This Saturday, June 14 2014 at 8pm UTC, 3pm Central US, 4pm East US, 9pm UK we are running another public massively multiplayer space combat at Age of Ascent, with lots of new enhancements to test!
Changes and patch notes:
IMPORTANT - Controls Change
- Speed controls + and - added for velocity changes
- Mouse flight by default, rather than by dragging - "Return/Enter" key switches mouse mode
- Mouse flight: Left click or space to fire
- Mouse flight: AWSD/Cursor keys strafe your ship up/down+left/right
- Strafing is an energy transfer from your forward momentum, zero speed = zero strafing
- Strafing transfers 1/4 of your forward velocity to a lateral direction
- Turn speed is a function of your engine output - starting at quarter speed at zero velocity
- Mouse dead zone inside target reticle
- Max turn speed achieved by moving halfway off center, rather than full screen.
- Moving mouse to edges of screen will also center ship (as well as in center); so you don't go into a unsettling spin when mousing out of the browser window.
Other changes
- Server message round trip time displayed rather than latency (one way previously)
- Faster end of match forwarding (still will take a few seconds though)
- Roll speed doubled
- Speed transitions between levels rather than instantly changing - no instant stops
- Indicator bar on speed dial for your target velocity
Fixes
- Double turn speed (mouse+keyboard) has been removed
- Uniform maximum rotation - previously if you maxed pitch and yaw the additive rotation would be much higher than your max total rotation speed, now if you are rotating up/down, left/right or a comibation the max rotation speed is the same. Equally this applies to strafing the total displacement from a combined strafe, is the same as a single direction strafe
- Stuck turn keys should now be resolved
- Name - undefined - has been resolved during match
Obviously these are trial settings and we value your feedback on how these changes work out.
The two new controls systems switchable with the "Enter/Return" key:
and 
These changes were based on the following great feedback from our players:
The first 5mins went by with learning how to speed Up & Down, whilst trying to figure out the movement controls.
Mouse flight by default, rather than by dragging
Mouse flight: Left click or space to fire
Speed controls + and - added for velocity changes
I believe that introducing an acceleration / deceleration linear delta delay (or curve) between changes in thrust would probably put paid to quite a lot of this - as well as not only looking but actually also being more realistic in terms of physics.
Speed transitions between levels rather than instantly changing - no instant stops
removing the mouse-up + pitch-up double rate-of-turn combo
Double turn speed (mouse+keyboard) has been removed
The Q/E roll seems way too slow. I'd love to be able to adjust the sensitivity on this.
Roll speed doubled
Maybe a stronger roll or another ability to get some escape chance could be considered
is there a reason why ship strafing isn't in the game?
I found it impossible to shake off some of my opponents.
PracticalChrome said:
I also had an issue evading...
Mouse flight: AWSD/Cursor keys strafe your ship up/down+left/right
there's so little to gain by actually moving
ability to turn was directly correlated with their speed
different elements of the acceleration and turning during the March play test, but I agree that something needs to change
we're using the idea of an Alcubierre drive as our main form of both energy harvesting but also propulsion
...
Technically you could mimic any sort of inertial movement you wanted - you could also pitch and yaw to your heart's content.
Turn speed is a function of your engine output - starting at quarter speed at zero velocity
Strafing is an energy transfer from your forward momentum and slows you down, zero speed = zero strafing
However, will it be the act of moving the mouse that turns your ship around, or will it be the act of having your mouse off center?
Mouse off center as now, else you'd expect your turn speed to be a function of how fast you turn the mouse - rather than as a function of your ship
The downsides are when you need to turn around 360° then you need to re-position your mouse a couple times instead of staying pressed on the keyboard key.
Mouse dead zone inside target reticle
Max turn speed achieved by moving halfway off center, rather than full screen.
The thrust controls are too close to AWSD and are hard to handle.
Speed controls + and - added for velocity changes (also is mousewheel)
Pressing AWSD and left/right/up/down at the same time sometimes locks the controls into an infinite action
Stuck turn keys should now be resolved
Thank you very much for your feedback!
Nice control GUI!
Thank you! :-)