Newcomer / Intro Inner Atmosphere Flight Model

[node_runner]

So far, the flight models and physics in the game feel generally believable. I've been enjoying the impact that gravity has on super cruise speed when flying near bodies for example. But one thing has been bugging me about the flight model. I just did an exploration mission on a 1.2G planet. The flight model within the atmosphere just doesn't feel any different from outer space. I noticed that if I just give some vertical thrust when taking off from the planet surface and then let go, my ship just hovers in mid-air, with no power being applied to any thrusters. What gives? Is there some kind of ship function supposedly taking over the job of keeping my airborne that I don't know about? Or did Frontier just decide not to modify the flight model for this part of the game for whatever reason?

Also, can anyone tell me what keybind buttons I need to map so I can see an external view of my ship? I've looked through all the camera keybinding near a dozen times now and have tried to bind keys to different functions I though would cycle the camera to external views, but so far nothing.

 

[[VR] Orodruin]

The flight model within the atmosphere just doesn't feel any different from outer space.

There was no atmosphere. At the preset time you cannot land on planets with an atmosphere.

I noticed that if I just give some vertical thrust when taking off from the planet surface and then let go, my ship just hovers in mid-air, with no power being applied to any thrusters.

Were you using flight assist or not? I assure you that if you turn flight assist off, you will fall like a stone if you do not apply thrusters. Flight assist has the computer compensate gravitational acceleration with your thrusters. This works well when your ship is up-right, but will work less well if you turn it on the side. Generally, flight assist makes the flight model rather iffy in comparison to how a spaceship should actually behave. Even turning it off there are some things that are iffy, but it is much better in general.

 

[F4fred]

There was no atmosphere. At the preset time you cannot land on planets with an atmosphere.


Were you using flight assist or not? I assure you that if you turn flight assist off, you will fall like a stone if you do not apply thrusters. Flight assist has the computer compensate gravitational acceleration with your thrusters. This works well when your ship is up-right, but will work less well if you turn it on the side. Generally, flight assist makes the flight model rather iffy in comparison to how a spaceship should actually behave. Even turning it off there are some things that are iffy, but it is much better in general.

Quite iffy is right. If you can’t land in atmosphere, what is transmitting the sound from the tannoys when you drive around bases like Dav’s Hope? As for FA off if Newtonian mechanics apply you should go on accelerating as long as your thrusters are powered up.

 

[Rick6549]

Quite iffy is right. If you can’t land in atmosphere, what is transmitting the sound from the tannoys when you drive around bases like Dav’s Hope? As for FA off if Newtonian mechanics apply you should go on accelerating as long as your thrusters are powered up.

They were going to not have sound, but said it felt weird. The explanation is ship speakers

 

[F4fred]

They were going to not have sound, but said it felt weird. The explanation is ship speakers

Ship’s speakers that sound like tannoys sometimes!

 

[node_runner]

There was no atmosphere. At the preset time you cannot land on planets with an atmosphere.


Were you using flight assist or not? I assure you that if you turn flight assist off, you will fall like a stone if you do not apply thrusters. Flight assist has the computer compensate gravitational acceleration with your thrusters. This works well when your ship is up-right, but will work less well if you turn it on the side. Generally, flight assist makes the flight model rather iffy in comparison to how a spaceship should actually behave. Even turning it off there are some things that are iffy, but it is much better in general.

Thanks for the reply. Even without atmo, I would still expect gravity to pull me back down. I went back in and finally figured out how to get to the external camera mode and tried another mission. Sure enough, turning off Flight Assist did it. Also, I was on a low-G planet, and the rate at which I fell was pretty slow, which was cool.

I guess I didn't consider it a Flight Assist issue the first time because I couldn't discern the vertical thrusters being on at all. It felt like there was nothing happening to keep me up. But once I got the external camera working, I could see the thrusters on steadily with flight assist on. So all is right with the world again. Thanks! Very helpful community here.

 

[Para Handy]

Thanks for the reply. Even without atmo, I would still expect gravity to pull me back down. I went back in and finally figured out how to get to the external camera mode and tried another mission. Sure enough, turning off Flight Assist did it. Also, I was on a low-G planet, and the rate at which I fell was pretty slow, which was cool.
........

That is how I control my landings on high-g planets - pulsing FA on and off to give a controlled final descent. (Also useful where the terrain is a bit "iffy" for the landing completion if you get my meaning.) Someone mentioned that the vertical thrusters as modelled are incredibly powerful in that you can take off vertically on a high-g much more safely using them than your main engines - never tried it but can believe it.

 

[[VR] Orodruin]

Quite iffy is right. If you can’t land in atmosphere, what is transmitting the sound from the tannoys when you drive around bases like Dav’s Hope? As for FA off if Newtonian mechanics apply you should go on accelerating as long as your thrusters are powered up.

Those are game design choices that, while not being physically correct, enhance the gaming experience. Imagine Elite without sound. Imagine Elite with ships coming at each other at relative speeds of thousands of km/s.

There are many more examples of this game breaking physics (don’t get me started on relativistic effects - I teach general relativity at graduate level so I can go pretty far down that rabbit hole ...), but where making a physically accurate choice would mean zero players playing it.

 

[Maenden]

Even when there is no atmosphere the ships slow down when you drop the landing gear.
Must be the drag caused by all that dark matter.

 

[node_runner]

Even when there is no atmosphere the ships slow down when you drop the landing gear.
Must be the drag caused by all that dark matter.

I noticed that! Is there a common place to submit little communications like that to Frontier so they potentially get addressed in future updates? I could see the maneuvering thrusters being overly powerful a deliberate choice to make take-off's and landings more doable, but adding drag when you deploy landing gear near a planet (and also still mass locked to a space dock!) seems like a bug that could be easily fixed.

 

[[VR] Orodruin]

I noticed that! Is there a common place to submit little communications like that to Frontier so they potentially get addressed in future updates? I could see the maneuvering thrusters being overly powerful a deliberate choice to make take-off's and landings more doable, but adding drag when you deploy landing gear near a planet (and also still mass locked to a space dock!) seems like a bug that could be easily fixed.

It is not drag per se. It is a reduction of the max speed, which makes this intimately tied to the breakdown of Newton's second law mentioned in post #3.

 

[Para Handy]

....... seems like a bug that could be easily fixed.

Not a bug (as @Orodruin indicates) - for gameplay purposes your ship has a max speed it can travel at - (Isaac Newton can go stew as far as F D are concerned ) - deploying landing gear or your cargo scoop reduces your max speed (I think by 50%?) - this used to provide an exploit in combat so now the deceleration is more gradual - it used to be like hitting a brick wall.

 

[A C Ender]

The ship computer try to protect the pilot, so max speed is reduced to limit the G we can experience*.

*This is my head cannon

 

[F4fred]

Thanks for the reply. Even without atmo, I would still expect gravity to pull me back down. I went back in and finally figured out how to get to the external camera mode and tried another mission. Sure enough, turning off Flight Assist did it. Also, I was on a low-G planet, and the rate at which I fell was pretty slow, which was cool.

I guess I didn't consider it a Flight Assist issue the first time because I couldn't discern the vertical thrusters being on at all. It felt like there was nothing happening to keep me up. But once I got the external camera working, I could see the thrusters on steadily with flight assist on. So all is right with the world again. Thanks! Very helpful community here.

You shouldn’t feel anything when the flight assist is using thrusters to maintain your position as you are not accelerating. The thrust is balancing out the pull of gravity. There is nothing wrong with flight assist from a cannon point of view. It is not more or less realistic than FA off, it is simply a fly by wire control system that does all the correcting for you to make the ship point in the direction you are flying in.

 

[node_runner]

Sorry if I'm being dense. I think you guys are agreeing that there is no natural reason why deploying gear or scoop would lower your speed, but that it is being done intentionally by your on-board systems, possibly as a safety precaution? If I have that right, what would that safety precaution be? There is no atmosphere applying force to the exposed components, as they are moving through a vacuum like the rest of their ship. What would be the safety concern?

If that is something being enforced by your ship, it would be cool to have some kind of indicator which explains the behavior to the pilot. Similar to how mass lock works. I didn't have to wonder why I can't jump while near a dock, because my ship actually tells me, and it instantly clicked and made sense. But I'm still not sure I understand what the safety precaution would be.

And if this sounds like I'm beating a dead horse, I apologize. Just trying to understand the game better.

 

[node_runner]

Yeah, I got that part. What I meant was that I didn't hear any audible noise from the thrusters, or see any visual indicator. When I manually engage the maneuvering thrusters, I hear a sound (and I'm cool with that not being realistic, as it does make the game more enjoyable). So I guess I was just expecting to hear that sound or a similar constant hum or something if the ship were constantly applying thrust for me. It just confused me because until I figured out how to use the external camera, I couldn't discern any indication that the thrusters we actually being used. But I'm all good now.

 

[F4fred]

The ship computer try to protect the pilot, so max speed is reduced to limit the G we can experience*.

*This is my head cannon

Max speed has nothing to do with g forces. You could accelerate at 0.1g and providing you do it for long enough obtain a very high speed. In the middle 2 Elite games, Elite 2 and First Encounters in system travel was Newtonian. You accelerated until the halfway point then braking thrusters slowed you for the rest of the journey.

 

[F4fred]

Sorry if I'm being dense. I think you guys are agreeing that there is no natural reason why deploying gear or scoop would lower your speed, but that it is being done intentionally by your on-board systems, possibly as a safety precaution? If I have that right, what would that safety precaution be? There is no atmosphere applying force to the exposed components, as they are moving through a vacuum like the rest of their ship. What would be the safety concern?

If that is something being enforced by your ship, it would be cool to have some kind of indicator which explains the behavior to the pilot. Similar to how mass lock works. I didn't have to wonder why I can't jump while near a dock, because my ship actually tells me, and it instantly clicked and made sense. But I'm still not sure I understand what the safety precaution would be.

And if this sounds like I'm beating a dead horse, I apologize. Just trying to understand the game better.

I don’t think there is any inherent reason. It is a game mechanic. I suppose you might argue that deploying landing gear means you are getting ready to land and the on board computer is trying to make sure you don’t crash into anything too fast, but if you follow that logic it should just land for you! In other words if it was a safety feature auto docking/auto landing would be built in.

 

[F4fred]

Those are game design choices that, while not being physically correct, enhance the gaming experience. Imagine Elite without sound. Imagine Elite with ships coming at each other at relative speeds of thousands of km/s.

There are many more examples of this game breaking physics (don’t get me started on relativistic effects - I teach general relativity at graduate level so I can go pretty far down that rabbit hole ...), but where making a physically accurate choice would mean zero players playing it.

You don’t have to imagine it, that is how Elite 2 and Frontier First Encounters worked. To be honest both were rather boring to play, but let’s just cut the pretence that FA off is a more “realistic” way to play!

 

[Ashnak]

Sorry if I'm being dense. I think you guys are agreeing that there is no natural reason why deploying gear or scoop would lower your speed, but that it is being done intentionally by your on-board systems, possibly as a safety precaution? If I have that right, what would that safety precaution be? There is no atmosphere applying force to the exposed components, as they are moving through a vacuum like the rest of their ship. What would be the safety concern?

If that is something being enforced by your ship, it would be cool to have some kind of indicator which explains the behavior to the pilot. Similar to how mass lock works. I didn't have to wonder why I can't jump while near a dock, because my ship actually tells me, and it instantly clicked and made sense. But I'm still not sure I understand what the safety precaution would be.

And if this sounds like I'm beating a dead horse, I apologize. Just trying to understand the game better.

In either case so that you get better fine control over your speed. You deploy the gear if you want to land, or the scoop if you want to pick something up. In either case, you don't need to go fast, but you'll need to be able to control precisely where you are. Which becomes easier if the full throw of your physical control is scaled down to a reduced speed of your ship. It may not be easily evident if you fly a stock T-9 with 130 m/s unloaded top speed, but with a fully upgraded Viper (or similar) where full throttle (no boost) means close to 700 m/s, it's kind of crucial if you ever want to have a chance of even hitting the landing pad. Same goes for scooping - try to scoop too fast, and whatever you wanted to pick up just bounces off.
Yes, a non-linear control curve may have been the other possibility, but ED went for the hard switch.

The indicators are there - bottom right of the front part of your HUD, right under the fuel gauge and power distributor settings. Yes, I often miss them myself, especially when I have been scooping the remenants of my former enemies and want to get back into SC. Or when I switch from a slow boat to a fast ship, fly out of the station and only remember when I fail to trigger the hyperjump that this ship could have been twice as fast.