I only use FA off when turning after a target in a fight. Otherwise I lose control pretty fast, too.
How do you guys pull off FA-OFF flight?
- Thread starter ReaperSpace
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Nope - I had my XB controller set up with full range of motion back when ED still ran properly on my Mac Air. The right/left triggers were my yaw, pitch/roll on left thinbstick, lateral thrusters on right. the bumper buttons we my fire buttons, so my middle fingers took care of yaw, and my index fingers did shooting.
Of course, on an actually X-box, you can't map buttons... I never fully understood the widom in this, and it often annoyed me a great deal when I played a lot of XB games.
I actually ended up buying an aftermarket controller in the end that let me bind my own buttons. It worked wonders for my KD ratios in FPS games.
Z...
This. Fixed weapons whilst Flt assist off should be of the high damage per shell variety: plasmas, cannons and dumfire rockets. Another interesting point is that the less agile ships are better for fine aiming.(rails)
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Watch these videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt89DGmcqn4yBt9Wa2ckcTQ/videos
Tip #1 - Pay particular attention to the tethering exercises. Like Mr. Miyagi teaching Daniel-san to wax on and wax off, you're learning a more applicable skill.
Ideally, you want to be able to hit someone with fixed weapons without moving the stick much. You will be tethering to your target. Same principle, but more advanced when you're throwing in maneuvers, lower time on target, and avoidance flying. Still, start here.
Tip #2- Don't aim with the tip of your ship. Aim with your flight trajectory (versus their flight trajectory). If you try to aim with the tip of your ship in FA Off, pretty soon you're going to be spinning in place missing everything and getting wrecked by people circling you. Anticipate, anticipate, anticipate.
Example- You know your opponent likes to circle and joust. Drop out of the circle by using a lateral thruster and a little reverse thruster. Now your target is going to be flying right in front of you, from the left side to the right side. Tether to them. They are likely going too fast to change much in terms of flight path. Just tether to them and make minor corrections to adjust for their thruster use.
Tip#3- If you're using kinetics, start using the Trailing instead of the Leading reticle. (It's in the right hand panel). It's useful for Tip #2, because you'll be FORCED to anticipate their flight direction if you want to hit anything. Bonus- if your canopy gets breached, you'll be VERY happy you practiced this, because you can do the same thing using a multicannon as tracer fire to see where your shots are going to land (on the jerk that blew out your canopy, most likely). I switch between the two for practice, but I still use leading for PvP.
Tip #4- Pitch is for aiming. Yaw is for flying. This is not a hard and fast rule, but you'll have more fine control, and your ship maneuvers better on pitch axis than the yaw anyway. I have a very distinct curve on my Yaw. I want very fine control towards the beginning just for aiming correction.
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Interesting, I actually think its easier to fine tune the thumbsticks since my keyboard button is a static pressure (on or off). I also map my controller very differently from you, right stick is thrusters vert/hori, left stick pitch and roll (alternate flight controls left stick does pitch/yaw). But using the elite controller, I mapped l/r yaw to X and B and put that on the paddles on the back like rudders, making FA off pretty smooth with some practice. I guess your setup is more like an FPS game would be look and movement wise (left moves and right looks), and I am a big time FPS player but for some reason when it comes to flight my brain prefers left stick look and right stick move.
Yep similar setup as what I run, just paddles instead of triggers so I can keep them for shooting and I left my throttle on the bumpers
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I'm with a T-Flight X and the mechanical deadzone is indeed a pain for complete FA Off. I've learned to make very tiny movements and always correcting so I've grown used to it but I find it much more efficient to use a combination of both FA off and on at optimal times.
I mean, I think that's really how it is supposed to be used isn't it? I'm back after a long break but it used to be even the super hardcore FA off guys admitted that using a combo of both was actually most efficient and effective, but it was just more fun to F the FA so that was why they did it. I'm sure everyone's skills have progressed way further by now though so the skill gap growth could make my previous understanding false.
If you are just going for efficiency then yes switching is better. But full FA-off is more funFor me at least.
I'll have to check out your discord later today. I've been doing nothing but engineer/rank grinding for a few weeks, it'd be nice to take a break and just fly drills or shoot stuff. The KB+M setup you have looks interesting, kind of has me wondering if it could be easier than a controller since the counter input is always the same per length of time pressed when using a button vs an analog stick.... Could be too late to switch for me though too, so many controller hours
Your earlier description of trying to control the game with your feet on the keyboard and your brain rewired with dyslexia is very apt. That's just how the process works, I think. It's a very steep learning curve. When I first started playing I had maybe 500 hours on an xbox 360 controller, then I switched to an x52 Pro HOTAS and flew for another 2000 or so. On the day I decided to learn FA Off flying, I also decided to tackle using fixed weapons for the first time, and control it all with a keyboard & mouse. Complicating things was the fact that I never used a keyboard & mouse to control any other games before, and I had no fine motor control or muscle memory of my left hand to make the transition easier. That part alone was a big hurdle for me.
So, as you could imagine, controlling my ship was a frustrating experience where all I could manage the first week was navigating asteroids in a res. Gradually, veeerrrryyyy gradually I muscled through that initial barrier to learning and it began to click. One thing that helped was stubbornness. Another thing was just the discipline to turn FA Off and sort of sink or swim, like going cold turkey on quitting an addiction (done that, too).
I think it's fair to say that common wisdom is that FA Off/On should be situational for maximum efficiency and that most full FA Off pilots fly that way for professional pride and overall enjoyment. I know that for me, I derive a sense of satisfaction flying all FA Off that using assist never gave me.
You sir, are a glutton for punishment. I actually switched all of my gaming to PC when I built this (my first) rig last July, and actually in my competitive shooters I have far surpassed my previous stats and results by a country mile going to KB+M (after 30 years with a controller). So the thought of switching inputs isn't totally insane to me if in the end I'm better for it.
Actually since you're a known legit pilot on the subject, I know everyone goes for small ships to start learning FA off (I'm back after a 2 year break but I used to run FA off drills with a standard XB1 controller and was able to land consistently in rotating stations etc and I did all that in a Viper I think), but I have this Anaconda with pretty much all turrets and then 1 gimbal beam+large MC on the bottom for forward fire. Since it is sort of a slow unresponsive ship (but one that really does benefit from FA off maneuvers) am I right in thinking the learning curve may be less harsh? I'm not saying I'd go diving into a HazRES to get started, but its got plenty of shields and fighter support, and the turrets can pick up the slack while I'm mucking it up.... hopefully.
Also, is there still merit to using lower grade thrusters that you can boost far more frequently if you're primarily using FA off? I remember that being a suggestion I read a long time ago
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My experience is the lighter the ship, the easier to control and get the hang of how long to press a key for opposite thrust to control your direction and momentum. Also, the lighter ships are less expensive to learn from mistakes that put you at the rebuy screen.
But ultimately it really comes down to your preference, and what ship you're comfortable flying. One thing I did when I was first learning was park at a station and then swap between multiple ships trying all of the same maneuvers to see how the button press durations were compared to ships of differing mass & thrust capabilities.
I know that it might seem as if I'm a glutton for punishment, but it's really more a case of I'd played the game for a total of 2500 hours and had amassed wealth and expertise and was now looking for that undiscovered country to keep the gameplay going and growing. Now that I've discovered fixed weapons, FA Off flying and PvP, the game has countless hours of longevity to look forward to
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Yeah that makes sense, helpful for combat too if you have a good head for that type of memory, which is the hardest part of any game, baseline knowledge of your own maneuverability limits relative to all possible targets. I'm not real scared of the rebuy screen, at least until I hit it a few times. I suppose I mostly feel like I'd use it for ships like the Anaconda or FDL, whereas my engineered Courier and Vulture are dead on the rails and wicked fast so I almost feel like they'd be a mess to fly FA off with all that crazy thruster power (I mean even after I got somewhat comfortable with FA off).
In my experience, it was much easier to learn the ropes with a more sluggish ship. I used a Python to learn, as overcompensating isn't quite as costly - it likes to think about what you're asking it to do for a few seconds, and has big enough shields so that a mistake in a CZ or RES doesn't equate to a rebuy.
After that, I went to the Vulre, DBS and Viper Mk. III. Of the three, the Viper is the easiest to use as its pitch is pretty weak for a fighter, while its lat thrusters are simply amazing. The FdL can be very frustrating to fly as it has the widest disparity in thruster performance between 0 and 4 pips in the game. It's a hard ship to fly well with FA-on; FA-off exaggerates its behaviours.
After that, I went to the Vulre, DBS and Viper Mk. III. Of the three, the Viper is the easiest to use as its pitch is pretty weak for a fighter, while its lat thrusters are simply amazing. The FdL can be very frustrating to fly as it has the widest disparity in thruster performance between 0 and 4 pips in the game. It's a hard ship to fly well with FA-on; FA-off exaggerates its behaviours.
This is really encouraging to read, and the first half is kind of mirroring the way I have been playing the game, so thank you for this Jason. I like many others in this thread are keen to learn the FA-off legendary skillset, but so far am still only using FA-off as a touch and go measure to turn in combat iykwim?
I would like to be able to sit back and think I had mastered doing all things with FA-off for the whole game, and for each ship type as well, but perhaps that is the new challenge that faces me, analagous to what you have described as well after your first 2.5khours of playing. I also don't think it is a bragging thing, it is perhaps a pride-sensation for myself.
I like how ships feel with FA-off but simply have never had [more accurately to have made] the time to learn how to do it, and as well have never used fixed weaponary for very long, as I get frustrated to not be able to hit things!!
So, thank you again, you have given me hope in this endeavour! And thank you to everyone else for their suggestions, and pointers to light-reading in the form of YT videos too
Cheers again, and I will catch up with you one day!
The Hat
I can honestly say I fly 99% FA-OFF (including landing) because I find it easier and much less frustrating. FA-OFF becomes intuitive once you understand thruster inputs, personally I find FA-ON interference is more of a hindrance, the computer is basically deciding what stabilization inputs it wants to make.
I tend to use FA-ON like an autopilot, flying straight and level over a planet, or if I require brief assistance with stabilization.
So it has nothing to do with making things harder, quite the opposite.
@Martian Successor - Hotas and pedals, couldn't imagine trying to fly FA-OFF with keyboard and mouse.
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I exited supercruise on the side of the station today instead of in front. I boosted in a line that would put me in front of the entrance. Then I held down FA-OFF and didn't touch the stick at all. I flew in a nice straight line for a while. Then just gently rotated around to face the entrance. Minimal interaction with the contols. Might be something to practice.
Get the feel for FA-OFF without trying to do anything special.
Practice the basics in your ship of choice. Don't try and do everything at once; start with yaw and yaw correction, then roll and roll correction, and finally pitch and pitch correction. Then work on acceleration and deceleration without worrying about orientation: take your hands off your rotation stick and land FA OFF on an outpost.
After that, it's time for combat. You have to be strict, don't let yourself turn on FA if you don't absolutely need to. Try Incursion 2, and use the gimballed weapons and occasional fixed. After that, just keep at it until your confident enough to try some PvE against weak foes in the main game. Use a combo of Fixed and Gimballed Weaponry, and eventually move to all fixed.
After that, practice turning FA On at the right moment to boost deceleration before quickly switching to FA Off to accelerate. Then you should be all set for FA Off PvP or PvE of your choice
After that, it's time for combat. You have to be strict, don't let yourself turn on FA if you don't absolutely need to. Try Incursion 2, and use the gimballed weapons and occasional fixed. After that, just keep at it until your confident enough to try some PvE against weak foes in the main game. Use a combo of Fixed and Gimballed Weaponry, and eventually move to all fixed.
After that, practice turning FA On at the right moment to boost deceleration before quickly switching to FA Off to accelerate. Then you should be all set for FA Off PvP or PvE of your choice