Newcomer / Intro Swapping Yaw and Roll

xl-jedi

xl-jedi
I am trying to setup my controller (X52 HOTAS) for spaceflight.

I prefer not to "fly" spaceships as they are obviously not subject to the same physics as airplanes. In particular, I see no reason to have to bank a spaceship into a turn. So, my preference for spaceflight is to swap the roll and yaw controls.

This works, however I do notice the yaw thrusters seem to be far less responsive than roll/pitch thrusters. Now granted, I have had the game for exactly one day and have not even wandered into the actual gameplay yet as I am still tinkering with the tutorials and tweaking my controls setup. So I suppose it may be possible for me to upgrade the yaw thrusters independently and I just don't know it yet.

So my question is...

Is the lack of Yaw thrust responsiveness a controller option setting that I just need to adjust, or is it some sort of strange game developer flight control limitation?


...and two things to keep in mind:
1) I am aware of the "Z" setting to turn off flight assist. I would prefer to allow a flight computer to provide the counter thrust.
2) Yaw thrusters would be positioned 90 degree offset of pitch thrusters, and if powered equally should be equally as responsive. (Do I have to upgrade them? ...or can I swap them out with the Roll thrusters?)
 

Ko Shiji

Ko Shiji
They designed the spaceships to fly like jet fighter planes; on a jet if you want to yaw you turn with your tail rudder, very slowly, and if you want to turn fast you bank and pull up. Think Top Gun. There's nothing you can do to make yaw better.

That said, I did switch yaw and roll on the joystick. Mostly because you need to roll very precisely (90 degrees left / right), but you're always pitching up/down to face the other guy, and for me I can do precise rolls with the twist joystick axis; whereas I'm yanking the x and y axes every which way like a maniac.
 

xl-jedi

xl-jedi
I know exactly how planes fly...
(Pr. Pilot: SEL)

The devs seemed concerned with the concept of Newtonian physics enough to implement the "Flight Assist" gadget.

As the pilot/owner of a spacecraft I should be able to outfit positional X-Y-Z thrusters of equal strength?

The reason a rudder turns a plane slowly is because the control surface is very small compared to the ailerons on the wings. ...and you're dealing with lift/drag and so forth. In space, the area of the control surface has no effect. It's merely the amount of thrust provided and its position relative to the mass. The pitch thrusters are fore/aft and would have the same mass effect as yaw thrusters. If the thrusters put out the same power, they would be equally responsive.

There seems to be no valid physics-related purpose in nerfing one axis? ...and/or arbitrarily forcing every spacecraft in the game to install weaker yaw thrusters.
 
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Ko Shiji

Ko Shiji
Nah, flight assist is just so Average Joe who isn't a pilot in RL can enjoy the game.

As for RL physics, there's no top speed in space, and attitude thrusters are MUCH weaker than the main engines, so although the Space Shuttle can pitch, yaw, and roll very well, it will still not be able to dogfight. And gun and laser ranges of 2 km are purely so you're forced to see the model of the other ship, because combat is the only time in the game where you actually see the models that they've put quite a bit of effort in. Because everywhere else the ships and stations are just orange holograms.

Independence War 2 Edge of Chaos had better Newtonian flight than this. Flight assist off, ships really behaved like the Shuttle.
 

Kazar

K
It was a gameplay decision.

If you need an in-character "physics" reason, try this: they fly more like jet fighters than we think they should because the aether is actually real after all. Space isn't a vacuum, it's full of...stuff.
 

xl-jedi

xl-jedi
Understanding now that it is a current game design limitation...

I would prefer a moderator move the thread to the Suggestion forum, or I guess I could repost it.
 
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