Zero throttle but still thrusting?

bladebss

bladebss
How does this work.. its bugged me for ages and i just dont understand what is going on.

Fly at full speed in a straight line, then put your throttle to zero and pitch the ship and the ship will change direction even though the trottle is at zero. Whats intuitive is that the ship would carry on along the same trajectory it was and you would rotate the ship along that trajectory as you pitched much like if you turned fa off but the flight assist will bring you to a stop.

Whats even more counter intuative to me is that the ship moves forwards in the direction of pitch rather than backwards, if it was going to move any where i would say backwards would be the direction as the ship was lowing down because you zeroed the throttle so the retro thrusters would fire and then you pitched the ship and so as the computer takes time to react the the change you woul reverse out of trajectory in the oposite direction the ship was pointed.


This has confused me for ages and often i thought it was me just not being fully aware of my controlls.. but its not, i just tested it.

Does any one have an explanation for this?
Some thing im missing?
I just want it to make sence in my head but it just seems wrong.


edit: here is a short video to help illustrate my point

[video=youtube_share;GiObIm5qKP0]https://youtu.be/GiObIm5qKP0[/video]
 
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khaos526

khaos526
No, no explanation of it other than years ago on my very first exploration trip using "economical" mode as I didn't realize any different and after a few months finally got near Sag A* and found a Neutron Star, I stopped to admire it and stopped my ships thrusters to 0. Came back awhile later (didn't log out, just had my ship pointing to the Neutron star) and found out I'm dead.

Learned from that point on, that you always move forward where your nose is. They need back thrusters or something to counter that, but never did figure why it was that way to begin with...
 

Jukelo

Jukelo
That's how flight assist works - its purpose is to keep your velocity vector aligned with the direction your ship is pointing. It does this by firing the various thrusters positioned all over your ship.
 
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bladebss

bladebss
Is that in super cruise? Cus that i can at least understand as the slowest you can go is 30km/s. And you can only move forwards in super cruise, you have to keep moving as you are bending space time and that bend creates a frame shift and so as you are in that frame you move. To stop completely you need to leave super cruise and throttle right down.
 

Vandaahl

Vandaahl
You said it yourself, flight assist. It abstracts a flight model for you similar to that of atmospheric flight. Switch it off and you'll get what you want/expect.
 
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bladebss

bladebss
Jukelo said:
That's how flight assist works - its purpose is to keep your velocity vector aligned with the direction your ship is pointing.
Click to expand...

But reverse thrust in fa on moves you backwards, forward thrust moves you forwards. If im not doing eather i should just slow down, and my trajectory should remain the same.. surely
 

Jukelo

Jukelo
bladebss said:
But reverse thrust in fa on moves you backwards, forward thrust moves you forwards. If im not doing eather i should just slow down, and my trajectory should remain the same.. surely
Click to expand...

If you change the direction your ship is pointing towards, flight assist will assume that's where you want to go. So it will take the magnitude of your current velocity vector, multiply it by the unit vector of the direction your ship is pointing towards and then fire the thrusters to try and match your velocity with that new vector.
 
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Jukelo

Jukelo
I do get what you mean though, it might be a bit weird that with the throttle all the way down, and the FA computer therefore knowing your velocity should be (0,0,0), it would take any actions other than what is needed to get you to that point, and that is probably a design decision by Frontier for the sake of sticking to the 'atmospheric' feel. Therefore the FA computer seems to consider changing your direction of travel a priority rather than strictly respecting your throttle setting.
 
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Morbad

Morbad
If you have FA on, you don't have a throttle setting, you have a desired speed and rotation setting. If you throttle down, the ship will try to reduce your velocity to zero and will apply whatever thrust it needs to in order to do so.
 

Sylow

Sylow
As others have said: yes, there is a minimum speed in supercruise. If that's what you refer to, it unfortunately can't be avoided.
.
If you on the other hand experience that in regular flight, the problem is not in the game itself. Things to check out:
.
- Is your throttle correctly calibrated?
- Even if your throttle is correctly calibrated, is it accurate enough? (Due to replacement during the warranty time, i had several X-56 in use since the game launched. One of them also disallowed me to completely stop. Only after adding a dead zone, stopping completely became possible again. )
- Do you have secondary controls bound? For example, do you have "thrust forward/back" put to other input devices?
.
 

bladebss

bladebss
The other front i am struggleing with this on is.. when i use lateral thrusters with zero throttle i dont move forwards nor change direction if i pitch one i stop thrusting.

Its just so odd.

If i want to go in a direction i would thrust that way. If I dont i would zero the throttle. Why ignore would the computer ignore my input. If i had half throttle and pointed my ship that way it would make sence to asume thats the way i want to go. Its like having a brake that is also an accelerator if you steer walst using it...

What reason would there be for this not to be changed to the way it should work from how it currently does?

I alredy have a way to tell the computer to do what it asumes i want when i dont. Buy using the throttle to indicate my desired direction and intecity of travel. But no way to tell it to not ausme that when i put the throttle to zero i actualy mean slow down but maintain the speed of travel as we slow in the direction my ship is pointing untill i stop..
 

bladebss

bladebss
Sylow said:
As others have said: yes, there is a minimum speed in supercruise. If that's what you refer to, it unfortunately can't be avoided.
.
If you on the other hand experience that in regular flight, the problem is not in the game itself. Things to check out:
.
- Is your throttle correctly calibrated?
- Even if your throttle is correctly calibrated, is it accurate enough? (Due to replacement during the warranty time, i had several X-56 in use since the game launched. One of them also disallowed me to completely stop. Only after adding a dead zone, stopping completely became possible again. )
- Do you have secondary controls bound? For example, do you have "thrust forward/back" put to other input devices?
.
Click to expand...

Its not my controlls.. its definitely the game. I have a button seperate from my throttle for zero throttle. And the little orange stick on my speed dial in the ship goes and stays at the bottom the whole time.

Point your ship so it should just miss an object and move at top speed in that direction. Then zero your throttle. Now point your ship towards the object you should miss.. you will hit it.. or you will do a little loop if your pitch is realy good. But you wont keep traveling in the direction you were before you zeroed your throttle.
 

bladebss

bladebss
Morbad said:
If you have FA on, you don't have a throttle setting, you have a desired speed and rotation setting. If you throttle down, the ship will try to reduce your velocity to zero and will apply whatever thrust it needs to in order to do so.
Click to expand...

Apparently not my friend.. it will also keep you at your current speed in any new direction you point as it slows you. Even with zero throttle.
 
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bigity

bigity
bladebss said:
But i want to slow down as well. Like doing a hand brake turn in a car. I dont want to drift like a puck on the ice i want to stop and turn at the same time but not accelerate in a new direction.
Click to expand...

Then you either need to deal with your original complaint, or use FA off and apply thrust in the opposite direction(s) until you stop. You can't get a mix of both in Elite.
 

Vithigar

Vithigar
The number of people who either didn't read or didn't understand OP's first post is amazing. Their question has nothing to do with supercruise.

OP: I agree with you and think it should work as you describe. It's a weird inconsistency with how FA works. FA has to "remember" that some component of your velocity came from your main thrusters, and work to "correct" it, even at zero throttle, since as you describe this behavior does not happen at all if you recreate the exact same situation using lateral thrust.

Scenario A: Accelerate to 200m/s using main thrust. Zero throttle and pitch up so that you are moving directly "downward" at ~200m/s.
Current situation: Throttle zero and velocity of ~200m/s in a downward direction relative to ship.
Result: FA attempts to correct forward direction after rotation. Ship decelerates along a curved path.

Scenario B: Leave throttle at zero and accelerate to 200m/s downward using dorsal thrusters.
Current situation: Throttle zero and velocity of ~200m/s in a downward direction relative to ship.
Result: FA makes no attempt to correct flight path. Ship decelerates along a straight line.
 
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bladebss

bladebss
Yes! Thank you.

I cant see how correcting this oddness will be a problem in any way. And it would make the flight model make more sence than it currently does, even with in its own logic (sorry mr Newton)


here is a short video to help clarify
[video=youtube_share;GiObIm5qKP0]https://youtu.be/GiObIm5qKP0[/video]
 
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