram usage of the planet, if the units are made smaller, the camera zooms in more and more detail on the terrain is required to make it visually appealing and it increases the ram usage. If you simply shrink the units, their speed also needs to be adapted otherwise they would walk weird and it might take ages before you get to the other side of the planet. If you take larger planets the ram usage is also increased, as is the time it takes before you get to your enemy.

And remember, compared to supcom we can have 16 maps in one game instead of one big map So I bet we can beat Supcom easily on total map size

You certainly can increase the perceived size of maps considerably without changing anything about ram usage, it's not as bad as you make it out to be You can shrink units without having them look weird for example. No need for more detailed landscape because of that either.

You could use the trees as a constant unit of measurement between supcom and PA. Assuming these are standard earth sort of trees.

making units in FA bigger than units in PA in that case.

really there is no one rule....

it all comes down to the feel

YEAH.
LETS NOT REMOVE THE RADIUS. I LIKE THAT IDEA BETTER

no, thanks, I don't like having the radius artificially limited to 1300

I can remember playing on a radius 2000 planet and thinking "this is pretty cool, and actually feels pretty big, can't wait to play on even bigger planets!" So when the 1300 radius limit was brought in I was pretty underwhelmed that I'd have to scale back my games to fit into that.

I really like the idea of playing games with a massive (Sorry but 1300 doesn't feel that massive to me. It's pretty big, but not truly epic ) starting planet, and some much smaller planets in the system tweaked for more specific purposes.

Make it so the same area has the same memory cost as Supcom and we can swipe out the radius limit immediately....

Game dev is hard.

Large radius planets are not possible right now due to the computing requirements. Once there are a lot of units the server will choke and slowly die. (well slow enough to make me quit)