Starship Dimensions

[KroLazuxy_87]

Link to Starship Dimensions

I see a lot of arguments about the size of starships and other things found in science fiction. When I found this site, I knew it'd be helpful.

The site allows you to physically see and compare multitudes of scifi writers' creations. The webmaster quotes the sources for where he gets his dimensions and often provides links, sometimes even to the sites that argue a minority opinion for a different size.

I hope this sticks around for a while and helps everyone.

[Bounty]

Not only is this extremely old, its accuracy is suspect.

[KroLazuxy_87]

Not only is this extremely old, its accuracy is suspect.

I was afraid I would get a response like this. I do apologize if it's old or has been posted before, however after searching the forums I was unable to find it. Since the sizes of the starships aren't actively changing, I don't think it matters too much how old it is.

The site itself quotes it's sources and admits when the sizes are suspect. I merely meant this as an interesting site for people to get a start if arguing sizes or just curious. Wikipedia isn't a reliable source either, but it can be a useful place to start.

[Bounty]

Oh, it's certainly interesting. It just pays to keep in mind that at the end of the day it's a hobby project, and there's more than one ship in there whose size is is dubious.

[tim31]

At least Jeff Merzo was honest enough to change the size of the SSD when the official word came down, although it was a bit too late; even he should have known better than 'eight kilometres' lol.

[Captain Seafort]

At least Jeff Merzo was honest enough to change the size of the SSD when the official word came down, although it was a bit too late; even he should have known better than 'eight kilometres' lol.

The story I heard (why may have been lurking here) was that it started out as 17.6km, but he got grief from various idiots so it got changed down to the "official" 8km to stop the whinging. Then, when the official length went up to 19km, so did he.

[Crossroads Inc.]

One thing ive learned about Jeff is he is rather gaurded when it comes to debating things certain things. He once VERY briefly had a Forum of his own that was made for people adding ideas and discussing sizes. Within the first two months, after a series of very heated debates, he closed and shut down the forum saying he didn't like how negative everyhting had become (which in truth was tame compared to SDnet standards)

[Stark]

Yeah, he was basically a huge pussy. He'd set something to the 'right' size, a bunch of impotent nerds would rage on the forums about twenty year old RPG sourcebooks, and he'd cave to the no-pressure.

[tim31]

Well, in his own diminutive self description:

[Stark]

He can be a shortass mammas boy all he wants, there's STILL nothing a forum full of retards could do except rave impotently (which would haev been pretty funny to watch).

[CaptHawkeye]

I remember discovering his site years ago and thinking it was a cool little thing for a bit. But I also noticed the frequent changes in size for ships and it was pretty obvious he was letting the fat, Cheese Doodle nerds control his website by "e-bullying" him.

Still, it was cool to finally get a good idea of how big V'Ger and the Halo were to other objects in sci fi. I'd like to see a hilariously nerd-broken size comparison for Mecha to be honest. See I actually want to know how tall a Battletech Mad Cat is compared to, say, Evangelion Unit 01.

[Stark]

I actually mentioned that in a testing thread; mecha are generally much bigger than Battletech stuff and EVAs are huge, Transformers aren't really as big as people think, etc.

[CaptHawkeye]

I actually mentioned that in a testing thread; mecha are generally much bigger than Battletech stuff and EVAs are huge, Transformers aren't really as big as people think, etc.

I've noticed a lot of the western-ish stuff seems pretty small compared to Mecha. That's not "as a rule" however. I'm interested to know why people think the Transformers are very big though. They're just shape-changing cars. They LOOK big, because a Camarro standing up on two legs would seem big after all. But ultimately they aren't THAT big.

Conversely the EVA's are the size of skyscrapers...as a minimum. Gainax has stated even they don't know what their size is, and that it bounces back and forth between 40m/200m in the series. Ironically I think the EVA's tend to end up looking smaller than they are, due to the low budget the series suffered from.

BTW: I just caught some fools running a "Starscream vs. Unit 01" topic on some website. Does that make you sad or what? Starscream is supposed to beat a mecha that could swat him out of the air like a mosquito?

[tim31]

Sorry could you explain to me how a low budget results in inconsitencies in the size of something that's been rendered by hand? Not enough QA? Couldn't afford a continuity editor? Not being a prick, I genuinely want to know.

[Darksider]

I actually mentioned that in a testing thread; mecha are generally much bigger than Battletech stuff and EVAs are huge, Transformers aren't really as big as people think, etc.

Are there any stats that give definitive height in meters for Battlemechs? I've even checked out the TRO's online, and they don't show size specifications, just weight. The only thing i've ever seen with regards to battlemech height is teh wiki that classifies them as between 7 and 17 meters tall.

[Stark]

Apparently the heights are somewhat 'flexible' (although scaling should set firm upper and lower limits). For instance, when I first had the idea I poked around - many fans are distraught and enraged that MW4 reduced the height of xyz mech from ~22m to ~18m, apparently just off their own bat. I guess the ones they stole from Macross would be able the same size as Destroids.

[andrewgpaul]

There's several pieces of artwork showing 'Mechs with crews standing around them - you could use those for some sort of scaling, I suppose. But with perspective issues and the assumption of "standard human" height, it might not be worth the effort.

[VF5SS]

Apparently the heights are somewhat 'flexible' (although scaling should set firm upper and lower limits). For instance, when I first had the idea I poked around - many fans are distraught and enraged that MW4 reduced the height of xyz mech from ~22m to ~18m, apparently just off their own bat. I guess the ones they stole from Macross would be able the same size as Destroids.

The rule of thumb from the board game was that 'Mechs are around 12m tall since each height value is 6m and a 'Mech can hide behind a height 2 hill or building without going prone. Stuff from Dougram is in the 10-12m range and the Destroids are about 11-12m tall. I can't recall where I saw this but I think an Altas Battlemech is supposed to be 15m tall. Very few shows outside of Gundam do the whole 20m tall thing.

[Ford Prefect]

I'd like to see a hilariously nerd-broken size comparison for Mecha to be honest. See I actually want to know how tall a Battletech Mad Cat is compared to, say, Evangelion Unit 01.

While I've never seen one featuring Western mecha (cept destroids lol), there are like a billion height comparison charts for mecha. PainRack reckons that the average height for Battletech is about 10-12 metres (as Veef says), but a scale model of the Atlas actually gives it a height slightly shorter than the original Gundam. Also, there is GAINAX production art for the Evangelions which scales Unit 02 to parts of the fleet from its introductory episode, at 60m tall. They're explicitly eighty metres tall in the Rebuild films, too. I tend to go with the 60m figure because it's official production art, not constrained by drammatic necessity and so on.

Hilariously, they get scaled at something like 20m for some of the early Super Robot Wars games.

Sorry could you explain to me how a low budget results in inconsitencies in the size of something that's been rendered by hand? Not enough QA? Couldn't afford a continuity editor? Not being a prick, I genuinely want to know.

While it does take time (and thus money) to keep things consistent in animation, I don't think you can blame NGE's amazing variation in size on budget. It's almost certainly for drammatic effect in a lot of scenes, like how in order to appear on screen in a long shot of the Zebra Sphere Unit 01 is hundreds of metres tall.

[Majin Gojira]

I'd like to see a hilariously nerd-broken size comparison for Mecha to be honest. See I actually want to know how tall a Battletech Mad Cat is compared to, say, Evangelion Unit 01.

While I've never seen one featuring Western mecha (cept destroids lol), there are like a billion height comparison charts for mecha. PainRack reckons that the average height for Battletech is about 10-12 metres (as Veef says), but a scale model of the Atlas actually gives it a height slightly shorter than the original Gundam. Also, there is GAINAX production art for the Evangelions which scales Unit 02 to parts of the fleet from its introductory episode, at 60m tall. They're explicitly eighty metres tall in the Rebuild films, too. I tend to go with the 60m figure because it's official production art, not constrained by drammatic necessity and so on.

Hilariously, they get scaled at something like 20m for some of the early Super Robot Wars games.

Really? I thought they were listed as Size L (~50m). Size M IIRC, was ~20m (and covered Mazinger and Gundam). Veritech's were Size S, and people were Size SS. Daitarn 3 (150m) was LL and Gunbuster (250m) I think was XL

Perhaps Eva's size varies from Game to Game.

[CaptHawkeye]

They're explicitly eighty metres tall in the Rebuild films, too. I tend to go with the 60m figure because it's official production art, not constrained by drammatic necessity and so on.

I think people tend to get confused as to "how" they should frame the Evas to find their size. For a while it unfortunately came down to little more than good judgment.

Every time we've seen humans standing next to the Eva's though, they're usually size consistent. Shinji was about the size of one of Unit 01's finger segments in EoE. Misato was too in an episode. So the 40m/60m figure is reasonable. Of course i'm comparing Rebuild to NGE here.

Hilariously, they get scaled at something like 20m for some of the early Super Robot Wars games.

Mna video games are hilarious. How do you balance the God-mecha against....a Gundam? Just make it smaller? According to those games Shinji is a Hobbit!

While it does take time (and thus money) to keep things consistent in animation, I don't think you can blame NGE's amazing variation in size on budget. It's almost certainly for drammatic effect in a lot of scenes, like how in order to appear on screen in a long shot of the Zebra Sphere Unit 01 is hundreds of metres tall.

Well, I associate with fluidity of movement and camera placement to be honest. NGE's fight scenes depict Evas as capable of human-level reaction time and movement. As if they were basically normal size humans. EoE came along, and gave Anno the budget he wanted since the start. Compare Asuka's "last stand" to the hilarious 60 second "synchronized" fight in the series for a good idea of the differences in movement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtA2hxsV ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iH32Chen ... re=related

[Lord Revan]

Sorry could you explain to me how a low budget results in inconsitencies in the size of something that's been rendered by hand? Not enough QA? Couldn't afford a continuity editor? Not being a prick, I genuinely want to know.

well good animators cost money to hire and employ and if you have small budget you settle for less talented people you might end up with model inconsistencies.

[Majin Gojira]

Hilariously, they get scaled at something like 20m for some of the early Super Robot Wars games.

Mna video games are hilarious. How do you balance the God-mecha against....a Gundam? Just make it smaller? According to those games Shinji is a Hobbit!

Actually, they do a few things:

1) Real Robot Attacks are all multiple shots, while Super Robots just open fire with one weapon at a time.
2) Real Robots dodge like crazy, Supers take it to the face (and keep on tickin').

It's telling that more Real Robot pilots get a spell for "Auto-Doge" early on, while Super Robot pilots gain "1/4 all damage this turn" or "All damage taken this turn is reduced to 10" spells instead.

Eva's are one of the weird ones in that they have the dodging skills and (Low) armor of a Real, the HP of a Super and then the AT Field which is effectivly "If the damage to be dealt is less than (Some number I forget) then the AT Field negates it entirely. It it's more than that, it peirces the AT field and does full damage)."

This turns them into Ground Pounding Mook Sweepers. Most Reals like Gundams are Pingers and Annoyances to bring down shields through repeated pelting of small arms.

[VF5SS]

Speaking of mecha sizes, because I am a freak CollectionDX contributor I have a collection of robot toys and models in 1/60th scale. Valkyries, Gundams, and Transformers oh my. I've been meaning to do a picture like this for a while.

[Ghost Rider]

I have to bring two parts up.

One, you cannot fathom to believe you are the first person to cite that site on a forum of SW geeks? Second, the guy is not only a pussy, he just makes it up with popular opinion. Really, the site in general is nice to see what new hip thing he plastered to go "Look, a ringworld!! Unicron!!!".

Continue on with the mecha discussion because it's amusing.