Is FA off deliberately gimped to hell?

[Hellfire85]

FA Off isn't a flight model - it's a control method. And it sucks.

Are you capable of full FA off combat maneuvering?
My guess would be no, since you never even bothered to set up curves to be able to use it.
Put in the time and practice to use it, then you can be judge and say it sucks, until then, your opinion is irrelevant.

 

[777Driver]

FA Off isn't a flight model - it's a control method. And it sucks.

FA-OFF is the core flight model, FA-ON is a Flight control law. Whether it sucks or not is down to the individual.

 

[Neutrino Sunset]

Put in the time and practice to use it, then you can be judge and say it sucks, until then, your opinion is irrelevant.

Whereas your 'opinion' seems to be nothing more than the usual forum waving trying to impress everyone else with how much better than us you are, which isn't just irrelevant but also quite childish.

 

[Morbad]

I can maneuver fine FA Off, I can even aim fine FA Off if I reach over to my mouse. If I could fit twenty well-placed buttons on my mouse, I''d use FA Off a lot more often (though not all the time, as there are other objective advantages to FA On that have nothing to do with rotational damping). Of course, I can also maneuver just fine with FA On.
Both modes are crippled in multiple ways and they both suck.

Anyway, I know why they have it setup the way they do and I know it's not going to change. I adapted to that fact four and half years ago.

FA-OFF is the core flight model, FA-ON is a Flight control law. Whether it sucks or not is down to the individual.

FA Off is a mode/control law just like FA On. It actually changes various performance aspects of the ship (and not always in positive ways) out side of removing rotational damping or ENG pip related velocity bleed, and it fails to remove certain constraints implied by the name flight assist.

Maybe the old Beta 1 and earlier FA Off gave access to the raw flight model, but that doesn't exist any more.

 

[777Driver]

The beta model had slightly different restrictions (and workarounds) unfortunately many of those workarounds have been patched out over the years.

FA-OFF is as close as we'll ever get to the core model. You are correct, there are still limits & assists in place. Sadly no circuit breakers to fully disable Hal.

 

[Morbad]

The beta model had slightly different restrictions (and workarounds) unfortunately many of those workarounds have been patched out over the years.

The most prominent, and I believe undocumented, change was to the velocity limiter. It used to be much softer; we temporarily exceeded it all the time, and with some flight manuvers, could dramatically surpass the stated speedsof pretty much any craft. Now, if you perform maneuvers that would result in violations of the speed cap, it's like hitting a brick wall.

When they finally fixed the phenomena below near the end of gamma, the side effects were pretty noticeable to me:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx-ZczAkn54


Obviously, being able to accelerate in a spiral indefinitely was a huge problem (I was using it in PvP all the time in Beta 3 and it made my ship invincible), but I can't help but think there was a better fix than a hard cap.

Anyway, my biggest issue with the flight model (blue zone and the dynamic sensitivity it results in) has never really changed as long as I've been playing and is mostly mode agnostic.

 

[777Driver]

For quite some time (after Gamma) You could maintain max boost speed with FA-OFF. Simply boost then hold any thruster. Made it too easy to escape NPC's though.

 

[Morbad]

For quite some time (after Gamma) You could maintain max boost speed with FA-OFF. Simply boost then hold any thruster. Made it too easy to escape NPC's though.

I thought they changed that in Beta 2.

Edit: Yeah that was Beta 2.

Patch Notes - Update - Beta 2 Now Available

Hi everyone, Elite: Dangerous Beta 2 is now being uploaded and should be available within the next 45 minutes. Here is the change log for this update: NEW FEATURES/CONTENT - Playable area expanded (a capsule 100ly long and 30ly wide @500 systems) - Can scan celestial bodies - Can sell...

forums.frontier.co.uk

- Soft thrust limits are implemented, defaulting to 40% for reverse and 60% for transverse. These limit the top speed you can reach in non-forward directions, but will not cause problems when you rotate. If you rotate into a case where you're breaching these limits you'll bleed off speed slowly.
- FAOff speed bleedof is now the same as FAOn.
- FAOff now uses the same Time-To-Target acceleration curves to smooth out acceleration while boosting or near the top end.

I remember all the complaints in Beta 1 about never being able to catch anyone. We'd just FA off backwards at full boost speed, or drift through a combat area popping off seekers as we went.

 

[aRJay]

It appears to me that FA off is deliberately gimped in at least 2 areas.

1. No rotational damping. The key advantage of FA off is translational inertia. I.e. once you are going in one direction you keep going in that direction until you counter it. This is what enables you to fire in a direction different to the one you are moving in. What is not as useful in FA off though is rotational inertia, i.e once you are rotating in one direction you have to apply opposite rotation just to stop spinning. There is a really obvious reason why this isn't useful, because even with FA on you can still preserve whatever rotation you like by simply holding the mouse/joystick away from center. Having to manually reverse every rotation in FA off is just more than doubling the effort to control the ship's facing for no benefit whatsoever.

It may be that there are marginal cases where someone might want no automatic rotational damping in FA off, in which case the obvious question is why isn't there a control binding to enable/disable this?

2. Yaw effect. How come roll and pitch can spin a ship 360 around its axis in 1 second flat whereas yaw rotation authority is at least an order of magnitude reduced even with FA off? This makes lateral strafing in FA off impossible as you are unable to effectively control your facing. Of course you can strafe, and then roll and pitch to adjust the facing, but then since you've rolled and pitched you can no longer strafe in the same direction, or to put it another way it's impossible to strafe and hold the nose on target. You can strafe vertically of course, but that's not remotely natural, after all our eyes are side by side not one above the other.

Is there any legitimate reason for either of these seemingly contrived restrictions?

Flight Assist off removes damping in both lateral and rotational transitions if you want to damp out rotation either flick FA on or practice more. The legitimate reason for this is that the flight assist computers are not subtle enough to damp out some effects and not others so they are only available in two modes on or off.

Yaw effect is due to size and placement of the thrusters, they are just more effective at pitch and roll. They are like that because that is how they wanted the flight mechanics of the game.

 

[Brrokk]

Whereas now it's nothing more than a "who can loop the tightest and fastest and keep the gunsight on the enemy longest", aeroplane-style dogfighting mechanism, only without even the need to balance altitude against airspeed.

And IMO it's completely ridiculous in a space setting. This is a major reason why I find combat in ED immersion-breaking and don't enjoy it very much. (There's also the whole issue of gatling guns in space). Luckily you can do almost everything in the game without having to fight off too many NPCs if you know how to avoid them.

When I get involved in CZ or Thargoid activity I always remind myself that the game is essentially "space fantasy" rather than "space sim".

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Part of what you want may be accomplished by also disabling Rotation Correction.

The rest you may need to code yourself and remit to Frontier, as they are otherwise occupied.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Are you capable of full FA off combat maneuvering?
My guess would be no, since you never even bothered to set up curves to be able to use it.
Put in the time and practice to use it, then you can be judge and say it sucks, until then, your opinion is irrelevant.

No need to get butthurt someone doesn't like your dearest toy.

FA-OFF is the core flight model, FA-ON is a Flight control law. Whether it sucks or not is down to the individual.

Flight model is how the ship behaves in its environment. Acceleration, axis manoeuvers, lift, drag, skid. That stuff. Like in newtonian. The way you control inputs is not flight model.

 

[Morbad]

Flight model is how the ship behaves in its environment. Acceleration, axis manoeuvers, lift, drag, skid. That stuff. Like in newtonian. The way you control inputs is not flight model.

FA on vs. off does have some impact on those.

This is one of the more dramatic examples:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hazel0COTg


FA Off generally provides the same positive and negative acceleration, but some ships can have significantly higher negative acceleration with FA On.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

FA on vs. off does have some impact on those.

This is one of the more dramatic examples:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hazel0COTg


FA Off generally provides the same positive and negative acceleration, but some ships can have significantly higher negative acceleration with FA On.

I don't mean the underlying newtonian flight model when I use the term FAOff. I like newtonian models. I mean the control method that doesn't limit the input. That sucks balls, not coasting in one direction while looking the other way. The latter is awesome, challenging and enriching. Artificially making the input hard to control is not.

 

[Morbad]

I don't mean the underlying newtonian flight model when I use the term FAOff. I like newtonian models. I mean the control method that doesn't limit the input. That sucks balls, not coasting in one direction while looking the other way. The latter is awesome, challenging and enriching. Artificially making the input hard to control is not.

I'm just pointing out that more than the control method changes with flight assist mode. Each mode allows things that are categorically impossible to do in the other, no matter how proficient one is with the mode (the video I linked shows the 2.2.x Condor slowing down nine times faster than it can speed up, which could not be duplicated in FA Off no matter what control inputs were entered), because they change some fundamental properties about the way the ships fly.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

I'm just pointing out that more than the control method changes with flight assist mode. Each mode allows things that are categorically impossible to do in the other, no matter how proficient one is with the mode (the video I linked shows the 2.2.x Condor slowing down nine times faster than it can speed up, which could not be duplicated in FA Off no matter what control inputs were entered), because they change some fundamental properties about the way the ships fly.

Well, yes. Because FAOn gimps the way you can control the ship. In DCS are planes that use flight assist because they are aerdynamically unstable and humans can't account to provide the unputs to keep them flying. You can disable them to pull manouvers like the Cobra. Flight assist and the model go hand in hand - but for what I am criticising - it's the method to not dampen the controls or even bothering to offer input curves for setting up your preferred controller.
You can set up curves in DCS too. Every fricken flight sim I remember had bloody curves. But no, ED don't need them because someone thought it "difficulty" spike?

No, it is just bad UI design. Nothing else.

 

[Morbad]

Well, yes. Because FAOn gimps the way you can control the ship.

In this case it's not a gimp though. FA On significantly increases the performance of the thrusters when performing some maneuvers.

Flight assist and the model go hand in hand - but for what I am criticising - it's the method to not dampen the controls or even bothering to offer input curves for setting up your preferred controller.

I agree, it's arbitrary and silly.

You can set up curves in DCS too. Every fricken flight sim I remember had bloody curves. But no, ED don't need them because someone thought it "difficulty" spike?

Well, at least the mouse has a power curve...

 

[firemane]

The lack of rotational dampening and the artificial limiting of Yaw are just bad design choices. They detract from the suspension of disbelief. Any half-competent designer of advanced spaceships would add rotational correction to a spaceship, and there is no "special" resistance applied to yaw in space. It all comes down to the obsession of game designers with trying to emulate an atmospheric flight model on spaceships. They all seem to want the WWII-style of fictional combat.

I miss the I-war games. Those guys knew how to do it right.

 

[thistle]

If you implemented rotation damping you'd still have no yaw control, so you'd still avoid the FPS in space flight model so I don't see any reason not to do it, other than wanting to appease those players that have spent so many months learning how use FA off that they now have to try and convince everyone that the current implementation makes sense.

No, the reason not to do it is because it's 2019 and the fundamentals of the FA Off mode simply aren't going to be rewritten now. Or in 2020.

 

[Nihila Vex]

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