INFO & FEEDBACK [A11] New Flight Mechanic and Techniques

Discussion in 'FAQ & Feedback' started by Hummel-o-War, Oct 27, 2019.

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Did you understand the explanations and how the new Flight Mechanics and Techniques work?

  1. Got it!

    55 vote(s)
    74.3%
  2. Not really. (Please comment on WHAT exactly you did not understand!)

    19 vote(s)
    25.7%
  1. Ntrautner

    Ntrautner Ensign

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    I have a few fixed wing air craft built however, even after placing a small thruster in each direction it doesnt steer, so far I need at least 1 r c s. Also with winged aircraft it seems no matter how many r c s you add it doesnt increase your roll speed. Back thrust only plus wing works as advertised.1

    Add: everything works as advertised. I was just being dumb with thruster placement.
     
    #101
    Last edited: Nov 7, 2019
  2. Hummel-o-War

    Hummel-o-War Administrator Staff Member Community Manager

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    *Updated in current EXP - 06 11 2019*

    III. STATISTICS INFO

    [​IMG]

    TOGGLE THRUST/TORQUE checked = shows amount of Torque coming from Thrusters
    TOGGLE TORQUE SOURCE checked = shows amount of Torque coming from RCS

    Min. Lift-Off Thrust = Thrust required to lift your ship + cargo
    Remaining Thrust = Thrust you have at your disposal (for additional cargo); (Remaining Thrust = NettoThrust - Min.Lift-Off Thrust)

    Note: When "Remaining Thrust" goes negative, you will not be able to lift off or you will drop to the ground

    Maximum Speed = Max speed in FWD direction (Also displayed in Pilot Hud on the top right)
     
    #102
  3. AlbaN

    AlbaN Commander

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    I have problem with this stats. Please more explanation.
    Here everything is ok, stats are in deg/s^2,
    A.PNG
    but here, yaw, pitch, and roll are in strange "values".
    B.PNG C.PNG
    How to read it ?
     
    #103
  4. Hummel-o-War

    Hummel-o-War Administrator Staff Member Community Manager

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    Do not read it - we are currently redoing the screen and not all the values seem to have been added back. Simple reason. :D
     
    #104
  5. AlbaN

    AlbaN Commander

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    Ok :D

    Using boosters can cause a small camera shake in first second ;)
     
    #105
  6. StyleBBQ

    StyleBBQ Captain

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    Is there any word on possible adjustments to the heavy Max Speed reductions when HV has less than ~15 m/s^2 acceleration?
    ---

    Was curious so went looking for how long it takes a loaded semi-truck to get up to 60 Mph. Seems like "a minute or two" is the answer.
    If it takes a semi 60 seconds to get up to 100 kph that's a whopping 0.46 m/s^2 acceleration.

    3/4 ton diesel trucks roughly ~7.5 seconds, for 3.7 m/s^2

    Fast sedans around 5 seconds or 5.6 m/s^2

    Supercars can manage 2.2 seconds at 12.6 m/s^2
    ---
    I mean, it's nice that you guys are encouraging us to build HVs that can smoke an Elemento or Veron... <:p>
    But I'm ok if it takes 15 seconds to get my fully loaded HV up to 50 m/s (3.33 m/s^2 acceleration). Still loads faster than a semi. :)
     
    #106
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  7. geostar1024

    geostar1024 Rear Admiral

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    Here's the results of what I'm terming the "brick wall test":

    This is simply an SV with a wall attached to the front of it, pictured below with a bunch of spikes on the front.

    brick-wall-sv.jpg

    The results:
    • no spikes: max speed is 16.07 m/s, with 3.18 forward drag.
    • Pyramid A: max speed is 41.87 m/s, with 0.94 forward drag.
    • Cut Block B: max speed is 16.72 m/s, with 3.01 forward drag.
    • Cut Block B, Sliced Corner A1: max speed is 29.46 m/s, with 1.48 forward drag.
    • Cut Block B, Sliced Corner A1, Corner Half B: max speed is 28.41 m/s, with 1.53 forward drag.
    • Cut Block B, Sliced Corner A1, Corner Half B, Corner Small C: max speed is 46.31 m/s, with 0.74 forward drag
    This is more than a little ridiculous, essentially saying that putting spikes on a brick wall makes it fly less like a brick wall. And this illustrates the essential problem with local block-based drag calculations: they don't capture the overall behavior of the ship.

    I think the better way to handle drag is to simply consider the cross-sectional area of the ship and its aspect ratio (ratio of characteristic transverse dimension to length), and use that to compute drag. Then ships that are dart-like will have lower drag, and ships that are brick-wall-like will have higher drag. This approach ought to require fewer calculations, too.
     
    #107
  8. StyleBBQ

    StyleBBQ Captain

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    @geostar1024 , first, wow.
    Second, just to be 100% clear, does "no spikes" mean just the 1x3 (or 1x2?) front cross section of the basic SV?
    Third, all other tests were with a 9x5 front cross section?

    Last, and sorry to bring this up, but in a test I did in previous patch removing blocks borked up the underlying calcs for max speed. Had to restart the game, then they'd settle down. This was repeatable as to there was an effect, but the magnitude of the effect varied.
     
    #108
  9. geostar1024

    geostar1024 Rear Admiral

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    No spikes means just a 9x5 grid of cubes (which is the first layer in the image). All tests were done with the same cross section.

    Hmm, that's interesting; I guess I need to repeat this (maybe by spawning in ships that differ only by what forms the spikes) and make sure that's not affecting my results (it could explain why adding the Corner Half B made things worse, for example). Still, that bodes even less well for the stability of this system.
     
    #109
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  10. Frigidman

    Frigidman Rear Admiral

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    Not to fuel a real massive argument here... but ....

    I think the new flight mechanics and behavior/feel is, at the very least, MUCH better than what the game used to have (which was so bad, I have given up flying ships around entirely).

    Can it be 'more ultra-realistic and true physics'? Sure...... but..... that costs performance and more pc hardware to support it all. So, as a balance... actually what they have done with the limited engine of Unity, it is much better than it was. So if they cannot go any further with it, I think its at a 'happy medium point'.
     
    #110
  11. RazzleWin

    RazzleWin Rear Admiral

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    The one thing I can say about the new flight system. I enjoy flying in first person for a change. I enjoy flying into my base now. Where before I was always in 3rd person dropping into my base. I am starting to enjoy flying into hangers in 1st person.

    And at least the 3rd person seems to be working much better inside a building while in a hv or sv. I'm no longer shoved to the top of the room looking down at myself in the cockpit.
     
    #111
  12. geostar1024

    geostar1024 Rear Admiral

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    Is bad aero better than no aero? If the mechanic isn't doing a reasonable job capturing the effects it's supposed to encompass, then . . I'd say no, personally. But, in any case, my proposal requires fewer calculations, since no block-by-block calculation is needed. And I'd point out that the way drag is computed can be changed without changing the lift computation (which I agree makes ships much more fun to fly in-atmosphere).
     
    #112
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  13. Frigidman

    Frigidman Rear Admiral

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    Well if by 'bad' or 'none' you mean "like it is now" or "like it was" ... I would definitely go with the 'bad' then... because nothing at all (what it was), was really unfun and utterly awful ;)

    IF they actually listen to your calculations (for once, I mean, you've laid it all out for them [again], theres nothing they really have to do, but listen)... then I will welcome it. So I'm definitely not saying "stop now, its good".
     
    #113
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  14. StyleBBQ

    StyleBBQ Captain

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    Has anyone felt the need for a player control to limit max rotation, and max rotational acceleration?

    I know they're working on the flight stuff, so things will be changing. But even with the small amount of testing I've done it seemed like it would be fairly easy to build a ship to haul a lot and wind up with it being real twitchy when running empty.

    Just thinking about; a hauling ship fully loaded could easily be 6 or 10 or more times it's empty mass. So if you built the ship to handle 'decently' when it was 6 times more massive, it should be twitchy or worse when empty. So might need to be able to cap rotation...?
     
    #114
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  15. Absolutely.
    Turning off thrusters is a necessity now to avoid insane turn rates on an empty hauling ship.
    But you can't always shut some of them off.

    Example,
    I have a SV I just built for the sole purpose of hauling a mining HV. If the mining HV is docked but empty (or not docked at all) then the ship is uncontrollable if all the thrusters are on.
    I can turn some of the various thrusters off to keep it in control, but now I can't fly max speed because I'm below some magical threshold that determines my max speed instead of just my acceleration.

    So I can choose to turn some of my thrusters off so that the ship doesn't start doing 360's in the air with a slight mouse movement, but I'm then punished for doing so by being penalized on my max speed. Gee, that's a real great game mechanic here (sarcasm).

    The more I play around with various designs the more I'm disliking these new flight mechanics.
     
    #115
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  16. geostar1024

    geostar1024 Rear Admiral

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    The thruster RCS calculations just seem wrong. I can't tell exactly where the physics is going wrong, but it's definitely not right.
     
    #116
  17. Hummel-o-War

    Hummel-o-War Administrator Staff Member Community Manager

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    #117
  18. Myrmidon

    Myrmidon Rear Admiral

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    I moved my case to the other post....
     
    #118
    Last edited: Nov 12, 2019
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  19. Arrclyde

    Arrclyde Rear Admiral

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    But than again.... shouldn't a slim long dart like ship have less drag, but also less lift as a wide flatt vessel? That might have a higher drag, but if it is shaped like a solo wing it should have way more lift like the thinslimdart. ;-)
    While, isn't it that way that in space you have neither lift or drag?
     
    #119
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  20. geostar1024

    geostar1024 Rear Admiral

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    Indeed. My proposal wouldn't affect lift. And you'd then have the situation where you'd need enough wing area, but not too much. Obviously in space you don't have to worry about lift and drag so ships can still look like anything. Broadly, my proposal would differentiate between a wall flying face-on, a wall flying edge-on, a cube, and a rod flying end-on.
     
    #120
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