Newcomer / Intro BRICK?

Shevek_Starkiller

S
I've had a look but I can't see this question anywhere else, but:
How do I stop my ship controlling like a BRICK?
I have played Space Games for decades now, even the old Elite games so I was really surprised when I started playing this at how BAD the controls are. I literally can't even turn around! After playing NMS and the X series I have gotten used to controls being a little more...complex but still usable. This, however, is absurd. I tried chaning YAW controls on the keyboard but all it means is that I can turn horizontally very VERY slowly. I managed to shoot the DEMO opponent once or twice but sitting still and taking a full 30 seconds to turn around to shoot him. He helpfully just sat there and took it while opening fire on my dead-spaced ship.

Please help or I'll just get a refund on Steam. I don't want to spend hours trying to get a hold of the BASIC controls of the game, because if you play for more than a couple of hours Steam refuses you a refund.
 

kalniel

kalniel
Yaw is very slow on all ships. You should roll and pitch as your preferred control. Make sure to do the tutorials first - they explain why roll and pitch is slow unless you are at the right speed.
 

Craith

Volunteer Moderator
Craith
YAW rates are quite (artificially) low, try to use ROLL and PITCH to get them into your view. The maneuverability of your ship also depends on the size and rating of your thrusters in relation to your ships current mass. new ships start with E-rated thrusters, which are the worst in that regards.

It also depends on your PIP-settings (how many points you put into ENG in your capacitator settings) and if you have your thrust in the blue zone (right of the radar).

Additionally it often helps to use a boost to increase your rotation speed, do note that this also increases your lateral speed and might lead to overshooting and unplanned collisions.

smaller ships are generally more maneuverable than bigger ones, combat ships often more than freight ships.
 
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Shevek_Starkiller

S
Craith said:
YAW rates are quite (artificially) low, try to use ROLL and PITCH to get them into your view. The maneuverability of your ship also depends on the size and rating of your thrusters in relation to your ships current mass. new ships start with E-rated thrusters, which are the worst in that regards.
Click to expand...
So...they purposefully put you in a really awful ship to introducec you to the game? XD
 

Craith

Volunteer Moderator
Craith
(I edited my post above and added more info)
The tutorial sidewinder is definitely up for the combat involved - I'd not say git gud, but at least get used to the ship and controls. PIP management makes a huge difference, also staying in the blue zone.

In my opinion I don't know any space game with a flight model that feels better than Elite - definitely not X4.
 
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kalniel

kalniel
Shevek_Starkiller said:
So...they purposefully put you in a really awful ship to introducec you to the game? XD
Click to expand...
If I remember rightly, it's not awful at all, it's already pretty manoeuvrable when you have your speed right and you follow the instructions. There are both more nimble and much much less nimble options available in the game.
Shevek_Starkiller said:
Okay, so apart from the obvious posts of "git gud" is there a solution or should I just buy X4?
Click to expand...
Do the tutorials - you don't need to get good, just understand the mechanics. You'll like it once you do since the feel of flying different ships and the way they change with mass/equipment is one of the best things about Elite.
 

Shevek_Starkiller

S
Thats the issue - I am playing the tutorial.
Just trying to shoot the canisters and fighting the first pilot one on one. And I'm not suggesting they give you a end game ship, just one that feels nice to fly. (And I can't change the pips yet as far as I know because I am still in the first demo training section)
As for games with better controls, I can list off the top of my head:
No Mans Sky,
X-Wing vs Tie-Fighter
X3 and X4
Endless Space
Xenocracy

Would using a console controller be better, do you think?
 

kalniel

kalniel
I'd suggest just getting through the canister one - it's just designed to make sure you can point and shoot. There are later tutorials which go into manoeuvrability and pip management, including an X-Wing style obstacle course - once you've done that you'll have a slightly better idea of how it stacks up.

What controller are you using at the moment? Keyboard/mouse? If so, yeah I think a joystick based controller will get across more of the flying feel, whether that's a console or a dedicated flight stick.
 

Craith

Volunteer Moderator
Craith
Shevek_Starkiller said:
Thats the issue - I am playing the tutorial.
Just trying to shoot the canisters and fighting the first pilot one on one. And I'm not suggesting they give you a end game ship, just one that feels nice to fly. (And I can't change the pips yet as far as I know because I am still in the first demo training section)
As for games with better controls, I can list off the top of my head:
No Mans Sky,
X-Wing vs Tie-Fighter
X3 and X4
Endless Space
Xenocracy

Would using a console controller be better, do you think?
Click to expand...
Haven't played No Mans Sky, but all others pale against Elite ... so much that I can't really play them anymore. They feel arcadey (yes I know Elite is not full Newtonian physics), ships feel weightless. Mind you, I loved XvT back in the days, but now the ships feel just wrong.

I also installed X-Wing Alliance lately , mostly to try the VR mod that was released, but the controls suffer from the same deficiencies - weightless ships that turn just dependend on ship and speed.

Same applies to Freespace, Freespace 2, Descent ... can't do it anymore.

I fly with a HOTAS, some prefer a controller (mostly because they want to stay on the couch), some swear on mouse & keyboard for greater accuracy (and apparently good FA-off).

speaking of flight assist - you can (later, when you have gotten comfortable with the flight assisted steering) turn the flight assist off to allow more advanced maneuvers - some never do it, some (like me) only for short terms for maneuvers, some play FA-off full time.

In the end you need to have fun with your past time though, so no matter how many of us tell you that the flight model is great, we can suggest you how to improve your fun with it, but if you don't like it (personal preferences do exist, nothing wrong with that), then maybe the game is really no for you.

Edit: partly ninja'd ;)
 

Para Handy

Para Handy
Shevek_Starkiller said:
............
As for games with better controls, I can list off the top of my head:
No Mans Sky,
X-Wing vs Tie-Fighter
X3 and X4
Endless Space
Xenocracy
..........
Click to expand...

Look, I don't want to appear rude as this is the warm and fuzzy helpful forum - but, seriously, you cannot compare apples and oranges, much less bananas.

Just get to grips with your flying and learn how to improve your ship's equipment and then your actual ship. Once you learn how to fly an Imperial Eagle with Enhanced Performance Drives with Flight Assist off then you might change your mind about better ship control / performance.

BTW - if you have "... played Space Games for decades now ..." then you should know about roll/pitch being more efficient / faster than yaw. The only vessels that actually turn using yaw are ships and boats as they have no choice.
 

aRJay

aRJay
I found the controls unworkable when I started however once my throttle and joystick combo arrived everything was relatively easy, I found it helped going through the control bindings so I knew what was where and that I was comfortable with them.

As has been said all ships are more manoeuvrable if you keep the throttle indicator in the blue region and rolling so that you can use pitch to make you direction change is the fastest.

Don’t worry there are ships out there that are much more brick like.
 

00nutzy

00nutzy
Shevek_Starkiller said:
I've had a look but I can't see this question anywhere else, but:
How do I stop my ship controlling like a BRICK?
I have played Space Games for decades now, even the old Elite games so I was really surprised when I started playing this at how BAD the controls are. I literally can't even turn around! After playing NMS and the X series I have gotten used to controls being a little more...complex but still usable. This, however, is absurd. I tried chaning YAW controls on the keyboard but all it means is that I can turn horizontally very VERY slowly. I managed to shoot the DEMO opponent once or twice but sitting still and taking a full 30 seconds to turn around to shoot him. He helpfully just sat there and took it while opening fire on my dead-spaced ship.

Please help or I'll just get a refund on Steam. I don't want to spend hours trying to get a hold of the BASIC controls of the game, because if you play for more than a couple of hours Steam refuses you a refund.
Click to expand...

As with most flight type simulators changing directions is quickest using roll and pitch rather than yaw. So to change directions quicker you want to roll and pitch for smaller corrections etc yaw is good. Also speed is a big deal. If you are moving forward at top speed your thrusters will have more difficulty turning even using roll and pitch there is a blue section on your speed indicator that is the best speed for turning/maneuvers.
I am not telling you to get gud or anything like that. Just trying to help a bit.
Dont give up just yet, give it a bit, the game can be difficult to get a handle on.
And Welcome to the game!
 

TiberiusDuval

T
Yaw is used to fine tune where your ship points, for real manouvering roll&pitch. Also that Sidewinder is in fact quite agile little ship. If you want to see glacially handling ship ask from some big ship owners for multicrew session :D
 

Ashnak

Ashnak
To put in a few numbers:
The basic Sidewinder (scroll down a bit, then select the Profiles tab) has, without boost and in 2-2-2 pips:
yaw 12°/s, i.e. 30 seconds for turning full circle
pitch 30°/s
roll 80°/s
turn the dial up to 11 with engineered EPTs, 4 pips and boosting, that changes to
yaw 44°/s
pitch 116°/s
roll 303 °/s

The Sidewinder is actually one of the three (nominally) most agile ships in the game - the only two that are nominally better are the Vulture and the Eagle. Especially with the Eagle, that's hard to achieve in practice since it's difficult to get a loadout that keeps below the thruster's minimum mass.

You may compare the above to a real brick, our beloved Space Cow, the T-9:
basic loadout: yaw 5°/s, pitch and roll at 13°/s
optimzed (I couldn't get her below minimum mass, so this is a far stripped as it goes): 21, 52, 52 °/s

so, in order to do a 90° turn in the sidey, you can yaw: 90/12 = 7.5 seconds. Or you can roll 90 degrees and then pitch 90 degrees: 90/80 + 90/30 = 1.125 + 3 = 4.25 seconds. Another 1.125 seconds to roll back, unless you want to do all that together in one smooth move.
 

Craith

Volunteer Moderator
Craith
Ashnak said:
To put in a few numbers:
The basic Sidewinder (scroll down a bit, then select the Profiles tab) has, without boost and in 2-2-2 pips:
yaw 12°/s, i.e. 30 seconds for turning full circle
pitch 30°/s
roll 80°/s
turn the dial up to 11 with engineered EPTs, 4 pips and boosting, that changes to
yaw 44°/s
pitch 116°/s
roll 303 °/s

The Sidewinder is actually one of the three (nominally) most agile ships in the game - the only two that are nominally better are the Vulture and the Eagle. Especially with the Eagle, that's hard to achieve in practice since it's difficult to get a loadout that keeps below the thruster's minimum mass.

You may compare the above to a real brick, our beloved Space Cow, the T-9:
basic loadout: yaw 5°/s, pitch and roll at 13°/s
optimzed (I couldn't get her below minimum mass, so this is a far stripped as it goes): 21, 52, 52 °/s

so, in order to do a 90° turn in the sidey, you can yaw: 90/12 = 7.5 seconds. Or you can roll 90 degrees and then pitch 90 degrees: 90/80 + 90/30 = 1.125 + 3 = 4.25 seconds. Another 1.125 seconds to roll back, unless you want to do all that together in one smooth move.
Click to expand...
You had to bring up the Eagle, right? You just had to! Now I had to go and engineer her a bit more ... I hope you are happy. I hope I will be happy, combat worthyness of this new one is still to be proven ...
1598044983560.png
 

Shevek_Starkiller

S
Yikes. :(

So the replies are "don't worry, there are much WORSE ships out there later in the game".
OR
"Just buy $100 joystick to make your $40 game playable."

I just tried it again with a controller plugged in but no dice. I can control the menu with my controller but nothing else. And I really dont want to spend $100 to make the game barely playable. :/
As for the pitch and roll, the issue I have is if I move my mouse left or right I just start spinning stupidly while still pointing in the same direction.

Well, I got this game because I wanted to explore deep space, so that is what I am going to do! just point it in one direction and go! Whoo! XD
 
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