Throttle Ramp-Up and Toggle Thrusters Only

[Martin Levac]

Throttle ramp-up is, instead of going full on/full off, it ramps up to full throttle over a short period, like 1 second or something. This allows finer control at slow speeds. Make it configurable, with option to keep current throttle behavior. Also make it configurable when button is released between resets-to-zero, or ramps-down.

 

Toggle thrusters only, for finer control at slow speeds, especially around asteroids and wreckage. This turns off the main engines, and forward button now activates only thrusters like the other directional buttons.

 

I realize that both fulfill pretty much the same need, so I don't need both. Whichever is easiest to implement is fine with me.

 

Secondary to this is view of xyz linear thrust values on ship/build menu. This allows finer tuning of thruster size/dimension/position installation.

[Martin Levac]

I just thought of a third option that would provide the same functionality. Toggle speed limiter with preset percent of max speed or absolute speed limit, i.e. 1/4 of max speed, 50m/s, 100m/s, etc.

 

This is not a cruise suggestion or anything like that. It's just a simple way to give finer ship control when navigating asteroid fields, wrecks and also when docking.

 

Just one of the three possible ways, however it's implemented, with toggle shortcut, is adequate for my purpose. I don't need all three.

[Amazigh]

There is an alternate flight mode, toggled with F2, where you have can ramp your thrust up/down using X/C/V (iirc) and your pitch/yaw is controlled with WASD, apparently it was the original control scheme for the game.

 

You might want to give it a shot.

[AURAequine]

I strongly agree, having a variable throttle is very much necessary. It's so annoying having to press the space bar every second or two to keep at full speed. Having a throttle means you can find that "sweet spot" between your max speed and your energy consumption to that you can go relatively fast (Though not top speed) without losing all the generated energy ^-^

 

But yeah, this is just one of those key things that I feel would really help every one of us. as I'm sure almost all of us have felt that pain of constantly boosting and waiting, wishing for either the boost speed to remain consistant and not slow down, or there to be a way to limit the boost so that you're not using that much energy..

[Martin Levac]

There is an alternate flight mode, toggled with F2, where you have can ramp your thrust up/down using X/C/V (iirc) and your pitch/yaw is controlled with WASD, apparently it was the original control scheme for the game.

 

You might want to give it a shot.

I quit using the keyboard for look when I discovered mouse camera control in Doom before the intarwebs. Used the arrow keys for movement for a decade. Then I went to asdf. Never used wasd, unless forced, but quickly quit any game that forced this. Just saying, it ain't my thing.

 

The x/c/v thrust, is it a sticky throttle, like you set it to a value and it stays there until you change it? That sounds like cruise, it doesn't serve my purpose. I want the same thing that's in the default controls, but with a throttle ramp up where thrust increases the longer the key remains pressed until ship/engine max, then cuts to zero when key is released. The ramp up time should be short, like a second or so. Normally, when max thrust and max speed is low, it's easy to navigate at slow speeds, but with my current ship with ~400m/s thrust and ~1,400m/s max speed, just a fraction of a second too long and I plow into astroids and wrecks and docks like a noob.

 

Now compare current function with throttle ramp up (where it ramps up thrust from 0 to 400m/s in 1 second), using my current ship stats above.

 

Current

 

1 second thrust = 400m/s speed

 

Ramp up

 

1 second thrust = (complicated algorithm, which I don't know but could find on the intarwebs, but won't cuz I'm lazy) ~200m/s speed

 

The example above is for 1 second thrust, where I would "forget" to let go. At 1/2 second thrust, current already gives 200m/s speed while ramp up gives about 100m/s, and for 1/4 second thrust current already gives 100m/s while ramp up gives about 50m/s. But the most important aspect here is not speed, instead it's distance traveled over such a short period. Given the acceleration/speed values and the fact that we're dealing with short-ranged mining/salvaging lasers and the short distance required to dock, we can certainly understand why people ram into asteroids and wrecks and docks as if they really loved to repeat the experience. Over and over and... In a different game, I literally smashed my mouse at that point (went out to buy a new one, then came back to the same game and server and players, including the guy that caused me to smash my mouse by headshotting me like 10 times in a row from the same gddmn spot in the same gddmn tree). I told him what I did and why, and he said "was it because of me?" (I'm absolutely positively certain he was laughing his butt off on that one), but that's a story for another time.

 

The reason I want this is to have finer control at very slow speeds to navigate asteroid fields, wrecks and to dock. Throttle ramp up is the easiest to use in game because it's automatic/always on and requires no additional key press, i.e. toggle speed limiter for example. Nevertheless, any of the three options I already suggested will suit my purpose, so whichever is easiest to implement is fine by me.

 

If it's a thrusters only toggle, then it becomes much easier as well because thruster thrust has always been much lower than main engine thrust in all my ships to date (we can already disable engines, but then forward key does nothing so this feature is useless for now). If it's a speed limiter toggle, then it doesn't matter how much thrust there is. Come to think of it, since we can already disable the main engines, I suppose the easiest to implement (and the one that makes most sense) would be the thrusters only toggle.

[Martin Levac]

I strongly agree, having a variable throttle is very much necessary. It's so annoying having to press the space bar every second or two to keep at full speed. Having a throttle means you can find that "sweet spot" between your max speed and your energy consumption to that you can go relatively fast (Though not top speed) without losing all the generated energy ^-^

 

But yeah, this is just one of those key things that I feel would really help every one of us. as I'm sure almost all of us have felt that pain of constantly boosting and waiting, wishing for either the boost speed to remain consistant and not slow down, or there to be a way to limit the boost so that you're not using that much energy..

What I'm suggesting in this thread is different than what you described in your post. You're talking about boost, while I'm talking about regular thrust, i.e. spacebar boost vs forward key thrust. And you're talking about maximum speed and beyond to go somewhere fast, while I'm talking about very slow speed to navigate asteroid fields and wrecks and to dock. You should make a new thread so that we don't get confused about the specific suggestion.