Read by Council Unconstrained Steering

[Valck]

It's not that it has to be that way, but that space has no absolute position.

Exactly, see below...

Turrets are connected directly to another object, giving them an automatic default angle plane relative to said object.

Hence "obviously";

Astronauts are almost always aligned to a nearby ship, station, or planet.So, what should a spaceship automatically be aligned to, and why?

What's wrong with the plane defined by the local forward- and right-vectors at the time of initiating a rotation? It's always there, and always perfectly obvious, and even astronauts could have it, too.

From your suggestions this would involve turning Roll off unless you hit a certain key, which could work for basic navigation but would murder you in a dogfight. I don't know how hard it would be to implement but it wouldn't be impossible.

"Dogfights" are a concept from aerial combat, and have mostly aesthetic value in a dragless zero-g environment... in my experience, this induced roll I'm talking about is what murders me, because it makes it hard to predict what direction my ship rolls when I turn to face the enemy -- or away from them ; )

For dogfighting, nothing beats a properly configured joystick and pedals, or a three-axis one. For (bigger) spaceships, "basic navigation" seems to accurately describe what I envision, and if I can only have that with a properly configured helm peripheral, so be it ; )

Again, I still don't see why ships should react the way they do now -- if I fire my (hypothetical) RCS thrusters to initiate a yaw motion, and a moment later fire again to initiate a pitch motion, I have a hard time believing my spacecraft would then roll relative to my local or any other coordinate system.

 

[Kenshkrix]

What's wrong with the plane defined by the local forward- and right-vectors at the time of initiating a rotation? It's always there, and always perfectly obvious, and even astronauts could have it, too.

Again, I still don't see why ships should react the way they do now -- if I fire my (hypothetical) RCS thrusters to initiate a yaw motion, and a moment later fire again to initiate a pitch motion, I have a hard time believing my spacecraft would then roll relative to my local or any other coordinate system.

Alright that makes a bit more sense now, thanks for elaborating.

Locking the mouse into pitch and yaw makes some sense, and if you'd find that easier to control then that's fine.

Multiple control schemes are something I've always been in favor of, even if most games don't bother with them.

 

[Valiant70]

Exactly, see below...


Hence "obviously";


What's wrong with the plane defined by the local forward- and right-vectors at the time of initiating a rotation? It's always there, and always perfectly obvious, and even astronauts could have it, too.


"Dogfights" are a concept from aerial combat, and have mostly aesthetic value in a dragless zero-g environment... in my experience, this induced roll I'm talking about is what murders me, because it makes it hard to predict what direction my ship rolls when I turn to face the enemy -- or away from them ; )

For dogfighting, nothing beats a properly configured joystick and pedals, or a three-axis one. For (bigger) spaceships, "basic navigation" seems to accurately describe what I envision, and if I can only have that with a properly configured helm peripheral, so be it ; )

Again, I still don't see why ships should react the way they do now -- if I fire my (hypothetical) RCS thrusters to initiate a yaw motion, and a moment later fire again to initiate a pitch motion, I have a hard time believing my spacecraft would then roll relative to my local or any other coordinate system.

It doesn't roll. It yaws, then pitches. The appearance of a roll maneuver happens when you compound the two movements. For example, you can "roll" 90 degrees left by first turning 90 degrees right, pitching 90 degrees up, then turning 90 degrees left. You'll end up pointing in the original direction, but rolled 90 degrees counterclockwise. This is impossible to correct except by making ships move like turrets, which is worse because as you pitch upward, your yaw control transforms into a roll control. (If that statement confuses you, point a turret straight up and yaw left and right to see what I mean. It does make sense.)

 

[Valck]

I see what you mean.
I still think it would be helpful, and certainly well within the computational capability of a Bobby AI, to have a way to tell the ship's navigational system to switch to "turret mode" for filtering out the jitter in the captain's helm hand.

 

[kiddan]

Yea, maybe something like Minecraft's cinematic camera mode, but with less strength?

 

[aceface]

this should be in game

 

[Cornedo]

Well I use a trackball, so I've never really had this problem.

 

[Valck]

Well I use a trackball, so I've never really had this problem.

I don't see the connection; I'm using a trackball as well...
EDIT: Disregard, see original topic... ; )

 

[Cornedo]

I was just commenting on the original topic of this thread, maybe the conversation has wandered a bit over time.

 

[Spazinout]

For the sake of my mouse hand, implement!

 

[Matt_Bradock]

I can't even find the words for how much this is needed. I still don't even know why didn't we have this from the very start instead of the current restricted control where I have to ruin both my mouse and my arm by the time I turn even a 20-something-thousand mass ship around.

 

[Spazinout]

Get this in game already

 

[Gunmetalmonk]

I agree. Turning a ship and having to pick up the mouse is just plain unnatural. We need two sets of pointing controls too. one for maneuvering, one for aiming weapons. I am hoping the game pad support will be capable of it.