Piloting Question

[Shadow Reaper]

Please forgive this newb question. By way of explanation to those who don't know, I do not own a game package, nor a gaming machine, nor have the time to play right now; so I have to satisfy myself for the time being by asking questions and learning what I can. I can't "just go check", past what I'm doing here.

So question: if you are flying a bird with two main engines like the Vanguards, and you have a split throttle, can you throttle the engines separately? Can you get reverse thrust out of just one engine?

I'm asking because the main complaint about the Vanguards is they don't rotate as quickly as the dogfighters, and I wonder when we read the rotation specs on the ships page, if that is just maneuvering thruster use, or can you get a higher yaw rate by asymmetric throttling? If you could, that would go a long way to making the Vanguard a bit more competitive in a dogfight, and even determine how you'd want to fly it.

Same with the Hornet. Any bird with main thrusters significantly off the center line could generate higher yaw rates if you can use asymmetric throttle, if that is a thing. What Hornet pilot wouldn't want it to turn faster than anticipated?

 

[Montoya]

No.

There is no split controls for dual engines nor will there be.

Vanguards and the larger fighters will pitch and yaw slower than the more nimble vehicles, this will become more pronounced in the coming flight changes in 3.5.

There has not been enough variation in flight mechanics between ships in this game, going forward there will be much greater differences in the flight behaviors between the different class of fighters.

 

[Scape]

what he said

 

[marcsand2]

So question: if you are flying a bird with two main engines like the Vanguards, and you have a split throttle, can you throttle the engines separately? Can you get reverse thrust out of just one engine?

Nope, but the opposite works fine. If you lose one engine (and wing), then turning works bad..... which actually also works for single engine ships with only one wing:

There has not been enough variation in flight mechanics between ships in this game

 

[Lorddarthvik]

No.

There is no split controls for dual engines nor will there be.

Vanguards and the larger fighters will pitch and yaw slower than the more nimble vehicles, this will become more pronounced in the coming flight changes in 3.5.

There has not been enough variation in flight mechanics between ships in this game, going forward there will be much greater differences in the flight behaviors between the different class of fighters.

I do not wish to upset our glorious leader, but has this been confirmed recently?
I seem to recall some talk about this feature might get implemented later, especially as they bring online the ship systems / item 2.ohh thingy, and ships will fly differently with damaged subsystems like engines. Also, something something immersion?

 

[Vavrik]

Thrust reversal doesn't make a lot of sense for a spaceship. If you need thrust reversal, you can learn to use uncoupled mode.
What I want to know is where they're getting all the in atmosphere hydrogen from.

 

[Scape]

You question @Montoya ? .....

 

[Scape]

Thrust reversal doesn't make a lot of sense for a spaceship. If you need thrust reversal, you can learn to use uncoupled mode.
What I want to know is where they're getting all the in atmosphere hydrogen from.

Would make refuelling a more viable trade

 

[Shadow Reaper]

Thrust reversal doesn't make a lot of sense for a spaceship. If you need thrust reversal, you can learn to use uncoupled mode.
What I want to know is where they're getting all the in atmosphere hydrogen from.

While I get what you're saying, I think that is a different issue. The rotation rates--yaw, pitch and roll--are all a function of the maneuvering thrusters. All well and good. If however you could use the main engines for asymmetric thrust, forward and/or reverse; one supposes you could spin a craft in space where it doesn't need control surfaces, like a top. You'd get huge rotation rates, and if you were seated near the center of the spin you wouldn't get much force causing blackouts. So would be great but as Toys has said--no asymmetric main thrust. That does put the kabosh on this idea. I was just asking because one of the HOTASs I was looking at has a very nice split throttle and it made me wonder whether it had a real application in SC. Seems not. C'est dommage. See Saitek S55 and S56 throttles (and the X55 comes in TEST colors!):
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Saitek-Pro-Flight-X-55-HOTAS-Throttle-and-Yoke-for-Flying-Games-and-Simulators/223312867908?hash=item33fe7bf244:g:qNIAAOSwZddcMPdc:rk:16:pf:0

 

[Deroth]

The currently are not keybindings to support that functionality but is to my understanding done automatically based off the thruster configuration.
I think it'd be cool if they implement that as an optional feature in the future but haven't any idea as to whether it ever will be.

 

[Vavrik]

I think you would need to see this in Star Citizen., there are two flight modes. Coupled and uncoupled. What you are describing sounds like a powered turn - which is like coupled mode.

In coupled mode, turning at all has a velocity cost. As you turn, your forward velocity is reduced to 0. That's not so good for survivability, because you become a stationary target. Yes you can shoot though and the rate of turn is high enough that you can keep on target. It's just that our ships have a few problems working as bunkers, and the occupants have limits to the amount of G forces they can withstand in a spin just like in real life. You can also accelerate as you change direction, but changing direction rapidly as a very large cost to the G forces the ship crew is subjected to.

In uncoupled mode, you can point and shoot in any direction, while maintaining directional velocity. This is your safest bet, but most players have not mastered it yet. You can change the direction of flight by also firing the main engines when you do this, but it doesn't have to work against you. You still have the same G force limits, but you're not constrained by having to combine turning and velocity changes simultaneously. You can also use engine vectoring to lower the G forces the crew is subjected to. This is like how a real life spaceship turns.

 

[DarthMunkee]

Thrust reversal doesn't make a lot of sense for a spaceship.

This. They have spoken before about the ships having retro thrusters that would make something like this virtually pointless, especially when you bring in the fact that you can fly uncoupled and use the main engines for braking thrust if you really need more power the other direction.

Also, reverse thrust as it works on modern day turbofan engines is basically just redirecting the exhaust to come out of the engine pointing forward instead of out of the back. I'm not sure what technology the main thrusters in SC use, but none of them seem like they would be able to do this without melting the components used to redirect the thrust. So it would end up being like a one time use emergency brake.

 

[Shadow Reaper]

Well this is all moot since as Toys said, there are no plans to permit split thrust. However just saying, birds like the Vanguard have open fronts to their engines because they are supposed to be able to generate reverse thrust. If you reverse the thrust on one main engine but not the other, this would produce in real world physics, the greatest rotation the craft could generate. Using main engines for maneuvering thrusters is not new. If you saw Serenity and the "Crazy Ivan" they pulled for a turn and burn on the Reavers, you have an idea what we're talking about. The Lancer ought to be able to do the same thing, and again, c'est dommage we can't use split throttles. You can't do this in atmosphere in a bird that uses lifting and control surfaces, becasue those only work when the bird is moving in the forward direction. In space however, or in atmo in a bird that is a flying brick and doesn't need control surfaces, reversing one of two off center-line engines would be a real kick, and a great way to roast you some Reaver.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi6BLxusAM8

 

[DirectorGunner]

I do not own a game package

I've been interacting/joshing with you for like... 2 years and I had no idea!
... someone...

BTW, doing split throttle on the main thrusters of say the Freelancer.. it'll produce really weird results that you might not expect compared to say with the gimballed main thrusters on Xi'an ships.
On the Freelancer, even if it had a directional exhaust (forgot the bell part name that moves to change vector on thrusters with fixed bodies), it's not going to "turn" you like a car would on the road AFAIK. Which essentially sounds like why you want to have split throttle... faster turning? right?

You're already going to automatically get what you want on the new Xi'an fighter when the new flight mechanic is in and that ship is in.
You'll have 1 throttle... but your translational movement will also use those big ass thrusters AFAIK.
It's one of the reasons why the Xi'an ship technology is more advanced in the lore.

Maybe @TheAstroPub (crap, what's his forum tag?) would better know about this as he's our lore expert.

 

[Bambooza]

How it currently works in 3.4

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/engineering/16179-The-Shipyard-Ship-Thrusters-And-You

With how ships are setup and tuned now we do not currently dictate independant thruster outputs, instead we allow thrust to be shunted around the thrusters as needed from a pool but within a total capped amount per thruster. With this its meant we have no “desired” or minimum thrust output values to generate TR values from or against.

John Pritchett released this document on the IFCS before he left. Some of it has been changed since he published this and the most recent discussion of flight dynamics at this years citcon but most if it is great information on how the tools enable designers to tweak the ships and how the engine handles fly dynamics.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1poxfPYfm32r84G4WWWJ6uK-rU6ijl85g/view
Noobifier's take on it.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kvOAKfGX28



How its mentioned it will work in 3.5

View: https://youtu.be/V056GFJrnKo

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3PknTcjzkw


There is nothing stopping them from implementing it as the IFCS calculates the amount of thrust available along each axis based upon what engines and thruster values align with that axis.
This adds the complexity of losing thrusters due to overpowering/not maintain/getting destroyed can have a drastic adverse effect on ones flight dynamic.
It is possible to overpowering specific thrusters to give an advantage along a given axis especially useful in races.


The biggest take away is that what we are currently used to is going to drastically change in 3.5.

 

[Hybus]

Most of this stuff is pure theory crafting until we see the new flight model. Then the usual balancing, etc. If a Xian ship turns out to be the new meta and everyone starts flying them exclusively, you know it will get adjusted.

 

[Blind Owl]

So new flight model in 3.5. I guess I'll wait until then to play and learn to fly, haha.

With this new flight model, will running dual stick become obsolete? Will there be a point to having strafe on a second controller?

 

[Printimus]

Let's relearn how to make fire while we are at it!

 

[Deroth]

So new flight model in 3.5. I guess I'll wait until then to play and learn to fly, haha.

With this new flight model, will running dual stick become obsolete? Will there be a point to having strafe on a second controller?

As I understand it strafing will always be relevant but won't be so aggressive in most ships; I'm guessing it'll be more like the strafing in the Egosoft X games which I also dual sticks with.

 

[Bambooza]

So new flight model in 3.5. I guess I'll wait until then to play and learn to fly, haha.

With this new flight model, will running dual stick become obsolete? Will there be a point to having strafe on a second controller?

Strafing will change for most ships. Xian and other alien influenced ships are suppose to have full 6 degrees of propulsion while most of the human ships will have strong forward thrust and weaker lateral thrust with the intention of weaker weapons and armament of the alien ships over the human ships and thus create distinct behaviors for each ship. They also were talking about how they are playing around with the larger ships being flown by mouse clicks.

Most of this stuff is pure theory crafting until we see the new flight model.

Even after we see the new flight model its still going to be a lot of theory crafting as they adjust it to make it work with in their stated vision and our feedback.