Lateral/Vertical Thrusters.

[Connolly91]

I'm fairly new to this game. I played a little Evochron Mercenary back in the day, but I'm fairly new to space sims in general.

I went out and bought myself a Thrustmaster Hotas X for this game, and I'm having a great time.

I just have a few questions in relation to combat. I know that I should be using my vertical and lateral thrusters in combat, I'm just not sure how. I tend to have lateral or vertical (or both) thrust operating at most times in a joust, to avoid most of the fire.

My main question is using the manoeuvring thrusters to improve your turn rate, as I've had some bounty targets do a 180 in what feels like no time at all compared to me, in an Eagle, in the blue zone, with upgraded thrusters.

Is one supposed to apply downwards or upwards thrust when pulling back on the joystick?

 

[foxpur]

This reminds me, I was going to ask (and add to the OP question)-
How do you rotate left/right without forward/back thrust--- not strafe (that is Q/E)

 

[Meritz]

To tighten your turns, apply upward thrusters when pulling back on the stick and vice versa. I use dual joystick controls, so basically I just pull back on both sticks. This will not increase your turn rate, but it will deform your turn radius, making it tighter for a bit. Not the same thing, and I think there's a bit of disinformation flying around. Try it around stations, I frequently do a "slide pitch" to align with the station entrance. So basically, if you apply vertical counterthrust (down if "climbing", up if "diving"), you narrow down the turning radius, and if you do the opposite, you widen it.

If you want to increase your turn rate, you can do two other things in addition to keeping throttle in the sweet spot:

1. Put more pips to engines
2. Hit boost

 

[Darkfyre99]

When I'm doing a 180, I not only apply vertical thrust into the turn, but I throttle back as well, sometimes even going full retro. It's your overall speed that determines the rate that you're able to turn, and if you're applying vertical or horizontal thrust, then you need to reduce forward thrust to keep your speed in the blue zone.

 

[Tempered]

You can boost while in the middle of a pitch upward turn to increase the rate of turn. You can also apply down thrust in a pitch up turn, this will widen your turn radius but it will bring your nose to bear quicker and make the enemy have to turn further to get his nose on you. The npc's that you see turn 180 in a tight space are using the FA off feature. They make their turn in fa off, with throttle set very low or in reverse, then they punch it with fa on in their new direction.

There are a few other tricks as well, but you just need to experiment a bit and watch how the npc's fly.

 

[letoras]

Beautiful times in Evochron mercenary.......

 

[Morbad]

Some comments on maneuvering with lateral/vertical thrusters:
- If you direct your lateral/vertical vector in 90-180 degrees off of what you are trying to point at, it will come into view sooner. You aren't pitching faster, but you are increasing your distance from your target, so less pitching is needed to face them.
- Vertical and lateral thrust used simultaneously can result in a motion vector perpendicular to your facing, while giving you velocity that rivals your maximum forward speed (i.e. you move diagonally faster than up/down or left/right alone).
- Vertical/lateral velocity does influence pitch/roll/yaw rate, so you may need to pulse the thrusters, or use analog controls, for optimum maneuverability.
- Boosting while pitching forward or backwards and simultaneously initiating diagonal lateral/vertical thrusters can give you short boosts in speed far in excess of what is normally possible. I've been able to reach 520m/s+ in my iron ass Viper (normal maximum straight-line boost of 411m/s). This is not a speed indicator error, it's true velocity. I have been able to rapidly outpace Vipers and Cobra for short periods, unless they were equally as familiar with their controls (plenty of people), and could accurately boost in a non-forward direction during pursuit (almost no one).

 

[robbyp]

I have a T16000 and use thrust master script to apply vertical thrust automatically when I push the stick fully forward or back. This means you don't need to press anything else. See the support section for the script I posted last month. It requires a bit of programming skills to set up, but its great if you have a thrust master type stick. I also have assigned the hat on this stick to left\right\up\down thrust to assist in docking.

 

[Rocky-451]

A less "advanced" but simpler answer re quick turning - FA off, or 4 pips to the engine while in the blue zone.