Newcomer / Intro What does the game consider "roll"

[HeatherG]

I'm just starting out with this game, trying to figure out what buttons on my xbox controller do what movements. When I look up what "roll" means online the answer I always find is banking left or right. But while doing the "Training" section of the game it tells me what stick to use for roll and all it does, if I press to the stick to the left, is that the wing dips down. There is no turning. The only way to turn is YAW and I don't know how that can be the only way to turn. It moves at a snails pace. It takes well over a minute to do a 360.
Is YAW the only way to turn? and I wrong in what ROLL means?

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Roll means the it rotates around the axis of your vision.

Like in Star Wars when Anakin says "ill try spinning, that's a good trick!" or as you might know the term, doing a barrel roll.

Yaw means twisting to the left or right. Pitch is nose up/down.

In ED, yaw is very weak, so its better to roll and pitch in combination to turn to the side. Think of how a plane flies rather than how a spaceship would fly.

 

[FrogsFriend]

Left turn: roll 90 degrees left and climb.... or do both at once for a satisfying swoop to the left.

Welcome to the Elite side of the fence

 

[Tyres O'Flaherty]

Yaw is, indeed, a slow method of turning but you can increase the speed (temporarily) by boosting.

Welcome to ED! @@@07

 

[varonica]

I'm just starting out with this game, trying to figure out what buttons on my xbox controller do what movements. When I look up what "roll" means online the answer I always find is banking left or right. But while doing the "Training" section of the game it tells me what stick to use for roll and all it does, if I press to the stick to the left, is that the wing dips down. There is no turning. The only way to turn is YAW and I don't know how that can be the only way to turn. It moves at a snails pace. It takes well over a minute to do a 360.
Is YAW the only way to turn? and I wrong in what ROLL means?

Roll 90%, pull back on stick.

You can't "bank" in a spaceship because there's no air to bank on, a plane uses a banking turn because differing air pressure above and below the wing surface pushes the plane in a curve when they bank. Yawing is the equivalent of a plane just using the tail rudder to turn, in the case of a spaceship that turn is emulated using maneuvering thruster which are far less powerful than main or vertical thrusters and so you get a slow turn useful for minor adjustments to course while the ship stays level. So for a fast turn to go towards an object you can see to your left you roll the ship so the left side drops and brings the target directly overhead and pull back on the joystick to use the main and vertical thrusters to turn. Boost for faster turns as already mentioned.

 

[HeatherG]

Think of how a plane flies rather than how a spaceship would fly.

When I looked up ROLL a plane pilot said it was banking left and right. So basically if it has to turn around it wouldn't YAW it would bank. That was my confusion and also with how that's done in the game.

Left turn: roll 90 degrees left and climb.... or do both at once for a satisfying swoop to the left.

That would tilt my left wing down and climb but not physically turn me left....or am I wrong in that? I'm trying to picturing this in my mind and I'm just not sure how that makes me turn.
I'm just trying to figure out how to turn without YAW...as I mentioned it takes so long, and the other controls are very "quick".

Welcome to the Elite side of the fence

Thanks!

Edit: can ROLL and PITCH be made to be slower, by chance?

 

[Ashnak]

Your spaceship isn't a plane .
In a plane, roll usually changes your direction (banking) due to the lift from the wings. In space, there is no lift. So you have 3 independent axes, with full 6 DOF (rotation around and translation along each of these axes, independently - unlike a plane):
roll: rotation around the longitudinal axis
yaw: rotation around the vertical axis
pitch: rotation around the horizontal axis
All of these are independent, and independent from translation along any of these axes.

 

[Tyres O'Flaherty]

Also, in space, there is no "up" or "down".

 

[McGyverCP]

Also, in space, there is no "up" or "down".

And no one can hear you scream...

 

[FrogsFriend]

That would tilt my left wing down and climb but not physically turn me left....or am I wrong in that? I'm trying to picturing this in my mind and I'm just not sure how that makes me turn.

Imagine a paper aeroplane held in front of you, flying flat and level. First it rolls left (left wing down, right wing up) until its top side is facing left. Then if it 'climbs' it's nose will come round to the left... And voilà, a left turn. If necessary it could then roll back to the right to level out again but in space up and down don't matter so much.

 

[Sensei Jacksama]

I'm not trolling; but legitimately asking. If you're just now starting out how are you a forum moderator?

 

[sinisalo]

Frontier makes more games than Elite...

 

[Sensei Jacksama]

Frontier makes more games than Elite...

Blasphemy!!

 

[Vetinari]

Check the key bindings, its been that king I cant remember what the base set up is for XB, just that its awful.

Theres one to 'turn' left which can turn into 'roll' on the same thumbstick.

You will turn left just very very slowly. Some good examples above how to do quicker. In space there is no fixed up and down or left and right, just up and down relative to you. So by rolling, what was on your left is now above or below you.

Theres a compass that shows what youre targeting and which direction.

 

[Vetinari]

Cant edit?

Its been that long....

 

[Tyres O'Flaherty]

Edit is working. Just differently since the last forum update.

 

[Krieger]

I'm just starting out with this game, trying to figure out what buttons on my xbox controller do what movements. When I look up what "roll" means online the answer I always find is banking left or right. But while doing the "Training" section of the game it tells me what stick to use for roll and all it does, if I press to the stick to the left, is that the wing dips down. There is no turning. The only way to turn is YAW and I don't know how that can be the only way to turn. It moves at a snails pace. It takes well over a minute to do a 360.
Is YAW the only way to turn? and I wrong in what ROLL means?

Welcome to the Elite Galaxy commander!

Indeed yaw is slow and roll and pitch are fast. That's why the ships in Elite are steered by using quick successions of roll and pitch. If you want to turn to the right you first roll 90 degrees to the right and then pitch up until the nose is pointing where you wanted to go. Since there is no gravity in space there is no need to roll back and level the ship (unless you fly close to a planet's surface but that's for later).

You've probably already found most of the resources listed below. If not, have a look at them and in any case don't hesitate to ask questions here in the forum.

In-game help is available in the form of menu links to the Pilot's Handbook and the Codex (right-hand cockpit panel 1st tab).
For a very good beginner's guide see: An in-depth beginner’s guide to Elite: Dangerous.
Tutorials covering all aspects of the game, many of them in the form of YouTube videos, are available from ED Tutorials.
There is a wealth of useful information available in these forums spread out over hundreds of threads. Thanks to commander @Alec Turner you can access all of that information and more via a single thread: Alec's best of the forum (and elsewhere) [v2].
Here is a good guide on the background simulation (BGS) that simulates the economical and political changes caused by player actions in inhabited systems.
Also check out the inara.cz and eddb.io websites with (almost) realtime info on practically everything in the game.
The coriolis.io and edsy.org websites let you design your ships before buying them.
There are many more Tools and Websites created by fans that make life in the galaxy better.
And last but not least, the Elite Dangerous Wiki contains extensive information on nearly all aspects of the game.

o7

 

[Vetinari]

Edit is working. Just differently since the last forum update.

All I get is the box opening up and seeming to freeze with no text? Please help a moron or is there a forum update patch notes somewhere?

 

[Krieger]

My bad. The new editing system is horrible...

--edit: In fact, the new editing system is bugged on Firefox (linux). I get the same frozen edit box as @Vetinari. I made this edit on Edge (Windows 10) and it worked.

--edit2: After removing all cookies for forums.frontier.co.uk editing works on Firefox. Thanks @Ozric and @Zieman.

 

[Ashnak]

Regarding your edit: not independently. The agility depends on the ship, the thrusters, the pips to engines, boosting and the thrusters' engineering. Coriolis has some graphics visualizing the agility in the "Profiles" tab (lower part of the screen). The Sidewinder (which you are probably in) can be one of the most agile ships in the game, but is still pretty boring when equipped with the default 2E thrusters. If you want to feel even more like handling a sponge dipped in molasses, try a Type-9 with minimal (6D for the stock configuration - again, the permissible thruster classes depend on the ship's maximum loaded mass) thrusters and no pips to engines. That'll get you 6°/s for roll and pitch, and 2°/s for yaw.