I would prefer FA off less jerky. It favours mouse far too much.
Flight Model: Has FDev Lost Their Way?
- Thread starter Frenotx
- Start date
I think you guys are forgetting that the SLF exists. Considering they are the SMALLEST ships, they would presumably have no trouble protecting the big mothership from small evasive attackers. That's like, their whole point. They don't even necessarily need to KILL the small attackers (though they shouldn't really struggle to much to)- they just need to drive them out of the mothership's blindspots.
That would be the point of the SLF indeed.
I fly a small ship Engineered ship so the main thing that stops me sitting behind a big NPC ship is those pesky little SLF.
Add it it that they have 2 weapons that sit at class 2.5 to my class ones and I am out matched as I am really a terrible pilot that relies on having an advantage in an engineered ship
Still by rights a big ship can leave at any time as it won't be mass locked but NPCs doing that is not fun.
I fly a small ship Engineered ship so the main thing that stops me sitting behind a big NPC ship is those pesky little SLF.
Add it it that they have 2 weapons that sit at class 2.5 to my class ones and I am out matched as I am really a terrible pilot that relies on having an advantage in an engineered ship
Still by rights a big ship can leave at any time as it won't be mass locked but NPCs doing that is not fun.
Last edited:
And who si flying the SLF's? the AI is so poop the SLF pops in no time. And flyign ti yoursefl, god nOOO, never egain, ONCE shortly after release of the ghame have I done that by accidently setpping into the SLF myself and the AI nearly ruined my cutter vs some crappy opponent.
if the AI controlled shipd/SLF is your answer than this is the most fail answer at all. As if those tiny crpaships drive a proper pvp player out of that blindspot.
The NPC pilot skills / behavior is a separate issue that should be addressed, but that doesn't change the fact that SLFs are to the exact problem you were concerned about: providing help against small nimble opponents. If the SLFs also got proportionally buffed with the rest of the small ships as discussed, they would be quite capable of getting on and staying on someone's 6. Considering the substantial damage they can pump out, and small ship would be forced to deal with them. Just sitting on the tail of the mothership and allowing the SLF to hammer them would be suicide. Even now, it's unwised to ignore an SLF that has you in its sights, especially if it's flown by a player.
Earlier I commented to verify the demonstrated flight knowledge and skills of the OP, without commenting directly on his propositions.
I would like to explain the issue that Frentox has identified further, without actually really joining a side in this debate.
I would also just like to note that unlike some I am very pleased with 3.0 and strongly feel that the good outweighs the bad. Yes, all this is largely Frontier seeking to repair problems caused by the hasty release of 2.1 but personally I do think we are moving in the right direction. Be that as it may:
Explanation: the two polar approaches to a 1v1
The basic issue is that there have always been two opposed approaches to a 1v1 in ED that fall at opposite ends of a spectrum. They are not the only two approaches but they are the polarities.
Approach A: “Circle-Strafe”
The approach is to attempt to keep the opponent within around 1.5 km, because beneath that distance the fire arcs cannot cover all of your relative movement, and use translational thrust to evade fire whilst using rotational inputs to keep on target yourself.
Note that circle-strafing is not about getting onto the opponent’s tail, which is impossible in ED against any ship, unless piloted by a player who has yet to learn the basics.
Approach B: “Pinball”
Note that I use the term “pinball’ rather than ‘jousting’ or ‘reverski’ because both jousting and reverski are merely two sub-facets of space pinball.
The pinball approach is to travel for most of the time in a straight line, or something close to a straight line, and when near to the opponent to disengage FA, if not already full FA-off, rotate the ship whilst maintaining most of its original vector, and fire at the opponent whilst passing.
Example: Boosting towards an enemy, then at around 1 km beginning to rotate, firing a volley of plasma or frags at around 500m, then continuing past enemy.
Reverski example: Reversing, using a secondary hit scan weapon for attrition as the enemy approaches, then doing the above when they get closer, before re-establishing the reverse.
Discussion of the needs of the two approaches
Needs of circle-strafing
The two approaches outlined above require different things of the ships and flight model.
Circle-strafing does not require much pitch or yaw, because generally even quite limited pitch and yaw will be enough to maintain good time on target. It does require very strong translational thrust. Hence the best SLF for circle-strafing is the Taipan, which has the best translational thrust and the worst rotational ability.
Straight-line boost is not much relevant to circling, save to close distance and re-establish. However, lateral boost is relevant, as in more advanced attempts is deceleration.
Needs of pinball
Pinball does not require much translational thrust. Depending upon whether it is thought preferable to attempt, or to avoid, a possible collision during the close pass, translational thrust may be used to narrow or widen the passing distance. Beyond that, it’s largely irrelevant save by more advanced users attempting to reduce enemy ToT marginally during the approach. Likewise the barrel roll in reverse, albeit neither of these actually make much difference against a skilled opponent with fixed, and especially hitscan, weapons.
Rotational ability (pitch and yaw) is key to pinball because the ability to get on target during the crucial moments of the pass, in order to deliver the burst damage, depend upon it.
Straight line boost is also key to pinball for reasons that are probably obvious.
The relevance of the above to this thread
As typical velocities of the medium combat ships (FdL, FAS, Clipper and now Chieftain) have increased (now between around 530 and 640, once between around 390 and 440) and due to what Frenotx calls ‘pitch inflation’ (the pitch buff to the FdL of ED 1.5, and the introduction of the Chieftain as a high-pitch ship, alongside the FAS and Clipper which have always had high pitch) all four of the medium combat ships now have high pitch. 4 out of 4.
Only one of the four (the FdL) has excellent translational thrust. In fact, lack of translational thrust has been used as a balancing mechanic on the others. 1 out of 4.
All four have access, via their c6 distributors, to perma- or near-perma boost.
In short, the game’s 1v1 mechanics do appear to have progressed somewhat towards pinball as a more optimal mechanic over circle-strafing. This is for the reasons above but also due to ‘the clincher’, as below.
The Clincher
Any competent pilot who wishes to pinball can at any time break a circle strafe and pinball continuously.
In contrast, there is no way for a competent pilot who wishes to circle strafe to force a pinballer to stop pinballing.
The ‘choice’, or sometimes called ‘control of the fight’, is 100% in favour of pinball. Pinball cannot be prevented and can be forced at any time. Circle-strafing can be prevented, at will, and can never be forced.
There has been clear movement in favour of pinball since ED 1.4 to date, by reason of (a) higher straight line boost speeds, (b) frequency of boost availability and (c) the game moving from 2 out of 3 combat medium ships having high pitch, to 4 out of 4, while still only 1 out of 4 has high translational thrust.
What do I think should be done about the above?
I don’t know. It depends upon whether the Developers actually want to redress the balance between the two polar 1v1 tactics, say restoring the sort of balance of ED 1.4, or not.
So, I’m not minded to join sides in this debate, neither am I offering solutions.
But I thought it might be helpful to explain what I think we are discussing, in terms of what the two approaches are, what they require, and why one has gained ground on the other.
o7
I would like to explain the issue that Frentox has identified further, without actually really joining a side in this debate.
I would also just like to note that unlike some I am very pleased with 3.0 and strongly feel that the good outweighs the bad. Yes, all this is largely Frontier seeking to repair problems caused by the hasty release of 2.1 but personally I do think we are moving in the right direction. Be that as it may:
Explanation: the two polar approaches to a 1v1
The basic issue is that there have always been two opposed approaches to a 1v1 in ED that fall at opposite ends of a spectrum. They are not the only two approaches but they are the polarities.
Approach A: “Circle-Strafe”
The approach is to attempt to keep the opponent within around 1.5 km, because beneath that distance the fire arcs cannot cover all of your relative movement, and use translational thrust to evade fire whilst using rotational inputs to keep on target yourself.
Note that circle-strafing is not about getting onto the opponent’s tail, which is impossible in ED against any ship, unless piloted by a player who has yet to learn the basics.
Approach B: “Pinball”
Note that I use the term “pinball’ rather than ‘jousting’ or ‘reverski’ because both jousting and reverski are merely two sub-facets of space pinball.
The pinball approach is to travel for most of the time in a straight line, or something close to a straight line, and when near to the opponent to disengage FA, if not already full FA-off, rotate the ship whilst maintaining most of its original vector, and fire at the opponent whilst passing.
Example: Boosting towards an enemy, then at around 1 km beginning to rotate, firing a volley of plasma or frags at around 500m, then continuing past enemy.
Reverski example: Reversing, using a secondary hit scan weapon for attrition as the enemy approaches, then doing the above when they get closer, before re-establishing the reverse.
Discussion of the needs of the two approaches
Needs of circle-strafing
The two approaches outlined above require different things of the ships and flight model.
Circle-strafing does not require much pitch or yaw, because generally even quite limited pitch and yaw will be enough to maintain good time on target. It does require very strong translational thrust. Hence the best SLF for circle-strafing is the Taipan, which has the best translational thrust and the worst rotational ability.
Straight-line boost is not much relevant to circling, save to close distance and re-establish. However, lateral boost is relevant, as in more advanced attempts is deceleration.
Needs of pinball
Pinball does not require much translational thrust. Depending upon whether it is thought preferable to attempt, or to avoid, a possible collision during the close pass, translational thrust may be used to narrow or widen the passing distance. Beyond that, it’s largely irrelevant save by more advanced users attempting to reduce enemy ToT marginally during the approach. Likewise the barrel roll in reverse, albeit neither of these actually make much difference against a skilled opponent with fixed, and especially hitscan, weapons.
Rotational ability (pitch and yaw) is key to pinball because the ability to get on target during the crucial moments of the pass, in order to deliver the burst damage, depend upon it.
Straight line boost is also key to pinball for reasons that are probably obvious.
The relevance of the above to this thread
As typical velocities of the medium combat ships (FdL, FAS, Clipper and now Chieftain) have increased (now between around 530 and 640, once between around 390 and 440) and due to what Frenotx calls ‘pitch inflation’ (the pitch buff to the FdL of ED 1.5, and the introduction of the Chieftain as a high-pitch ship, alongside the FAS and Clipper which have always had high pitch) all four of the medium combat ships now have high pitch. 4 out of 4.
Only one of the four (the FdL) has excellent translational thrust. In fact, lack of translational thrust has been used as a balancing mechanic on the others. 1 out of 4.
All four have access, via their c6 distributors, to perma- or near-perma boost.
In short, the game’s 1v1 mechanics do appear to have progressed somewhat towards pinball as a more optimal mechanic over circle-strafing. This is for the reasons above but also due to ‘the clincher’, as below.
The Clincher
Any competent pilot who wishes to pinball can at any time break a circle strafe and pinball continuously.
In contrast, there is no way for a competent pilot who wishes to circle strafe to force a pinballer to stop pinballing.
The ‘choice’, or sometimes called ‘control of the fight’, is 100% in favour of pinball. Pinball cannot be prevented and can be forced at any time. Circle-strafing can be prevented, at will, and can never be forced.
There has been clear movement in favour of pinball since ED 1.4 to date, by reason of (a) higher straight line boost speeds, (b) frequency of boost availability and (c) the game moving from 2 out of 3 combat medium ships having high pitch, to 4 out of 4, while still only 1 out of 4 has high translational thrust.
What do I think should be done about the above?
I don’t know. It depends upon whether the Developers actually want to redress the balance between the two polar 1v1 tactics, say restoring the sort of balance of ED 1.4, or not.
So, I’m not minded to join sides in this debate, neither am I offering solutions.
But I thought it might be helpful to explain what I think we are discussing, in terms of what the two approaches are, what they require, and why one has gained ground on the other.
o7
What IS the point of a bigger ship? To conveniently crush any smaller ship there is? I say no, but that's just me.
Thanks for your clear explanation. Well said. "Pinballing" is the thing I'm ultimately frustrated with. I dislike that it is extremely difficult to stop (as in it's hard to prevent the fight from devolving to that if the other pilot starts fighting that way), I dislike that it goes against FDev's goal for more cinematic fights, and I dislike it because frankly, I think it's lame. It puts the lion's share of a fights focus on stats (DPS vs defenses), a good chunk on aim (but not a ton, since you're either at long range where aiming is easy, or point blank where aiming isn't as relevant), and veeeery little on speed and position control. I personally believe that "pinballing" throws out a lot of aspects of combat, and also distorts the value of certain ship flight characteristics (thus throwing off effective balance). I thus view it as negative to the quality of the game when more and more ships and mechanics are added that push combat in that direction.
To be better at beating other bigger ships (which generally have large bounties / payouts associated with them), to haul more cargo, and to have unparalleled flexibility (via numerous module slots). The way I see it, things should work like this:
Small ships:
+Can stay on the tail of bigger ships and worse-flown small ships
+Cheap
-Die very easily if they make a mistake
-Have limited firepower, thus struggle to kill larger ships particularly quickly
-Can't really pin down larger ships, and thus will struggle to secure a kill on their own if their target doesn't want to die
Medium ships:
+Can stay on the tail of bigger ships and worse-flown mediums
+Better firepower than small ships, making them considerably better at killing medium ships, and a good bit better at taking on large ships
+Better defenses than small ships, and can safely make a few mistakes
+Can quickly punish a small ship if it slips up
-More expensive
-Will struggle to keep small ships in their sights
-Still can't pin down large ships, and can be outrun by small ships. Most effective at securing kills against other medium ships.
-Medium risk, medium reward.
Large ships:
+Maximum firepower, major threat to other large ships (with largest payouts)
+Maximum module slots, thus best for trade / multirole.
+Can obliterate smaller ships if they screw up
+Can escape easily escape from anything smaller
+Most defenses- can afford to make many mistakes without dying
-Most expensive, thus highest risk
-Will struggle to pin down smaller ships, since they can outrun it.
-Will struggle to bring main guns to bear on smaller ships, but can utilize turrets and SLF to compensate
So basically, with bigger ships you get better at killing bigger ship (with bigger payouts), but you also have to put more on the line (bigger rebuy). Ships can be built to more effectively attack things out of their weight class ("big" weapons, like plasma and rails for punching up, turrets and SLF for punching down), but at the expense of efficiency when fighting ships of their own class (reduced damage output from turrets, increased aiming difficulty / heat / power management from "big" weapons).
Last edited:
You cant disable boost in FA off, it would seriously hamper folks who only fly FA off, it would make FA off near useless for large ships in asteroid belts and around stations. Some of us chose to master flying FA off to take advantage of its strengths and use it all the time, we should not be forced into a situation where we have to toggle FA on just to maintain any semblance of control. A much better solution would be to add a delay between disabling FA and toggling it back on again, being able to switch between the two at will is the real issue. A delay of a minute, even five minutes really would not bother those who took the time to learn to use FA off properly.
Last edited:
Imo the whole "[speed limit] to avoid combat devolving into high-speed jousting and "turrets in space""-argument is just essential crap and a lame excuse. Also with a more realistic flight-thrust-model you can have turning and exciting dogfights (and that is not unproofed; and even possible for arcade-style-players if you add some support like match-relative-speeds-to-go-not-beyond-somel-limit-computer) while arcady-speed-limit-model can also degenerate into stupid just face-tanking-fights, as you say.
I hope there will be a game some day where this is not that simple approached and will offer real physics thrust while offering face tanking, tailing dog fights and also high speed jousting, depending on the ships engaged and players desire... it is possible if wanted. Until then, arcady flight model will stay arcady flight model
My stupid 2 cents.Imo the whole "[speed limit] to avoid combat devolving into high-speed jousting and "turrets in space""-argument is just essential crap and a lame excuse. Also with a more realistic flight-thrust-model you can have turning and exciting dogfights (and that is not unproofed; and even possible for arcade-style-players if you add some support like match-relative-speeds-to-go-not-beyond-somel-limit-computer) while arcady-speed-limit-model can also degenerate into stupid just face-tanking-fights, as you say.
I hope there will be a game some day where this is not that simple approached and will offer real physics thrust while offering face tanking, tailing dog fights and also high speed jousting, depending on the ships engaged and players desire... it is possible if wanted. Until then, arcady flight model will stay arcady flight model
You cant have both realistic and fun in the same arena - not without an extra mechanic being either a boundary or some kind of magic tether to other ship system. Realistic will result in more jousting by a long way. Besides you can avoid face tanking by using ships that can yaw as well as pitch.
Well I have been flying almost pure FA-OFF since early beta, would not like to see a delay in cycling FA On. There is no logical reason for the flight computers to take minutes to engage, if I want to take my hands off the controls (over a planet for example) I expect FA to engage when I enable it, not minutes later.
We could always just play this.
[video=youtube_share;7euzfP4Kdaw]https://youtu.be/7euzfP4Kdaw?t=13s[/video]
[video=youtube_share;7euzfP4Kdaw]https://youtu.be/7euzfP4Kdaw?t=13s[/video]
The better question is, what is the point for giving Ship X 5x more weapons than Ship Y ontop of a multiple price when Ship Y can easily destroy ship X.
logically, yes the bigger ship should simply crush the smaller ship, because in no proper world would anyone impelment bigger ships not being able to. From gameplay point of view, and the fairness, this logic IS an issues.
Yet I only see people complaining about their medium ships being wrecked by the big ones. No one complains, why their sidey can't take on a FAS. It seems to be an accepted state of the art that sideys are meant to be trashed, by those bigger meta ships, yet that those bigger mega ships being trashed by the top size meta ships is not acceptable. And thats the logic I do not understand. Thats why it feels some people want their niche of the game "balanced" but not the whole. Thats also, why I still ask what those people expect how it shopuld work after the change. But I don't get anyone to make a clear answer mostlikely because non of their visions can answer it, as the answer would be equally broken as what we have now, just with the "broken" part beeing at another area of the game.
Logically you can give a ship 5x more guns and make sure (with proper turret distribution) that it can fend off a smaller ship in a battle because it cannot utilise all weapons vs that ship. But a wide range of ships in ED break this entire idea because they come with such fowards focussed weapon laods that they break such a possibility because they are either "6-able" and useless or obliterate in the full front laoded damage. The basic design here is already broken. Especially with engineers that now enable some ships such continous fire that they don't have to lower their damage anymore by heat issues or power issues. These ships inbetween are now the problem, because they cannot be fixed without even redesigning the entire ships model. Ontop, the most meta gun like PA's are fixed weapons, which means they wouldn't even work with turreted ship layouts. That makes the current elite very much a stone paper scissor game, where suddenly a stone is so HUGE the paper can't wrap it anymore.
So yes we end up with the question again, whats the point in the bigger ship if it's so much more invenstement than a smaller one, just to do better "hauling" because it has more internal space?
Another drastic change would only be entirely changing ships, and shrink every ship heavily in size so that the difference between cutter and a sidey is only 40%. Then the "dogfighting" could happen again, and one can say those 40% difference is now only the internal cargo space. While the sidey's major mass is basic systems. Then all weapon counts could be reduces and we are again in a more proper "dogfight" szenario by size classes where weapon numbers alter between 1 and 3 with minor size differences. But FD designed ships 20x the size of another ship, and more than 20x the firepower than another ship. But if those ship cannot be superior of at least 20x why would anyone consider bringing this ship to battles and outfit it for battles? Every "army" in ED would simply consist of 100 sides instead? Think about a top rated pvp build cutter and a top build "PVP sidey" Now how many sideys can you buy for the prize of that cutter and who would win if you put that cutter vs that same prized sideys?
Now there is your entire imbalance. pointless overprized big ships with poitnless masses of weapons which never gonna allow "fair" PvP due to how they were made.
If a cutter would cost 5x what a sidey cost, and had just 40% more size ontop of a lot less weapons we had just differend "fighter airplane" behaviors ontop of which we could apply the same dogfight mechanic. We could also reduce the amount of credits granted by trading, because currently most prices in ED make not even any sense.
So yeah what was the point of introducing bigger ships outside of granting people a grind goal for? I don't know. They don't make sense if "fair" PvP would be a wanted mechanic, so I only can see that a fair PvP was never planned and we have to accept X cannot beat Y. Thats why Arena never included all ships. For even PvP in the same playstyle.
I just want to know what people hope to achieve with their changes they wan't, because most of them when only applied to the flight model won't even work. They are broken ideas to fix their "wish it were like X" niche while it would lead to something entire else than this wanted X.
that would be pointless, first people who seriously go to PvP will train it quite hard, so they mostly will be good.
Now we have this small vs big ship encounter: That would be the most boring encounter, because the small ship pilot if being better would just take ages to seriously take down the bigger ship, and end up with a "framehshift charge detected" message and see the big one disappearing. The Big ships pilot, would just end up trying to hope for a long time that the small ships pilot makes a mistake. And if doesn't happen, just realises "I wasted my time" and wakes out. This seriously is not going to be fun for both of them and soon they both will just avoid meeting each other anyways.
What you now create is basically capital ships atm, you can invest a lot time to "bring them down" and all you get is a big "woosh" and they are gone for nothing. Thats fun to be done ONCE just for the "can I do It?" achievement but not again because it's broing.
Last edited:
With all due respect, you are wrong... Try doing the Hutton Run out of the Blue Zone then in the Blue Zone, you should notice the difference in something like a Cobra Mk IV (even without interdictions).
There are multiple potential causes of integrity loss, not just general wear and tear from distance travelled.
I disagree where large ships are concerned. However, given the nature of the complaint it would address the concerns of the OP.
Be careful what you wish for...
Last edited:
Presumably BOTH pilots would have trained will and would both be skilled. The small ship pilot might generally be less prone to making mistakes against an average opponent, but an equally skilled opponent would be better at causing the small pilot to make mistakes. The skill argument cancels out, then. As for the rest, well, that's already what we have. My favorite ship to fly is still my Viper IV. With it, I can take down the shields of big ships flown by good pilots with decent regularity. The only way I'll kill them though is if they actively choose not to leave, or I have backup. That's always been the case, and I'm fine with that. They have a much bigger rebuy. If they leave I've still "won" the fight in that I've driven them off. If it's an organized PvP to the death duel then they won't leave, so it's not a problem.
What is your preferred small vs. big ship outcome, if not that?