#wow. i am so fucking normal about this game guys. hooooooly shit im so normal. i think about outer wilds a normal amount

[frostgnawdraws]

I've been staring at the travelers' ships and comparing them to hatchy's, like a normal person who likes outer wilds a normal amount would do, and figured i would share my observations for anyone it may interest. mass amounts of yapping under the cut ::3

starting with chert - their ship is a comparable size to hatchy's, and is configured the same way in that the cockpit view is parallel to the ground. it's a bit higher up off the ground, presumably to accommodate the boosters, which stick out from the bottom of the ship. there is only one booster module as opposed to hatchy's two. it actually has three cockpits, which i assume is to allow them more observation capability from within the ship. each cockpit module has a scout launcher and autopilot module, so its possible that all three function as an actual cockpit with a seat, controls, etc, but think it's more likely that this is because they were all copy-pasted and removing the launcher and autopilot from two modules was not an important enough detail to bother with (which, fair). Also, there is only one headlamp and landing camera, and their positions imply that the cockpit on the opposite side of the ship from the only non-cockpit side is the only true cockpit. also, there is no satellite dish for the signalscope, but there is an appendage for it. there isn't a scout in any of the launchers, but their scout is visible at their camp. their ship does not have a visible entrance. not entirely related to the ship but also of note - i might be wrong but i believe they are the only traveler to have a visible signalscope at their camp. also, the radio at their camp looks different from all the other radios in the game (as far as im aware). just from how it looks i would guess it is an older model? but its also possible its a newer one, although i doubt this since chert is implied to be one of the more experienced astronauts and, although they cant have been on ember twin for THAT long since one of their recordings mentions hatchy ("the new astronaut") and hal's translator, I would guess they have been on their current expedition for longer than either gabbro or riebeck. on the other hand, esker has the same radio model as gabbro's and the one in the museum/observatory, and they supposedly don't come down to timber hearth very often, nor are they visited by other astronauts often. still, its not out of the realm of possibility for esker to have a newer radio than chert, just interesting.

next up is riebeck! their ship is also of comparable size to hatchy's, although it is configured differently, with the cockpit view perpendicular to the ground. their ship has two booster modules sticking out of opposite sides of the ship, the same as hatchy's. two sides of the ship have oxygen and fuel tanks attached, as opposed to one side of hatchy's. they have a visible scout launcher and autopilot, with no scout in the launcher and their scout visible at their camp. they have headlights and a landing camera, although the positioning of the headlamp does not make sense to me since the light would not be hitting anything the cockpit is directly facing - im guessing this is the same as the triple scout launchers and autopilots on chert's ship, and is simply a detail too unimportant to bother with. Their ship has a hatch on the bottom that looks the same as hatchy's. riebeck also does not have a radio at their camp, which I found interesting. i think based on their ship, their recordings, and what others say about them that they are on their first expedition and are the newest astronaut aside from hatchy, so its possible that the newer astronauts have a radio built into their helmet?

next up is gabbro's ship. its a bit smaller than hatchy's, although configured almost identically, with a cockpit parallel to the ground, two booster modules, oxygen/fuel tanks strapped on the back and top (with a bit more stuff strapped to the top than hatchy's), and a hatch on the bottom. the hatch is wooden instead of metal and glass. their ship is the only one to have visible antennae and an external radio, and they also have a radio at their camp. coming back to the possibility of riebeck and hatchy having radios built into their helmets, if this was true i don't know why gabbro would have so many antennae while neither chert or feldspar have antennae on their helmets or ships? although gabbro also mentions having the same map functionality as hatchy, and the museum exhibit states that the 3d map is used by their "newest astronauts," so maybe the antennae on their helmet and ship are for the deep space satellite rather than radio transmission, and for riebeck and hatchy they have improved their technology so it doesn't necessitate as many antennae as well as adding built-in radio functionality to the helmets. gabbro's ship has an autopilot module as well as a headlamp and a landing camera. like chert, they have an arm for a satellite dish for the signalscope, but no actual dish. there is no visible scout in the launcher and also no scout at their camp - its possible this was just an unimportant detail, but knowing gabbro i like to think they don't bother to recall their scout when they launch it until they need it again and just let it hang out wherever it lands lol.

and last but not least is feldspar's ship! their ship is quite a bit smaller than hatchy's and is easily the smallest of the ships visible in the game. it is configured like riebeck's (or, rather, riebeck's is configured like feldspar's) with the cockpit facing perpendicular to the ground. it doesn't have any oxygen or fuel tanks attached, although its possible that a) those got knocked off in the crash or b) there wasnt room on the ship for an existing oxygen-and-fuel-tank-bearing-module and they didn't want to model anything new for it. also, they have an autopilot module, a (empty) scout launcher, a headlamp, and a landing camera, although the landing camera is completely blocked by the thrusters. also, there is no visible entrance to the ship. I am assuming that the positioning of the headlamp - like riebeck's, its not pointed in the same direction as the cockpit view - and the presence of an autopilot module and a landing camera are most likely due to the cockpit and landing gear models being copy-pasted between ships, as i really doubt feldspar wouldve had an autopilot or landing camera, although i suppose the autopilot could also be explained as being a very rudimentary version (which could also go for other astronauts like chert and maybe gabbro), ex. being capable of locking onto things and calculating the ship's relative velocity and direction of movement, but not actually maneuvering the ship (or maybe even less functionality than that, who knows.) the reason i'm so confident feldspar wouldn't have had an autopilot system as advanced as hatchy's is because a) they would not use that shit and b) its implied to be a work-in-progress, as one of slate's lines is "I can’t wait to get back to working on the new ship. We’re working on fixing the autopilot’s avoidance system for this one," and also i like to think the full-fledged autoflight system that completely takes over control of the ship's movement was developed in response to feldspar's disappearance - also due mainly to one of slate's lines, "it’s finally time to test the new landing hydraulics with a pilot instead of the autoflight system." this could just be because all their other astronauts are currently on expeditions and aren't available to test-fly anything, but i also just really doubt that riebeck or chert would be willing to be test-pilots?? gabbro might, but who knows. the other astronauts are scientists with specific goals, while hatchy (and probably feldspar) don't seem to be scientists and don't have specific missions - as far as i can tell their job description is fuck around and find out, and it seems like hatchy, despite being a canonically sub-par pilot prior to the events of the game, is the only professional fuck-around-and-find-out-er aside from feldspar. anyways. basically i think the autopilot is a relatively new thing and slate only started working on it after feldspar fucked off to dark bramble because they didn't have anyone willing to test-fly their new stuff. also, the lack of scout in feldspar's launcher or at their camp is probably not an intentional detail but im going to pretend it is. my explanation for it would be that they either launched their scout into the bramble seed by their camp and didn't manage to catch it on the way back and they don't have the warp retrieval tech, OR when their ship's electrical systems went screwy it sent the scout flying as it does with hatchy's scout if you launch your scout at the ship. also!! their ship actually has a signalscope dish, i think it's the only one aside from hatchy's to have the actual dish and not just an empty appendage.

anyways. wow thats more yapping than i thought it would be. in conclusion i think that feldspars ship is the oldest (obviously) and hatchy's is the newest (also obviously), with chert's coming after feldspar's and being the first to be configured with a cockpit parallel to the ground (plus the extra cockpits.... chert's ship is just very specialized lol), and then gabbro's after chert's, and then riebeck's, and then hatchy's. that order is mostly based on what order i think they became astronauts in rather than the features of the ships, but now that i've taken a look at the ships i think that order still checks out. i am very confident about riebeck being the most recent astronaut aside from hatchy, but im not sure why their ship would be configured like feldspar's is when chert, gabbro, and hatchy's ships are all configured differently? maybe they felt more comfortable with their ship being that configuration because it was an older design, although considering slate's track record i dont think older=better would be a logical conclusion to make in this case lmao. I also think considering how they feel about the gravity crystal pathways they probably wouldn't be a fan of their ship's default gravity direction being different from the planet it's on? idk, that configuration is probably how gossan's ship would be constructed so maybe they were more comfortable with it since their flight coach was used to it and could train them in that configuration more thoroughly than the newer one. they also say "Feldspar would barely have laughed at me, I bet" in reference to their landing on brittle hollow, which implies that feldspar was present (or at least Not Missing) for at least part of their training.

honestly im not really sure what to think as far as how long feldspar has been gone for? everyone just says some variation of "a long time," and it has to have been long enough that they aren't actively searching for them anymore, which imo would have to be at least a year or two? (earth years, not timber hearth years - i usually ignore how long the in-game orbits, rotations, etc. take because while they work for the gameplay they are unrealistic and switching everything to earth-like day-night cycle, year length, making the loop longer, etc. makes more sense for the type of content i create) but if you look at feldspar's camp, while they are definitely not going anywhere, they seem to have a good amount of food and water. the trees are pretty tall but also timber hearth pine trees are clearly not like earth trees and its not unreasonable to assume the trees could have grown to that height in a few months or years. honestly canon compliance is not a super big deal to me so this is less of a theory and more of a Creative Liberty but my headcanon/interpretation/this-probably-isn't-canon-but-i-like-it-that-way version of how long feldspar has been in dark bramble is that, based on how people on timber hearth talk about them and the fact that there isn't an active search effort for them, they've been gone several years, probably somewhere between 3 and 5, but dark bramble is clearly a spatial anomaly and i would honestly be surprised if there wasn't some kind of time dilation fuckery going on in there, the node they're in could be on the other side of the universe inside a bramble orbiting at breakneck speeds around a supermassive black hole for all we know, and also i only care about scientific accuracy as far as i can throw it, so based on both the weirdness of dark bramble and the fact that feldspar is Not Dead, has a good bit of food and water, and is outwardly pretty chill about their situation (personally i think they're probably not as cool with it as they act, i think theyre in denial about needing help, but i do think their ability pretend to be chill with it implies they haven't been out there THAT long, bc i think if they had actually been there long enough for the space program to give up actively looking for them they would've eventually swallowed their pride and wouldn't be talking like they just left yesterday and telling hatchy to have ground control come get them "whenever they have time") i think that in the node of dark bramble they're in, somewhere between 8 and 12 months has passed. again that's not necessarily a theory on what is Actually True, it's not intentionally canoon-divergent but im not too concerned with being 100% accurate to canon if that makes sense?? wtv this started as observations about the travelers' ships idk how i even got to this topic lmfao

sorry if this is incomprehensible and thank you for coming to my ted talk ::D im gonna go lay awake in bed and think about this game for six hours