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Planets Atmosphere thickness and flight experience


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After beeing stunned by last presentation video there are still some little gameplay details that bother.

 

The planets atmosphere thickness is for me (at the present moment of the demonstrations) a lot too thin, and seeing mountains top reaching the space, or a ship quiting the surface of a planet in 10 seconds, breaks the height realism and the inimaginable infinity of the voide. 

 

I "personnally" think the atmosphere thickness is a very exiting moment when you get through it, from both sides

 

Either from a planet where you switch from the palpable to the intangible

Or from that little cockpit in what we could have spend weeks without seeing a moskito, to the real ground and its beauty, with that moment where your ship is shacking as hell and flames blinding you.

 

For now, impatiently waiting how this experience will be dealt with

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I believe it was said somewhere that the way things appear in all the videos we see now are simply for ease of showing off different mechanics of the game. I'm sure the atmosphere of planets will be more realistic upon release

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I was under the impression the planet was scaled down for presentation purposes. I agree it should have something too it.

 

I havent played much SE since planets but it seemed they had a good feel to it. climbing in altitude was a challenge. (well for me playing 30 min on the new system)

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I was under the impression the planet was scaled down for presentation purposes. I agree it should have something too it.

 

I havent played much SE since planets but it seemed they had a good feel to it. climbing in altitude was a challenge. (well for me playing 30 min on the new system)

 

Not sure where i read or listen to JC saying the planets size will be scaled to the one the demonstrated, about 100km diameter

But nothing mentioning its atmosphere

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I believe it was said somewhere that the way things appear in all the videos we see now are simply for ease of showing off different mechanics of the game. I'm sure the atmosphere of planets will be more realistic upon release

 

I believe too, its just the atmosphere topic has never been mentioned either by dev team nor members

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Not sure where i read or listen to JC saying the planets size will be scaled to the one the demonstrated, about 100km diameter

But nothing mentioning its atmosphere

 

In the first gameplay video you can compare the size of the space station (given as 8km) compared to the planet and the planet seems to have an approximate diameter of 130km already.

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In the first gameplay video you can compare the size of the space station (given as 8km) compared to the planet and the planet seems to have an approximate diameter of 130km already.

 

8km? thats enormous

so there is a huge problem of ships speed or building scale

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This is also a game. An Earth size planet is so huge in surface area -- 7 BILLION people can live on only 25% of it and even then there is a lot of wilderness. For a game of hopefully a hundred thousand active subscribers it is just too much surface area. There needs to be limiting factors to create conflict (in a general sense, not just combat).

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This is also a game. An Earth size planet is so huge in surface area -- 7 BILLION people can live on only 25% of it and even then there is a lot of wilderness. For a game of hopefully a hundred thousand active subscribers it is just too much surface area. There needs to be limiting factors to create conflict (in a general sense, not just combat).

 

The diameter of the Earth is around 12,500km.  I think what they are saying above is that the ~1-200km planet that is in the tech demos does not have remotely interesting atmospheric thickness and the height of surface features extends beyond the bounds of the atmosphere, and can provide a highly unrealistic experience for some users who would prefer to see a more realistic absolute depth to the atmosphere (as in, not relative to the size of the planet, but similar to that of Earth).

 

From what I've read, Alioth is supposed to be in the 1-200km range, but other planets will be larger and smaller (not sure about whether the atmospheric depth will be at release... someone ask on KS?)

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I understand the desire for realism in every game, but I have to say, of all the things to worry about, this is not one of them. Remember that a scaled down planet will have a scaled down atmosphere. If you gave any of these planets an Earth sized atmosphere it would be almost as thick as the planet itself. That's even besides the fact that flying in and out of that atmosphere (something we will be doing a lot, I hope) would get really boring really fast if it took 2 minutes every time.

 

But I completely understand where you're coming from. I just think that what amounts to a 2 minute loading screen to land on every planet is a real pain in the neck.

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Also remember J.C. said that they want constructs that are big enough to be seen from space to be visible from space.

 

I can imagine that if the athmosphere soup is to thick that wont work?

 

But I'm not a graphics artist so I could be wrong looking at it like that.

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I dont think anyone is proposing a 2 minute flight through atmosphere or a realistic depth to the atmosphere, but in the gameplay demos the devs have passed through the atmosphere in less than 5 seconds which, to me, completely removes any sort of barrier between the surface of the planet and outer space.  Somewhere in the 10-30 second range would, to me, provide for a more genuine experience and provide a border between space and surface.

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I dont think anyone is proposing a 2 minute flight through atmosphere or a realistic depth to the atmosphere, but in the gameplay demos the devs have passed through the atmosphere in less than 5 seconds which, to me, completely removes any sort of barrier between the surface of the planet and outer space.  Somewhere in the 10-30 second range would, to me, provide for a more genuine experience and provide a border between space and surface.

 

I agree, my use of the 2 minute example was to make a point about how total realism isn't something we want. I think 15-20 seconds would be a great time-frame to aim for, but of course it should depend on the size and speed of your ship.

 

I think it's also important to point out that, in the God Mode video especially, the Devs are using Dev Hacks to move around, which means they most likely were not moving at a speed anything like what we would expect to achieve in a regular ship. I wouldn't make any judgments at all from any of the videos currently posted. It's just too early in development.

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I agree, my use of the 2 minute example was to make a point about how total realism isn't something we want. I think 15-20 seconds would be a great time-frame to aim for, but of course it should depend on the size and speed of your ship.

 

I think it's also important to point out that, in the God Mode video especially, the Devs are using Dev Hacks to move around, which means they most likely were not moving at a speed anything like what we would expect to achieve in a regular ship. I wouldn't make any judgments at all from any of the videos currently posted. It's just too early in development.

 

Well, I am using the Spaceship Building Demo as my frame of reference, but I do understand your point and will wait to see what alpha brings.

 

(https://youtu.be/2zfnAtb6MZQ?t=9m5s)

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Space Engineers goes pretty hard on making surface to atmosphere travel both time consuming and difficult. For the game that it is, I think it fits. But Space Engineers also has a universal speed limit of 104 m/sec, which on a stellar scale is so slow that it's really impossible to even emphasize with a single adjective.

 

In a game like Dual Universe, the scale has to be small enough to add fun and coziness to planets. Super long transit times fit more realistic games, while DU is going for fun, interactiveness, and adventure. Look at Star Wars, those ships seem to reach the atmosphere ten seconds after taking off (yes, there is "editing"), and Star Wars is a series about adventure. While mountains seemingly extending into space is immersion breaking, the small scale of planets, and their distances from each other, is a design choice that many look upon favorably.

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