Flight Controls - My Initial Impressions

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Cyda

Cyda
Zplintz said:
Roll and pitch. Yaw is for fine adjustment.

It isn't a difficult concept to get your head around and becomes completely instinctive before long.
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This. +1.

The controls in this game are excellent once you get used to them. No need to fix what isn't broken.
 

Cotic

Cotic
This is what the game designer has to say about the flight method. I firmly agree with his statement.

Mike Evans said:
Indeed, a request is just that. We don't have to do anything if we don't want to but that doesn't mean we didn't read and consider the request. Suffice to say a low yaw rate is a fundamental part of our games aesthetics and a corner stone to our flight model that we at frontier like the way it is. We're not changing it, for to do so would be to compromise our own vision for what Elite: Dangerous is and what it's going to be. I don't give a damn what all the other space games have done in the past, nor do I care that our yaw rates are apparently even slower than a plane's is (though every time I've tried doing a pure yaw turn in IL-2 I've stalled my plane before I got anything that even resembled a steady and fast turn rate). Fast yaw and pitch in a space game is a video game trope of the highest order along with banner arrows sliding around the screen and compasses telling you where to fly all the time. I'm almost certain that other developers just implement those features because they've been so prevalent rather than actually reassessing whether the game needed them or could be even better without them! We found for example that the compass that pointed you towards your target at all times made combat too easy to end in stalemate of circling. As soon as we tried removing it all of a sudden it was more exciting to fight someone because they could give you the slip whilst you weren't glancing at your sensors and even if you did pay attention to the sensors the difference in the way the information is presented can still mean you don't quite stay on the target's tail perfectly, again providing more opportunities for them to turn the tide of the battle.

Suffice to say we wanted Elite to feel like star wars in terms of how the ships move by banking/rolling and pitching through manoeuvres opposed to the yaw and pitch based FPS style movement most other space games offered (where roll plays little or no part). That limitation to having to do your main directional change manoeuvring by pitching makes the flight path taken to be more cinematic and means a skilled player can predict the manoeuvres of an opponent in advanced by observing their current roll position relative to themselves only. So long as they match the roll quickly enough they can always follow through the inevitable pitch manoeuvre effectively and maintain the chase. If the target could yaw or pitch effectively then it's much harder to assess what they're going to do as they're current roll position doesn't really matter any more.

Finally realism has played no part whatsoever in any of our design discussions about the flight model. We don't care what would be realistic as we only care what the game play experience is when flying these ships and so far we feel we're hitting the right notes for the majority of our audience.
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https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=29623&p=609596&viewfull=1#post609596
 

uncle bulgaria

uncle bulgaria
aRtFuL said:
Actually just for the record they wouldn't even have lost if it wasn't because the Persian forces found a back pass :p

Also there is The Battle of Agincourt from the Hundred Years War, to add to your example.
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Debatable whether they would have won in the end or not or whether sheer attrition and fatigue would have done for them in the end in the face of a much larger opposition force (we can never know for sure) but certainly the Persian forces looping round the back is what cost them.
 

Stiffmaister

S
sorry for the negative experience you had...maybe trying the free combat demo could have saved you to buy the game...
In any case Elite Dangerous is not a First person shooter where you rotate left or right toward your opponent..this is all about combat ships in space and frontier tend to create a flight model for no-g environmet as well an athmospheric flight which has to be delivered later.
 

Moriarte

Moriarte
Yeah, people, you can defend "frontier's decision, vision, direction.." all you like, but the fact is - Elite 2: Frontier had the best space flight model. (Because of it's proximity to real-world physics) Now, to cater to xbox generation you need something much simpler, or else they won't buy. Something like airplanes in space. There you go.
 

CYB34

CYB34
Cotic said:
This is what the game designer has to say about the flight method. I firmly agree with his statement.



https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=29623&p=609596&viewfull=1#post609596
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And here's what the creator of "the other game" had to say:

"A portion of the community has expressed concern about the ability for players to “turret” by going into decoupled mode and spin around to fire at their target, feeling this removes the skill level of dogfighting.

I know people think this but I can assure you that in our internal multiplayer tests pretty no one exclusively decouples and “turrets” as they would get destroyed very quickly.
The key to surviving a dogfight is about being constantly on the move and not being predicable with your movements – sitting still or moving in a constant vector (which is what happens when you decouple) will get you killed. Decoupled mode is best used by going into briefly for a quick orientation change then dropping back into coupled mode.

As we tweak the power of the maneuvering thrusters to make the main engine more significant going into decoupled mode, making a quick orientation change and going back into normal flight will be a great way to maximize your available thrust for a quick vector change. I know that some people think that being able to change your orientation much quicker than you can in an atmospheric flight sim makes the game easy but this is a space combat simulation NOT an atmospheric flight simulation and the ability to decouple your orientation from your velocity vector is absolutely something that would be used – and don’t forget a huge amount of the community demanded to be able to do the maneuvers you loved from Battle Star Galactica!"

Source: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13951-Flight-Model-And-Input-Controls

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlAsSyDAWR8
Star Citizen here I come!
 
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Top Cat

T
Stormprooter said:
Dude, the starter Sidewinder is really fun to fly, highly nippy and maneuverable. Having flown one since Alpha in December 2013, I can vouch for it being just about the perfect starter ship to get people learning to pilot in E: D.
The only ship I find more fun (in terms of pure joy to just fly around) is the Eagle. I'm sure many would agree (and perhaps even more would disagree :D)
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Im not disputing that. Im disputing the conclusion OP has reached after what appears to be very little exposure to the game.
 

Vezdekot

V
ED controls is one off the best a space sim could have. Plane based dogfights is 10 times more skill oriented than SC turets, but still ED is more mass oriented game so it still have space magic like mana potions,boost, and +10 sword beats +1 dagger.
 

Stormprooter

Stormprooter
Top Cat said:
Im not disputing that. Im disputing the conclusion OP has reached after what appears to be very little exposure to the game.
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I agree with that sentiment. Fot those not used to pitch & roll for a space game, it does need quite a bit of time to get into it. Being a 1984 Elite veteran, I picked up the basics in about 20 minutes, got reasonably OK after about 2 hours, but still learning to truly master it after 100s of hours of gameplay time :D
 

Cotic

Cotic
CYB34 said:
And here's what the creator of "the other game" had to say:

"A portion of the community has expressed concern about the ability for players to “turret” by going into decoupled mode and spin around to fire at their target, feeling this removes the skill level of dogfighting.

I know people think this but I can assure you that in our internal multiplayer tests pretty no one exclusively decouples and “turrets” as they would get destroyed very quickly.
The key to surviving a dogfight is about being constantly on the move and not being predicable with your movements – sitting still or moving in a constant vector (which is what happens when you decouple) will get you killed. Decoupled mode is best used by going into briefly for a quick orientation change then dropping back into coupled mode.

As we tweak the power of the maneuvering thrusters to make the main engine more significant going into decoupled mode, making a quick orientation change and going back into normal flight will be a great way to maximize your available thrust for a quick vector change. I know that some people think that being able to change your orientation much quicker than you can in an atmospheric flight sim makes the game easy but this is a space combat simulation NOT an atmospheric flight simulation and the ability to decouple your orientation from your velocity vector is absolutely something that would be used – and don’t forget a huge amount of the community demanded to be able to do the maneuvers you loved from Battle Star Galactica!"

Source: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13951-Flight-Model-And-Input-Controls

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlAsSyDAWR8
Star Citizen here I come!
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Haha, that video is awesome!

It's a shame Mr Roberts misses the point about how fast manoeuvring affects the wider gameplay.
 

Deleted member 38366

D
@OP

Have you tried the Yaw-into-Roll setting ?
I've honestly never tried it, but it might give you at least a little bit of what you're seeking.
ELITE-Yaw-Roll.jpg


Other than that :
Be aware that specific ships will have a very specific Yaw Rate based on the power of the respective Thrusters on that Ship.

A Cobra will feel like it's nearly missing the Thrusters for that job (extremely low yaw rate) - while an Adder, Vulture or especially a Type-6 will feel much more like you'd like to see it.
So getting what you're missing might just come with the right ship.

Also make sure your Thrusters are Upgraded, as it'll improve the overall agility of every ship (within some limitations of course).
Last but not least, remember the agility of any Ship will be optimum in all directions when maneuvers are performed in FA off and at optimum speed (center of blue zone).
Using Afterburner will yield a temporary agility boost to all thruster directions - at the price of gaining alot of momentum and definitely leaving the optimum speed zone once afterburner boost is consumed.
 
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Crank Larson

Crank Larson
babelfisch said:
I get your point, but it becomes problematic when someone wants to back his opinion by stating that he is a game programmer. Without telling you which games he worked on.

I am a game programmer myself, here is what I have done so far:

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void)
{
printf("Hello, World\n");

return 0;
}
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I tried your game. It's not much fun. Thought you'd appreciate the feedback. :p
 

TriumphANT

TriumphANT
babelfisch said:
I get your point, but it becomes problematic when someone wants to back his opinion by stating that he is a game programmer. Without telling you which games he worked on.

I am a game programmer myself, here is what I have done so far:

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void)
{
printf("Hello, World\n");

return 0;
}
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I LOVED your game at first, but after a few goes I had a problem with YAWning. :D
 

Ancipital

Ancipital
Why must people post ill-researched "first impressions"? They're rarely searing insights, usually just peevish wibbling based on misunderstanding. This thread is a case in point, someone rocking up and complaining that the controls in an Elite game work like the controls in Elite, rather than Wing Commander or similar. Sigh.

I know, I will sign up for a physics degree, and then start giving people my unsolicited opinions of the standard model at the end of the first week :D
 
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Bingo Brewster

Bingo Brewster
Flight model has always felt very intuitive to me.

If I had a beef, which I dont, it would be with the difference with which different types of controllers deal with Flight Assist Off.
 
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