SRV Handling W/O Drive Assist Brings Back Memories

[Canoe]

I've been trying for a while to pin-point what makes the SRV so much fun to drive without drive assist. Partly because it's a really unusual balance between power and control than leans towards less control the more power you put into it. So after a while I figured out what it was reminding me of, because the physics (other than the lack of relative gravity) are almost identical. There was a game, twenty years ago, called Viper Racing.

[video=youtube;-ajLa91SASQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ajLa91SASQ[/video]

I'm literally driving a Dodge Viper in space, with guns. And that makes me smile.

 

[nanite2000]

I use keyboard and mouse.

Can someone explain to me what the difference is in driving the SRV with DA-Off compared to DA-On? So far, the only difference I've noticed is that I can not set a constant throttle speed.

What am I missing here?

 

[777Driver]

Personally I keep DA off for flat or fairly smooth terrain, DA-ON for rough terrain or steep inclines. Drive assist off also handles better on ice.

@nanite2000 - Drive assist causes the throttle to hold a desired speed.

 

[nanite2000]

@nanite2000 - Drive assist causes the throttle to hold a desired speed.

Is that all?? So I can achieve the same effect as DA-Off by simply tapping the handbrake key when required.

Man, the way you hear people bang on about it on reddit, you'd think they'd just discovered God Mode, or something.

For those wondering, the biggest improvement to driving handling in an SRV when using keyboard and mouse is to change your 'Relative Mouse X-Axis Steer' to 'ON'.

There you go. No more oversteer, no more sliding. Not even on Icy moons at top speed.

You're welcome everyone.

 

[Viper2kUK]

I always drive with DA-Off. It's great - It's like you having your foot on the pedal and great for donuts I think there was a post in screenies a while back with the pics players have created on the surfaces of planets with their SRV's.

V2k.

 

[777Driver]

Is that all?? So I can achieve the same effect as DA-Off by simply tapping the handbrake key when required.
.

No, I think you should try both modes for yourself, it definitely isn't the same as tapping the handbrake when required.

 

[CoyoteXStarrk]

Personally the SRV reminds me of something else.......

 

[Xevyr]

I use keyboard and mouse.

Can someone explain to me what the difference is in driving the SRV with DA-Off compared to DA-On? So far, the only difference I've noticed is that I can not set a constant throttle speed.

What am I missing here?

It's just like Flight-assist in space-ships, meaning that once you stop your thrusters in a given direction, a countering force will be automatically applied.
The main difference is that on the ground the number of directions your SRV can move is fairly limited so you won't be spiraling out of control with DA off

How that transfers to controls? It depends on what you use and how you use it.
The reason you don't see much change is because you're using throttle control to drive a "car", like you're using it for a ship aka: setting the speed.
I however use spring loaded axis for the SRV throttle that won't keep the position you left it at, so it's pretty much how you would have it if you were using a controller in a driving game aka: instead of a speed value you have acceleration and deceleration axis.

With my configuration if I turn DA on it becomes annoying as hell, because as soon as I let go, the brakes automatically slam on instead of the vehicle rolling along the ground until I decide it's time to brake.
If I turn DA off on the other hand, everything becomes smooth.. I can use the acceleration like in a driving game.. and if I let go the vehicle continues its forward movement, gradually being slowed down by friction instead of a sudden brake.. This way I can apply the amount of acceleration and braking force that I choose.

You can try it on the keyboard as well by binding keys to the throttle forward / backwards action of the SRV (I think there are binds for that too and not just axis) and tapping those like you would in a driving game instead of setting a specific speed, then turn DA on and off to instantly see a major difference.

 

[nanite2000]

With my configuration if I turn DA on it becomes annoying as hell, because as soon as I let go, the brakes automatically slam on instead of the vehicle rolling along the ground until I decide it's time to brake.

I don't know if you use keyboard and mouse, but that has never been my experience with DA-On.

DA-On for me simply means setting the throttle to a percentage of maximum speed. Your SRV will auto-accelerate to your defined max speed, and you press handbrake to slow down or stop.

If I turn DA off on the other hand, everything becomes smooth.. I can use the acceleration like in a driving game.. and if I let go the vehicle continues its forward movement, gradually being slowed down by friction instead of a sudden brake.. This way I can apply the amount of acceleration and braking force that I choose.

And that's the only difference as far as I can see: instead of going at a constant speed, and using the handbrake to slow down when required, you are constantly at 'stop' and have to use the accelerator to speed up when required.

You can try it on the keyboard as well by binding keys to the throttle forward / backwards action of the SRV (I think there are binds for that too and not just axis) and tapping those like you would in a driving game instead of setting a specific speed, then turn DA on and off to instantly see a major difference.

So I'd constantly have to mash the accelerator just to keep moving and adjusting speed. Is that right?

i guess the DA-Off mode is more familiar to people who play racing games, but DA-On feels more intuitive to me, and I've been driving for 20 years.

So, unless I've missed something, the only discernible difference is:

* DA-On: Always in motion. Use handbrake to slow down, or stop.
* DA-Off: Always at rest. Use accelerator to speed up, and release to slow down until stopped.

When people said DA-Off provides improved control, I thought they meant the steering.

 

[BurntJello]

SRV handling with drive-assist ON is just terrible. It lurches forward and over-brakes. If you tap +throttle really fast (very very low), the SRV will vibrate BACKWARD.

With drive-assist off, you lose the ability to set the throttle with buttons. You are left with full thrust forward or full thrust backward (awful). I play a lot of racing games with a "go" button. SRV with drive-assist off is NOTHING like this.

How to fix drive-assist:
Make ON behave just like OFF with a throttle axis.

I can't imagine what FDev was thinking when they made it the way they did... makes no sense to me. It's makes for a bad SRV driving experience and I hope they revisit it.

 

[Loskene]

SRV handling with drive-assist ON is just terrible. It lurches forward and over-brakes. If you tap +throttle really fast (very very low), the SRV will vibrate BACKWARD.

With drive-assist off, you lose the ability to set the throttle with buttons. You are left with full thrust forward or full thrust backward (awful). I play a lot of racing games with a "go" button. SRV with drive-assist off is NOTHING like this.

How to fix drive-assist:
Make ON behave just like OFF with a throttle axis.

I can't imagine what FDev was thinking when they made it the way they did... makes no sense to me. It's makes for a bad SRV driving experience and I hope they revisit it.

It's meant to be driven with analogue controls. Try it with an xbox controller plugged in, handles like a dream then. I absolutely would not touch the SRV (or any driving game) with a keyboard. Drive assist off is a must, and makes way more sense when you have fwd/rev throttle bound to analogue triggers.

 

[Xevyr]

I don't know if you use keyboard and mouse, but that has never been my experience with DA-On.

DA-On for me simply means setting the throttle to a percentage of maximum speed. Your SRV will auto-accelerate to your defined max speed, and you press handbrake to slow down or stop.



And that's the only difference as far as I can see: instead of going at a constant speed, and using the handbrake to slow down when required, you are constantly at 'stop' and have to use the accelerator to speed up when required.



So I'd constantly have to mash the accelerator just to keep moving and adjusting speed. Is that right?

i guess the DA-Off mode is more familiar to people who play racing games, but DA-On feels more intuitive to me, and I've been driving for 20 years.

So, unless I've missed something, the only discernible difference is:

* DA-On: Always in motion. Use handbrake to slow down, or stop.
* DA-Off: Always at rest. Use accelerator to speed up, and release to slow down until stopped.

When people said DA-Off provides improved control, I thought they meant the steering.

Yes, because you're using a key to set a constant speed and your SRV tries to keep that. It will not make much difference whether you have DA on or off in that case, like you said.

If you were to set up 'acceleration' and 'reverse' keys you wouldn't necessarily have to constantly mash it, just hold it to accelerate, release to drift without much braking and hold reverse to brake.. just like you would drive a car in GTA or something instead of hitting a key to maintain a certain speed

I didn't notice any difference in steering, but the change I described is pretty major when using a controller and spring-loaded axis.

So again, to describe it with analog input:
1. I pull the acceleration axis all the way in (which sets my throttle to maximum, but only while I'm holding it).
2. As soon as I release it, my throttle will be set back to 0, since it's spring loaded
3a. Now, if I have DA ON, what happens is that drive assist immediately tries to compensate for the new throttle setting and applies the brakes to forcefully slow down to 0
3b. However, if I have DA OFF, the SRV will drift freely, without any forceful braking being applied and only being slowed by friction - exactly as if you would press the clutch in when driving a car.
But I can still use the reverse axis to apply an analog counter-force, which means I have much more precise braking on the fly. The same goes for acceleration, I can 'rev' the engine intermittently if I want to and all the force will add up, instead of braking being applied in between causing a really jerky motion. So basically DA off with my configuration smooths out everything and makes me have analog acceleration and deceleration without ever bothering to set up a 'certain' speed, like 75% or something.

Dunno how to explain it any better you would instantly realize if you saw it thou

 

[KrAaZyIvAaN]

There you go. No more oversteer, no more sliding. Not even on Icy moons at top speed.

No more sliding!!!

maaaaate!

Who doesnt drift?

Drifting and low grav planet flying in my SRV are the BOMB!

Named my SRV 'Drift slag'

See you out there Commander...

 

[KrAaZyIvAaN]

I've been trying for a while to pin-point what makes the SRV so much fun to drive without drive assist. Partly because it's a really unusual balance between power and control than leans towards less control the more power you put into it. So after a while I figured out what it was reminding me of, because the physics (other than the lack of relative gravity) are almost identical. There was a game, twenty years ago, called Viper Racing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ajLa91SASQ

I'm literally driving a Dodge Viper in space, with guns. And that makes me smile.

I wanna play viper racing now soooooo bad!

 

[Zenith]

I don't know if it's because I drive with DA-off permanently or because I use a HOTAS, but SRV driving is fine. The only thing that gets on my nerves occasionally is when the SRV skis left while I'm steering right on icy worlds. The only way to break it quickly is to throttle down and straighten out until your wheels gain traction back.

 

[Canoe]

I don't know if you use keyboard and mouse, but that has never been my experience with DA-On.

DA-On for me simply means setting the throttle to a percentage of maximum speed. Your SRV will auto-accelerate to your defined max speed, and you press handbrake to slow down or stop.

And that's the only difference as far as I can see: instead of going at a constant speed, and using the handbrake to slow down when required, you are constantly at 'stop' and have to use the accelerator to speed up when required.

So I'd constantly have to mash the accelerator just to keep moving and adjusting speed. Is that right?

i guess the DA-Off mode is more familiar to people who play racing games, but DA-On feels more intuitive to me, and I've been driving for 20 years.

So, unless I've missed something, the only discernible difference is:

* DA-On: Always in motion. Use handbrake to slow down, or stop.
* DA-Off: Always at rest. Use accelerator to speed up, and release to slow down until stopped.

When people said DA-Off provides improved control, I thought they meant the steering.

I'm guessing you have something set differently in settings for throttle. I use a joystick for SRV travel and use it to adjust speed depending on needs.

 

[Stealthie]

Can't say I've ever felt the urge to drive the SRV with DA-on.

Whenever I switch it on, all that seems to happen is that the damned thing speeds up to stupid speeds and then still slides around like a bar of soap on ice.

It might be nice if DA-on provided, at least, some kind of traction-control so you could steer more than a few degrees left/right without the turn becoming a massive power-slide.

 

[777Driver]

Can't say I've ever felt the urge to drive the SRV with DA-on.

Whenever I switch it on, all that seems to happen is that the damned thing speeds up to stupid speeds and then still slides around like a bar of soap on ice.

It might be nice if DA-on provided, at least, some kind of traction-control so you could steer more than a few degrees left/right without the turn becoming a massive power-slide.

Speed is tied directly to throttle position with DA-ON, you do get more grip because the assist regulates speed according to terrain, just don't full throttle with DA-ON unless you want max speed.

Anyway, as I previous mentioned, DA-ON is best suited to rough terrain and steep inclines, it is also pointless using it without an analogue throttle.

 

[Stealthie]

Speed is tied directly to throttle position with DA-ON, you do get more grip because the assist regulates speed according to terrain, just don't full throttle with DA-ON unless you want max speed.

Can't say I've ever played with DA-on enough to have noticed the more subtle differences.

The only thing I have noticed is that, regardless of throttle position, the damned thing always seems to speed up so it's going faster than I want it to when I switch on DA.
And, as I said, it doesn't seem to do anything else to mitigate the problems caused as a result of going faster.

For a while I found there was some benefit to switching on DA after I'd lost control of the SRV - to help get it back under control more neatly - but as I got more experienced that became pretty-much redundant anyway.

I use a HOTAS and control the SRV steering with analog rudder pedals, BTW.
Just seems like DA-on doesn't offer me anything useful at all. [FONT=&quot]¯\_(ツ)_/¯[/FONT]

 

[Riverside]

I've been trying for a while to pin-point what makes the SRV so much fun to drive without drive assist. Partly because it's a really unusual balance between power and control than leans towards less control the more power you put into it. So after a while I figured out what it was reminding me of, because the physics (other than the lack of relative gravity) are almost identical. There was a game, twenty years ago, called Viper Racing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ajLa91SASQ

I'm literally driving a Dodge Viper in space, with guns. And that makes me smile.

Love Viper Racing, it's one of the racing games I keep installed on my Win98 gaming PC (along with Grand Prix Legends and the far more arcadey Motorhead and CarmageddonII).

The SRV handling is much like the ship handling in that it's a good compromise between arcade & sim physics. I can powerslide the SRV around when I want to, but if you stand on the brakes the thing still steers (like it has ABS) despite the wheels clearly being locked up. I like it a lot, and the ability to adjust attitude when airborne and the up thrust to help do massive jumps just adds to the fun.

Never thought I'd get something so good to drive around in an Elite game