Birth of the Federation

Sct pointed out a shield display bug on the Galaxy class.
The shield graphic should be at edge of saucer or just past it.

After a bit of testing it looks like the "model radius" was edited at some point by the developers.
Note; I use the term "model radius" since this is what UE calls this value.

But this bug is also present in many vanilla models. So the question is why was this value edited during game production?

First let me explain "model radius" value
in the hobs at 0x68 4 byte float value is model radius. this value is exactly as described, distance from center point of model to furthest point of model. but also keep in mind not all models were centered before conversion.
during model conversion this value is written, hot file model radius x scale entered during hot to hob conversion.

So if value is unedited after conversion shield graphic should display properly.

Now back to possible reason why this value was edited. in combat this value is used to calculate hit/miss probability, the larger the target the easier to hit.
So I suspect they lowered the model radius to make some ships harder to hit? and this caused the shield display bug on the Galaxy class and many other ships.

lowering this value does not change the size of model when displayed in combat (only phaser slot scale does this), but if model radius is edited smaller it will move model closer to enemy and if model radius is edited larger it will move model further away from enemy (klingon starbase distance bug).

I thought this was just very interesting, so thought I would share info.

Fascinating; I'd never noticed that before.

So if I'm understanding you correctly, perhaps the developers increased the model radius because initially the Galaxy-class was a little too difficult to hit?

Martok wrote:So if I'm understanding you correctly, perhaps the developers increased the model radius because initially the Galaxy-class was a little too difficult to hit?

no, it is the other way, they decreased model radius to make it harder to hit.

current model radius of Galaxy class is 479.4762
to correct display bug it would need approx. 600.0 model radius
but in my tests 9 romulan ships destroyed it 3-4 shots earlier on first turn of combat when corrected.
I also tested it with a model radius of 10.0 combat lasted 3 turns before same 9 romulans ships destroyed the galaxy class
then tested at 1.0 and galaxy class destroyed all of the same 9 romulan ships in 4 turns

Ha, gotcha. Interesting test results...