Flight model.

[Holliday]

I really want to like this game, but the flight model is FUBAR. In the game elevator and aileron control improve with speed, the exact opposite of a real aircraft. I can't get used to the idea of speeding up to turn faster. At least not in an air to ground fighter. Who knows what a space fighter would do, but in the atmosphere speed reduces flight control surface response.
I am playing the demo, is it this bad in the full game?

[TheDeadlyShoe]

I presume you're talking about the in atmosphere modeling... The thing is, you have to keep your engine pretty maxed out to stop from even stalling.

Wouldn't the turn still be tighter, since its at a lower speed?

[Holliday]

Yes, in atmosphere. In a real fighter you have to slow down to turn tightly. You can't do it full burner. I beta test for a couple of the best flight simulator addon companies in the world and I get to fly a lot of nice stuff; planes more expensive than a single game. Fighters have a sweet spot, a speed at which they turn the tightest. And it isn't full burner. In this game I have to use the burners to turn.

[HomeFries]

Holliday,

To really get into turning ability, you need to analyze the relationship between turn rate and turn radius.

You're right in one respect: the slower you go, the tighter your turn radius can be. On the flip side, the faster you go, the better your turn rate is. The ideal combination of rate and radius (e.g. corner airspeed) is where the fighter performs best.

Corner speed completely depends on the fighter.

Compare the F-16 and the F/A-18. Both fighters are highly capable in turning fights. However, both turn and fight completely differently.

The F-16 is a rate fighter: it dogfights better when it keeps its speed up, and with a high turn rate it can turn with anything out there.

The F/A-18 is an angles fighter: it dogfights better when it keeps its speed down and can point the nose at its target with more authority to keep its turn radius down.

Of course, there's plenty more that go into this, but rate vs. radius is a good start. And if anyone wants to model atmospheric flying to the fidelity of Falcon 4.0 or LOMAC, you won't find me complaining!

<Edit> After reading your second post more carefully, I realize your familiarity with corner airspeed. Just remember, as long as you aren't zorching at super-high speed during the merge, there may be nothing wrong with full burner. Sometimes in a tight turning fight (esp. rate), you need full burner just to maintain corner.

[Holliday]

The bottom line is I am not getting aileron response unless I am full burner. Or at least not as much as I should. It feels like it wants to fall out of the sky at anything less than full afterburner.
I beta test for Captain Sim. These guys are all retired fighter pilots. Several of my repaints are on the Captain Sim CD release of their 727 (their F-104 is nothing short of amazing. I am familar with how fighters act, and I know they all act different. I'll play with the demo some more but it just feels backwards to me.

[HomeFries]

I will concur that the atmospheric flight model could use a bit of tweaking. Specifically, thrust seems to be the only flight force acting on the aircraft with any authority. Weight is there to burn you if you get sloppy, but doesn't seem to factor in when it comes to energy management. Likewise, bleeding airspeed seems like it just keeps you from getting sloppy, but the induced drag modelling is nowhere near a hifi flight sim.

I haven't experienced your problem with aileron deflection, though. It might be the demo. Anyone else want to comment?

I'm not dropping change on Milo; he's done an incredible job with the program, and expecting an earth physics engine on par with Falcon 4 or LOMAC is unrealistic. Heck -- providing at least lip service to the four forces is more than they ever did for Wing Commander!

[Holliday]

It seems to be a "getting to know you" thing with me. I am getting used to the flight model. But I found a deal breaker; the view commands don't work. And to make it worse, if I assign a new key command and later decide I don't want it anymore I can't change it. It seems the only way to change a key command is to uninstall the demo. I'll give you an example. I wanted to assign the view commands to my joystick hat. I made a mistake and assigned the hat to the wrong commands. There is no way to undo it. Further more, the "Shift-Right, Shift-Left" don't work even with the keyboard. Shift-F1 does nothing. It’s a mess. I can’t spend money on this.

[Mehrunes]

In order to clear a binding hit "Clear Binding" and hit "Accept". Shift-F1 only works if a ship has a virtual cockpit model, which none of the default ships have. View movement was designed for ships with a virtual cockpit too, but the patch changes it so that you use them in the normal cockpit view (F1).

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Umm reassigning the binding works perfectly for me. I don't think its different in the demo. Just assign it back to just the old binding.

Virtual Cockpit commands only work if there's a virtual cockpit, AFAIK. None of the stock ships come with one. . There is a Padlock mode, if you desire.

There was a large thread on virtual cockpits,

tm.asp?m=647593

Which is interesting.

Here's a quote from one of Milo's posts:

Anyway, I added this. I tried doing the snap views, but I didn't like it as much as the scrolling virtual view, so I went with the smooth-scrolling option. The center reticule will disappear when you are not looking straight ahead. The top center of the view screen that normally shows things like "Orbit Cam" or "Chase Cam" will now say things like "Left" or "Right-Aft" to indicate which way you have your virtual noggin pointed.

There are some odd side effects - like seeing your weapons appear from nowhere and your nav lights flashing in empty space - but on the whole it seems to be working. The default keyboard binding for slewing the view is still Shift+Arrow keys. You can map this to a joystick hat switch if you have one available on your HOTAS controller. Remember that the default mapping uses the hat switch for lateral thrusters.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Pah, that's what I get for doing my homework.

[Holliday]

I couldn't remapped or reset the commands. I found the answer to the view issue on my own, but thanks for the heads up. Shift-Right and Left still don't work but I assume that is a demo thing. I think I'll pass on this one, but thanks to both of you for your help. Very kind.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

np, maybe you will look later after I secretely sabotage every other ga...er, nm.

[West_419]

It all has to do with the maximum angle of attack at any given vector. It's also balancing the amount of lift, thrust, intertial properties, and thereby trading the kinetic and potential energy of the craft you are flying.

[Kuokkanen]

ORIGINAL: Holliday

Shift-Right and Left still don't work but I assume that is a demo thing.

It works in version 4.0.1.

[HomeFries]

Don't give up on it just yet.

I had similar issues (I wanted snap views and an internal-view padlock), and Milo helped clear some of it up.

1) Still no snap views, but the Shift-arrow keys work on the internal view now for panning (v 4.0.1).

2) Padlock displays the external view right now because none of the default fighters have virtual cockpits. From what Milo said, if the fighter has a VC, that will show up during padlock in lieu of the external view.

3) As far as flight modelling goes, I think a great amount is moddable, but I'm not sure to what extent. Obviously, IRL the same fighter will have a different envelope on a planet with different gravity, but since stall in this game is based (realistically) on alpha and not speed, I think there is potential for the type of modelling you seek.

By the way, which 727 skins did you do? I've been messing with MSFS since 4.0. I actually did some Santa Barbara, CA scenery for FS51 some years back, and made a minor update for FS98. The scenery made it onto a German compilation CD. Also, how do the Captain Sim fighters perform at the supersonic/transonic part of the envelope? That area always seemed to be an inherent weakness with the FS engine.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Just as a note, Starshatter ships have the following specified flight characteristics, pulled from the Starshatter website.

Physical Properties
mass The mass of the ship in metric tonnes.
integrity Hull strength in "hit points". If the integrity of the ship reaches zero, the ship is destroyed.
agility A general rating of the ship's ability to turn. Smaller numbers mean the ship turns more slowly, larger numbers mean that it turns more rapidly.
vlimit The exhaust velocity of the main drive in meters per second. Beyond this velocity, the ship will accelerate much more slowly.
roll_rate Similar to agility, but just sets the rate at which the ship rolls about its long axis.
scale A number used to multiply the vertex coordinates in the mesh when rendering the ship in the game engine.
acs Active Sensor Cross-section. A number that indicates how visible this ship is to active sensors. Similar to radar cross section in the real world.
trans_x Strength of the lateral (side-to-side) thrusters. Helps control how rapidly the ship can turn.
trans_y Strength of the longitudinal (foreward/aft) thrusters. Helps control how rapidly the ship can slow down.
trans_z Strength of the spinal/ventral (top/bottom) thrusters. Helps control how rapidly the ship can turn.
roll_drag How quickly the ship stops rolling after you let go of the stick.
pitch_drag How quickly the ship stops pitching after you let go of the stick.
yaw_drag How quickly the ship stops turning (yawing) after you let go of the stick.
drag Body drag coefficient. Used to calculate drag in flight regimes that have drag (e.g. atmosphere, arcade space mode).
CL Coefficient of Lift. Realistic flight model, atmospheric only.
CD Coefficient of Drag (Wings). Realistic flight model, atmospheric only.
stall Stall onset angle of attack (radians). Realistic flight model, atmospheric only.

BTW, engine strength is determined in the engine subsystem, not in this list.