Partial Flight Assist

[Innigo]

I'm with the OP, I think it is bull, and justifying it with "because gameplay" is bull too. It would change baseline control interface a bit, making it more accesible, but beyond that, "gameplay" can be tailored in myriad other ways.

Hmmm, not really. It's a safe bet they've tested the suggested system and didn't like the results and that what we have is deliberately designed to discourage players from using it extensively in combat to prevent it from becoming a matter of players just orbiting each other with their weapons constantly facing their opponent. I'll bet good money we're stuck with it.

For the record, I don't like it either and only use FA-off in very short bursts and only when I'm pitching about one axis.

 

[RabidRich]

Well, I think the overly contrived flight model is in fact the major culprit at the heart of a whole raft of further contrived gameplay compromises that have ultimately yielded a less interesting game than could have been crafted.

I digress, but at heart I think there was a giant failure of imagination in the developer discussions that missed an opportunity for a rich SC based "airplane" style flight combat utilising missiles and electronic warfare/stealth. Below this a "full Newtonian" real space combat with more realistic pitch/yaw rates for large craft that allows a fast strafing smaller craft to get inclose and utilise semi-faoff control fidelity to orbit inside the tracking capability of a larger craft. This could have yielded duel and wolfpack advantages to smaller craft, but group cover fire and alpha damage to coordinated teamplay in larger craft.

Instead, we have "reverse and facetank" as the default trump card, and tedious combat largely based on tanking capability and sustained firepower. Not to mention a hard-counter based countermeasure system that is more frustrating than interesting, and stealth/armour mechanics that aren't worth mentioning.

Iwar(all games) was more fun, and it had neither contrived flight model or hamstrung control schema. (i am not asking for a recreation of that game though)

 

[RabidRich]

My professional expertise lies in the field of emergent behaviours in (complex) adaptive systems. A common observation is that extra complexity at the foundation level often hinders the propagation of behavioural complexity at higher levels in the system.

I believe Elite dangerous has this problem.

A simpler fundamental flight model and more intuitive control possibilities could actually open up more interesting emergent gameplay and tactics.

I'm sure many will disagree...but hey, its only Internet Spaceships!

 

[777Driver]

My professional expertise lies in the field of emergent behaviours in (complex) adaptive systems.

Which likely has absolutely nothing to do with flight control laws. Funny thing is, even though some cmdr's will complain, ED's version of FA ON/OFF follows the present day FBW flight control philosophy quite accurately. The only thing missing is the 3rd or (Direct law) Obviously excluded for gameplay reasons

 

[RabidRich]

Flight laws are just rules/constraints that define the motion possibilities. The motion possibilities define the set of interactions between agents. This defines the "combat" interplay possibilities.

In effect the current "flight model" is a dynamic set of (sometimes unintuitively) varying control gains. The more complex and difficult to use these are, the smaller the set of interesting maneuvers are open to the player in any given situation.

That is not "nothing to do with". But evidently your mind is closed to cross-discipline input.

Regardless, nothing will change now, and I understand that.

 

[777Driver]

In effect the current "flight model" is a dynamic set of (sometimes unintuitively) varying control gains. The more complex and difficult to use these are, the smaller the set of interesting maneuvers are open to the player in any given situation.

That is not "nothing to do with". But evidently your mind is closed to cross-discipline input.

I am not closed minded to anything. My Expertise is CRM, automation dependency & flight control law philosophies (AB & Boeing)

Am failing to see any part of the current flight model (Both FA ON/OFF) that is unintuitive, unless you are talking about a complete newbie at the controls.

 

[{SAS}Stalker]

You have ticked the "relative mouse control" option I presume? It makes it significantly easier.

 

[Voxoid]

I have a saitek x52 pro and have FA bound to my pinky switch and the button mode set to hold not toggle. It's the closest thing to partial FA off, it just takes a little while to get used to holding/releasing the button at the right time.

you could probably manage the same with a gaming mouse that has extra buttons & sensitivity control.

 

[Yodafone]

In all honesty mate I can't see how it is that much harder with mouse and keyboard. I fly purely FA-OFF with a HOTAS, but when flying my Anaconda I often fly the ship using voice commands through Voice attack, in order for it to work, FA has to be off. I am basically steering the ship from departure to dock purely on voice, the commands are using timed keyboard shortcuts.

honestly mate, it's just down to practice

That I'd love to see, voice attack controlling the ship's movement. With no flight assistance how do you control both orientation and translation at the same time with commands? Simply a command to simulate each control input? Still how do you vary the amount of pitch/yaw/roll etc, unless you start with a static ship so any that is inputed, is on its own and requires a simple counter?

 

[777Driver]

That I'd love to see, voice attack controlling the ship's movement. With no flight assistance how do you control both orientation and translation at the same time with commands? Simply a command to simulate each control input? Still how do you vary the amount of pitch/yaw/roll etc, unless you start with a static ship so any that is inputed, is on its own and requires a simple counter?

Hi Yodafone, typing on my phone! Will keep it brief

Voice attack is able to control key presses down to the millisecond, this means you can control thruster output incredibly accurately.

I created a test profile for the Anaconda, the steering commands are basically like helm commands for a ship - Slow to port/starboard, roll to port,10 degrees pitch up, 90 degrees hard to starboard etc etc.


As I am sure you are aware , FA OFF simply requires an exact opposite thruster command to stabilize the ship, or a simple 2 second FA ON toggle command will maintain course.

It works very well steering via voice, this is all purely for fun of course, I use it for trading in my Conda, she feels like a huge ocean liner, so it is fitting to be able to issue helm commands via voice.

During combat I am back to HOTAS and pedals

 

[Yodafone]

Hi Yodafone, typing on my phone! Will keep it brief

Voice attack is able to control key presses down to the millisecond, this means you can control thruster output incredibly accurately.

I created a test profile for the Anaconda, the steering commands are basically like helm commands for a ship - Slow to port/starboard, roll to port,10 degrees pitch up, 90 degrees hard to starboard etc etc.


As I am sure you are aware , FA OFF simply requires an exact opposite thruster command to stabilize the ship, or a simple 2 second FA ON toggle command will maintain course.

It works very well steering via voice, this is all purely for fun of course, I use it for trading in my Conda, she feels like a huge ocean liner, so it is fitting to be able to issue helm commands via voice.

During combat I am back to HOTAS and pedals

Fascinating! Of course I understand there's little point to it, I say little, I expect there are times when you simply want to relax your hands (after an intense prolonged battle for instance) but sure in the larger ships like the Conda I can imagine it is just like controlling a bit cruise liner. Sure ok, all you need are commands that last a certain duration, and as long as each command has a set of 'set inputs' you'll have an opposite 'counter set' to counter the current momentum. Very good Driver, it sounds all well and good in writing, and I don't doubt your sincerity, but still it would be quite a sight seeing it in action!

 

[Schrefu]

The entire flight model is based on as much game as physics; and you can't disregard gameplay in a game. We don't yaw like crazy because game; there isn't a real reason outside of that. FD likes the Star Wars-y feel of planes-in-space combat.

Making a hybrid of the two current modes just makes that one the default mode and is imo a less-interesting flight model to learn to use than what we have now.

(Emphasis mine)
Well, in my opinion that's not entirely true.

We can deduce that the ships do not employ Control Moment gyroscopes simply because if the Thruster module is disabled you won't be able to roll or yaw or pitch.

Look at ships with the debug camera, all the maneouvering thrusters are positioned such that the yaw rate is a result of multiple ventral and dorsal thrusters firing. And since their thrust vectors are at an angle to the lateral plane, the effectiveness for yawing is greatly decreased.

Which begs the question why lateral translation (horizontal strafing) rate is so high. Given the above observation, all ships should have much greater vertical translation rates than lateral translation, since no ship have lateral maneouvering thrusters.

That's how I interpret what I can observe anyway I really wish we could get an official canon explanation, like a service manual for the ships, or a design and construction guide for ships, blueprint schematics of internals and such

 

[Schrefu]

What do you guys think about having a "partial" flight assist that corrects roll/pitch/yaw, but not your movement vector? I.e. You'd be able to drift around like you can with FA off, but would have the attitude stability that you have with FA on.

I've had the same idea, and I too think it would be interesting to have. I can imagine sliders for the dampening factor of roll/pitch/yaw and translation. That way you could setup FA Off just like you'd feel comfortable with.

What if there where different kinds of flight computer modules, each giving you more configuration options? So everyone starts with fixed FA-On, but you can later upgrade the ship computer to FA-On plus current FA-Off, and then ugrade to fully configurable Flight Assist.

My point being that if you setup a macro or shortcut to enable short bursts of Flight assist ON, you have the stabilization the OP requires. When I issue steering commands via voice attack, the ships thrusters are being controlled by the keyboard. If the ship can be flown FA OFF by voice, it can easily be controlled directly with a keyboard.

That does sound like an interesting idea, pulse-modulating the dampening of FA-On... have to play around with AHK for that sometime Except you'd probably trash the ship's computer before it ever becomes truly usefull: "Flight assist Off"... "Flight assist On"... "Flight assist Off"... ad absurdum xD

 

[AndreyATGB]

I think showing the velocity vector while FA off would make it a million times more usable. Right now you're just guessing based on the particles flying by, it's pretty bad.

 

[furrycat]

Lunar Flight, which is an indie game I cannot recommend highly enough, has features which would translate well into this game.

First up it has stabilisation modules which when active will automatically try to zero out minor rotation. As long as the rotational speed is less than the module's threshold (5% from memory) it will be gradually dampened back to zero. That way you don't get the ship wobbling about as an inexperienced pilot applies overcorrection one way then the other. What the module won't protect you against is wild control movements. If you get yourself into a huge spin you'll keep right on spinning until and unless you at least apply some control to bring the ship into the threshold where the module can help you. A gentle hand at the controls is rewarded with a smooth flight.

Of course any readers familiar with the game will recognise the major limitation of the system, namely that the module upgrades are so expensive that by the time you can afford them the chances are you've become fairly competent at flying without them.

The other nice feature the game has is an indication on the HUD of your ship's velocity vector and rotational speeds about each axis. As AndreyATGB points out, applying smooth inputs is less than half the battle in this game; you first need to puzzle out from looking at the starfield which inputs you actually have to apply. A method I've found helpful is to recall that the speed displayed on the HUD is the magnitude of your velocity vector, so that if you zero the throttle and apply, say, port thrust, the number will keep on decreasing right until you've effectively counteracted your starboard drift, then start increasing again if you keep the thruster engaged.

Lunar flight even has a camera view which points directly along the velocity vector. I expect the chances of seeing such a thing in this game are pretty low given that we don't even have a reverse camera.

 

[Elpapo]

I fly with FA on, about 70-80% during flight... Using "Hold" FA off during combats, or when I just want "drift", or to make quicker turns etc. Using both ot once its better than pure FA on or off. Atleast for me.

I like both, FA on and off... Even my Betty voice for "FA" in sounds is disabled, as constantly ship telling me "FA on" or "FA off" was annoying.

Also its easier for me, to handle big ships with FA off rather smaller ones... FA off with anaconda its surely fun thing anytime.

 

[Tarman]

I think showing the velocity vector while FA off would make it a million times more usable. Right now you're just guessing based on the particles flying by, it's pretty bad.

I would consider this a much more useful addition to the flight model, on or off. I miss my speedtapes. It's very well done in Evochron Mercenary; which also has a much more Newtonian flight model for those so inclined. For a one-man game it's a work of art really.

 

[peter101cycle]

What do you guys think about having a "partial" flight assist that corrects roll/pitch/yaw, but not your movement vector? I.e. You'd be able to drift around like you can with FA off, but would have the attitude stability that you have with FA on.

No......
Flight model is currently spot on I think. Why would you want to change it?

You've either the Elite flight model (Assist On), or the Frontier model (Assist Off).

Don't dumb down the flight characteristics, we want some skill involved.

 

[Frenotx]

You have ticked the "relative mouse control" option I presume? It makes it significantly easier.

I actually did give that a go the night before last, and it made flying with FAOff VASTLY easier. It was a lot of fun! The problem is that it make flying with FO
AOn / flying in super cruise positively dreadful. If there was a way to set FAOff to use one dry of mouse settings, and FAOn to use another, I'd be happy.

No......
Flight model is currently spot on I think. Why would you want to change it?

You've either the Elite flight model (Assist On), or the Frontier model (Assist Off).

Don't dumb down the flight characteristics, we want some skill involved.

This thread I'd not abit changing the flight model (which I quite like)- it's about adding another option for control.