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

jesus christ this is not only about the pvp super (guitar) heros.
this is interesting for all pilots. flying newtonian is also fun without using any weapons.
the so called pvp community is not the center of the universe fgs.

I am not a PvP god. Many, many PvPers can attest to this :)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Like countless others have said it's not the control scheme that makes a great pilot - it's the whole package.

Look at his PIP management. Look at his boost timing. Leveraging the biweave for regeneration and getting shields back. Look at his build: I'm pretty confident that multicannon is mostly there to keep Turk's regen at an absolute minimum while still leaving plenty of energy for WEP. Regardless, thanks to it being gimballed it's a nearly constant source of serious damage. I bet Turk took a lot of damage with zero PIPs to SYS because of that thing.

Finally there's just the fact Yamato is way better under pressure than his opponent. Did you see the predictable flight pattern Turk fell into? Yamato just had to make sure the rails were lined up where his target was repeatedly going to be and keep being evasive (and don't forget the FDL's relatively small unshielded profile plus the extra WEP and ENG you can leverage before shields start recharging). To put it another way, he was inside Turk's OODA loop. Yamato observed, oriented, decided, and acted faster than Turk and rightfully got the the W. Control method has nothing to do with that.

But yeah, sure, lift up the fact he uses keyboard and mouse like some kind of goddamn holy grail and demand FDEV undergo a serious overhaul of the flight model.

I humbly suggest an alternative: get good.
Have you ever tried srb rail guns on a decent human opponent with hotas or control pad and hit 5/10 times? Frankly, I really don't care if anything gets nerfed, buffed or waxed; my setup is just fine.

I have extensive experience with srbs with humans. It's a great but difficult build. Range control and pip management are what we all strive for. But in my own little experience srbs are way more difficult to hit consistently with because ToT is so brief. Long range rails have micro-gimballing and it's easy to see the snap. Try sniping a decent human opponent with srb rail guns. I will be interested to see your video and then maybe you can teach me how to do it.
 
Have you ever tried srb rail guns on a decent human opponent with hotas or control pad and hit 5/10 times? Frankly, I really don't care if anything gets nerfed, buffed or waxed; my setup is just fine.

I have extensive experience with srbs with humans. It's a great but difficult build. Range control and pip management are what we all strive for. But in my own little experience srbs are way more difficult to hit consistently with because ToT is so brief. Long range rails have micro-gimballing and it's easy to see the snap. Try sniping a decent human opponent with srb rail guns. I will be interested to see your video and then maybe you can teach me how to do it.

The gods in heaven, you people. Did you even read my post? I'm not talking about how to use rail guns.

Listen, this entire discussion ultimately stems from the fundamental difference between the outlaws and lawfuls in Elite: Dangerous. The outlaws take the game as it is and put in the work to make themselves better and have fun regardless of what they're doing. Do we have complaints? Do we have issues with the game? Of course, but at the end of the day we enjoy the process and make the best go of it we can. When it comes to others, especially new people, we encourage them to do the same but most importantly... and read this last part very slowly and thoughtfully... we do not do the work for them.

Lawfuls like Tebori want someone to hold their hand, and in most cases, it's FDEV. Hence ridiculous notions like the OP and the discussion that follows.
 
well i am afraid its not that easy the stick does not just stop when its in the move. it goes back to center and on the way back it keeps giving impulse.

Just did a test with my setup. From judging how the stick in the cockpit moved I'm confident to say that even at 100% RM the mouse does not go back to 0 right away then the movement stops but gradually, similar to how a stick user would return it to center. Then I let go of the little stick on the gamepad the stick in the cockpit snapped right back to the middle there with the gyro or mouse it gradually returned back to 0. There was also no counter movement in Faoff from either the stick, gyro mouse, or the real mouse. I did observe that I counter moved the mouse in the beginning and needed to concentrate to not do that.

Long range rails have micro-gimballing and it's easy to see the snap.

All fixed weapons have micro-gimbal (3%?), of course it gets easier the further away the target is as the gimbal cone gets bigger. During the RM test my fixed weapons even snapped onto the carriers antennas. Edit: It wasn't the antennas but the not targeted target square which made the weapons snap.
 
Last edited:
All fixed weapons have micro-gimbal (3%?), of course it gets easier the further away the target is as the gimbal cone gets bigger. During the RM test my fixed weapons even snapped onto the carriers antennas. Edit: It wasn't the antennas but the not targeted target square which made the weapons snap.

I knew rails have micro gimballing. Do PAs or Hammers? I haven't experienced micro gimballing at all with PAs. I will have to check that out. :)
 
When I get back to my computer I'll post some info on how RM works... seems there are still some huge misunderstandings around how it works.
 
I use a Logitech X-56 Grey HOTAS and a Ttesports Black Element mouse. The joystick for flying and firing and the mouse for precision firing especially with fixed weapons. That includes gimballed weapons that are fixed when the enemy is not targeted. Being left handed it works very well. The negative is moving my hand back and forth from the throttle to the mouse. Also have to hit the Windows key to move from the game to a browser window when flying but works normally when docked.
 
I knew rails have micro gimballing. Do PAs or Hammers? I haven't experienced micro gimballing at all with PAs. I will have to check that out.

I tried it on my carrier and the PA weapon dot snapped to the untargeted center point square like rails. This was not the same as the pattern going smaller if you target a ship. It's useless for non-hitscan weapons as you need to point somewhere else to fire. Hammers should have it too as they are rails. Lasers have the micro-gimbal for sure.

It looks the same as in the picture below, but I forgot to take one of the PA setup 🤦‍♀️ The 2nd from the right dot snapped to the center point of the carrier I believe.
2020-07-04 21-51-57 Eol Prou ZO-U b18-25.jpg
 
I tried it on my carrier and the PA weapon dot snapped to the untargeted center point square like rails. This was not the same as the pattern going smaller if you target a ship. It's useless for non-hitscan weapons as you need to point somewhere else to fire.

It was years ago I tried but if I remember correctly if you use trailing sights with PA it does the micro-gimbal but with the FDL's nose trailing doesn't work very well. Not too bad on the FAS but having to switch was sub-optimal so I went back to leading scopes.
 
I have thousands of hours with a stick, FA/Off toggled. Full FA/Off is doable, but it is extremely tiring. With the mouse it's no problem.
X.
I generally toggle it plenty during combat, but for exploration and docking, I keep that sh*t on. Docking with FA OFF is way more hassle than it's worth, I'm not keeping it on for that just so I can brag I fly exclusively FA OFF.
 
@Ant_Solo
no i claim the following
relative mouse: it calculates in a genius way how much counter rotation should be given that the ship does what the pilots points to with the mouse moves
and it does this on the fly constantly
its a master piece of software engineering. basically it stores the other prior moves and calculates the trust needed to control the rotation for the actual move
and it does this all the time
thats the reason you can stop a rotation after a full flip in a second and its hard as hell to do the same with a stick. you will oversteer and need much more time to be stable again even if you are good.
Lol, no it does not. It simulates what joysticks do natively, return to center.
 
I think he just means that the rotation would stop when you stopped input, so it'd go static. Like FA on now.
FA-on rotational with a mouse actually only stop rotating when the mouse stop moving if you got -relative mouse on-. If you got FA-on and relative mouse of (how I started the game), you will keep rotating and not have to go crazy lifting your mouse to get more desk space to keep turning.
Wow, OK. So Flight assist on except for thrust.

I think you would have to accept some serious limitations compared to FAoff as it is now to get that. Reduced turning rate, slower acceleration etc. And if it was ever implemented it would probably be given to all control methods maybe defeating the point of this.

I really can't see anyone going for this but like I said, good luck.
If you went translation FA-of and rotational FA-on you could turn of relative mouse and it would be almost identical to how a high % relative mouse return functions now. Like I said for Sanderling, you can already mimic the opposite "hybrid" by using FA-on with relative mouse of. You will rotate almost like you so FA-off. Being able to swap it the other way around would be a huge quality of life thing for mouse users actually, as you could then turn of relative mouse and not want to kill yourself (or use alternative keybinds) during SC. You could legitimately toogle between them.
It would be a wholesale change to how FAoff flight model works, the feel and usage would completely change. These are dramatic changes that will have lot of knock on effects.




There would be a significant outcome, if it is positive or negative is debatable. This model would become very attractive to players who do not fly FAoff much or at all. It would be very easy to fly rather than needing to work at FAoff skill and it would probably kill off a lot of the FAon flight mechanics and in doing so would change the way the game feel completely. No need for the blue zone etc

My view is this would be a terrible thing for Elite.



It does sound a lot like SC flight model which IMHO isn't as good as ED's.

Also, this would need a lot of developer time and significant testing. I can't see any up side to all this investment. Elite has lots of things that could do with time and effort put in to them and it is clear that that investment can't be granted on a whim. A complete re-write of the flight model seems unlikely.
I actually think the hard thing for new players with FA-off isn't the rotational, but the translation. With FA-on you know you'll mostly be traveling forward, and the moment you turn it of, you need to track where you're going. So I think you're wrong with this: having the other hybrid mode available (translation of + rotation on) would be no easier for new players, just allowing relative mouse to be turned of.
 

Deleted member 192138

D
I generally toggle it plenty during combat, but for exploration and docking, I keep that sh*t on. Docking with FA OFF is way more hassle than it's worth, I'm not keeping it on for that just so I can brag I fly exclusively FA OFF.
tbh if you turn flight assist off and keep it off you just get used to it, then it's not any harder and becomes less of a brag.
I don't think FAOff is intrinsically any harder than FAOn, but it does require training the brain to think about flight differently and it does require training a fresh set of muscle memory to go along with that. Whereas a lot of people will have flown flight sims before, or have expectations of how a flight sim works, so FAOn feels more "natural" because you already have the logic and some of the muscle memory for it.
 
Quick one on a previous post I said that you need to 'get good at your own pace', now this is very different to the standard 'git gud' response.
I firmly believe that everyone learns at a different rate but ultimately you can completely get good with any control method you desire to... My first recommendation to people around control method is simply what do you find more enjoyable to use in our little space pilot simulator we play. You WILL get good to a certain level over time and most certainly will enjoy your time in ED. If you want to reach the 1%'ers well then that will take a lot more time regardless of how you want to control your ship...

So that's out of the way this is my two cents when it come to understanding the differences between KB+M and Stick control methodologies.

Ok, here is a little bit of clarity on how mouse controls work vs stick controls that I have experienced in my 3k+ hrs in ED.
I flew 2k+ hrs with KB+M. The vast majority of it 100% FA-off with RM on. Early this year I switched RM off then in the last couple of months have pretty much been flying exclusively with HOTAS.

Here are the main options that define how your mouse 'performs', yes I know I have RM off in this shot.
K8gz8zH.png


So each of the 4 options below reset mouse controls different aspects of control.

Mouse Sensitivity is pretty straight forward. The higher up the slider the faster your mouse reacts to input. Most sticks don't have this as default options. The rate of deflection is based on your physical movement of the stick. Set this to your own preferences.

Mouse Deadzone is also fairly well known. It the amount of deflection you need to do 'from centre' or rest before the movement is registered and acted upon. This is also a common setting for stick control, often used to mitigate creep by analogue sensors in sticks over time or micromovements of the stick if you rest you hand on it for example. Again I say to set this to your own preferences.

Mouse power curve this acts in a similar way to Joystick curves in that it gives a change in output of the mouse based on the amount of deflection. I have mine set to about 50% with means that for the first 50% of absolute deflection I get very little output, after 50% deflection it ramps up so that at 100% it is giving me full deflection as normal. This allows me fine control around the centre point but also to do full speed turns as needed. I always recommend this to be minimal to FA-off pilots if using RM.

Relative mouse rate - Now this is the area that seems to be causing the most 'discussion' shall we say. What this does is simply define how quickly your mouse returns to it's centre once input has ceased. The mouse will continue to add input as it returns to centre. The higher the slider the faster the mouse returns to centre, that is all. This is a direct simulation of the springs on your joystick. Some stick you can adjust them to be tighter or looser it the same thing as moving the slider on this setting.

That is it... No fancy mechanics added or taken away if you turn on RM.

The return aspect of the RM setting does not apply any form or counter rotational input WHATSOEVER. If you want to see it in action, clearly where you won't be distracted by people shooting each other, go what some of my YT videos. I have a control overlay that clearly shows my mouse movements and you will see many time that I move the mouse and stop. yet my ship still spins in said direction until I manually apply a counter rotational input.

So in this I have not experienced any difference in advantages between the use of RM or stick control in ED. Simply because there is no actual difference in how the game mechanics interpret the results.

Now I am totally against anything that directly changes the flight mechanics in ED. But I am all for more control options to allow people to fly however they want etc if there is no mechanical advantage. As we know there are some changes in thruster performances based on FA selection. If such a rotational assist/dampening etc was ever added the difficult question then would be which set of rules would it apply.... would it have FA-on or Fa-off rules? would it have a middle ground? would all 3 options have to have their current models homogenised so they all had the same rules??
 

Deleted member 192138

D
It's worth noting that the "reset mouse" binding can be used to recreate the function of immediate relative mouse action whilst relative mouse is off. When you want to neutralise mouse output - hit that button and it will kill any mouse output that the game reads, centring the mouse position, so any further action is fresh input without having to physically move the mouse to a virtual centre point. I see no reason why this additional action couldn't be made part of one's manoeuvring repertoire though it would require a readily accessible button to use accurately and with timing and precision to get consistent results.
 
It's worth noting that the "reset mouse" binding can be used to recreate the function of immediate relative mouse action whilst relative mouse is off. When you want to neutralise mouse output - hit that button and it will kill any mouse output that the game reads, centring the mouse position, so any further action is fresh input without having to physically move the mouse to a virtual centre point. I see no reason why this additional action couldn't be made part of one's manoeuvring repertoire though it would require a readily accessible button to use accurately and with timing and precision to get consistent results.

This is true. I utilise it sometimes now that I'm RM-off but never really used it when RM-on so didn't think to put it in my explanation, but very valid point.
 
It's worth noting that the "reset mouse" binding can be used to recreate the function of immediate relative mouse action whilst relative mouse is off. When you want to neutralise mouse output - hit that button and it will kill any mouse output that the game reads, centring the mouse position, so any further action is fresh input without having to physically move the mouse to a virtual centre point. I see no reason why this additional action couldn't be made part of one's manoeuvring repertoire though it would require a readily accessible button to use accurately and with timing and precision to get consistent results.
I tried to use this in the start. I have an easy use button for the thumb on my mouse, but I really couldn't come to terms with it. I was using RM-off with a key to centre mouse, but I found it cumbersome and not very effective. Maybe it would have been better if I set a deadzone on the mouse, but I don't want to have a deadzone. When I move the mouse, I want to have input, always.
 
Back
Top Bottom