Need help to explain ship rotation speed, please.

[Deadeye_DK]

Heyo folks.

Long time reader, first time poster here.

And I need a bit of help, to explain the movement/thruster aspect of Elite: Dangerous.
Basicly, I've ended up in a discussion with someone, about how spaceships in ED handle, and I'll just quote him:

It is airplane dogfights in a pritty skybox. Why the hell does my spaceship handle like an airplane? Those 2 are completly different. A spaceship exists in a vaccum, why the hell can't it turn faster? Why is the up/down turnspeed faster than left/right?

Dogfighting in X3 was awesome. Full power to side thrusters to move unpredictably, full 180 turn to shoot what was behind you, you had to actually THINK. The only skill I've seen in dogfighting in Elite is getting your speed right so you can outturn your opponent.

And after I attempted to explain how I believed the thrusters work in ED, he replied with this:

I was talking about rotation. A spaceship would be able to turn around just as fast as an ice skater, while still going forward. At this point, it would also just keep going forward, and would require significant lateral thrusting to actually MOVE in a different direction.
In order to get a spaceship to behave like a plane (like they do in Elite), you actually need to cheat. This video explains. <- (OP note: Here he links to a youtube video, by Scott Manley "The Physics Of Flying 'Space Figthers'". I cannot post a link to the video)
Basicly, in order for a spaceship to behave like an airplane, it'd need lateral thrusters more powerful than the main engine. If you have that, your spaceship could rotate extremely fast.
That's why it's an airplane dogfighter in a pritty skybox

So, just what exactly is the right explanation to give him?
I've told him about the Flight assist already, that allow him to keep flying in 1 direction, while turning to face another direction, if he turns it off. But I'm not sure how to explain the difference in rotation speed.
English is not my native language, so explaining things correctly can be a bit tricky now and then. Wich is why I would really appreciate a bit of help with this one.

Cheers.
\o/

 

[Ixnatifual]

Don't make this person... Angry

 

[Darkfyre99]

My own personal headcanon is that even when not using our frame-shift drives, a considerable amount of the mass of our ships is shifted partway into Witchspace. Our ships have far too much delta-V for their fuel to payload ratio, and the thrust they're capable of is unreal. While it is possible turn off this system and go full newtonian (flight assist off), normal ship handling with flight assist on is aeroplane like because interacting with Witchspace, even at minimal levels seen in out of supercruise or hyperspace jumps, is more analogous to atmospheric flight than it is space flight. This is especially obvious in Supercruise, since you need the massive rear engines to push your ship through the medium found in Witchspace, which is denser around massive bodies, and throttling down results in a gradual slowing down of speed.

 

[Meritz]

Well, you can tell him that playing a flying turret in space is quite dull, and Star Wars style dogfighting is where it's at. ED is not trying to model zero-g combat realistically, that's why there are speed limitations and bleedoff. It's more of a hybrid model, some like to call it "submarine dogfighting" because it combines lack of gravity with stuff like top speed and speed bleeding which wouldn't exist in a zero-g vacuum environment.

And to be frank, as far as realism goes, there can be no dogfighting in space if you want to do it the realistic way. Everyone would just shoot lasers at ranges so great, the only thing you'd be doing is telling your targeting computer which sensor blip to lock on. Modern fighter jets already decide engagements with beyond-visual-range (can't even see each other) weapons, with space ships it would be even more extreme.

 

[ste]

Up and down speed is the same as left and right, you are suppose to roll not yaw. That is how the ships work.

Turn FA off and you can turn 180 while still going forward.

 

[Goilveig]

1. It's not true that, in space, you can turn as easily as a figure skater. Air resistance is hardly the only thing opposing turning - you have the mass moment of inertia of the ship, and the ships actually have to be fairly heavy to shield you from cosmic radiation, as you're not protected by a planet's magnetosphere. Actual spacecraft turn very slowly, because all the thrusters apart from the main engines tend to be very efficient but low thrust.

2. In a ship that is wider than it is tall, there is a higher moment of inertia laterally than vertically, so it actually makes perfect physical sense that it's slower to yaw than pitch. Roll would have the lowest moment of inertia in a long, slender ship. Only an object with spherical symmetry would turn equally in all directions.

 

[graeme.firth]

It's a game (a fun one) not a precise simulation - no further explanation required I think.

 

[Tar Stone]

Just slap him, hard, twice.

 

[natte hond]

they didn't want ships to behave like turrets , something you get with Newtonian dogfighting.
which was abandoned because of network issues. ( too high speeds for the network to cope with)
it was also seen as jousting which they saw as not entertaining enough.
so its turning is limited to keep the fights interesting.

this subject is what drives the Elite and Frontier Elite fans apart.
two camps , so to say.
I'm a Newtonian fan but I have to say its works.
even if its not the true space sim. I was hoping for I'm still enjoining my self.

 

[Deadeye_DK]

Thanks everyone, for the many good explanations and fun comments.
I'll definitely try not to make him angry lol.
Although I think slapping him twice probably will...

But again, thanks folks. I'll relay the posts here, and just await the response from him.

Cheers o7

 

[Morbad]

There are arbitrary limitations on certain aspects of the flight model, because that's what the devs want.

It has nothing to do with what's realistic, or plausible, or necessarily even fun. They have a vision, and the rules bend to that vision.

Roll would have the lowest moment of inertia in a long, slender ship.

Thrusters would apply the least torque to the roll axis on a long slender ship, and the most to pitch/yaw, so despite the greater moment of inertia, there may not be much difference in practical rotational speeds between these axis.

Yaw/roll/pitch speeds in ED aren't particularly implausible, but the fact that they are influenced by velocity is.

 

[Hexcaliber]

Tell him to turn off flight assist, the ships thrusters are compensating for control inputs to make it handle more predictably and inline with atmospheric flight handling. If he wont swallow that, tell him to shut up, he is playing internet spaceships and should be giggling like a little girl and not worrying about the way it feels.

 

[Binky]

Tell him to study some orbital mechanics. Then it becomes very quickly apparent why we're flying 'planes in space' not actual spaceships.

Say you want to attack a wanted pirate and they're 5 km away. Are you on an identical orbit? No? Well tough, you're not getting near them.
If you work out things like the longitude of the ascending node, the argument of periapsis blah blah *hours of maths later* then burn your engines for the precise amount of time in the precise direction and then wait....

For some time...

...then, Congratulations!, your orbit is identical. And you are still 5 kms away.

But at least this bit's easy, right? Just accelerate towards the target? No, that takes you further away and into a higher orbit. It really does. You want to catch up with something in orbit, you have to slow down. Honestly, theres a huge amount of work that needs to be done (and that I don't understand) in order to get two objects close to each other in space and if people like that sort of thing they play Orbiter and KSP.

Then we can talk about momentum as well. If the game didn't have speed restrictions, just try to imagine shooting at a target who's relative velocity to you is 3000m/s, which is less than half that of any spacecraft ever launched. Now imagine trying to match their speed. If you accelerate at 100m/s, about 10G (a few seconds would kill you), in the half-minute it took to match their speed, they would be 45 kilometres ahead of you.

Fitting weapons to a ship would be pointless, because you'd never even see another ship except as a brief streak like the space dust in Supercruise.

FD have made a game thats fun to play, rather than one thats realistic.

 

[Hominin]

It wasn't me this time lol. Dude, your friend is right, all you can tell him is "maybe we'll get that elite in another 30 years" as unlike the care the guys working on the environment are giving it, the ones on flight model seem to find rules of physics irrelevant. We have done our complaining and got to keep our non-boost speed for that but I don't think there is anything else that can be done so we just have to use our imagination to fool our brains into thinking it isn't so lol.. turning your ship off kind of feels realistic too and i think i managed a stable orbit around a star once so there is always the option to play as a planet for more realism as well

 

[vonFelty]

In reality, ship designers would see that turn rate is the most important aspect of a modern space ship and design ships with big enough thrusters to turn on a dime.

However, they feel that the game should emulate WWII dog fighting sims rather than rotational space combat. I don't see why one couldn't actually add thrusters on their ship. Sure when you have big mass its a problem, but on the smaller ships, turn rates should be fast. But there not. Oh well...

 

[David frm Operations]

Ok, going to use turn here as simply the act of changing facing in any direction you want.

First reason anything has differing rates of turn: Inertia
Second thing: that determines rate of turn: Impulse or the amount of thrust in the direction you want to turn provided by thrusters
Third thing: controlling/stopping the turn, again, Inertia
Fourth thing: Not all thrusters on the ship are created equal either in strength or placement

Ships have different mass, centers of mass, distribution of mass and so on. Then add in thruster placement, strength and angle and you have different turn rates. No matter if you are using flight assist or not.

Also, I love Scott Manley, but he is wrong, you don't need thrusters stronger than the main thruster, you simply need to combine thrust vectors to drive the vehicle in the direction you want. Thrusters provide directional thrust in varying angles to the side of the vector of thrust from the main engine. The most efficient thrusters would provide thrust at 90 degree angles from the direction of thrust of the main engine AND they would need to be in line with the center of mass of the craft. Not all the thrusters on the ship are of the same strength, placed in the absolute best position and angled the best for every turn. If they were, you would be flying a large sphere that does not land on a planet.

Turrents in space would not be all that fun because people like me who would turn up the mouse resolution and snipe the mess out of people form max range would make people cry. Look on the boards and you will already see such complaints.

 

[LtCasey]

Lol, I was just thinking about the guys, having a hard time doing
Landings with the current FM! Me included, sometimes...... Then we Switch to the newtonian FM!!! Just for couriosity, I wanna see the rant and rage coming on!!

 

[SJT]

"maybe we'll get that elite in another 30 years"

You can have the game you're looking for now. Try Kerbal Space Program. You can even mod it with lasers if you want too. I've spent 500 hours in that game and love it but I don't want Newtonian physics in Elite.

Real physics in a space shooty game is crap. (see FE2 and FFE)

 

[Morbad]

Real physics in a space shooty game is crap. (see FE2 and FFE)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UMIbdN0UFE

 

[Hominin]

You can have the game you're looking for now. Try Kerbal Space Program. You can even mod it with lasers if you want too. I've spent 500 hours in that game and love it but I don't want Newtonian physics in Elite.

Real physics in a space shooty game is crap. (see FE2 and FFE)

only if you are incapable of learning something different. AND there is flight assist for that too but no, the entire thing has to be dumbed down to the lowest common denominator so those who can't be bothered making an effort to become a good space pilot aren't disadvantaged against those who do... in a game that is supposed to be about becoming an elite pilot.. the whole topic is one massive facepalm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UMIbdN0UFE

that is what i am talking about, having fun being a space pilot.