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GalCiv ship scales

February 18, 2006 1:50:48 PM from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
This is going to sound stupid but bear with me:

Is there any way to determine what the real world scale of GC ships would be if they actually existed? The reason I ask is because it is hard to get a sense for how large or small craft is supposed to be.

Viewing the screenshots, its difficult to make an educated guess. From the looks of it, a rank and file starfighter seems to be roughly a quarter of a capital ship's size, which would be unlike anything I've ever seen scaled in any other sci-fi setting. It would seem to imply that all spacecraft regardless of class or function are especially large.

I realize that this might be due to the fact that if the ships were built to scale (as much as could be expected considering its a game) then presumably the fighters would be so small compared to the capitals, that you'd have to squint to see them.

Putting so much thought into something so trivial and taking this so seriously is personally frightening. If this post has caused the reader trauma in any way, sorry. But its killing me! Would a GC fighter flying next to a Capital ship look like an X-Wing flying by a Star Destroyer? Is there a tech you can research that gives you a life?
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Wesley Dimble
Join Date 09/2003
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Reply #1 February 18, 2006 2:27:46 PM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums
As I understand it, the smallest craft you can build are more like corvettes than snub fighters. They are designed to function on their own for long periods of time and a handful of people will live inside the smallest ship.
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Bradylama
Join Date 02/2006
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Reply #2 February 18, 2006 2:47:27 PM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums
That way of looking at it is particularly reflected in logistics considerations. The amount of points a ship takes up for a fleet increases by twos. Tiny hulls take 2 points, the next largest 4, and so on and so on. It's presumable, then, that the resulting ships scale up accordingly.

Snub fighters in warfare like that in Galciv would more likely be robot or remote-controlled rather than sentiently run.
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Franco fx
Join Date 04/2003
+59 moderator
Reply #3 February 18, 2006 2:49:26 PM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums
The scaling is different in different situations. In the build mode the tiny hull has a 16+ capacity which would be easy to visualize as a ship no more than 30-40 feet in length. The massive hulls go up to 70-80 or so max capacity so that would be 5x larger or up to 200 ft in length which might be a little shy of what you would expect. A ship the length of a football field is not hard to envision.

If you choose to think of the tiny hull as a ship capable of carrying a crew of 4-5, the size goes up exponentially but I have a difficult time envisioning a tiny hull fighter that carries more than a pilot

In the battle mode you get a better idea of scaling with fighters being very tiny and Capital ship as huge.
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needystranger
Join Date 11/2003
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Reply #4 February 18, 2006 4:32:12 PM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums
I don't really view the tiny hull as a fighter hull.

Fighters are generally not built with particularly long voyages in mind. Which is why they're completely reliant on easily accessible refuelling and rearming facilities.

Each ship you build in GCII has the facilities to spend months in space and travel interstellar distances. Just look at what you have to put on them in game; engines capable of faster than light travel, life support and lifesupport. It just doesn't promote the feel of being a fighter jet to me.

That's just my rather uninformed opinion however, never even played the beta so what would I know?
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Soulfire777
Join Date 03/2003
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Reply #5 February 18, 2006 7:29:48 PM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums
I find myself thinking of the smallest hulls in GalCiv as being small corvette class vessels with a crew complement of 5-10ish, but that's just how I choose to envision it personally.
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Splitski Sin
Join Date 02/2006
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Reply #6 February 18, 2006 8:00:31 PM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums
Its not just Europe, here in Australia we wont be getting it until mid-March as well.
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needystranger
Join Date 11/2003
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Reply #7 February 18, 2006 9:29:03 PM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums
Ugh, just found a glaring typo in my post. Instead of repeating life support when listing ship components, the last one should be sensors.
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Prince of Crows
Join Date 02/2006
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Reply #8 February 18, 2006 10:00:13 PM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums
Plitski Sin as a New Zealander I feel your pain about the release date. That's why I decided to order the game direct from Stardock, meaning I will be able to download and play on February 22nd (NZ time).
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Sencha
Join Date 05/2003
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Reply #9 February 19, 2006 6:45:22 AM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums
Thanks for the feedback all. I guess it stands to reason that the ships would be bigger, cool.
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Axel Kane
Join Date 01/2006
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Reply #10 February 27, 2006 4:09:38 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
I would call "tiny" a heavy fighter, and " small" a gunboat. There was a posted gameplay example not long ago in which one of the Stardock guys came up with ship stats for each class (eg., size, crew, engines, etc). I think you make them up yourself.
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Axel Kane
Join Date 01/2006
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Reply #11 February 27, 2006 4:36:52 PM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums
This is the journal post that contains examples of ship scales:https://www.galciv2.com/Journals.aspx?AID=101743.
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Bahumaut
Join Date 02/2006
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Reply #12 February 28, 2006 5:18:20 PM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums
Well I was just thinking about the troop transports though. I'm assuming these are regular troops rather than robotic troops, which means that you can figure out the space it takes for 500 divided by the size of the transport unit. Since I"m not at my game (dang you work), then I can't give you that number, but that would be a decent basis to tell how much space is related to size for units. The food and bathroom facilities would definitely be a problem though, along with the smell
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