Control quirks Thread - Third Contingent mod for Unreal Tournament 2004

Now, the flight engine is excellent. But, I do have a few problems with the controls:

Problem 1: The ships themselves seem a bit... sluggish. If they are scouts, then they should be a little more manuverable, and not just fly really damned fast.

Problem 2: The thrust system makes it very difficult to stop to any degree, as any thrust in any direction sends the scout flying across the map. I would suggest trying to implement a "decellerator" key, which applies thrust opposite the direction of movement, until the ship comes to a stop. From what I know about spacecraft today, they have these systems, only, instead of using the main engines, they use the attitude thrusters. IF it's too difficult, thenm I'll just have to learn how to slow down to a complete stop when travelling along all three axis.

Problem 3: The perfect horizontal rotation. I'm so used to Freespace and Descent in which, when you turn in a given direction, you roll slightly in that direction. (IE: You make a left turn, your ship rolls slightly to the left)

Problem 4: Lack of upwards/downwards thrust. Maybe it works, and I've just been travelling too fast for it to be noticeable. But if that is the case, then it's far too weak. Being able to pull a vertical Shelton slide would be extremely useful in combat, and it'd look awesome. And, it also be neat to circle around your opponent vertically, as shown in this (bad) ascii art:

....-----
.../.....\
...|..o..v
...\...../
....-----

Where o=the opponent, /\|-=path, and v=path of travel.

Most of these are easy enough to answer....

1) We're aware of this...sometimes they do feel a little sluggish. The problem lies in how Karma uses forces. Basically, the turning speed of the scouts is fine, the problem is acceleration. It takes slightly too long to change rotation direction, or start rotating. We'll look into this anyway.

2) We've already considered this, and have decided before that we don't want a system that makes it too easy to stop. There IS a reverse thrust, default S key, but it's not very powerful and takes a while to take effect. Obviously it only applies thrust depending upon the direction you face in, rather than the direction of movement, since we think a decelerator key like you described would make it too easy to do things like land. We may well end up increasing the thrust provided by the reverse thrust, but unless a large majority of people really, really want it we wont implement a decelerator. Plus, very rarely do you need to come to a complete stop anyway. In Landing Zones it's easy because you just gently touch down, which loses most of your momentum. If you give it a bit more time you'll get used to slowing down. Also....did you read the Readme? Because the reverse thrust key is clearly explained in there.

3) This is a matter of personal preference really. Again, we can implement it if lots of people want it.

4) There is no upward/downward thrust except in Landing Zones. Vertical slides would be useful, but if everyone had them at their disposal it might be too hard to hit anything. Believe me when I say it is already surprisingly challenging to score a kill, even though four hits will kill. It may end up being something we implement with bigger, slower ships to increase their manoeverability. As for vertical circles, they are entirely possible with the current controls. As described in the Readme, one of the possible moves is to point towards a target while travelling at a tangent to it, then thrust periodically while always moving to look at the target. This will force you into a circle around the target, and we'd rather have such manoevers a little challenging at the moment rather than having everyone able to pull them off. Again, it's easy enough when you practice it a bit. Although, this suggestion again leads me to believe you didn't read the Readme properly...

Other opinions on these matters are welcomed. But again, I would say to bear in mind that a lot of what you're saying can already be accomplished with the current configuration, and we don't want everyone to be able to pull off killer moves with no effort whatsoever; there should be a learning curve.

Edited by: Six_Ways

Yeah, I see what you mean. But, for the lager ships, stopping may be extremely important as so to allow gunners to actually hit their targets without having to lead even MORE because their ship is moving.

Yes, I did read the readme. It's just that with the scout... one tap ususally sends you flying in the opposite direction. Which makes it difficult to land. Also, if a ship stops behind, say, an asteroid, and one of the pilot's wingmen tells the pilot that there is an enemy inbound, the pilot could then ambush that enemy. Or have a cruiser or somesuch hiding behind an asteroid. A few moments later, the enemy ship(s) will be distracted, allowing other ships to move in and take em down.

And about the continuous Shelton slide: With the current controls/ship, it's near impossible to do, unless it's a very WIDE circle you're aiming for. Note I said "controls/ship", as I think the high acceleration has something to do with lacking some fine control.

Well one of the reasons we are currently against a global decelleration system is because we dont want any computer controlled stuff. We want the player to have the maximum control possible with no go betweens at all if possible. For instance we could have built in an auto landing system but i dont think it would add to the mod... Everyone would be able to land very easily then but such things arent ment to be easy, they are skills.

The same goes for stopping, stopping actually is possible. You can become pretty much motionless if you have the skill to do so. (I do because i play test this thing too much ). All you need to do is make sure you are travelling dead straight then use your reverse thrust to bring you to a stop without changing direction. Its not as easy as having a 'stop' button but it can actually add more levels to the game because such things are hard to do and do require skill.

I can only imagine what will happen when I come with my transport shuttle to pick my friends off from a asteroid......

*Splorch* xD

Like I say, we may increase the level of reverse thrust to aid stopping manoeuvers, particularly on the larger ships. As for the Shelton slide; there are two things. One, I have performed such moves very close to a target; you just need to tap the thrust key very briefly. Two, in combat the likelihood that you'd have much time to pull off such a manoeuver with or without the vertical thrust options is very small anyway.

As Rich says regards stopping, it is possible and we've ambushed each other from behind asteroids quite a few times. Also, when it comes to ships with turrets, we'll have to see how it plays when we get to that stage.