Why Aiming in FA OFF with a Stick is a huge disadvantage

[SkadiTango]

Not true.

If you push the mouse up in FAoff with rel. mouse on, you start to pitch up. This rotation won't stop just because you've stopped pushing the mouse upwards. You'll keep pitching up. If you want to cancel this movement, you need to pull the mouse back down, i.e. you need to counter the previous input.

What I'm saying is that when you're following a target with the mouse, you simply move it without thinking about how to compensate — you just follow the 'circle' with the mouse. There's no real skill involved, yet you gain the advantage of faster turns.

It's very different with a joystick: every movement needs to be actively compensated. It's simply undeniable, and every PVPer chooses the mouse for this exact reason.

Yes, there are a few exceptions — some HOTAS or HOSAS pvpers— but they're few, and they all have to rely on third-party tools for curves and fine-tuning.

 

[galahad2069]

What I'm saying is that when you're following a target with the mouse, you simply move it without thinking about how to compensate — you just follow the 'circle' with the mouse. There's no real skill involved, yet you gain the advantage of faster turns.

It's very different with a joystick: every movement needs to be actively compensated. It's simply undeniable, and every PVPer chooses the mouse for this exact reason.

Yes, there are a few exceptions — some HOTAS or HOSAS pvpers— but they're few, and they all have to rely on third-party tools for curves and fine-tuning.

That's just factually false. You do need to compensate. It's not like the rotations (pitch/yaw or pitch/roll, depending on your setup) stop as soon as you've stopped moving the mouse.
You need to counter every move with an equally large mouse movement in the opposite direction if you want to stop the rotation.

When you stop moving the mouse with relative mouse ON, it's basically the same thing as letting go of the joystick momentarily. Joysticks have a well defined central postition and they also tend to have springs to make the stick jump back to the neutral position where they no longer put out any signal (which means the rotations will stop accelerating). A computer mouse has neither springs nor a well defined central position. That's what the relative mouse setting is for.

 

[SkadiTango]

That's just factually false. You do need to compensate. It's not like the rotations (pitch/yaw or pitch/roll, depending on your setup) stop as soon as you've stopped moving the mouse.
You need to counter every move with an equally large mouse movement in the opposite direction if you want to stop the rotation.

When you stop moving the mouse with relative mouse ON, it's basically the same thing as letting go of the joystick momentarily. Joysticks have a well defined central postition and they also tend to have springs to make the stick jump back to the neutral position where they no longer put out any signal (which means the rotations will stop accelerating). A computer mouse has neither springs nor a well defined central position. That's what the relative mouse setting is for.

Nah, on principle you are correct, in practice you just have easy mode enable, it's a fact and why everybody doing pvp uses a mouse: it's not like you ever stop moving so you have to actually compensate the mouse movement, you just keep following your target, it's that simple. You just have to try mouse and then stick for 1 minute, trying to follow a target full speed. Mouse with faoff and relative position setting: easy mode, period.

 

[galahad2069]

Nah, on principle you are correct, in practice you just have easy mode enable, it's a fact and why everybody doing pvp uses a mouse: it's not like you ever stop moving so you have to actually compensate the mouse movement, you just keep following your target, it's that simple. You just have to try mouse and then stick for 1 minute, trying to follow a target full speed. Mouse with faoff and relative position setting: easy mode, period.

More nonsense. You just keep spreading misinformation.

1. Absolutely not everybody doing PvP uses a mouse. There are people using all kind of control methods among the top PvPers. M+KB/keypad, HOTAS, dual stick, console controllers, you name it.
2. For the third time, you do have to compensate the mouse movements. You do not need to stop moving the mouse to do that, but neither do joystick users need to stop moving the stick. The actual difference is that the travel distance of a mouse is generally shorter and also the fact that your fingers have finer motor control than your wrists and elbow.
3. You just keep following your target using a joystick or controller as well. At least that's what people who have already learned how to fly do, no matter what kind of a control method they are using.
4. If it's easy mode, just use it. Although I know quite a few joystick and controller users who could most probably eat you for breakfast in duels or wingfights.

 

[Shurimal]

Not true.

If you push the mouse up in FAoff with rel. mouse on, you start to pitch up. This rotation won't stop just because you've stopped pushing the mouse upwards. You'll keep pitching up. If you want to cancel this movement, you need to pull the mouse back down, i.e. you need to counter the previous input.

What makes this different from FA off joystick flying: to stop the angular acceleration with stick, you need to do another physical input and move the stick back to dead center. Which is actually more difficult than it seems. First, it's an extra hand movement; second it's not near-instantaneous; and third you either need a strong center detent or large-ish deadzones to avoid overshoot, both are disadvantageous for very small precise adjustments around the center which require tiny deadzones and soft (or no) center detent. It's also easier to keep a mouse stationary, even on a very slippery speed pad since you can anchor your wrist and pinky finger/thumb on the mouse pad, compared to a joystick on which the whole weight of your arm is resting slightly off-center with no support from the table surface. I always have to compensate for slight drift when flying straight and level with my HOTAS because it's really easy to inadvertedly and imperceptively push the stick ever so slightly off center. Even sqeezing the trigger and going through subtargets or changing pips with hat switches can result in a very small, but critical, unwanted X-Y axis inputs.

That said, FA-off fixed guns is possible, it just takes a lot of practice and dedication (and steady hands). I beleive Crimson flies with HOTAS FA-off, and from what I've seen he is above average PVP-er.