OpenXcom Forum
Modding => Work In Progress => Topic started by: robin on October 22, 2015, 10:23:32 am
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Soldier:
standHeight: 22
kneelHeight: 14
Muton:
standHeight: 21
kneelHeight: 16
Ethereal:
standHeight: 20
kneelHeight: 15
Snakeman:
standHeight: 18
kneelHeight: 18
Gillman
standHeight: 20
kneelHeight: 12
Seems strange to me that mutons (or even ethereals) aren't taller. Stats were just copied from original game?
What is kneelHeight used for? Ruleset reference says they're not used, but TFTD aliens still list the string.
Does it perhaps influence the height where the weapon bullet is generated?
Is there a reason why Gillman and Ethereal both being 20-tall, have different kneelHeight?
What kneelHeight value should I use for a 22-tall alien, 14 like human or 17 like ethereal>muton progression (20-15, 21-16 -->22-17) would suggest? Should I just omit the value completely?
Height, tell me your secrets.
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Kneel height is only used for 'xcom soldier' type units, all others can't bend their knees.
Height in general means 2 things: how tall your hitbox is, and how high your weapons are drawn. It adjusts, naturally, how high your 'eyes' and 'firing point' are, counting a fixed numbers of pixels from the top (so there is a lower limit to Height if you don't want to fire from below the ground).
There is a theory that aliens have lower height to compensate for the aforementioned stiff knees. However the impact on accuracy is minimal.
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You'd think Lobstermen would be like 8 feet tall.
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I would agree with aquanaut as per link in ufopaedia, I would assume that Lobstermen are massively taller than humans. https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Lobsterman
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Clearly the aliens' smaller hitbox is meant to represent their nimble agility at dodging shots, while the humans' bigger hitbox is meant to represent their fat asses that magnetically attract all shots within a ten-mile radius :P
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I would like to see just one sci-fi consider it canon that humans are among the largest people shown on screen. We are megafauna, among the largest creatures this planet has to offer, and we live on a planet that's rather large for its type. I'd wager when we finally do meet people out there, they'll mostly be smaller than us.
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I would like to see just one sci-fi consider it canon that humans are among the largest people shown on screen. We are megafauna, among the largest creatures this planet has to offer, and we live on a planet that's rather large for its type. I'd wager when we finally do meet people out there, they'll mostly be smaller than us.
Very true! Actually, in settings with many species, humans (for obvious reasons) are almost always average at everything (though in fantasy they tend to be the ones with short life span). Anything else is rare.
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Very true! Actually, in settings with many species, humans (for obvious reasons) are almost always average at everything (though in fantasy they tend to be the ones with short life span). Anything else is rare.
Yeah! It makes more sense we'd be a tall, heavy-G endoskeletal species with good vision, long life span, a poor sense of smell, and strange feet and teeth problems. Most intelligent tool users probably have a longer than normal lifespan, strong social bonds, prehensile hands or other grasping limbs, some kind of skeleton, and a large brain--though the brain could easily be stored in any part of the body or spread out all across the whole body.
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I would like to see just one sci-fi consider it canon that humans are among the largest people shown on screen. We are megafauna, among the largest creatures this planet has to offer, and we live on a planet that's rather large for its type. I'd wager when we finally do meet people out there, they'll mostly be smaller than us.
i've seen that once, and the invasion fleet was wiped out when they were accidentally inhaled by a small dog.
i think it was the hitchhiker's guide or something like that.
robotech inverted it, the aliens in that were 20 foot tall humans.
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Humans are mediocre because Earth is mediocre. Mediocre gravity I mean as gravity is a key feature. Heavy G worlds shelter smaller creatures in size than us because they can not let the luxury to grow big. Heavy G results dwarves but theoretically with very strong muscles so such a creature could be a Hulk on Earth gravity just way smaller and mayhaps less green and more intelligent... Low G on the other hand may result taller odds with weaker muscular system whom may have hard time in any stronger gravity environment. So a 3-5 meters tall low-G creature shall crawl on Earth mostly because the higher gravity exponentially make it's weight bigger. Just think about how hell we feel ourselves on a 3G world?
Another question is where are we? On dry or in water? Underwater the ceatures could frow bigger as a great portion of their mass are "carried by" the water. But such things shall literally suck on dry just like low-G creatures may do on higher G environment. And also matters what that "water" consist of. I mean there are ammonia and methanic oceans not only 2H+O result water-bodies out there. And just because we want to think that proper life can only evolve on earth-like conditions that is far from true. And we not even mentioned the option of Silicium-based life forms and their capacities. Si-based forms of life must be bigger than C-based ones because the physical properties or differences of such properties of the Si compared with C.
But for X-com it seems all the races originate from just as a mediocre gravitic environment as we do. Otherwise they may have little use of Earth even if they call it rich in any terms. Mutons are similar in size as humans they just hunched like gorillas. Floaters could be taller than we since they literally had the half of their body removed. Sectoids are small since a taller creature with such a big head shall walk hardly because of balance issues or would be quadruped in motion. Snakeboys are OK and nice since they may not live long enough to care about size matters - I assume those eggs finally kill them either hatch inside or just make them deadly exhaust just to lay them... Ethereals are cheaters. I think they are not much taller than their Sectoid or Aquatoid precursors just levitate hidden in their robes what show them bigger and nastier. I know they showed taller on pictures that is true... And about the rest of the alien branches! Tasoths sucks without skeleton on dry since they need 4-6x more energy just to sustain life-functions than a human. Lobsterfriends can not even move on dry only like a maggot and pray their carapace will not crush them and let them breathe - if they can breathe the way we do. Gillman is not much of a fuss. They are like we just with gills but they must be stronger and more muscular if they really want or need to operate equally effective on dry and underwater. Aquatoids are like Sectoids, though water-conditions may let them grow a bit bigger if they want. The only thing bothers me is this: The sleeping beauty in the stasis coffin in T'leth is really looks like Chtulhu?! Lovecraftian nightmare, the tentaculat's entry said, so why not?
So yepp, humans are the mediocre of everything. It is beacuse we find it satisfactory to think we are the "aurea mediocritas" of the "Creation" and thus good for everything even though excel in nothing... But it will be a nice surprise if turn out we are the most bugged creatures of the galaxy and we are far from that golden path. Reduce our racial self-esteem may help to get many things to their proper places...
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A very nice post! Quite observant. It might be incorrect, but you said so yourself.
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3G terrestrial worlds are probably very rare. When you pack that much mass into a planet, it tends to attract a lot of hydrogen during accretion. It is difficult for a terrestrial world to be more than about 2 Earth masses, which would put it at around 1.3G if it's iron or perhaps lower than 1G if it's carbon. Our planet is big and dense. Aside from Jupiter, which is a degenerate matter planet, Earth has the second highest gravity of the planets in our solar system. The only one higher is Neptune at 1.14G, because it is a fairly dense ice giant. Jupiter is over 2.5G but that's because its mass is beyond a certain point such that more mass added will not significantly alter its volume but instead will just increase its density. Gas giants like these may easily have very high G forces at their cloud tops, but terrestrial planets are not likely to be degenerate giants and thus will tend toward much lower G values.
Lower-G worlds could definitely host much larger life forms than Earth can, but most life doesn't evolve to be as big as it can be. We humans are near the upper limit of being easily manageable on land at our gravity, anything bigger than a bear needs a body built mostly around supporting its own weight. On the other hand, animals as small as mice have been shown to have high intelligence and complex social structures. This is why I think most of the people we meet will be smaller than us.
Life could potentially work on a solvent other than water, but the options are limited because you need something with a wide array of substances it bonds with and interacts with. The solvent doesn't just dissolve the organic compounds, it must be the main driving force behind their interactions. Water does that by far the best, but ammonia is another possibility because it is abundant and a very strong solvent. Life using ammonia instead of water would probably be much more limited in its developmental pathways because there are far fewer organic compounds that will form in ammonia. Silicon-based life is probably possible as silicon forms pretty much any shape of molecule that carbon will. But silicon-based life would probably have a slower metabolism and growth rate because silicones do not interact as strongly as carbohydrates do. Silicon-based proteins would have less energy and would be less active. If we found life based on ammonia and silicon, to that life we would probably be like the creatures in Aliens--ridiculously strong, fast, and powerful and seemingly able to do impossible feats.
Life might be more likely to start up in subsurface water oceans than on land oceans, because the former is far more common and far more stable. On the flipside, that stability could stagnate evolution. Life on a stable world will probably just be microbes until its sun dies.
I have noticed a common way writers differentiate humans is by saying we are creative or charismatic, it would be interesting to instead find that, more true to our primate roots, we stand out mostly by being conquering and nonconformist. Perhaps most peoples are more creative or charismatic than we are.
I'll bet it's uncommon for people to stand upright. Most life on this planet has a strong preference for staying low and sprawling out. Our stance is a terrestrial adaptation to an arboreal creature, a way to preserve stamina to make up for a lack of speed. We have a highly effective yet rather odd and ironic hunting style: we chase prey slowly over a very long period of time until we wear it down by our sheer ability to rest and regenerate less often and faster.
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I remember an odd fact from those times when I were on a medical education to be a physicist once - untill I left that university and graduated as a nature protection engineer instead of a physician... Bad choice I know now...
So there I heard that size and anatomy is strongly based upon the internal organs and their "designs". We have one heart and a pair of lungs what set us into motion and sustain our life circling our blood and move our muscles. But we got the same result if we may have two pair of lungs as the additional pair exchange the role of the heart. Need more space so four lungs may result a bigger body but have the advantage to be less vulnerable than a single heart (furthermore let us call it "core") as damage of the core often has lethal consequences but damage on the lungs can be more easily repairable by our body. If have enough lungs the damaged ones could regenerate even if collapsed. So a four lungs creature could be more durable for a price what life on Earth can not paid: Speed. Agility is a key for survival be it the meaning of run away or chase and hunt down prey. Slow motion in such an environment is lethal and illogical. But in other cases it may work. For example for Si-based life what not need to be fast but durable.
And I can easily imagine something similar for aliens. A long living race may not have a core. A core could be replacable with lungs but lungs can not be replaced by cores. Lungs somehow essential for bigger organisms to breath. But an alien environment with specific chemistry may found another solution during the evolution. Possibilities are extreme and wide in spectrum. Earth has only a few possible example, literally a one-in-a-million, but even here could be possible a dozen more solutions for the same matters of adaptation for the environment via evolutionary developments.
Frankly our "humanoid" anatomy is a wrong way in evolutionary aspect but it was the most easy adaptation for a problem. That is all. I doubt that intelligent and\or sentient lifes are like we. It is sure that the bulk of them is far from humanoid appearence and anatomy and trully alien in every meanings, be it size, internal structure or appearence.
And just to think about it solitary predators have more chance to evolve into sentience than socially developed "mices" as they more or less dominate their territories in some meanings. We were a fine example as humans basicly territorial beings forcefully banded together as our intelligence revealed that far better. Still we behave agressively and often territorial with each others despite that our genetics already have the basic schematics of social-structure. But this is something what could be quarell for a long time since our definitions and the nature's definitions often differ greatly. Still I vote for nature as she did a fine job for millions and millions of years while we made terrible mistakes within a few eons already...
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Fascinating information about lungs! It reminds me learning about land arthropods. Arachnids were perhaps the first to colonize land which was aided by their book lungs, which are kind of an inverse lung shape, allowing water or air to pass over a series of thin tissue slabs that carry the oxygen into the body--there is no pump. While our pumped lungs give us a strong advantage over their book lungs, what they have allowed them to get enough oxygen to stay on land indefinitely, having only to return to water to prevent drying out. It worked both in water and on land.
I think the creatures most likely to develop into "sentience" are those that are pressured by their environment to band together socially and shape their environment, but which are also pressured to become creative and rely less on instinct to decide what to build. There are many builder animals that are socially adept but they build largely by instinct and within a species the designs look very similar. Beavers may be on the edge, however. If they became much more creative and gained a desire to experiment with designs, they may begin building mud and stick houses and structures all over the place, solving many problems with these. Eventually they could become like us, building a civilization, teaching their young how to live in it, and tapping into the secrets of the universe all the while demolishing their planet like it's an egg and they are hatching.
Beaver people's tails may have become more flexible and better adapted to the wider variety of construction projects they pursue, and it's a trait that could get left behind when their projects inevitably require closer inspection with their eyes--or perhaps they become more flexible in body and hold their tail in view. Maybe their paws develop into hands like ours, though less primate-like and more rodent-like. Their front "paws" already are much like our hands. They might maintain a fascination for living structures and land developments even though they learn to pursue other construction projects. Perhaps irrigation will come easier to them while fortress walls may stump them for quite some time. But maybe they don't need walls. Maybe they don't have wars--maybe their territorial disputes are much less violent and aggressive. Maybe they go out to meet other civilizations as ambassadors for Planet Earth, apologizing for the damage caused by us as we fanned out into the rest of the galaxy.
Hmm...someone should write a book on the beaver people.
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Humans are mediocre because Earth is mediocre. Mediocre gravity I mean as gravity is a key feature.
I strongly disagree, mediocre to what? Saturn or Jupiter that will never bear life (or maybe not??)? With only one example is hard to talk about average, min or max of some group. We need at least 2 other examples to have idea where POSSIBLE are we.
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I strongly disagree, mediocre to what? Saturn or Jupiter that will never bear life (or maybe not??)?
Saturn's gravity is actually lower than Earth's. Even the red dwarf Proxima Centauri is only just over 5G. Planets, even those bigger than Earth, tend to be less dense. But even if they are the same density, increasing their volume does not increase the gravity as fast as you might think.
Mars probably has a more "medium" gravity, it's about 38% of Earth gravity. Martians might say that Earth's gravity is 2.6A.
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Saturn's gravity is actually lower than Earth's.
Actually it's a little higher, at 1.07 g :) At least Wikipedia says so.
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Saturn's gravity is actually lower than Earth's. Even the red dwarf Proxima Centauri is only just over 5G. Planets, even those bigger than Earth, tend to be less dense. But even if they are the same density, increasing their volume does not increase the gravity as fast as you might think.
Mars probably has a more "medium" gravity, it's about 38% of Earth gravity. Martians might say that Earth's gravity is 2.6A.
Good point, probably using gas giants as example wasn't best thing.
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Actually it's a little higher, at 1.07 g :) At least Wikipedia says so.
I guess you're right. I remember older data from my childhood. Well the important point is that Saturn's gravity is about the same as Earth's.
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I am not quite sure my english is widely developed enough to explain complex things on complex level. Gravity is not a force but the summary of forces what usually has a vector point toward a mass core. This mass could be either mater-concentration or extreme energy-flux as both result a special "trigger"-force what is the gravity in common sense. There are another gravity what is the weakest existing force between sub-atomic or atomic things although become exponentially stronger as the amount ouf such little things are grow. More atoms result stronger force, literally gravitic force, but this force is not what we call gravity. And gravity of a planet or any kind of matter-energy conflux is not constant. Gravity is weaker on the edge and become sligthly stronger toward the center. In Earth's case it is not much a deal as it always remain around 1G still the planetary core has a stronger gravity. In a gas giant like the Jupiter this is more spectacular as the upper levels has lower gravity than Earth while deeper levels has higher. But the atomic-level-based gravitic force of Jupiter is far superior and boost the overall gravity of the planet. Yes, it consists of gas but so many gas atoms that the atomic-level gravity is very high. High enough to result an almost hard planetary core, well more liquid core, of course. Earth has heavier elements but the number of atoms are lower than in Jupiter's case. Fewer atoms result less gravity. But I really think the two force need different names. Sure one is derivate from the other and strong bonds could find between them but there are also serious differences. And not to mention that one of them could bend or warp the space, like when you touch water's surface with your finger, when the other is the result of such "warp" as things literally slip or slide down toward the core of the warped area. And there are even factors of strings, and other sub-sub-atomic things.
Sorry if it were a bit consfusing or dizzy but I not learned scientific english deeply. I hope I could written it more or less understandable.
There is no real example what is great or small and thus I meant mediocre on a hipothetical level. Since humanity like to think that everything's measure is men I thought it could be a good example to use our planet and all it's datas as mediocre or average. Afterall what is smaller than our gravity we call low-G while what is higher we call high-G. So while not call ours as mediocre or average? I know it was a wrong example as it was a humanic example. We are only cosmic dust in a nameless wind somewhere in an unbelieveable big universe so all of our measurments are selfish and futile.