Newcomer / Intro Why can you not use thrusters in Free flight?

[Poacher886]

I dont get it..i turn Flight assist off and with it my thrusters also get turned off??, Flight assist is the tool for stabilisation, it should not effect thrusters at all. It seems, you are stuck going in one direction until you re-engage flight assist to use your thrusters again or boost?

Added to that, if i boost to 398ms, then hit flight assist off i would expect to stay at that speed indefinitely, except it just slows down to my max 319ms regardless?

What am i missing here?

 

[Ian Skippy]

I dont get it..i turn Flight assist off and with it my thrusters also get turned off??, Flight assist is the tool for stabilisation, it should not effect thrusters at all. It seems, you are stuck going in one direction until you re-engage flight assist to use your thrusters again or boost?

Added to that, if i boost to 398ms, then hit flight assist off i would expect to stay at that speed indefinitely, except it just slows down to my max 319ms regardless?

What am i missing here?

I am not sure what you are trying to say? Flight assist doesn't turn off thrusters, you need them to change direction. Max speed is indeed limited to the speed you could have at 4pips, its for gameplay reasons.

 

[Poacher886]

I am not sure what you are trying to say? Flight assist doesn't turn off thrusters, you need them to change direction. Max speed is indeed limited to the speed you could have at 4pips, its for gameplay reasons.

If im flying towards a station and turn off flight assist, i continue to fly towards the station irrespective of my orientation!, if the thrusters (which still show to be at full wack) were working then i would change direction in-line with my orientation, the only difference being you would still have some inertia from the previous direction.

 

[Para Handy]

If im flying towards a station and turn off flight assist, i continue to fly towards the station irrespective of my orientation!, if the thrusters (which still show to be at full wack) were working then i would change direction in-line with my orientation, the only difference being you would still have some inertia from the previous direction.

If you mean the pips - that is not thruster power applied, it is thruster power available.

Turn off FA - then apply thrust forwards, backwards or whatever and the ship will react - the thrusters still work.

Ship (and projectile) momentum etc don't follow the laws of physics - they use the handwavium-gameplayium modification of Newtonian physics.

 

[Poacher886]

If you mean the pips - that is not thruster power applied, it is thruster power available.

Turn off FA - then apply thrust forwards, backwards or whatever and the ship will react - the thrusters still work.

Ship (and projectile) momentum etc don't follow the laws of physics - they use the handwavium-gameplayium modification of Newtonian physics.

When in FA Off my thrusters cannot be changed (not pips), they are 'fixed' at whatever they were when i entered FA Off! However they do not seem to function, there is no noise, the ship will not change its course. only the small laterial and vertical thrusters have any effect, not the main ones.

 

[Sapient6]

When in FA Off my thrusters cannot be changed (not pips), they are 'fixed' at whatever they were when i entered FA Off! However they do not seem to function, there is no noise, the ship will not change its course. only the small laterial and vertical thrusters have any effect, not the main ones.

Mouse/Keyboard? Your main thrust, as controlled by your throttle setting, zeroes out when FA is turned off... the confusion is that this is only true if your throttle is controlled by a keyboard. If you have a HOTAS hooked up then your throttle controller works just fine when FA is switched off.

You should still be able to use your main thrusters by holding your throttle key down, at least that's how it was when I still used mouse/keyboard. Otherwise you may want to bind a key for "forward thrust" (much like you can bind keys for lateral and vertical thrust).

 

[Ian Skippy]

When in FA Off my thrusters cannot be changed (not pips), they are 'fixed' at whatever they were when i entered FA Off! However they do not seem to function, there is no noise, the ship will not change its course. only the small laterial and vertical thrusters have any effect, not the main ones.

Sorry, I think I get what you are saying but I have never heared of this. When you enter FA off you can use your main engines, and it will add the direction you are facing to your vector. One thing I can imagine: what controller do you use? And how have you bound your main engines? There are two ways (throttle and thrust I believe they are called), make sure you have the right one (the one that you can NOT override in docking-mode). If that aint it, try to upload a vid here.

 

[Para Handy]

When in FA Off my thrusters cannot be changed (not pips), they are 'fixed' at whatever they were when i entered FA Off! However they do not seem to function, there is no noise, the ship will not change its course. only the small laterial and vertical thrusters have any effect, not the main ones.

Suggest you check what you have mapped in the controls section of options. If you can't accelerate or decelerate with FA off and your controls are mapped OK then I suggest you raise a support ticket.

 

[Poacher886]

Thanks guys,

I use a Thrustmaster T.1600 joystick, but use the mouse (centre scroll wheel) for throttle to the main thrusters. These do not function when FA off is turned on. Why would that be?? it works fine elsewhere!

 

[Zephyriel]

Bear in mind that in FA Off it is a lot harder to change you heading, even if you add vertical/lateral thruster, for some reason I never understood.
When you adjust your throttle in FAOff, does the throttle indicator move at all on the speedometer? Perform a test : stop completely, switch to FAOff, then push your throttle and see if you start moving.

 

[Winterwalker]

Thanks guys,

I use a Thrustmaster T.1600 joystick, but use the mouse (centre scroll wheel) for throttle to the main thrusters. These do not function when FA off is turned on. Why would that be?? it works fine elsewhere!

Does this only happen when docking? There's a set of override bindings, for use while docking, in controls/settings .. ?

 

[happyfunball]

Thanks guys,

I use a Thrustmaster T.1600 joystick, but use the mouse (centre scroll wheel) for throttle to the main thrusters. These do not function when FA off is turned on. Why would that be?? it works fine elsewhere!

Bear in mind that in FA Off it is a lot harder to change you heading, even if you add vertical/lateral thruster, for some reason I never understood.
When you adjust your throttle in FAOff, does the throttle indicator move at all on the speedometer? Perform a test : stop completely, switch to FAOff, then push your throttle and see if you start moving.

I just performed that test with my T16000M and mouse wheel mapped to throttle, and it works fine for me. However, I did notice that the UI throttle indicator and speed are different in the two modes. This looked like FA correcting for my previous motions and throttles. Is that what's throwing you off?

 

[Poacher886]

I just performed that test with my T16000M and mouse wheel mapped to throttle, and it works fine for me. However, I did notice that the UI throttle indicator and speed are different in the two modes. This looked like FA correcting for my previous motions and throttles. Is that what's throwing you off?

This is interesting..yes its a T160000M (its been a while since i had to remember its name). Ok this is not docking its out in open space while i was trying my hand at FA off (not in combat). Boost works as normal as do the little laterial / vetical thrusters that i have mapped to my cursor keys. Its just the main throttle tied to the mouse wheel that does'nt work. (you can tell because no engine noise and no direction change)

I will go and test with speed set at 0 then FA off, then see if i can get moving.

 

[Poacher886]

Ok done some testing...pretty disappointed really.

When i set speed to 0 and turn FA off, then move my mousewheel forward, in increases / decreases the speed by 1 each time!, it seems i have to map a keyboard key to throttle or rather thrust to use in FA off mode, which is going to be pretty disconcerting because i use the mouse for head-look, thus dont use the keyboard when in combat....why they cant have the throttle work as normal off the mouse wheel when in FA-off i dont know?

 

[Ian Skippy]

What exactly are your binds? have you mapped it to throttle or thrust? As a 'button' or 'axis'?

 

[Nosdrahcir]

When I played elite 2 switching fly by wire off aided in long distance journeys like Hutton, and had situational use in combat for a beginner whilst the elite left it off all the time as it curtailed their abilities. Flight assist or fly by wire is not optimal but it's intuitive to those who grew up in a gravity well and most pilots (I'm talking npcs here) would need it. Switching FA off SHOULD be difficult until you become accustomed to it, at which point you have a huge advantage over those still using FA.

- - - Updated - - -

Full disclosure, I'm relatively new to the game and still using flight assist most of the time. (20 years without use will degrade any skill) This is not intended to be a "Git gud" post. If you check your key bindings you may well find that a few adjustments make all the difference.

 

[Bret Riverboat]

Hi poacher!

i think I'm following what you are saying and I could type it out, but to be fair Isinona explains it far better. Watch this:

http://youtu.be/WtD41MRibe4

i think it's the 'throttle' issues you are having and not thrusters.