FA off Help

[Joel Elks]

I'm practicing with FA off lately, trying to make best use of my ship in combat. I'm finding it hard to keep my ship pointing to a specific direction so far but I think its lack of experience + cheap joystick that makes it difficult.

What I fail to understand though is thruster control. I'm controlling my thrusters with the keyboard (25% increments) and when I turn flight assist off (thrusters at 100%) I don't quite understand what one key-press actually does (W or S). If I dont change anything and re-enable FA, my thrusters are at 25% or 50%.

Any help is appreciated!

 

[#43734]

There is no difference in thruster control when flying FA on or off. But: while flying FA off you have to apply backwards thrust in order to slow down.

 

[jou84]

I find approaching the station a good time to practice FA/off. If you line yourself up to go past the side of the station with the door you can fa/off zero throttle then turn the ship to point at the door (while using your existing momentum). Then you can apply throttle to head in the direction of the door. Then bottle it and put FA back on to get it in the station .

 

[Joel Elks]

Yes, I understand that with FA off you affect the speed vector with thrusters, not the ship itself. What I don't understand is, why if I disable FA and then quickly enable it my thrusters will go from 100% to 50%/25% without me pressing anything.

Also, if I'm travelling with FA on, thrusters 100% and I disable FA, will my thrusters be 100% or 0%? Should I set my thrusters to 50% in order to be able to turn fast?

- - - Updated - - -

I find approaching the station a good time to practice FA/off. If you line yourself up to go past the side of the station with the door you can fa/off zero throttle then turn the ship to point at the door (while using your existing momentum). Then you can apply throttle to head in the direction of the door. Then bottle it and put FA back on to get it in the station .

Hah, yea, thats more or less how I practice

 

[Cliffson]

When you go fron fa off to fa on the ship seems to automatically go to a throttle setting which maintaibs your last vector.

For a set of great learning videos find look inverted on youtube or search the 'fa-off appreciation thread' in these forums

 

[malk300]

Joel, you need to understand there is no sucha a thing as 50% thruster in fa off. There is actual speed value you want to achieve by accelerating or decelerating by using your thrusters. I've learned to fly with fa off only using my forward thruster on maximum all the time, and side / bottom top thrusters to change direction, boosting to make it faster. You need to praktice, the Best way to find your own ways. Is to repetitevely dock on outposts

In addition change your controls from 25% 50% etc to thruster forward and backwards

 

[jou84]

Joel, you need to understand there is no sucha a thing as 50% thruster in fa off. There is actual speed value you want to achieve by accelerating or decelerating by using your thrusters. I've learned to fly with fa off only using my forward thruster on maximum all the time, and side / bottom top thrusters to change direction, boosting to make it faster. You need to praktice, the Best way to find your own ways. Is to repetitevely dock on outposts

In addition change your controls from 25% 50% etc to thruster forward and backwards

Kudos for docking on maximum thruster!

 

[malk300]

I wasnt precise, full speed for flying not for docking

 

[#43734]

Your speed will not decrease when flying with FA off, full thrust (100%) and than reducing the thrust all the way down to 0%, caused by the momentum. I´m using a throttle - so the position of the throttle fixes the truster output - no change after switching FA to on.
I bed: if you bind some buttons to "set speed to XX%" in the control menu, your thruster output will also be fixed after turning FA on.

 

[777Driver]

There is no difference in thruster control when flying FA on or off. But: while flying FA off you have to apply backwards thrust in order to slow down.

There is a huge difference between thruster control with FA ON & OFF, that is one of the reasons why many can't seem to wrap their heads around it.

FA ON - Throttle controls SPEED
FA OFF - Throttle controls THRUST

@Joel - I'm using a HOTAS but still often control throttle via voice attack (keyboard macros) Disabling Flight assist has never caused my throttle position to suddenly change.

If you are traveling with 100% thrusters and disable flight assist, thrust output will remain at the last throttle position. Reducing thrust will not change anything or increase maneuverability.

maneuverability is dependant on speed, not thruster output.

 

[Rubbernuke]

A FA off q: I'm learnig to turn quicker in a Python- if I boost-turn, and then FA off, will the enhanced turn be longer?

 

[Jacob Marshall]

There is a huge difference between thruster control with FA ON & OFF, that is one of the reasons why many can't seem to wrap their heads around it.

FA ON - Throttle controls SPEED
FA OFF - Throttle controls THRUST

...

This, so many times this. It wasn't until I bound my hotas to forward and backward thrust, and my joystick throttle paddle* to throttle that I bagan to make some headway with faoff.

Now in faoff I'll hit forward/backward thrust to control my speed, so from stationary push on the thruster to my desired 'speed', then when I'm there bring the controller back to neutral etc etc etc

To be honest, at the moment I'm only using 'throttle' control in SC.

*Using the Thrustaster X hotas' throttle control in conjunction with a logitech 3d pro joystick.

EDIT:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=159833

This is a very good thread to have a look at. Yodafone's tutorials are, imo, essential viewing for a beginner; regardless of how many times he apologises for them. Also, the vids of faoff in action are a valuable learning tool. Now I have the basic understanding of the fundamentals, I'm starting to notice things like engine sound, and how the CMDR is using F/B thrust.

faoff is fantastic fun, albeit an absolute pig to, initally, get to grips with.

 

[Joel Elks]

Thanks for the replies, I will keep practicing with these things in mind...

One question, do you know if the quality of your Jstick has significant impact or not? With FA on I have full control, maybe I've learned to ignore its defects. With FA off I sometimes feel I don't even control the damn thing.

 

[Jacob Marshall]

....One question, do you know if the quality of your Jstick has significant impact or not? With FA on I have full control, maybe I've learned to ignore its defects. With FA off I sometimes feel I don't even control the damn thing.

Players are having success with all manner of controls, I hear rumours of a 'Special Breed'* that use mouse and keyboard...

Feeling like you can't control the boat in faoff is standard. I spent the better part of a week in that bloody asteroid belt with Look Inverted's video looping in my ears; for a week I felt more like a pinball than a pilot.

The breakthrough came from using forward/backward thrust in faoff and not throttle. This is not accurate, but helped me get to grips with things. I think of thrust as a pulse of momentum, the longer the press the longer the pulse. Throttle I think of as sustained acceleration/deceleration to a given speed.

I'm sure your joystick is fine, but have a play with forward/reverse thrusters instead of throttle.

*This breed are said to live in dungeons, never seeing the light of day, fed a diet of Pringles, Pepsi Max and Ginsters pies. In appearance they are said to have tiny beady eyes, one prominent eyebrow and big floppy ears. Communication is rumoured to be via the eyebrow and ears. This is all yet to be verified.

 

[Chaodiurn]

FAoff is where seeing ships with HOTAS stops making sense. You have to be aware that you can control your ship with two joysticks instead. Forward, backward, roll downward, strafe downward, strafe upward , roll upward, strafe left, roll left, strafe right, roll right, yaw left, yaw right. All of this works unbound to each other in FAoff, while FAon gives you everything in three axes. Giving counter thrust to movement in a certain way will may not counter other "waste" movement.

For example, you may have FAoff and are moving forward. Now you pass your target at its trail and turn your ship 90 degrees to the right to keep shooting at him. Now your forward momentum turned 1:1 into left strafing, which you must counter by strafing to the right. Of course, if you turn another 90 degrees, that momentum will have become backwards movement and simply giving thrust forward will make you go slower.

Simply put, you just have to grow an awareness of what your spacecraft is doing.