[JGZinv]

As most may know, Star Citizen is a WIP crowd funded game that recently released it's alpha module
so people can play against AI and experiment. What many have found is that the game is currently tailored
towards an Xbox controller, and stick support is so-so. Mouse support is very much fly-by-wire (mouse as joystick) and War Thunder-ish.
That is, unless you lock to your reticule and you have something somewhat resembling a traditional scheme, other than the jerky motion of trying to track fighters.

Today Chris Roberts posted a long document https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13951-Flight-Model-And-Input-Controls
 citing once again that 6 DoF is not actually possible for a human being to handle, so they essentially believe the way they are developing the game is the best.
"no human can simultaneously direct eight thrusters simultaneously, specifying their thrust and attitude to achieve desired movement."

To that, I claim bullocks.

We've played space combat sims for years. Descent, Tachyon, FSO, and so forth. We've had use of forward/back, left/right thrust for many years.
Binding two keys (or one with a modifier) to vertical thrusters, to me, and utilizing them in addition to 4 way movement sounds like child's play.

So FSO community, with your many years...  how well do you believe this complicated, yet functionally neutered control system is the right direction
for SC to go, and is 6DoF really too much for mere humans?



Myself, I'm tempted to try and see if I can mod mount some verts in FSO and make a video just to prove it is possible and easy to handle.

[666maslo666]

I dont think he meant 6DoF by that. He meant controlling all individual thrusters manually, which is indeed impossible. 6DoF does not mean you control all thrusters, it means you can move in all directions, but IFCS still translates your commands into actual thruster actions.

[Nuke]

i for one will not be playing any games that cater to console peasants and their four axis controls. the xbox controller is not nor should it be the primary control on a pc (as much as ms has tried to shoehorn it in there). if you disagree with me on this point you are a filthy dirty casual console peasant.

6dof games work well with my ch controls. i have a thumbstick on my throttle for lateral and vertical thrust. z axis thrust provided by the throttle. usually my pedals control yaw and my stick pitch and roll (but i sometimes swap yaw and roll in some games). im also completely capable of docking hulking beasts in ksp with the joystick utilizing 6dof controls. even with games like descent i handled 6dof just fine, and i was using a keyboard only back then. so dont use the excuse that not everyone can afford $350 in joysticks because you can do without em and still get your 6dof fix.

[JGZinv]

Technically, if they are in the correct locations, firing "8 thrusters at once" would just make you stick in one position because all the
directions of force would equalize and you'd go no where. Not accounting for gravity of course.
The bottom line being, that's a largely pointless maneuver, we don't actually need "that" specifically. 


IFCS should be aiding and smoothing flight, such as docking or actions that humans are not delicate at.

[Nuke]

ksp is a good example of being able to feed 6dof control into an arbitrary number of arbitrarily placed and arbitrarily oriented thrusters. you can put on a hundred thrusters and break it down to six axes of control. basically fly by wire. i for one dont want to micromanage my thrusters. i just want my six axis flight controls.

[Spoon]

Honestly, I thought I was backing something akin to Freespace and WingCommander. I think that's what most people think of when they hear 'Space simulator'.
I'm starting to worry Starcitizen won't really be fun to play...

Maybe the big ships will be super rad or something.

[Dragon]

Technically, if they are in the correct locations, firing "8 thrusters at once" would just make you stick in one position because all the
directions of force would equalize and you'd go no where. Not accounting for gravity of course.
The bottom line being, that's a largely pointless maneuver, we don't actually need "that" specifically. 

It's an actual Space Shuttle maneuver, you know? So called "zero burn", it's used to dump fuel before reentry, though's it's rarely done using all thrusters at once. Could be good for KSP, though I don't foresee an SC-level civilization needing to do this anymore.

Anyway, I'm with Nuke on that one. I used 6-DOF in Descent, and it worked great. Mind you, I managed this with a WingMan Force 3D, not CH. I simply bound the hat to slide thrusters, it's 3 axes and keyboard throttle handled the rest. Of course, once I got CH gear, I replayed it with full 6-DOF glory. That's not even mentioning KSP and Orbiter, in which 6-DOF control feels very natural and intuitive. Wing Commander had amazing story, but it's flight model was limited at best. 6-DOF is what any self-respecting space sim should have.

So yeah, screw console peasants with 4-axis controllers. Ideally, SC would have flightsim-grade cockpits with hundreds of switches and knobs (or MFDs with menus for all that), all movable by mouse or bindable to keyboard. Using them should be optional, but possible.

KSP can break hundreds of thrusters into 6 basic axes, so should SC. In fact, this complexity might not be needed for it; since you don't build ships, they could do it like FS does. Assume the thrusters are balanced, then define which fires at which input.

[FrikgFeek]

I'm pretty sure that 6DoF isn't the problem, controlling that many thrusters at once is. 6DoF is demonstrably possible and mr.Roberts probably knows this already.  You press left on your roll axis and you roll clockwise, that's fine. But with manual thruster control you'd have to press down on your left axis and up on your right one to roll clockwise, which is needlessly complex. Being able to move in 8 directions isn't the same as manually managing 8 thrusters because you'll almost always need more than 1 thruster for efficient movement.

[Akalabeth Angel]

i for one will not be playing any games that cater to console peasants and their four axis controls. the xbox controller is not nor should it be the primary control on a pc (as much as ms has tried to shoehorn it in there). if you disagree with me on this point you are a filthy dirty casual console peasant.

More PC gamers probably have Xbox controllers at this moment than gamers have flight sticks.
The move would cater to the masses rather than the niche gamer crowd who still own seldom-used peripherals from a by-gone era.

[Dragon]

Still, it's not like playing anything but full newtonian flight model is impossible without translation controls. You can go through the entirety of Diaspora and most of Descent 3 without using it. Yes, you are at a disadvantage, but only games like The Minbari Project or I've Found Her (both B5-based newtonian flight model games) actually require you to use translation (at least, in this genre. KSP and Orbiter are another thing). As for PVP imbalance it implies... Well, I couldn't care less. Especially since I'm the one with the advantage. But then, it's much like buying a better gamepad with more buttons or something, just much more expensive. Even with 4DOF flight model, a guy with a full CH setup or some other high-end controller will have a large advantage over one with X-box pad. It's impossible to have any semblance of balance on PC, where some will be playing with a cheap 30$ or so mouse and a laptop monitor (some people will find a way to run SC on a laptop, believe me) and others with an over 400$ HOTAS system and Oculus Rift.

[General Battuta]

Even with 4DOF flight model, a guy with a full CH setup or some other high-end controller will have a large advantage over one with X-box pad.

Definitely not in every case. I played Allied Force with just a keyboard and did quite well in multiplayer dogfights.

[FrikgFeek]

Even with 4DOF flight model, a guy with a full CH setup or some other high-end controller will have a large advantage over one with X-box pad.

I'm not so sure about that. Xbox pads suck hard because the hatstick is in the wrong place and it's impossible to use the thumbstick and the hatstick at the same time(unless you're not using the THUMBstick with your thumb). But if we're talking gamepads in general I wouldn't say a joystick gives you a large advantage, even in full 6DoF. Joysticks feel better but if we're only considering performance I wouldn't be so sure that the gain is that large.

[Dragon]

I was talking specifically X-box pad and CH. I recall seeing a gamepad that could handle 6-DOF as well (even considered getting one at some point). There are some (usually pricey) gamepads that are much more capable than X-box one.

Definitely not in every case. I played Allied Force with just a keyboard and did quite well in multiplayer dogfights.

Well, this is a different case altogether. Keyboard users can, with certain games, have a major advantage over even CH users. I find myself using keyboard for certain flight models that are not too well suited for sticks at all. Also, just because one has a large advantage doesn't mean he/she can use it, or vice versa. IIRC, QuantumDelta uses mouse+KB, but could probably shot us all down with one hand behind his back. I could handle myself with my WingMan Force 3D, too, and would probably beat my little brother (an avid gamer himself, but lacks finesse) even if he was using my CH set.

[Commander Zane]

What's funny is that the same report says they're going to see how 6-DOF mechanics work with the IFCS.

A lot of people have been asking for “true” 6DOF available all the time – basically having strafe available during normal IFCS flight mode and to make strafe additive to the ship’s velocity in decoupled mode. These are all things that we will experiment with, along with quite a few other options e.g., an additional G-Safe mode that is turn limited rather than speed limited...

[FrikgFeek]

Well, I won't argue about the Xbox pad being ****, because it is. But even my 30$-ish(I don't live in a country that uses dollars and I'd also have to account for import tax) Logitech F310 lets me scrape through most FS2 campaigns on hard/insane(because some campaigns just aren't balanced or fun on insane). This includes full 6DoF ones like DE where every ship has sidethrusters, and it seems like SC is going to have some kind of autoaim too.
Though I noticed that having to reach for the keyboard to manage energy slows me down, something which could get you killed in MP.

And I don't see how Occulus Rift would be an advantage, if anything I'd say it's a disadvantage since it makes fast movement a bit more strenuous for your eyes. A 3-monitor surround setup gives you a much greater Advantage than Occulus Rift.

[The E]

I have no idea why this is a debate. The current Star Citizen flight model is fully capable of this "6dof" thing, even with an Xbox pad.

That statement by CR, that no human can control all the thrusters on a ship manually, is completely true and, at the same time, completely irrelevant to this discussion.

[Mongoose]

Seriously.  I'd imagine that actual spaceships have everything linked up properly.

[The E]

Okay, now that I'm at a real keyboard, I can reply properly.

As most may know, Star Citizen is a WIP crowd funded game that recently released it's alpha module so people can play against AI and experiment. What many have found is that the game is currently tailored towards an Xbox controller, and stick support is so-so. Mouse support is very much fly-by-wire (mouse as joystick) and War Thunder-ish.
That is, unless you lock to your reticule and you have something somewhat resembling a traditional scheme, other than the jerky motion of trying to track fighters.

Today Chris Roberts posted a long document https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13951-Flight-Model-And-Input-Controls citing once again that 6 DoF is not actually possible for a human being to handle, so they essentially believe the way they are developing the game is the best.
"no human can simultaneously direct eight thrusters simultaneously, specifying their thrust and attitude to achieve desired movement."

To that, I claim bullocks.

Okay, first off, many ships in SC have way more than 8 thrusters, and keeping track of all of them, controlling the thrust each of them puts out, the vector on which they are aligned (because a lot of them are gimbaled), and being able to do so while shooting at others and being shot at, is probably beyond many people. Some form of abstraction method to translate between control inputs and thruster outputs is necessary within the confines of what SC wants to do with its physics model; that the translation model used right now isn't exactly ideal for everyone and has a few annoying quirks is indisputable. However, I think that the underlying philosophy of trying to build a space combat model on top of a physics system that doesn't cheat is a perfectly valid design decision. Just like switching to physics-based rendering makes it ultimately easier for artists to get their models to look right, using an accurate physics model makes it easier for ship designers to make their ships feel different from each other beyond the heavy-handed methods we're using in FSO, for example.

We've played space combat sims for years. Descent, Tachyon, FSO, and so forth. We've had use of forward/back, left/right thrust for many years. Binding two keys (or one with a modifier) to vertical thrusters, to me, and utilizing them in addition to 4 way movement sounds like child's play.

It is. And once we get full control customization in SC, I'm pretty sure that making those bindings will be possible there as well.

In other words, complaining about a work-in-progress game not being finished is futile.

So FSO community, with your many years...  how well do you believe this complicated, yet functionally neutered control system is the right direction for SC to go, and is 6DoF really too much for mere humans?

1. It's not "functionally neutered".
2. It's an interesting direction. One that can certainly work, and that I (for one) actually have a lot of fun playing with.
3. No, 6DoF is not too much. But then, noone actually said that it was.

[666maslo666]

1. It's not "functionally neutered".

You mean current flight mechanics as in Arena Commander? They are functionaly neutered, since they do not have true 6DoF controls (what Diaspora does), but a strange parody on 6DoF that requires you to juggle between different modes to execute basic maneuvers, and with inability to fire main thruster, roll and strafe at the same time.

[The E]

Okay, yeah, there is that. But consider that we do not have any control customization at all at the moment, and that all the functions necessary to do true 6DoF are already present in the flight model. As such, I am not exactly seeing how this translates into "This is not true 6DoF, it's all dumbed down for console".

EDIT: I mean, in the post JG linked to, Roberts says this:

The first pass of various modes – basic IFCS, De-Coupled, G-Safe and Comstab are all different modes that we felt would be useful at various times. It doesn’t mean it is the end of the modes, or how they are implemented is the only way they will be. A lot of people have been asking for “true” 6DOF available all the time – basically having strafe available during normal IFCS flight mode and to make strafe additive to the ship’s velocity in decoupled mode. These are all things that we will experiment with, along with quite a few other options e.g., an additional G-Safe mode that is turn limited rather than speed limited and we’re also going to be playing with thruster power as currently the maneuvering thrusters are about a half to a third of the power of the main engines which is fairly overpowered Just be warned the weaker the maneuvering thrusters the more the ship will “slide” at speed before vectoring to the desired direction.

Everything that is brought up as a concern in this thread, from lack of "true 6DoF" to the perception that Gamepads are superior, is brought up and addressed in that post, all with the tenor of "This is the first pass at this system, we know it's not perfect, that's why we need your feedback".