Horizons How to fix SRV handling without breaking immersion

[bbeckford]

I've been playing horizons over the past few days and loving it, but one thing that is annoying me is the SRV handling.


The gamer in me wants it to drive like a Halo Warthog, but the nerd in me still wants it to be as realistic a simulation as possible. I know E players are big on immersion, so it's a difficult problem to solve.
I think I have the answer to get us to a sweet spot between the 2 - ballast.


When launching an SRV players could be given an option to counter-act the "floatyness" of low gravity worlds by adding ballast to the SRV, at the expense of fuel efficiency/falling damage/thrust height, weighing it down and therefore improving handling. Making this optional satisfies both schools of thought and would make handling on planets a lot more manageable.


Plus a little pipe coming from the ship connecting to the scarab to inject some liquid/sand would be pretty cool.


(See - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballast_tank)

 

[Shienpoh]

Oooor, you could just drive slower on low g worlds.
Using "flight assist on" you can set the speed which the srv will keep automatically; so I set it to 15-20 m/s and can concentrate on the vertical thruster so that I don't fall too hard. It really is just a matter of getting used to it.

 

[bbeckford]

But what is there to be gained from a gameplay perspective from it being hard? You can't "get used to it" because the gravity is forever changing.

 

[Bartizan]

Tempted to see if I can get my Xbox gran turismo wheel to work.

 

[Tath]

I kind of like the handling. It has the speed of a dune buggy -- at which point the handling is difficult -- but if you have ever seen the hands of a dune buggy / rally driver they are constantly making micro-corrections to account for terrain. Also, go slower and it starts to handle like the classic lunar buggy (LRV). Between these two parameters it works. Don't always go full speed.

I am sure other vehicles will come along with better handling.

 

[AH_ImADot]

I thought the wheel thrusters automatically compensate for local gravity to make the SRV "feel" like driving on a 1.0G world (thrust up on high-G and thrust down on low-G). Why would you need to add ballast?

 

[CMDR_UKmouse]

Definitely need to control your speed.
However, as there are gimballed thrusters on the wheels designed to keep you down on low G planets. If you could manually adjust the downforce, that might work?

 

[GrungePunk]

Try driving it like a Warthog on the dark side of one of the larger Ice Planets with rugged terrain and more gravity. You try to drive up a hill, stall out, and then proceed to go backwards even though your throttle is at full acceleration with apparently no top speed until eventually you see your ship and landing spot fly by and you're still going and continue to do so and pick up speed until you set your throttle to zero. I spent an hour trying to navigate this terrain last night and even trying to be careful I left with 4% of my SRVs Hull left. These SRVs need an Ice Tire upgrade!

 

[Bacalao]

Yeah, or all those fancy thrusters could just be used to thrust up and down, instead of just up. If I could push my SRV into the ground the same way I can push it away from the ground, it would make SRV driving much more dynamic and useable. I think in the SRV stream they even said they made the thrusters default to give you some float, so you're actually like 20% lighter, though I'd have to rewatch the stream to make sure that was the number.

 

[ChaosCloud]

Definitely need to control your speed.
However, as there are gimballed thrusters on the wheels designed to keep you down on low G planets. If you could manually adjust the downforce, that might work?

This would be very useful, especially on low gravity slopes where you can often not get up simply because you lack the traction but not the torque and the jump thrusters are useless there too as they fire perpendicular to the surface, so you'd go way more away than up.

Try driving it like a Warthog on the dark side of one of the larger Ice Planets with rugged terrain and more gravity. You try to drive up a hill, stall out, and then proceed to go backwards even though your throttle is at full acceleration with apparently no top speed until eventually you see your ship and landing spot fly by and you're still going and continue to do so and pick up speed until you set your throttle to zero. I spent an hour trying to navigate this terrain last night and even trying to be careful I left with 4% of my SRVs Hull left. These SRVs need an Ice Tire upgrade!

They so damn need these indeed, but then again, that additional sliding IS so far the only difference between planet types, and while ice is annoying do I have the feeling that it'd be somewhat boring to see that difference be no more.
Maybe the above would help here too as the traction thrusters seem to turn off on their own depending on the planet gravity, so having manual control over them could help here too?

Also a side note: the jump thrusters' efficency is gravity based, which means you jump with a full charge as high on a 1.45g planet as you do on a 0.05g planet, just the damage of the landing and time until there differs : /
Otherwise can I not explain why I feel absolutely no difference when I'm racing across the surface on high gravity planets and still never have more jump energy problems than I also have on 0.05g's.


Edit: I also wanted to note that I think that they nailed the driving way better than the flying, the anti-space turret measures just annoy the hell out of me when I'm trying to turn on the landing pad and compared to that are there only actual bugs that bother me about the driving, aside that is it way more fun, but that's just my opinion about it : /

 

[Yodafone]

Yeah, or all those fancy thrusters could just be used to thrust up and down, instead of just up. If I could push my SRV into the ground the same way I can push it away from the ground, it would make SRV driving much more dynamic and useable. I think in the SRV stream they even said they made the thrusters default to give you some float, so you're actually like 20% lighter, though I'd have to rewatch the stream to make sure that was the number.

I like the idea of being able to thrust down as well. For instance: Would be really quite useful to be able to project your momentum in to certain craters/down slopes more easily (at the moment it's just done with thrust up if you're falling short thus losing momentum, one could get some outragious cycles going to land at speed and take off again at full throttle with a thrust down function.

 

[Bokugo]

I just want yaw control. There's no sensitivity separation option and my thumbstick is too sensitive for the srv but needs to be sensitive for the ship so every time I try and roll and pitch to turn even just a tad, I end up spinning wildly out of control.

 

[ChaosCloud]

I like the idea of being able to thrust down as well. For instance: Would be really quite useful to be able to project your momentum in to certain craters/down slopes more easily (at the moment it's just done with thrust up if you're falling short thus losing momentum, one could get some outragious cycles going to land at speed and take off again at full throttle with a thrust down function.

It might be an input issue as reason for why they didn't add it (yet?). I mean how'd you tell it to go up and how to go down and how to go forward?

Though I guess there's actually a way if you'd be smart about input and SRV orientation: if you do 'pitch down', accelerate and jump thrust while sitting on a +60 degree slope one could assume that you most likely want forward thrust with slight 'downward' thrust so you keep ground contact.

 

[Troubletcat]

What do you mean fix? The SRV handling is fine. Drive slowly when on bumpy terrain on lower G worlds for better traction, or use thrusters to fly over bumps and such, or to help you slow down to land safely if you fly over them from driving fast...

Lots of options for different driving styles, and it's really not hard at all as long as you don't feel the need to go at maximum speed 24/7.

 

[Cynaqq]

Are you sure OP that you are using a proper throttle axis on the SRV and not digital forward and reverse inputs to drive?

This is the problem people usually have with the SRV. They don't realize there is a way to control SRV speed other than full speed ahead.

If not and you still think it handles badly, to each their own I guess. But not with this though. SRV handles incredibly well and FD surely did a superb job.

Yaw and downwards trust would be nice and dangerous additions.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Also think it drives very well. Feels better with Drive Assist off, but i switch DA on at times depending on the terrain and situation.

 

[Yodafone]

It might be an input issue as reason for why they didn't add it (yet?). I mean how'd you tell it to go up and how to go down and how to go forward?

Though I guess there's actually a way if you'd be smart about input and SRV orientation: if you do 'pitch down', accelerate and jump thrust while sitting on a +60 degree slope one could assume that you most likely want forward thrust with slight 'downward' thrust so you keep ground contact.

Even just a 180 roll to try and guide yourself in to a downslope (if you're going to overshoot) and quickly re-orientate before you land if needed. Gotta go and have a go, why didn't I think of that, nice one Chaos, your words of wisdom have had real benefit

 

[ChaosCloud]

Are you sure OP that you are using a proper throttle axis on the SRV and not digital forward and reverse inputs to drive?

This is the problem people usually have with the SRV. They don't realize there is a way to control SRV speed other than full speed ahead.

If not and you still think it handles badly, to each their own I guess. But not with this though. SRV handles incredibly well and FD surely did a superb job.

So much this, as that was exactly my first impression (for a duration of ~3min) as I first bound my controls also to use the digital input.
THAT driving is not fun, but still has it's merit as you can use the digital inputs + DA as cruisecontrol which can sometimes be a blessing for your hands on long drives, but that also depends on the setup you're using.

After I bound the analog throttle to my controller and fixed up the other binds did I have more fun than I had in ED in a long time.

Even just a 180 roll to try and guide yourself in to a downslope (if you're going to overshoot) and quickly re-orientate before you land if needed. Gotta go and have a go, why didn't I think of that, nice one Chaos, your words of wisdom have had real benefit

Great, someone called the stuff I garbled out words of wisdom, can only mean the world's end is nigh

I'd really wish though that the pitch input would be accounted for (or way more if it already is) while still on the ground as I've had way too many slopes that were a pain to get up.
One time I even needed to blow myself up because I managed to get into a huge crater on a low gravity world that was impossible to get out off and of course did the autopilot of the ship only land outside that.

If the ship would have done a hover landing near me or if I would have been able to thrust forwards I could have gotten out.
And believe me I tried using the thrust a LOT. But for magical FD gameplay reasons can you jump on 0.05g planets not more than on 1.45g planets, which is the main reason why I couldn't get out.
Technically should we have the thrust to go to orbit on a 0.05g, given how much we can jump on 1.45g's, but nope, "gameplay"....
Don't get me wrong though, I'm glad we can defy gravity that well on high gravity planets too, even though it seems a little too much defying capability but whatever, but the fact that we have the exact same capability of defying on a planet with a fraction of that gravity, that's just FD as usual again v.v

But this is pretty much the only non bug I have problems with about driving, everything else is lovely

Racing across the surface and jumping over a crater big enough to hide a conda, can't beat that feeling with anything you can do with ships.