Hi!
I've actually already posted this question in both the
SCP forum and the
BTRL forum, but I haven't gotten any responses so I'm trying here too. You can read the linked threads for some more details, but most of it is repeated here:
In the BTRL demo, sidethrust is much, much less powerful in glide mode than in normal flight. In fact, the effectiveness of all thrusters varies quite a bit between normal and glide. This, to me, seems like an unfortunate flaw in the otherwise near-perfect flight dynamics.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, simply do the following to reproduce the effect:
1. Load some mission in the BTRL demo (or anything else using the BTRL demo's flight mechanics).
2. Bring the ship to a dead stop, preferably with some sort of stationary reference object in front of you (like one of those huge asteroids).
3. Sidethrust left and right under normal flight, noting how long it takes to reverse direction. Then, activate glide mode and do the same.
The main things I'd like to know:
1. Is anyone aware of or working on this "bug"? If so, who?
2. Is there a solution that involves .tbl tweaks, or is a source change needed?
I suspect pretty strongly that I already know the answer to #2. After playing around with the source (current HEAD revision), it looks like the wierd sidethrust behavior is an artifact of the way glide is currently implemented.
Please note that I am
not trying to criticize anyone's work: I recognize that getting any sort of semi-newtonian motion in an engine not designed for it is plenty praiseworthy.
If nobody is currently tackling this, I probably will. The glide implementation is
so close to perfect, it drives me crazy!
P.S. This happens in The Babylon Project too (which shouldn't be surprising). Maybe I'll ask them about it next.