I'll leave it there as the OP was asking about learning FAoff and has good advice from Bronney.
Fly safe Cmdr FAon.
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Newcomer / Intro FAOFF
- Thread starter timedriver
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I'll leave it there as the OP was asking about learning FAoff and has good advice from Bronney.
Fly safe Cmdr FAon.
I'll leave it there as the OP was asking about learning FAoff and has good advice from Bronney.
Fly safe Cmdr FAon.
I will not, because you have just used a veiled insult, evidently not having any proper answer. Was it not clear that I toggle Flight Assist habitually and frequently? It is exactly the must-be-always-on-or-always-off mentality which my original reply was designed specifically to help avoid, and to approach the toggling of Flight Assist more gradually in ways which disables it a little more each time. Please, do not project that false dichotomy onto others.
To be sure, if there exists a fully Flight-Assist-disabled answer to performing a straight-line, orientation-preserving retro deceleration with the same performance as with Flight Assist enabled, I would love very much to know and would be very happy to learn it!
Well you carry on as you wish.
As for "veiled insult"... Poor gramma and punctuation on my part.
If you're happy to learn then come and join Newtons Gambit where a lot of people have put a lot of time into understanding how the flight mechanics work.
Hi @timedriver, to answer the original question this is episode 4 and 5 (of 5 total). And, depending on what you're interested in with FA Off, it basically makes flying the spaceship like actually flying a spaceship in space, whereas FA On is more like flying a plane in space. FA On is much more simplistic and easier to fly, whereas by comparison FA Off is much more free and interesting, with a steeper initial learning curve - imho of course, no judgements! FA Off is just a pure freedom, once you have it, you realise it's like flying a different game. It's not for everyone of course, depending on what you want out of the game. But as you asked about the videos I assumed you're interested in it. Also, there is a great FA Off community of pilots over at Newton's Gambit discord. https://discord.gg/mACjS8h
#4
#5
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I'll leave it there as the OP was asking about learning FAoff and has good advice from Bronney.
Fly safe Cmdr FAon.
Both replies read very arrogant and elitist. The question @Aleks Zuno asked is a valid one; why does it take longer to come to a stop with reverse thrust in FA off as it does in FA on? This shouldn't happen. Telling him to use a different set of thrusters is a non-answer.
The common understanding seems to be that lateral and vertical thrusters are crippled in FA on, but the forward and reverse thrusters are not. You cannot achieve maximum speed vertically or laterally in FA on, but you can forward and in reverse. The forward/reverse thrusters should have the same power in FA on as in FA off. Yes? No? Instead of LOL'ing and giving non-replies that reek of elitism, could you maybe clarify the issue?
Also, the comment that flicking FA on to come to complete stop quickly and reliably is a useful tool even if you fly FA off all the time isn't nonsense. I have seen a few pilots who are "FA off only" (and who are "gud" at it) who use this as a tool, because it is at their disposal.
I have also seen pilots who can do things in FA on (or with switching between FA on and off habitually) that some FA off pilots cannot. FA off isn't a religion, rite of passage or seal of "git gud", it is a tool like any other.
It all depends on your outlook I guess, I’d say it’s not Elitist at all (love the pun by the way )
I don’t get why FA Off-ers get branded as elitist. FA off is more of a preference. When you get FA Off, FA On by contrast feels like having a rope tied between your ankles and naturally you don’t want it. In my opinion of course (and many others), but I love space sims and therefore FAOff seems to me as pure Elite Dangerous.
I know that ankle analogy sounds dramatic but it’s the best analogy that I can come up with that is literal.
Yes it comes with a skill curve, but the problem with Elite Dangerous out of the box is that it doesn’t help you learn or understand what FA Off actually is.
So the barrier isn’t all in skill per se. I am a firm believer that if Elite was originally released FA Off only, it’d still be as popular as it is today. It’d be a bit more simmy, granted, but it’d be more spaceshippy (note to self: is that a word?) at the same time and totally in keeping with what the core values of Elite are. I think the issue with FA off is that people are by default led to FA on first. Makes FA off by comparison seem ‘special’. When actually the process of unlearning one to understand the other is the only real blocker.
In my experience it doesn’t take longer to come to a stop fa off. Happy to be educated on this though. Meaning that without prejudice!
Flicking between the two, I don’t get that. As when you have FA off it’s just so much more liberating. Fa on is like having lots of auto pilot corrections interfering with the process of piloting the craft. Again, that is not meant to sound ‘superior’ but it’s a reflection of what happens with the flight model.
FA on applies multiple thrusters simultaneously and automatically to ‘magic’ the craft into a certain flight characteristic. In fa off you have to do that manually as the pilot, and that is so much more fun, dynamic and liberating.
Again, all in my humble opinion, and not everyone plays elite for that sort of dynamic and I totally get that. But just saying in the context of this discussion.
)I don’t get why FA Off-ers get branded as elitist. FA off is more of a preference. When you get FA Off, FA On by contrast feels like having a rope tied between your ankles and naturally you don’t want it. In my opinion of course (and many others), but I love space sims and therefore FAOff seems to me as pure Elite Dangerous.
I know that ankle analogy sounds dramatic but it’s the best analogy that I can come up with that is literal.
Yes it comes with a skill curve, but the problem with Elite Dangerous out of the box is that it doesn’t help you learn or understand what FA Off actually is.
So the barrier isn’t all in skill per se. I am a firm believer that if Elite was originally released FA Off only, it’d still be as popular as it is today. It’d be a bit more simmy, granted, but it’d be more spaceshippy (note to self: is that a word?) at the same time and totally in keeping with what the core values of Elite are. I think the issue with FA off is that people are by default led to FA on first. Makes FA off by comparison seem ‘special’. When actually the process of unlearning one to understand the other is the only real blocker.
In my experience it doesn’t take longer to come to a stop fa off. Happy to be educated on this though. Meaning that without prejudice!
Flicking between the two, I don’t get that. As when you have FA off it’s just so much more liberating. Fa on is like having lots of auto pilot corrections interfering with the process of piloting the craft. Again, that is not meant to sound ‘superior’ but it’s a reflection of what happens with the flight model.
FA on applies multiple thrusters simultaneously and automatically to ‘magic’ the craft into a certain flight characteristic. In fa off you have to do that manually as the pilot, and that is so much more fun, dynamic and liberating.
Again, all in my humble opinion, and not everyone plays elite for that sort of dynamic and I totally get that. But just saying in the context of this discussion.
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That's because I didn't brand FA Off-ers as elitist. I branded Earthman as elitist, because he replied like oneIt all depends on your outlook I guess, I’d say it’s not Elitist at all (love the pun by the way
I don’t get why FA Off-ers get branded as elitist. FA off is more of a preference. When you get FA Off, FA On by contrast feels like having a rope tied between your ankles and naturally you don’t want it. In my opinion of course (and many others), but I love space sims and therefore FAOff seems to me as pure Elite Dangerous.
. @Aleks Zuno asked a valid question and got a non-answer (use different thrusters) and basically "if you want to learn make an effort" instead of an explanation. That's elitist behavior.How does the saying go? Some of my best friends are FA Off-ers
.Also, for transparency: I don't care about FA off, I fly FA on almost all the time, and I am happy with it, and I can't be bothered learning FA off. But I am still interested in the mechanics and an explanation why reverse thrust braking didn't work as well in FA on as per the above post.
I think part of it is things like your analogy there, people don’t always like being told that they are playing a crippled version or some other similarly disparaging description of the way they choose to play.
I apologise if that sounded that way. I didn’t imply it is crippled or telling anyone they are playing it in a lesser way. That’s not what I said.
I said the flight model with the FA on ‘assists’ feels limited by comparison. It feels constrianed when compared to the freeform dynamic that FA Off provides.
But, that only means something to you if you get off on more ‘accurate’ and simmy space flight dynamics. If you don’t, you’ll prefer fa on to enjoy the game.
FA Off is the way the game’s underlying flight model works. FA On is effectively a set of assists that make it more managed and more user friendly initially, it’s like having automatic dampers.
It’s not the other way around: fa off is not like some form of additional ‘hard mode’.
You can only properly realise this relationship once you have experienced FA off and it therefore illuminates by comparison. Again, I don’t mean that to sound ‘elitist’. Just the facts, ‘guv!
I said the flight model with the FA on ‘assists’ feels limited by comparison. It feels constrianed when compared to the freeform dynamic that FA Off provides.
But, that only means something to you if you get off on more ‘accurate’ and simmy space flight dynamics. If you don’t, you’ll prefer fa on to enjoy the game.
FA Off is the way the game’s underlying flight model works. FA On is effectively a set of assists that make it more managed and more user friendly initially, it’s like having automatic dampers.
It’s not the other way around: fa off is not like some form of additional ‘hard mode’.
You can only properly realise this relationship once you have experienced FA off and it therefore illuminates by comparison. Again, I don’t mean that to sound ‘elitist’. Just the facts, ‘guv!
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As a side note, I like to compare it more to helicopters in space. FA on is still very much 6dof, and FA off adds the decoupling of your ship's orientation from your movement vector on top of that (something you can mimic a bit in FA on when you move through your thrusters when changing your ship's orientation, because in FA on you can take advantage of the ship's inertia; but of course you always have to work somewhat hard to always have the correct thrusters engaged, whereas the decoupling in FA off comes naturally, and you can achieve higher speeds laterally and vertically).
If you want to really play planes in space, try Star Wars Squadrons. Those X-Wings are like on rails. Man, that game is aggravating when you are used to 6dof movement
.oh it made me so angry. If you're used to the 6dof flight of Elite, only having rotation but no translation makes you want to bite your joystick. I hated it. Sitting in an actual X-Wing cockpit in VR was cool though. The flying, not so much.I’ve heard not so good things about Squadrons’ flight dynamics!
This is known. Further discussion of it is, frankly, boring, because it is known.
Do what you want. Fly how you like. Stop sweating.
In hindsight, it does come across arrogant and elitist. That was not my intention.
The use of a LOL was to lighten the conversation and I genuinely wanted to not distract the conversation from the OP.
But internet conversations
The response to it is something I find incredibly interesting! I presented the straight-line-retro example after an otherwise-reasonable account of flying with Flight Assist fully disabled proceeded to slip a bit and state this:
My immediate thought was no, that goes too far. Choosing to fly fully-off oneself is quite fine, and helping others to understand what happens without Flight Assist is lovely, but suggesting unconditionally that enabling Flight Assist is an hindrance was a statement I knew to be false and ought not to be impressed upon anyone in the Newcomer section.
So, I presented the most simple counter-example of something for which Flight Assist has superior performance—and indeed was more than twice as effective as without it when I tested it. It may be a relatively dull case, but it was a counter-example nonetheless. It would have been quite fine to meet it with oh, that is true, there are a few reasons to enable Flight Assist. Instead the paraphrased responses were:
- Rotate to use laterals (a disqualifying concession).
- Name-calling.
- Terrible excuse for the name-calling.
- Getting me to join in return for dubious wisdom, given its lack of an answer.
- Admitting that I was correct, but very quickly also dismissing me for not being interesting enough in the process.
A great place to start is here:
In my experience it doesn’t take longer to come to a stop fa off. Happy to be educated on this though. Meaning that without prejudice!
Flicking between the two, I don’t get that. As when you have FA off it’s just so much more liberating.
The reason for not understanding those who toggle it is that flying fully-off has made a large number of Commanders blind to the possibility that there are a few types of motion which occur only with Flight Assist enabled, and which are being cast away by refusing to enable it. Again, there is no problem at all with choosing that oneself and the fully-off experience is graceful and lovely, but the first step when presenting it anew must be to identify and admit that it also comes with a loss of functionality as well as a gain. It is different, not universally better.
While I can make a video a bit later if needed, for the moment I need to assert that the retro-only stop from full normal speed in my combat Mamba, which by loose memory is around 492, takes seven seconds with Flight Assist but twenty seconds without. This I tested extensively back when Rotational Correction would cause problems around stationary landing pads (and found that such caused also a twenty-second stop, which was very interesting in how it matched).
That being the case, my incessant toggling of Flight Assist should follow quite quickly! That very difference in deceleration is why I want Flight Assist enabled for stopping and changing trajectory sharply, and disabled for drifting and superior orientation. I toggle it enough that the COVAS can not always keep up with it!
Easily the best single example of toggling Flight Assist is during the gear-boost: press Boost, deploy landing gear during the effect, then retract when it ends. This adds extra agility to a vessel based on its boost duration and multiplier; it is not really captured in any tables of numbers anywhere, and it should reveal why I fly a Mamba. With such a long 3-second Boost duration and an incredible 380 acceleration, normally I spend the first 1.5–2.0 seconds with Flight Assist disabled for superior orientation, then the last 1.0–1.5 seconds with Flight Assist enabled for superior trajectory.
By doing that, I can press Boost first, then decide afterwards to achieve almost any orientation and trajectory I want—in a Mamba. It works only if Flight Assist is toggled at the mid-point to obtain a bit of boost time each way. That, not simply disabling Flight Assist, was the most liberating discovery for me!
Are you describing scoop boost or is this soemthing different that you’re doing? Am aware dropping the gear has the same effect as deploying scoop. I (and many fa off-ers and racers/hooners) have scoop set to hold (for more immediate effect than gear deploy) for feathering and bleeding boost in fa off flying, precisely to take advantage of the lateral manoeuvrability. This is known as scoop boosting and is a core part of ‘performance‘ flying in fa off.
The bit I don’t yet understand is why you need fa on at the end of the manoeuvre. FA off provides more thrust per thrust axis than fa on, does it not? Isn’t fa on capped thrust? Ie why do you call this phase a ‘superior trajectory’? Keeping fa off until the end of the phase gives you max thrust. Or are you referring to the cool-down period of the boost where max thrust has dropped off?
PS - I set the covas voice to mute in audio settings for the cargo scoop voice announcement!
The bit I don’t yet understand is why you need fa on at the end of the manoeuvre. FA off provides more thrust per thrust axis than fa on, does it not? Isn’t fa on capped thrust? Ie why do you call this phase a ‘superior trajectory’? Keeping fa off until the end of the phase gives you max thrust. Or are you referring to the cool-down period of the boost where max thrust has dropped off?
PS - I set the covas voice to mute in audio settings for the cargo scoop voice announcement!
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The same thing; having a combat context, I am very much accustomed to using the Landing gear (and calling it a gear-boost) because it uses no additional power. I have used the Cargo scoop for boosting, although only in an Imperial Cutter and only because I had a fighter deployed, precluding the use of Landing gear!
Indeed; I mentioned hooning (and linked to a video) originally earlier in the same context! The Landing gear effect is just as immediate though; it applies while deploying or deployed, and ceases while retracting or retracted. If anything, one barely notices having to silence that COVAS message with the Mamba, where the Landing gear takes so long to deploy that one approaches the next boost before that occurs.
I meant entirely during the boost effect, and I just recorded a bit of video to highlight what I mean:
- Disable to swivel (with a slight orbiting arc) then enable for a trajectory surge, all within one boost.
- Disable to drift around where I can push the target from a perpendicular position (typically for Power plant access), enable for a hairpin movement and manage the Landing gear for the pounce.
Incidentally, I thought to check the retro performance again, and this turned out to be a quite wise test—the Mamba now decelerates in eleven seconds both ways (previously seven and twenty). Given how closely I was watching it following the update 15.02 change, which left the retro performance problem present but restricted to Starports its interaction with Rotational Correction, that must be new since update 16 this week!
That’s interesting. Are you sure it’s the best way? Is it sharper than either fa on or fa off? Looking at the vid I can’t see which bit benefits from FA On. The lead up and the turn are all better done Off. And the last lunge doesn’t look faster or cleaner than fa off - although I don’t know the mamba or your build / engineering - but it looks like a basic up thrust plus forward thrust bi-chord manaouvre under boost. Looks like you’ve used the fa on to catch the slide, then boost. If this was flown fa Off that would be a classic scoop boost bi-chord. But I acknowledge I don’t fly combat!
It looks like you’ve got a passion for flight dynamics though. It’s what I love about elite and flying it FA off as the flight model is simply sublime, such a good piece of programming. You should come and fly at Newton’s Gambit!
It looks like you’ve got a passion for flight dynamics though. It’s what I love about elite and flying it FA off as the flight model is simply sublime, such a good piece of programming. You should come and fly at Newton’s Gambit!
my advice to you is just fly. In time, you will see progress.