Quasi Flight Assist?

[Colonel Kenney]

I've only just tried A1 so far. I notice with flight assist off the entire ship basically spins out of control. This is all aspects of flight and it seems difficult to compensate or counter the drift.

I was wondering if they'd add some sort of quasi flight assist mode, where your attitude is counter thrusted (joystick input) automatically but it did not compensate for forward/reverse/lateral thrust (Throttle and lateral up down thrust).

In other word "Attitude Assist" would be enabled allowing you to point your ship however you want and in what ever direction you want and it will adjust the correct thrusters.

Then the other controls would have no assist at all such as thrust and lateral movement.

I can't quite remember but I seem to be able to remember a game that allowed for such a system. But I know I could pull off some wicked combat maneuvers if this sort of system would be allowed.

What do you think?

 

[lefty1117]

From what I understand FA OFF is not meant to be used as a primary flight mode. Basically you toggle it on when you need to make quick turns, strafe around a target, etc. Pretty sure there's an option to turn it off on button-hold rather than an off/on toggle, so imagine if you will where you need to rotate around while moving in one direction, without losing momentum, you would hold down your FA OFF button while performing the maneuver, then let the button go to put FA back on.

I haven't tried this personally since I don't have a stick, but this is how I gather it works based on videos.

 

[Adam Lusardi]

don't give the game away :smilie:
but yes, some use it all the time I find off then on gives me back some stability

 

[Aleksej]

Devs have stated numerous times that there will be only two modes in the game FA ON and FA OFF, no mixed mode will be implemented in the game.

 

[Colonel Kenney]

Imagine you are running from an enemy and you are getting shot at.. you could point toward a station or an escape route full power and then turn off flight assist, kill your engines. Then you could turn around and shoot back while continuing to drift away forcing the enemy to pull back to recharge their shields thus buying you some escape time.

Escape seems to be difficult in this game so far, but its only A1 so I don't know.

Also imagine baiting people into a direction you want to go while still maintaining the ability to keep it pointed straight.

I will give the toggle a try though.

 

[JughedJones]

Imagine you are running from an enemy and you are getting shot at.. you could point toward a station or an escape route full power and then turn off flight assist, kill your engines. Then you could turn around and shoot back while continuing to drift away forcing the enemy to pull back to recharge their shields thus buying you some escape time.

Escape seems to be difficult in this game so far, but its only A1 so I don't know.

Also imagine baiting people into a direction you want to go while still maintaining the ability to keep it pointed straight.

I will give the toggle a try though.

I believe you can absolutely do what you're talking about the way it stands now.

Turn FA off, turn around, blast away while maintaining the direction you were flying originally. (Battlestar Galactica style)

It's there.

 

[CaptainKremmen]

The FD team have stated elsewhere on this forum that they want any advantage gained from FA Off mode to be "hard earned"... so they won't be adding a stable, rotation-damped version of FA Off.

 

[Suul Vellumcore]

I believe you can absolutely do what you're talking about the way it stands now.

Turn FA off, turn around, blast away while maintaining the direction you were flying originally. (Battlestar Galactica style)

It's there.

Not so sure I agree. I believe what you guys are talking about is perfectly accurate, but only for sims like I-War and Evochron Mercenary. Here with ED, while the concept is the same - and what I think the op is talking about - is that the ship becomes EXTREMELY unstable in flight assist off. Sure you can point somewhere, but you'll be all over the place in an instant. Pitch, roll, and yaw continually drift, and even with firm control on the stick, oscillation becomes a bitter struggle from over-compensation of even the lightest control inputs. Aiming with fa off, as far as I can see with alpha 1, is practically impossible... at least with my ch joystick/throttle setup. Perhaps others are having a better go at it, but I can relate fully with the op.

Turning it off for just a moment is an excellent way to get a bead on that hard turning enemy (that and vertical/lateral thrusters) but only for a moment... then it's back to ON to continue the fight. The devs aren't kidding when they say "flight assist OFF"! I imagine that's what it would be like to fly a modern fighter without fly-by-wire - unstable. I'm not so sure this instability should be so in the vacuum of space, but I'm no engineer, what do I know.

Although, I'm not complaining... I'm finding it exhilarating to use the OFF mode just at those prescise moments to get back a positional edge. It adds a sweet mechanic to combat in ED that must be learned and mastered.

 

[laforge]

The FD team have stated elsewhere on this forum that they want any advantage gained from FA Off mode to be "hard earned"... so they won't be adding a stable, rotation-damped version of FA Off.

I dislike how this is going. To turn off also the rotation-dampening doesnt make much sense, it only makes ship handling more difficult with no real gain. I mean, the mode was introduced because we wanted to have the option in which turning is decoupled from current velocity vectors as in FFE/E2 or not?

 

[Aleksej]

I dislike how this is going. To turn off also the rotation-dampening doesnt make much sense, it only makes ship handling more difficult with no real gain. I mean, the mode was introduced because we wanted to have the option in which turning is decoupled from current velocity vectors as in FFE/E2 or not?

It is useful if you want to turn the ship without the change of the flight direction.

 

[Robert Maynard]

I dislike how this is going.

It is not "going" anywhere - it arrived there some time ago - Mike stated that FA is ON or OFF, with no intermediate settings.

 

[Gwydion]

Not so sure I agree. I believe what you guys are talking about is perfectly accurate, but only for sims like I-War and Evochron Mercenary. Here with ED, while the concept is the same - and what I think the op is talking about - is that the ship becomes EXTREMELY unstable in flight assist off. Sure you can point somewhere, but you'll be all over the place in an instant. Pitch, roll, and yaw continually drift, and even with firm control on the stick, oscillation becomes a bitter struggle from over-compensation of even the lightest control inputs. Aiming with fa off, as far as I can see with alpha 1, is practically impossible... at least with my ch joystick/throttle setup. Perhaps others are having a better go at it, but I can relate fully with the op.

It is possible to do anything in FAOFF that you can do in FAON - albeit a lot harder. I know there is a video of someone fighting or docking, can't remember which now, with FA off all the time. I remember it because FD commented on it.

Anyone able to provide a link to that?

 

[Viajero]

I can't quite remember but I seem to be able to remember a game that allowed for such a system. But I know I could pull off some wicked combat maneuvers if this sort of system would be allowed.

You are probably thinking about Star Citizen which has plans to indeed allow for such attitude counter thrust mode when in assist off (among other modes and things).

The key thing to understand is that if there was such a counter thrust based assist off mode in ED, then probably no one (unless a masochist) would then use fully unassisted flight anymore.

Personally I prefer the way ED handles it: On or Off, no middle ground. Work hard at mastering FA OFF.

The way Star Citizen is planning its flight modes I fear that is going to allow all kinds of easy mode turreting and circle strafe dances where aiming on your opponent is going to be just too easy because of the added stability of the automated counter thrusts. And that is a shame imho. SC will have other aspects of the dogfight mechanics that may help to balance that easy mode (highly diversified ship types, very detailed subsystem damage modelling including individual thruster damage, etc), but it still remains to be seen.

In ED such a counter thrust based FA OFF does not make much sense.

 

[xyphic]

Like yaw, FA OFF is nerfed to make combat a more skilful pastime. Any advantage you gain from increased manoeuvrability is balanced by the difficulty in maintaining attitude.

Having said that, it's entirely possible to use your manoeuvring thrusters to get the same sort of advantage, as they effectively allow you to strafe at your ship's full speed, which is similar to what FA OFF with stabilisation would give you.

 

[Viajero]

It is possible to do anything in FAOFF that you can do in FAON - albeit a lot harder. I know there is a video of someone fighting or docking, can't remember which now, with FA off all the time. I remember it because FD commented on it.

Anyone able to provide a link to that?

There are quite a few assist off vids out there by now, Isinona here is one of my favorites

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvl7uaR1sfI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G7PeAV8uXU

 

[ZenSpider]

There are quite a few assist off vids out there by now, Isinona here is one of my favorites

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvl7uaR1sfI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G7PeAV8uXU

Isinona does indeed have bomby skills.

 

[laforge]

It is not "going" anywhere - it arrived there some time ago - Mike stated that FA is ON or OFF, with no intermediate settings.

But FA OFF is already something intermediate. One could in principle make the rotational dampers independent from any 'velocity assistant'.

 

[Robert Maynard]

But FA OFF is already something intermediate. One could in principle make the rotational dampers independent from any 'velocity assistant'.

I seem to remember Mike saying something about damping, but it was not going to be a great help from what I remember.

 

[Captain N]

It is possible to do anything in FAOFF that you can do in FAON - albeit a lot harder.

Not everything. Decelerating from any sideways vector to zero is about twice as fast with FAON and following from this, you can pull tighter curves in FAON than anything that is possible in FAOFF.

 

[Commander Dave]

But FA OFF is already something intermediate.

Incorrect.
FA Off mode is a Newtonian flight model i.e. How the universe actually works at the low speeds we encounter.

FA On mode is an assisted mode that allows you to fly the ship as if it were an aircraft in an atmosphere.

There are only two modes and there are no plans to make any crossover.

Some pilots find it useful to use FA on and then to make turns or specific combat moves they momentarily switch FA to off for the duration of their manoeuvre and when completed they switch FA back on again to continue with combat or whatever they were doing.