Flight Assist Off assistance?

Layne Vakarian

Layne Vakarian
I can sort of fly FA-off near to planet surfaces. That is, when I have a fixed frame of reference. Out in space though I quickly lose track of my vector and find the 'space dust' of only limited value.

I wonder if it would be possible to add a small instrument to my cockpit dashboard though? Better minds than mine might like to thrash out the precise design but I see it as little more than an glass ball on a stick containing a centre-mounted, gimballed arrow, that always points in the actual direction of travel, as opposed to where the nose is pointing.

With such a thing I imagine us FA-off novices and ham-fists would have a far better time figuring their actual vector versus where the nose is pointing, allowing us all to get in on the act.

Me, I'd pay for one with real money. Arx points?

What do you think?
 

znôrt

znôrt
has been proposed, would be neat, don't count on it. the cockpit displays are kinda low key / cartoonish in general, it took frontier 5 years to revamp the throttle display and, well ...

you'll get the hang of it, though. the dust is actually enough, but you really aren't out flying in normal space without any reference much, do you? and if you and there is really nothing, why care about direction? you're not going anywhere anyway! :ROFLMAO: if the dust isn't enough there surely will be other elements of reference near you: ships, asteroids, whatever it is that's there and is the reason for you to be there.

but most importantly you need to get used to it, at one point your brain will readily predict your vector just from your input, without any indication, you'll 'be there and feel it' somehow. vr helps a lot.
 

Sylow

Sylow
Such a vector indicator would indeed be awesome. The suggestion is around since years, comes up regularily. (While space dust is supposed to also do the job, it's simply not the same. ) I would very much appreciate having such a vector indicator, but as already said, after that many years of it being ignored, i don't have confidence that it will still be implemented.
 

schmicknick

schmicknick
In one of the earliest set of intro videos I watched about flying FAOff suggested flying around space stations in practice formations to have that visual reference.

Like flying the length of the station via lateral thrusters while keeping the distance and orientation constant. ...it was a series of videos that encompassed many hours. Sorry I don't recall the details on the creator.

It is really confusing at first, no doubt. However, once your sense of the control improves I'm not sure that other indicators apart from the dust and relative objects would be anything other than a distraction.

Also... gravity acting on all your axis while flying FAOff near a planet surface is just more complication to add to the mix. Unless that's where you plan to do most of your flying, I'm not sure practice in such an area is worth the trouble only for the visual references.

At any rate... all the best on your efforts, Cmdr... o7
 
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