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Help With Flight System

(@duder963)
New Member

So, I'm new to Pioneer and it looks really cool, but I can't control my ship for crap. Any help on how to set it to "WWII dogfights in space" mode or just help to control the Newtonian flight would be great. I'm using am XBOX 360 controller

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Topic starter Posted : March 16, 2015 18:09
(@nozmajner)
Member

The closest you can get for WWII in space Is the Set Speed mode accessed with F5. I assume that you mean thrust control and E:D style flight assist by WWII in space. You can't really have that. Set Speed tries to maintain the speed you set in the direction you are facing, by using the thrusters of your ship, but it fires them at full power.

You can set up the controls for your controller in the Options menu, either in the Main Menu, or by hitting escape in the game. You might not be able to set the analog triggers to anything apart from the three rotation axes though.

These two wiki pages might be helpful:

http://pioneerwiki.com/wiki/Keyboard_and_mouse_controls

http://pioneerwiki.com/wiki/Basic_flight

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Posted : March 16, 2015 19:12
(@fluffyfreak)
Noble Member

Controller support is currently rather primitive, it is something that we know needs work on but no-one has yet found time to do it.

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Posted : March 17, 2015 00:17
(@duder963)
New Member

The closest you can get for WWII in space Is the Set Speed mode accessed with F5. I assume that you mean thrust control and E:D style flight assist by WWII in space. You can't really have that. Set Speed tries to maintain the speed you set in the direction you are facing, by using the thrusters of your ship, but it fires them at full power.

You can set up the controls for your controller in the Options menu, either in the Main Menu, or by hitting escape in the game. You might not be able to set the analog triggers to anything apart from the three rotation axes though.

These two wiki pages might be helpful:
http://pioneerwiki.com/wiki/Keyboard_and_mouse_controls
http://pioneerwiki.com/wiki/Basic_flight

 

 

Controller support is currently rather primitive, it is something that we know needs work on but no-one has yet found time to do it.

Thanks for your help, however I have a new problem. I originally downloaded Pioneer from the Elite Forever page, but it was hideously outdated, I DLed the latest version, found out my GPU doesn't support OpenGL 3, so can anybody link me to a working october 2014 build

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Topic starter Posted : March 17, 2015 16:57
(@fluffyfreak)
Noble Member

Ah, the old GL 2.1 compatible download was taken down a couple of months ago.

 

Paragon, which was forked form Pioneers code more than a year ago, still has support for GL2.1 as well as improved controller handling. It does need to be purchased though.

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Posted : March 18, 2015 00:31
(@nozmajner)
Member

While checking on a bug, I realized that Geraldine uploads a build to moddb each month (great thanks for that Geraldine 🙂 ).

You could find a build there. OpenGL 3 got in in november, so look for a build earlier then that.

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Posted : March 18, 2015 05:35
Geraldine
(@geraldine)
Famed Member

That what they are there for nozmajner, just in case you guys ever need them. :girlwink:

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Posted : March 18, 2015 08:37
(@duder963)
New Member

Thanks guys. You're all awesome! Thanks for getting a newb like me into pioneer

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Topic starter Posted : March 18, 2015 20:45
 DraQ
(@draq)
Trusted Member

The closest you can get for WWII in space Is the Set Speed mode accessed with F5. I assume that you mean thrust control and E:D style flight assist by WWII in space. You can't really have that. Set Speed tries to maintain the speed you set in the direction you are facing, by using the thrusters of your ship, but it fires them at full power.

And since set speed tries to maintain your velocity relative to current frame of reference which may be completely irrelevant in deep space or orbital combat (when both you and the enemy may be doing arbitrary number of km/s in arbitrary direction) I'd consider it suicidal anywhere except in the atmosphere.

Any help on how to set it to "WWII dogfights in space" mode or just help to control the Newtonian flight would be great.

The main problem with that is that WWII dogfighting is about as applicable to Newtonian flight as rowboat controls are applicable to modern fighter jet - not very.

ED goes around it by not allowing fast movement relative to the frame of reference (in addition to fudging physics in a number of other ways such tying max rotation rate to velocity), Pioneer is built around fast movement relative to the frame of reference (it's the main way of moving around) so it can't work this way.

Maybe further down the line it will have ability to set temporary frame of reference to, for example, combat target, and allow some automation based on that, but I don't think it can be expected before the combat itself is improved (weapons, damage mechanics, AI, encounter design) and may not happen at all.

 

I think a better idea might to try to come to terms with Newtonian flight.

Those links might be helpful although they refer to a different game and so differences are to be expected:

https://web.archive.org/web/20120112013436/http://www.alioth.net/ajn/relative.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20090705230718/http://www.alioth.net/ajn/mcont.html

The main differences here are that Pioneer's manual flight mode is actually labelled "manual" and is on by default, and that Pioneer accepts custom key binds.

Pioneer also features projectile rather than hitscan weapons, actual ship masses and somewhat weaker engines (plus, of course, completely different locations).

 

The main thing about Newtonian is that there is no friction in space - you can accelerate to arbitrary velocity and once you have accelerated in some direction you won't stop on your own - think driving a loaded truck on an endless plane of wet black ice, except in 3D and even more slippery.

So, basically, you must remember to counter if you want to stop going in some direction and you must be careful with your thrusters - you can build up tremendous velocity easily by firing a thruster continuously, and if you spend, for example 20s firing main engines you won't stop in less than 20s, more if you don't want to be flying backwards.

 

One of the most confusing thing that can happen when dogfighting in Pioneer is when you're circling each other and can't go any closer by firing your engine.

It's basically the same kind of thing that happens with bodies in orbit - with sufficient sideways velocity your engines won't be able to overcome centrifugal force as you turn to face your enemy and you will be stuck in a circle, unable to come any closer. Proper way to do it is killing sideways velocity by firing lateral thrusters and then closing in.

 

Also, I'd really recommend mouse+kb - mouse allows near perfect control even with rotational assist off (although I don't know if the screen margin bug is still present).

 

Feel free to post any questions and problems you encounter in the process of learning to fly Newtonian.

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Posted : March 25, 2015 05:26
(@nozmajner)
Member

 

Maybe further down the line it will have ability to set temporary frame of reference to, for example, combat target, and allow some automation based on that,...

Actually you can do that by selecting the target while holding down Ctrl.

It wasn't clear in the manual, saying only "system body", but I updated it.

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Posted : March 25, 2015 06:12