Ship cargo values are arbitrary, aren't they?

[vvvvvvvv]

What title says.

Basically after elite, I hopped into Irukanji, out of curiosity checked its stats.

It has 530 cubic meters cargo volume! Looking at its model from external view, feels like the cargo area is maybe 10x2x2 meters which gives 40 m3. For comparison real world railroad cistern starts at 24 m3.

Similar situation with new courier ships. They have something in ballpark of 2000 m3 (I think), but inside the interior each cargo box is m3 at best.

Then there are mining ships with 50 fighter ships capacity.

Not saying it has to be changed, but cargo is not reflected in the model, right?

[adeine]

Cargo bay extension... INSTALLED

[TheDeliveryMan]

It's bigger on the inside

[dayang]

x4 has a degree of space folding technology. You can see this from the amount of fighters that can be stored on many ships. Basically imagine compression but for physical things, this is what Internal Storage does.

[Novvak]

What title says.

Basically after elite, I hopped into Irukanji, out of curiosity checked its stats.

It has 530 cubic meters cargo volume! Looking at its model from external view, feels like the cargo area is maybe 10x2x2 meters which gives 40 m3. For comparison real world railroad cistern starts at 24 m3.

Similar situation with new courier ships. They have something in ballpark of 2000 m3 (I think), but inside the interior each cargo box is m3 at best.

Then there are mining ships with 50 fighter ships capacity.

Not saying it has to be changed, but cargo is not reflected in the model, right?

Also let's not forget that builder ships (XL class) have 50 cubic meters of cargo space :d

[BitByte]

Also let's not forget that builder ships (XL class) have 50 cubic meters of cargo space :d

Don't forget that builders can carry 100-250 drones (depending from model) so that reserves plenty of space

X4 have excellent item compression rate not only for ships cargo but as player character have bottomless pockets to carry so many items with (spacefly caviars, crystals, first aids etc). Maybe better not joking too much or someone nerfs our ability to carry stuff too

[dayang]

Also let's not forget that builder ships (XL class) have 50 cubic meters of cargo space :d

Don't forget that builders can carry 100-250 drones (depending from model) so that reserves plenty of space

X4 have excellent item compression rate not only for ships cargo but as player character have bottomless pockets to carry so many items with (spacefly caviars, crystals, first aids etc). Maybe better not joking too much or someone nerfs our ability to carry stuff too

We can handwave that by getting "storage space rings". Might actually be a fun dynamic tbh. But personally I'd leave that to the modding community.

[CBJ]

Arbitrary, no, but you're right that they are not always a direct reflection of the exact ship design. There are good reasons for this.

The basic cargo capacity for a given ship is based on the overall size of the ship, its purpose, and the number and type of equipment slots it has. We then apply a bit of individual judgement depending on things like the faction characteristics, and then have to adjust it, sometimes several times, according to the needs of balancing, the economy and so on.

This all happens long after the ship asset is created and assigned to its role, and those final adjustments in particular have to be able to be made without reference to strict measurements of corresponding parts of the model. Models are occasionally revisited, but it's not usually practical to re-shape them to match balancing values, especially since those values might well still change again later.

[Virtualaughing]

If you play x2 then you understand that the cargo space size itself does not matter. To simple putting it. You can extend the compression rate of stored items. It is like a pump. Every push you make it becomes more expensive to buy.

[Caedes91]

What, there is cargo compression tech in X?

Man there is so much lore in the X-series that doesn't make sense. If humanity and the other races mastered space-time-bending technology like that, why are they even dependent on the jumpgates in the first place?