The scale of the ships seems off to me

Discussion in 'Planetary Annihilation General Discussion' started by devoh, March 14, 2013.

  1. devoh

    devoh Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    445
    Likes Received:
    404
    From the latest facebook update https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... =3&theater

    The smallest ships seems be the same size as the barrels of the battleship. One seems smaller, perhaps one is the shells. The other appears to be about the size of the barrels.

    Besides that the display made me giddy! Awesome work Uber team.

    -Devoh
  2. Pluisjen

    Pluisjen Member

    Messages:
    701
    Likes Received:
    3
    The big ones are capital ships. The small ones are regular ships.
  3. sinewav3

    sinewav3 Member

    Messages:
    37
    Likes Received:
    0
    I think that they are all too small. The big one only seems to be 90 meters long, needs to be 300 IMO. :)

    Edit to add: an Iowa class battleship is 270 meters long.
  4. hearmyvoice

    hearmyvoice Active Member

    Messages:
    204
    Likes Received:
    61
    And spruces seem to be only about 10 meters tall. :)
  5. zachb

    zachb Member

    Messages:
    256
    Likes Received:
    3
    The only thing I noticed is that the boats are bigger than most of the buildings on land, even the rocket gantry and that giant rail gun unit cannon.. And some of the trees could be a bit taller.
  6. atomcrusader

    atomcrusader New Member

    Messages:
    6
    Likes Received:
    0
    True, but man-made battleships reserve a considerable portion of its internal space
    for human lodging. These machines do not need them, and hence can do with much
    lesser size.

    I guess the apparent problem has to do with relative size: tanks and bots are looking a bit
    too big compared with the battleship. Maybe a 30% increase in size will be awesome.
    I just hope the ships won't get stuck too easily!
  7. Pawz

    Pawz Active Member

    Messages:
    951
    Likes Received:
    161
    I was thinking about the ship scale too.. and in a way it does seem a bit 'off'. Not quite large enough on the big ones, and a bit too small on the small ones.

    If you think about the scale difference between ships and tanks though in real life...

    Tanks take a few weeks to build, destroyers take about a year (10x more than a tank) and an aircraft carrier takes 3-4 years.

    So if we take the same scale and apply it to the game..

    Tank - In FA it takes 14 seconds to build a Striker tank.
    Destroyer - 140 seconds
    Carrier - 560 seconds

    Really rough numbers, but it gives you an indication of the resource differences going into these ships IRL.

    Interestingly the ratio between carrier and tank is then 1:40.. which when applied to meters in the real world (m1 abrams being 10m long) that makes the carrier about 400m, or relatively close to the real world difference between tank and ship!


    Anyways, long story short, our current ratio of size between tank and carrier is much more like 5:1. I could definitely support a much more graduated system than it is now.

    As of now, you have 4 'large' ships, and a bunch of tiny ones. Would be nice to see tiny, small, medium and large.
  8. amphok

    amphok Member

    Messages:
    139
    Likes Received:
    13
    don't make smaller bot and tank plz, i hate how small they are in supcom especially t1, i don't want ant units, but more like TA units, it's more menacing
  9. bobucles

    bobucles Post Master General

    Messages:
    3,388
    Likes Received:
    558
    This. Huge ships exist for human concerns, such as living quarters, hollow corritors, and supplies. It has nothing to do with killbot design. Taking away all the fluff leaves you with a hull, some engines, and guns.
  10. djunreal

    djunreal New Member

    Messages:
    58
    Likes Received:
    0
    And lots and lots of space for ammunition so you can blow more stuff up!
  11. atticusfinch

    atticusfinch New Member

    Messages:
    6
    Likes Received:
    0
    It is also worth mentioning that 'huge' ships were designed around the weapons systems. One of the main reasons why the WW2 Yamato super battleship was so big was so that it could equip massive 18" guns as well as a large array of AA batteries, torpedoes, aircraft, etc. You would be surprised how little space is reserved for human activity aboard one of these military vessels (an exception could be made for modern day super carriers though).

    That being said, if I got rid of the human element, would I shrink and streamline the weapon platform or would I use the space to add more armaments, firing controls, etc. ? Such a tough choice...
  12. lophiaspis

    lophiaspis Member

    Messages:
    215
    Likes Received:
    2
    The lack of human operation does indeed bring new considerations to warmachine design. For one, a drone battleship may not need a bridge. You could squeeze in an extra battery instead.

    For another, I'd like to see a battleship with ONE BIG RAILGUN instead of a battery. Might be more efficient, and would look really alien - like a machine did it :)

    edit: Guess the battleship bridge thing was addressed while I was away.

Share This Page