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.
[...]
*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
Great thread. I have carried out similar movie maker exercises at the end of 2.1 Beta in a FAS with g5 dirty drives and then in 2.1 Live for both Courier and Adder (!) with g5 dirty enhanced drives. Unfortunately I'm not sure what has happened to the results, though. I may do more in Beta 2.3.
The 'basically no change to pitch' made me raise an eyebrow, though - see later!
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)?
Yes, this is fundamental to evasion. Evading fixed weapons means presenting your opponent with a target that changes both direction and speed rapidly. That requires both acceleration and deceleration.
FA-on acts as a massive, decelerating, air-brake. There is no explanation in-game as to how our thrusters are significantly more powerful when applying counter-thrust with FA-on than off. But basically if you are flying directly to your right at 100 ms with FA-off, you will get back to stationary a lot quicker if you put FA-on before thrusting left, than if you leave FA-off.
Therefore (although in the more manoeuvrable ships it is often unnecessary to put FA-off to evade) when it really matters, the best evasion will often involve a combination of FA-off and re-engaging FA-on so as to provide massive lateral deceleration, before then beginning the process again in another direction.
Retaining FA-off throughout will often simply result in too much momentum in one direction and stalling while attempting to arrest it, albeit to some extent this is made up for by unpredictability.
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?
Really, all timed exercises (such as measuring DPS
etc.) should be carried out using the vid method after the event. Tapping mobile phone stop watches is way too error-prone!
About the different ships ...
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 can't imagine trying to drag an Anaconda or Python back on line without at least momentarily putting FA-off. Although I will usually be using thrusters at the same time, I'm pretty sure that there's a significant, straight, 'no thrusters' pitch buff with FA-off and I think Nerwan is probably right about this differing ship by ship.
Although it does seem odd that a ship with the Viper IV's poor pitch should be one of the 'little difference' ones, on that basis.
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.
I think as others such as @TuxedoSteve have indicated Frenotx is referring to the superior
deceleration of FA-on by his use of the term 'retro'. A straight reverse from a standing start with FA-off will accelerate (backwards) far faster than with FA-on.
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).
While the % may be up for debate, I don't personally believe that it's possible to achieve the best possible manoeuvring with either full-time FA-off or FA-on. I've always taken some comfort from the fact that Cmdrs whose piloting I have admired first-hand, such as BreakfastMelon and PoaArctica, appear to agree.
I love watching full-time FA-off PvP vids with fixed weaponry but I suspect it's more of a personal challenge thing for the pilots concerned. Hence why they're often filmed in trollolo ships, to boot.
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)
I salute "Grape's Guide" and indeed have even summarised your results on this forum, somewhere!
As above, it does seem a bit odd that the Viper IV should not get a decent pitch buff from FA-off, though, bearing in mind its atrocious pitch rate.
