Hi. I'm scaling the raptor, so this is really the first instance I've had to do real obvious ship-size comparisons.. in a long time. It has come to my attention that the centurion is amazingly small. Like, the Cent and the Vult used to be similarly sized (last time I did this, maybe 4 years ago).. I dunno if Waylon rescaled based on the cockpit size or what.. but it seems kind of ridiculous. Yes, I always knew the Cent was small.. but not THIS small.

Here's a Vulture compared to a Centurion. The Vulture nearly completely encompasses the Cent:

http://www.incarnate.net/cent1.png

Here's a Warthog compared to Cent, yes the Hog is a "medium" ship, but still.. the Vult is supposed to be a "light" and it compares roughly in scale to the Hog.

http://www.incarnate.net/cent2.png

But Wait! What about the whole.. The-Vulture-Is-So-Thin argument? They're roughly equal in combat because the vulture has such a tiny head-on aspect.. right? No:

Here are the collision meshes (we use simplified collision models for reduced server and client CPU overhead)

http://www.incarnate.net/cent3.png

head on:

http://www.incarnate.net/cent4.png

I would guesstimate that the Vulture has roughly 60% more collidable area in a head-on configuration.. where we spend most of our time when fighting. We all know its collidable area is horrific when seen from above or below, so I won't go there. Due to its tiny size, the Centurion has the advantage no matter how much the various ship stats are tweaked.

I propose increasing the size of the Centurion. I'll scale it uniformly.. its handling behaviour should not be changed at all by this (distribution of mass will remain the same). I'm not saying a massive change either, but maybe a 40-50% increase in scale. Something to bring it in line with.. seemingly.. all the other ships.

I have no idea why it was scaled this small in the first place. Perhaps Waylon scaled up all the other ships and forgot this one, or did some sort of cockpit-versus-station-window sizing thing. I have no idea. But from a game balance standpoint, it seems wrong, and I would like to fix that.

I welcome input and comments on this. This change will not appear until the next Great Big Client Release, which will be at least a couple of weeks away.. so please debate any merits in the meantime.

* * *

Unrelated giggles: this is the amazing new ship you create when you layer the Vulture, Warthog, Centurion and not-scaled-yet Raptor on top of each other!

http://www.incarnate.net/cent5.png

YYYYYYYEEEEEEESSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!
WWWW00000000000ttttttttt!!!!!!!

That's all I can say for now, I'll say more once I-

Making the Cent bigger would help a lot with making it less uber, but it'd also make the Cent less unique. Over in the "Racial Identity in relation to the nation-specifics." (here: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/12339#151587 ) I suggested cutting its mass and thrust significantly, so that it would take a bigger maneuverability penalty when mounting more massive weapons. But Spellcast said he thought there was a game-engine limitation that precluded decreasing the Cents mass. If that's the case, then making the Cent bigger (and possibly cutting its armor, the other thing people have been suggesting) would be good, but if possible I would actually prefer keeping the Cent tiny, but cutting its mass & thrust so it's less able to handle mass.

[edit]
Also, how does the Cent compare with the EC-* class ships, size-wise?
[/edit]

Yay :D

Wow. This makes me quite happy.

Just from looking at those drawings, I'd say go for 33%, which would make it a little longer than the vulture, nose-to-thrusters wise. It will still have less "frontage" than the vulture because it lacks wings, and will still remain a hard target to hit due to its maneuverability, but it won't be as damn hard as it is right now.

:)

Inc, this post has reaffirmed my faith in you guys, you ARE thinkin bout these things!

Bout damn time it got larger. Return the art of keeping the vulture
flat as a pancake.

You rock dude, yes, PLEASE!

P.S. That Vulcenhoptor rocks, when can we see it ingame?

do it

Yeah!

Best post i've read for a long time!

Hehe, I want the cent5 ;)

Praise DEV.

I'm all for making it larger..

Alternatively leave it the size it is and cut its armor in half.. All along i've been saying that a ship that small couldnt possibly be more than a cockpit and engine and a gun.

Shape: "P.S. That Vulcenhoptor rocks, when can we see it ingame?"

That's "Vulcenwarthoptor". :)

"where we spend most of our time when fighting."

Not if you're Leber

Otherwise, this sounds pretty cool. I'm gonna guess that if someone stocks up on Cents before this update, they'll all be made bigger too?

I'm guessing the actual mesh will be resized, so any stockpiled ships will just burst their storage crates and become the same size as the "new" cents.

Right right?

I think Priapus has a point. Perhaps the solution is just to increase the fragility of the cent as previously suggested...

i have to admit i never understood the "the vut has a tiny front profile" argument, i just assumed everyone else knew something i didn't.

anyway, i'm not certain if the Cent should be made larger. my instinkt is to say that rather the Valk should be scaled down a bit, the Maud scaled up, and posably the Vult scaled down. but that's a lot more work than just resizing the Cent.

alternatively i think the Cents would be easily balanced by taking the second S port from the IBG and Rev-C. (thus making all Cents 1S ships, to account for their small size)

i'll have to think on this more before giving any firm sugestions though

I maybe make it 10% bigger and cut the armor by 1/3.

priapus, actually, the hog model completely encompasses the cent. the front-facing aspect, which takes most of the damage in a dogfight (unless, perhaps, you're LeberMac) is much larger than the frontal area of the cent. I could do another collision model comparison, or you can just take my word for it.

At any rate, the Hog isn't supposed to be "big" exactly. It's supposed to be a bit heavier ship, what with its large port and all, but not really physically much larger. Which is why the size comparisons of the Vulture to the Hog are actually correct, and the Cent seems so far out of whack.

The other issue (to respond to Lord Q etc) that we've been dealing with is the Cent being just frustratingly difficult to actually *hit*. It's super maneuverable, which I've discussed in other threads, and it turns out it's also much smaller than the next comperable fighter ship. I think I'll probably end up adjusting all three variables (size, thrust and armor), but for now we're just discussing the first one.

Oh yes please, bigger! Moth sized even! Ok, not moth sized, but bigger is a great idea.

-tm