FA On vs. FA Off Data

[Frenotx]

Frustrated with a lack of information about the differences between FA-On and FA-Off, I decided to simply gather my own. I drove my trusty rusty Viper IV about 70km out of the station, and filmed myself performing different actions. I then popped that footage into windows movie maker so that I could use the time-stamps to accurately measure the passage of time, instead of relying on a stopwatch that's subject to my own reaction time. Here were the results:

Flight Assist	Movement	Acceleration m/2^2
on	forward	38.6
off	forward	45.1
on	forward+up+right	33.6
off	forward+up+right	89.0
on	retro	30.4
off	retro	41.6
on	up+right	32.3
off	up+right	48.8
on	up+right retro	81.3
off	up+right retro	48.6
on	vertical	29.2
off	vertical	26.8
on	vertical retro	77.9
off	vertical retro	34.3
on	forward+up	32.0
off	forward+up	80.1

*I also measured pitch in the blue zone with fa on and off, but they were within 5% of each other, so I'm going to assume there's basically no change

Things of note:
1) When FA is on, the vertical thrusters are apparently extremely good at getting rid of velocity that's off angle from your current heading. Going from stationary to full vertical was unimpressive, but going from full vertical to 0 was very quick.
2) The hands-down fastest way to get up to speed without boosting is to turn FA off, and engage your forward, vertical, and side thrusters. Their combined force accelerates you very quickly.
3) In a straight line, forward and retro acceleration are superior in FA off mode.
4) Combining several thruster inputs seems to have limited effect in FA on mode when speeding up, but the thruster power does add up when slowing down.
5) FA on thrusters seem to be most effective when aligning your ship's vector to its current heading, while FA off thrusters don't seem to care if you're speeding up or slowing down.

 

[NascentChemist]

I've been using the vertical thrusters, particularly the ventral thrusters, to stop quickly for a while. If the ship has the necessary pitch rate, it's great for stopping within the station after a hot entry. However, there is a "bleed-off" of momentum into the direction of the ship's nose.

 

[Alexander the Grape]

Thanks for confirming experimentally what we suspected anecdotally! I don't suppose you could compare trichording to bichording? They feel similar but might not be

 

[Frenotx]

Thanks for confirming experimentally what we suspected anecdotally! I don't suppose you could compare trichording to bichording? They feel similar but might not be

That's actually covered in the table. Up+right would be bichording, and up+right+forward would be trichording, right? Or am I misunderstanding the terms?

 

[Frenotx]

All combined (non straight line) retro accelerations are faster in FA on?
Or do I read these numbers wrong, it's hard to believe (surely even harder to explain as to why this is)?

Seems to be the case. My guess is that the behavior is to make ships feel more airplane-like when FA is on. As for in-lore justification, it's no different than the massive overdrive the planetary approach suite applies to the vertical thrusters when under the affect of gravity. I wonder if it generates more heat like that does, too... I tend to fly in FA-on for the most part, but my flight style makes extremely heavy use of lateral thrusters. In some of the more extreme maneuvers I like to pull, I do notice a good bit of heat being produced.

 

[Mohrgan]

Frenotx, the information you present to us players is invaluable. I would love to get that in a spread sheet and see what kind of graphs that data would produce. I can see the movements you describe in my head, individually but, once you add all of the numbers and options up, my brain says: "Show me pictures".

P.S. Using your film/time stamp method, a clever player should be able to divine the acceleration of every axis, on every ship. Post that! Lol

P.S.S. Is there any suggestion that these values may be different between ships?

 

[Alexander the Grape]

That's actually covered in the table. Up+right would be bichording, and up+right+forward would be trichording, right? Or am I misunderstanding the terms?

I guess, but the data might be misleading due to the relative power of the forward thrusters. I was considering comparing Forward+Up with Forward+Up+Right

 

[Nerwan]

With regard to pitch rate, I've always thought that different ships alter their pitch by different amounts with FA on/off. For example in the Python it seems very marked indeed where in the Vulture it's barely perceptible.

 

[V'larr]

That's really interesting....

So basically reverski (retro + thrusters) with FA-on is far superior to FA-off which is superior in all other cases, which is probably why it's become such a popular maneuver.

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

Ready to hate being thorough?

The thruster placement and weight/engine class ratio of each ship causes these results to vary dramatically. If you want a full picture, you're going to have to test each ship individually, because they all have different flight profiles in FA-OFF.

I think I know what Frenotx is going to be doing for the rest of the month....

 

[Morbad]

These results, which have been generally known by more advanced players forever and that I first saw quantified by Alexander The Grape, are precisely why I'm only using FA-Off about 3-5% of the time I spend in combat and why I scoff at those who insist FA Off all the time is somehow superior (in any other way than flavor).

If you only care about effectiveness, and you have solid vertical/lateral control bindings, FA On should be your default mode, even if you are very good FA Off.

That said, there are certainly a few areas where FA Off is quite tangibly better, and it behooves anyone who is in combat frequently to be familiar with FA Off control.

I don't suppose you could compare trichording to bichording? They feel similar but might not be

Tricording acceleration is better (as the table shows), but the speed cap is the same.

My guess is that the behavior is to make ships feel more airplane-like when FA is on.

I'm pretty sure it's just a side effect of all thruster axes being stronger except reverse, with FA on.

The thrust is largely cumulative, and only partially cancles out bichording and trichording.

It's why you can fly at full forwards speed while bichording vertically/laterally or trichording in reverse.

Ready to hate being thorough?

The thruster placement and weight/engine class ratio of each ship causes these results to vary dramatically. If you want a full picture, you're going to have to test each ship individually, because they all have different flight profiles in FA-OFF.

Yep, there is a fair degree of variance.

General pattern remains consistent across all vessels though. Vertical and lateral acceleration is stronger with FA enabled, while forward and reverse are stronger with it disable.

 

[Frenotx]

Frenotx, the information you present to us players is invaluable. I would love to get that in a spread sheet and see what kind of graphs that data would produce. I can see the movements you describe in my head, individually but, once you add all of the numbers and options up, my brain says: "Show me pictures".

P.S. Using your film/time stamp method, a clever player should be able to divine the acceleration of every axis, on every ship. Post that! Lol

P.S.S. Is there any suggestion that these values may be different between ships?

For a visual aid, I suggest just booting up elite and preforming the movements listed. For the data, here's a view-only link to my table (though it doesn't really show much more):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BIr8478fqTkWRymIwX-AkRGKBxIunbj-XiIst66E96M/edit?usp=sharing
Finally, it's entirely possible, neigh, probable that this varies from ship to ship. It's something I might look into testing during the beta, but don't plan on doing that at the moment. This information was mostly gathered for my benefit (the viper iv is the ship I fly in combat the most), but I figured it could be helpful for others, too. I certainly wouldn't be sad if someone else took the time to gather that data, though...

I guess, but the data might be misleading due to the relative power of the forward thrusters. I was considering comparing Forward+Up with Forward+Up+Right

Added the acceleration for forward+up in FA on and off. 32 m/s/s in fa on, and 80.1 m/s/s

With regard to pitch rate, I've always thought that different ships alter their pitch by different amounts with FA on/off. For example in the Python it seems very marked indeed where in the Vulture it's barely perceptible.

It's entirely possible. This data is for the viper IV specifically. I'd be interested to see if these trends carry in other ships, but don't have the motivation / time to test that at the moment.

That's really interesting....

So basically reverski (retro + thrusters) with FA-on is far superior to FA-off which is superior in all other cases, which is probably why it's become such a popular maneuver.

Not sure where you're getting that interpretation from. Care to elaborate?

I'm pretty sure it's just a side effect of all thruster axes being stronger except reverse, with FA on.

The weird thing is that speeding up in a lateral direction with FA on is fairly close to doing the same in FA off. It's when your getting rid of off-axis velocity that the FA on thrusters really shine. Of course, when combining thrust (forward + side + up), the acceleration is VASTLY superior in FA off to that of FA on (when speeding up), as FA-on seems to basically normalize the inputs instead of adding them. That difference between speeding up in off-axis directions and slowing down in off-axis direction with FA on is the thing that really surprised me.

 

[Morbad]

The weird thing is that speeding up in a lateral direction with FA on is fairly close to doing the same in FA off. It's when your getting rid of off-axis velocity that the FA on thrusters really shine. Of course, when combining thrust (forward + side + up), the acceleration is VASTLY superior in FA off to that of FA on (when speeding up), as FA-on seems to basically normalize the inputs instead of adding them. That difference between speeding up in off-axis directions and slowing down in off-axis direction with FA on is the thing that really surprised me.

Yeah, that is a curious facet of it. Still not sure it's supposed to make it feel airplane-like per se (too many degrees of movement), but it's certainly there to to stabilize the ship and make the flight models more consistent between eachother with FA on.

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

Yep, there is a fair degree of variance.

General pattern remains consistent across all vessels though. Vertical and lateral acceleration is stronger with FA enabled, while forward and reverse are stronger with it disable.

There are some outliers with noticeable differences though. The Gunship has silly strong yaw but weak reverse thrusters on the nose. It has as many problems hovering nose-down over planets as the big 3 because the thruster placement just doesn't jive with the FA-ON logic, unlike the big 3 where it's simply size and engine power. The Courier has stronger than average vertical thrust and the DBS and FAS have less prominent differences between the forward and reverse thrust vs the other directions which is why they feel more natural to some people when circle strafing.

I don't even know how to describe the T6. Put too much weight on it and go to a planet flying like you would in any other ship and you're likely to end up catching an angle that it's thrusters just can't recover from and drop to the ground like a brick. It's just.... A T6... It's a T6.... I can't describe it any other way.

All of the wedge-shaped ships seem to behave very similarly though, you are correct.

 

[V'larr]

These results, which have been generally known by more advanced players forever and that I first saw quantified by Alexander The Grape, are precisely why I'm only using FA-Off about 3-5% of the time I spend in combat and why I scoff at those who insist FA Off all the time is somehow superior (in any other way than flavor).

I'd say I'm in the same boat, I've only used FA-off to do the boost-&-shoot-over-the-shoulder maneuver....

Not sure where you're getting that interpretation from. Care to elaborate?

Well splitting your results into FA-on vs FA-off, FA-off offers better acceleration except in "Up+Right Retro", "Vertical" (though only slightly), and "Vertical Retro", right?

And doing the reverski involves hitting reverse - aka retro - and using lateral thrust to keep the opponent in front of one's ship, unless I'm terribly confused on what people mean by the reverski.

So your results seem to indicate that with FA-on, the reverski offers the highest amount of acceleration, which to me correlates with all the hubbaloo about the manuever being so effective in PvP or just combat in general.

 

[Alexander the Grape]

With regard to pitch rate, I've always thought that different ships alter their pitch by different amounts with FA on/off. For example in the Python it seems very marked indeed where in the Vulture it's barely perceptible.

I did some testing a while ago, as a side-project when I was mapping pitch rates with regards to ENG pips.

It seemed to increase degrees per second almost by a set amount(greater % increase in turn rate when base rate is low, lower when high) but I need to do more rigorous testing to confirm

Hence why ships with poor turn rates are almost mandatory to fly FA off (FDL/Viper III out of blue zone, big 3, Fed Gunship) whereas those with consistent turn rates see little benefit.

Overall, the better the lateral performance and worse the turn rate, the more often it's optimal to use FA off, as lateral performance increase is a multiplier and turn rate is additive (possibly)

 

[SushiCW]

I've done similar experiments and come up with similar results.

Discrepancies:

* Last I checked, I found that single-axis acceleration was about the same whether you used FA on or FA off as long as you had 4 pips in ENG for both.

* Back before 2.0 or so FA off forward deceleration was faster than FA on, but that changed and (last I checked) they were equal.

I haven't checked for a few major versions, though, so I wonder if the flight model shifted again without me noticing?


Also, to clarify the "bichord / trichord" mechanics as I understand them:

* With FA off, you accelerate WAY faster while bichording or trichording.
* With FA on, you don't accelerate faster, but if you bichord/trichord while moving backwards the top speed is higher (closer to the "absolute max"). So it's still useful with FA on e.g. while doing a defensive reverse spiral.

 

[Alexander the Grape]

Added the acceleration for forward+up in FA on and off. 32 m/s/s in fa on, and 80.1 m/s/s

Thanks! Seems to confirm what I suspected (some difference, but marginal)

 

[TuxedoSteve]

I'd say I'm in the same boat, I've only used FA-off to do the boost-&-shoot-over-the-shoulder maneuver....



Well splitting your results into FA-on vs FA-off, FA-off offers better acceleration except in "Up+Right Retro", "Vertical" (though only slightly), and "Vertical Retro", right?

And doing the reverski involves hitting reverse - aka retro - and using lateral thrust to keep the opponent in front of one's ship, unless I'm terribly confused on what people mean by the reverski.

So your results seem to indicate that with FA-on, the reverski offers the highest amount of acceleration, which to me correlates with all the hubbaloo about the manuever being so effective in PvP or just combat in general.

When the data is saying retro it actually means that the ship is slowing towards 0, not that the reverse thrusters are in play, so with that the reverski is still better in FA-off because you have the highest acceleration there, and you have the same reverse speed cap as in forward, while with FA-on you have half speed in reverse, or maybe I'm mistaken.

Either way, from my experience the ship will accelerate up to speeds faster in FA-off, but FA-on somehow increases thruster power when slowing the ship, especially on the laterals, which as someone else said is likely to make them behave more like a plane and less like a spaceship, which is what FA-off is for.

 

[Morbad]

Hence why ships with poor turn rates are almost mandatory to fly FA off (FDL/Viper III out of blue zone, big 3, Fed Gunship) whereas those with consistent turn rates see little benefit.

I've found more benefit to ships with good rotational performance and weak thrusters than to those with modest rotationals and good thusters with FA off.

FDL and Viper III are some of the ships I use FA off the least (FAS is probably where I use it the most). The increased thruster acceleration, especially when reducing velocity, lets me use vertical and lateral thrust to maintain or return to the blue zone very rapidly, as well as control distance to target and thus reduce the amount I need to rotate.