Anyone noticed this mistake of FA off flight?

Khazid

K
Has anyone noticed an error in the FA off flight model?

From a complete stand, pull your stick up, then leave it centered. You re spinning upwards around Y axis. Nice. The thing is if you now turn stick left, instead of spinning around x axis too and y axis movement not being affected, you actually turn towards the side you pulled the joystick, with upwards/downwards spinning eventually stopping, and falling into a hellic kind of movement. (Ok it is very hard to describe, but some must have noticed this is not newtonian movement, unless thrusters are playing tricks...)

Makes me wonder if it was deliberate design or an actuall flaw in game physics. Convenient when searching for laser blasts in asteroid field without headtracking though...
 

Cmdr Moritz

Cmdr Moritz
when they altered the FAoff flight characteristics some flaws was noticed, discussed and without alterations/fixes the discussion was put to sleep by a higher power :)

Have you tried to fly max speed forward => FAoff => turn 180degrees => See your speed going down by magic to the maximum reverse speed for your ship?
-Some say it was due to gameplay. Well to be honest, in my humble opinion, they could spend some time adding more weapon trigger keys etc. instead:)
 

Khazid

K
Neokortex said:
I drunk 5 beer now and still don’t understand what you mean :D
Click to expand...

Try a few more, it always helps me!

But yeah, probably impossible to describe without a video... damn...

EDIT: To be fair pure newtonian flight would end up in most dogfight being extreme high speed jousting.
 
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Kirk-Fu

Banned
K
Generally if you're rotating along a single axis and you apply thrust to change the rotation to a perpendicular axis, a lot of the energy of your initial roll is lost or transferred in the process.
 

bigmuthatrukka

B
There are quite a few non Newtonian aspects to FA off. Otherwise you could tool along at max boost speed spin round and fire. Clearly the designers thought that might be too much and decided to slow you down. I also noticed that if you start moving in multi axis eg thrust up and left at the same time arotating to perform a corkscrew manoeuvre you get cancellation as well.

In essence not true Newtonian physics, but gameplay adjusted or if you are a cynic a bit broken. But lets not forget that true Newtonian physics would be gamebrakingly bad like it was in Frontier.

It still allows a decent pilot a strong edge though and is definitely worth getting to grips with if you have never had a go.
 

Archvillain

Archvillain
Best to think of FA-Off as the less computerized flight mode, rather than a direct-cable flight mode. The flight computer won't ever let you use thrusters in ways that would exceed the frame's "safe" velocity (in the spacedust) regardless of whether FA is on or off, etc.

Like how in many sports cars it can be fun to turn off the traction control system but the stability control system remains active.

FA-off means the directional-assistance is off. It doesn't mean no flight computer at all. :)
 
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Khazid

K
Archvillain said:
Best to think of FA-Off as the less computerized flight mode, rather than a direct-cable flight mode. The flight computer won't ever let you use thrusters in ways that would exceed the frame's "safe" velocity (in the spacedust) regardless of whether FA is on or off, etc.

Like how in many sports cars it can be fun to turn off the traction control system but the stability control system remains active.
Click to expand...

That's a believable approach I can go with.
 

Non Grata

Non Grata
Kirk-Fu said:
Generally if you're rotating along a single axis and you apply thrust to change the rotation to a perpendicular axis, a lot of the energy of your initial roll is lost or transferred in the process.
Click to expand...

Not in space though, surely? (though can imagine it might look like that).
 

Captain N

C
Khazid said:
Has anyone noticed an error in the FA off flight model?

From a complete stand, pull your stick up, then leave it centered. You re spinning upwards around Y axis. Nice. The thing is if you now turn stick left, instead of spinning around x axis too and y axis movement not being affected, you actually turn towards the side you pulled the joystick, with upwards/downwards spinning eventually stopping, and falling into a hellic kind of movement.
Click to expand...

Sorry I have to disappoint by not having good enough physics knowledge to explain this accurately (nor did my cursory googling provide me with an authoritative source I could point to), but I can assure you, in monkey speak, that if you pitched up a real spacecraft and then applied roll, what you expect is not what would actually happen. This is because you're thinking on a 2D plane, like Asteroids, but we're actually talking about angular momentum in 3D so different physics apply. If you try this in Orbiter or Kerbal, much the same happens. The users on the forums for those sims might even be able to explain it!
 

Ian Skippy

Ian Skippy
Cmdr Moritz said:
when they altered the FAoff flight characteristics some flaws was noticed, discussed and without alterations/fixes the discussion was put to sleep by a higher power :)

Have you tried to fly max speed forward => FAoff => turn 180degrees => See your speed going down by magic to the maximum reverse speed for your ship?
-Some say it was due to gameplay. Well to be honest, in my humble opinion, they could spend some time adding more weapon trigger keys etc. instead:)
Click to expand...

They explicitly mentioned FA off reverse speed was reduced in one of the patch notes, IIRC. And rightly so, newton is cool and all but backwards-at-full-speed-sniping is super lame.
 

Cryptex

C
Originally, Elite was made with Newtonian physics in-mind, and ingame. It was altered slightly to eliminate certain kinds of undesirably usage from players. FDev stated that they had to change some of the ways the physics in the game worked due to players abusing the system. Players would accelerate to extremely high speeds and then use that as an offensive weapon. While it was realistic, and fun at first, it became a problem for players, griefers especially. Imagine the high speed players that enjoy coming into the mailbox full throttle to avoid detection when smuggling or wanted. Now multiply their speed by 10 or 100. Those speeds not only could be used to crash into players at high speeds, but it caused lots of bugs to come about because of it. The system that calculates damage from collisions for instance. Imagine the damage incurred from a small eagle hitting your cobra or T7 at 100x times the max speed. Rendering that? Caused tons of bugs and unhappy players.
 

Khazid

K
Captain N said:
Sorry I have to disappoint by not having good enough physics knowledge to explain this accurately (nor did my cursory googling provide me with an authoritative source I could point to), but I can assure you, in monkey speak, that if you pitched up a real spacecraft and then applied roll, what you expect is not what would actually happen. This is because you're thinking on a 2D plane, like Asteroids, but we're actually talking about angular momentum in 3D so different physics apply. If you try this in Orbiter or Kerbal, much the same happens. The users on the forums for those sims might even be able to explain it!
Click to expand...

Maybe I did not make it clear (actually I m sure I didnt) but once you pitch and leave joystick neutral, this movement should be independent, and continue forever unless opposite pitch is applied. When you roll, the roll should be independent from pitch, but in game it feels like the pitch thrusters are activated and stop pitching movement to get into roll. If roll into yaw options and the like are affecting, then the model is quite unpredictable, yes.

I feels like we do not actually get six degrees of freedom (independent movement around 3 axis crossing the ship).

The only way this model can be explained is if, when you roll, vertical thrusters on each side do not just thrust evenly and opposite to each other.

Try the following. FA off, pitch upwards, then leave joystick neutral. Now roll 90 degrees. You should still have sideways turning (like yawing) to the previous pitching direction. But no, its like that movement was completely neutralized.

All in all just commenting that flight is not newtonian in more ways than just speed limits. Is it more fun? Sure it is and I guess everything can be explained with the way thrusters are programmed to work.
 

Zelos1983

Z
The flight model is arcady. FA Off does not behave like you might expect. It overrides user input and issues uncommanded thruster firings.
 

Captain N

C
Khazid said:
Maybe I did not make it clear (actually I m sure I didnt) but once you pitch and leave joystick neutral, this movement should be independent, and continue forever unless opposite pitch is applied. When you roll, the roll should be independent from pitch, but in game it feels like the pitch thrusters are activated and stop pitching movement to get into roll. If roll into yaw options and the like are affecting, then the model is quite unpredictable, yes.

I feels like we do not actually get six degrees of freedom (independent movement around 3 axis crossing the ship).
Click to expand...

I wasn't commenting on what actually happens in ED (which I know is not exactly correct), but what would happen in reality.

If you did what you described, you would not just continue rotating sideways "like yawing", you would get into a hard to predict spin where the relative movement would appear to switch between pitching, yawing, then pitching in the opposite direction, yawing... etc.

The movement between the rotational axes would not be independent, as they actually all represent the same movement (an object rotating around itself in 3D space) They aren't independent in the same way the three translational axes are.

ED doesn't model this accurately, but Orbiter does.
 

Deleted member 38366

D
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