Would you still play Elite if there were no flight assist?

[Bran Tse Mallory]

Welcome CMDR's!

You read the title and clicked it... Well the question has already been put to you then, would you still play Elite if there was no flight assist only the flight model of FA:Off.

Could it be that Elite feels a bit "Easy in places" due to the flight model?

Now before you start throwing fireballs at me I fly with FA:On most of the time but find myself using it more and more in combat for various reasons such as boosting the Cobra Mk III, FA:Off, flip 180 and now I have all four guns pointing at the nasty little pirate. I find it rather easy to kill most AI ships/wings this way.

It's just a question to get some opinions and debate going.

As always try not to hit each other over the head to much, play nice and lets not pester those nice mod people, they have feeling too... or so I'm told!

 

[Derath]

Yes, but a vast majority wouldn't - this is one of the areas where FD got it 100% right (IMO) you can fly bananas style if you want, or you can have the simpler flight model thats much easier to control/understand.

I know from experience that most people who fly FA-OFF aren't better at flying than people who leave it on, its just a different style, the whole game would be like mario kart if you forced the general population to do it there would be crashes everywhere lol

 

[Genar-Hofoen]

I would definitely still play the game if Flight Assist didn't exist

 

[kofeyh]

Welcome CMDR's!

You read the title and clicked it... Well the question has already been put to you then, would you still play Elite if there was no flight assist only the flight model of FA:Off.

Could it be that Elite feels a bit "Easy in places" due to the flight model?

Now before you start throwing fireballs at me I fly with FA:On most of the time but find myself using it more and more in combat for various reasons such as boosting the Cobra Mk III, FA:Off, flip 180 and now I have all four guns pointing at the nasty little pirate. I find it rather easy to kill most AI ships/wings this way.

It's just a question to get some opinions and debate going.

As always try not to hit each other over the head to much, play nice and lets not pester those nice mod people, they have feeling too... or so I'm told!

Probably; but it'd be weird for the game to ship without some kind of flight aid; even hardcore aircraft sims do (autopilot).

 

[Jane Turner]

Yes, though I'm not sure planetary landings would be wise. If I was forced to fly FA off I'd be a whole lot better at it by now

 

[Mephane]

would you still play Elite if there was no flight assist only the flight model of FA:Off.

Well, I would generally say no, however if it were changed so that we got at least assist on ship rotation (e.g. like the SAS system in Kerbal Space Program), it might actually be possible, as the biggest difficulty of FAOFF flying is rotation, and depending on your control scheme it can be almost impossible to properly and precisely control it without flight assist.

Edit: Someone mentioned planetary landings - another big issue here. While lateral and vertical thrusters allow analog input, most people without a high end HOTAS system can only perform digital control here (100% or 0% thrust). Flying over a planets surface then means you have to regularly hold and release your thrust-up key all the time, while your ship wobbles up and down along its flight path...

 

[Siobhan]

Sure, I've played similar games with no flight assist before... (Also play KSP and Lunar flight which is yeah...) but I prefer to keep it on because I'm lazy like that.

 

[Crimson Kaim]

Ofcourse but the question is why would you want to remove FA? Today's planes have more assistence than the ships of ED, let alone because of the autopilot. A Eurofighter Typhoon has 70 computers just to keep it stable.

I guess noone could fly this thing without some kind of flight assistence.

 

[furrycat]

I never use it, so yes.

 

[[VR] Deggial]

I always used to switch heavily between FA-Off and -On. So much indeed, that I disabled the voice-confirmation for it, as it was annoying.

One of my plans for my upcomming 2.1/VR related commander reset is to fly only FA-Off in my "second life". Just to increase the novelty of it. In this case, however, I am far from sure that I will keep up to it. Prohibiting myself FA-On might be too limiting to my enjoyment of the game. That remains to be seen...

 

[Grus]

If I had a nice flight stick, sure. But with mouse & keyboard I find it pretty frustrating sometimes, so not sure. I'm switching between modes in fights, but when it comes to landing I have it on. Not quite gotten the hang of it without assist yet.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Welcome CMDR's!

You read the title and clicked it... Well the question has already been put to you then, would you still play Elite if there was no flight assist only the flight model of FA:Off.
!

would i still play it..... probably.
would i beach and moan about it? Certainly.. I love the flight model, and swapping and changing between when to use FA on and off is a skill in itself.

i agree ED is way to forgiving.. but not on that issue imo.

i would much rather see the Flight assist computer as a module when can malfunction in battle and we have to repair in a station (that way we all get to experience Forced FA off from time to time, but all the time..... i think it would do more harm than good)

i would much rather bring back more severe damage when barreling into the space station or hitting the ground to hard.

and of course difficulty is about to go up in 2.1 when the AI (hopefully) go from 15 pint drunkards to, actually capable pilots.

 

[[VR] Deggial]

... i would much rather see the Flight assist computer as a module when can malfunction in battle ...

Now, THIS would be interesting!

 

[Deleted member 38366]

Hm, I could certainly continue flying... at anywhere between 10-80% effectiveness I guess.

Quite a few things I'd likely stop doing, like trying to carefully land barely/unshielded Ships on High-G Planets or in big/heavy Ships.
Alot of everyday Tasks would simply become ineffective or just extremely painful.

FA off is extremely useful in Combat, when used at the right time. And it sure does offer the opportunity for many useful maneuvers elsewhere. But it's not of any benefit for alot of other things.
I'd definitely not look forward flying like a drunk... or like a high performance aircraft that suffers from neutral stability and has its FCS failed. Almost all the time. Nope, don't need that.

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

In short, no.

 

[GunnerBill]

Question is wrong!

Yes I'd still play... but I've been playing over a year now.

But perhaps you should also ask would you have ever started playing?

 

[Arubeto]

i would much rather see the Flight assist computer as a module when can malfunction in battle and we have to repair in a station (that way we all get to experience Forced FA off from time to time

That's an absolute genius idea, Mike! It would be a kind of malfunction that would definitely feel like one. Perhaps it could let the FA turn on and off randomly - unless you turn it off completely - when damaged. The frequency of those unpredictable on/off switches could scale so that with only a few % integrity left in the FA module it would switch back and forth between FA on and off every few seconds!

 

[Mechanist]

I would still play it. I'm sure you get used to it like to fixed weapons.
The learn curve would be much higher, could be frustrating for new players.

 

[VR andysonofbob]

FA Off is the only way I roll. Purely arbitrary.

But for me it turns ED into a completely different game and adds a dash of joy to piloting those ships.

 

[777Driver]

i would much rather see the Flight assist computer as a module when can malfunction in battle and we have to repair in a station (that way we all get to experience Forced FA off from time to time, but all the time..... i think it would do more harm than good)

This does actually happen when thrusters are severely damaged, unfortunately it is only lasts for a few seconds. Can you imagine the amount of complaints on the forum if FA was permanently damaged until repair!

@Op - It would be a terrible idea to force FA-OFF on players. I fly purely FA-OFF, primarily for the challenge & to get a better understanding of the flight model, it takes quite a while before it becomes second nature.. The bulk of new players would likely stop playing due to frustration or not having their controls setup correctly.

Stability control has existed for a long time now - be it DBW on cars, FBW C* Law & C*U Law on aircraft, LSAS etc etc.. It's all been around for decades, for spaceships 1000 years in the future to suddenly ditch all that would be bizarre in the extreme.

Let's be thankful one of the devs fought to get FA-OFF implemented, apparently he had to push quite hard for us to have the option to partially disable the computers!