Negative mouse acceleration making the game unplayable.

[MissMay]

The faster I move my mouse the slower my ship moves. I've tried messing with all the mouse settings in the game turning on and off vsync etc. but nothing helps. I have never had this issue in any game before.

EDIT: Same with windowed mode. The cursor does not have this issue; it's only ship movement.

[clippa]

Yeah, I did mess around with those last night and found something I was halfway happy with.
There HAS to be a better way of doing mouse control than this though.

I'd push on and wrestle with the controls, probably getting used to them after an hour or two of playing if the game was blowing my mind, but it seemed a bit dull to be honest, I've got plenty of other games to play.

[Luke]

Hi all, apologies for the delayed response - had to finally get some sleep in!

Having looks at the videos and everything that's being said - I can confirm that this is how the game is intended to work. As has been suggested, it's essentially due to the ship having a maximum turn rate. In the regime where you've not maxed your turn rate, there is positive mouse acceleration - if you're finding it hard to aim precisely at small angles, you'll want to increase the acceleration slider and possibly decrease smoothing and sensitivity.

Apologies to those who are finding it difficult to conrol the ship this way. The 'feel' of flying the ship is something we've put a lot of time into, with a lot of playtesting from ourselves and others, and ultimately we're very happy with it personally and with the response we get from it. It's intended to allow quick movements within that turn speed, rather than relying on a purely physics-based model where you have to accelerate all the time. It's essentially a mix of physics and twitch.

I understand that it's not going to please everyone though, because it is a very 'stylised' kind of control. I can only hope it doesn't impact the game too much for those people who'd prefer something else!

[Deltau]

Arma has a much similar 'negative acceleration' when turning just like in this game. Except it's not really acceleration at all; the movement just caps out at a certain speed so when you wave your mouse wildly it doesn't move as far as it feels it should. It simulates sluggishness and not pinpoint accuracy like in competitive FPS games. It takes some getting used to, but it plays fine once you're adjusted to it.

Luke の投稿を引用：

Having looks at the videos and everything that's being said - I can confirm that this is how the game is intended to work. As has been suggested, it's essentially due to the ship having a maximum turn rate. In the regime where you've not maxed your turn rate, there is positive mouse acceleration

This is a great explanation. And to anyone who's having troubles adjusting, I found my control sweet spot by setting 0 acceleration in the menu so it feels a bit more like a natural first person game up until the aforementioned turn cap, and just a little smoothing to give it that floaty spaceship feeling :)

[DYSIOD☰]

It seems like there should be some different presets to give people a chance to understand what the sliders do.

A "Arcade" as the default, some sort of "Precision" like what Deltau described, and a sort of "Consistent" which stupid amounts of smoothing so the acceleration doesn't outpace the max velocity.

[Connatic]

So it sounds like we should be treating this game more like a flight sim than a first person shooter when it comes to controls. It sounds like an mouse indacator needs to be added to the HUD to let you know once you hit your turn rate cap. Much like how other sim games do it with mouse controls (Elite Dangerous, Mechwarrior Online).

[Xodan Rot]

I just got the game. I don't think it works the way it's supposed to. I get that you can't just turn as fast as you want, because the ship has a maximum turning speed. But when I move my mouse faster, I turn slower. When I move my mouse slower I turn faster. That still doesn't feel right.

I turned off mouse acceleration, decreased the mouse sensitivity and now everything is perfect!

[Connatic]

Xodan Rot の投稿を引用：

...

I turned off mouse acceleration, decreased the mouse sensitivity and now everything is perfect!

That's what I did as well and it does feel more intuative, but that "issue" is still possible if you move the mouse super quick.

I think this game could really use a "drive" option where the mouse mimics stick controls. If you play a game like Elite Dangerous with a mouse, you'll have a mouse cursor on your hud. Depending how far from the center you drag it, will determine the speed in which you turn. The ship will keep turning as long as the mouse is in that posistion and won't stop until the mouse cursor is brought back to center.

Since this game isn't a FPS and we are dealing with manuverability and turn-rate caps, this style of play might be more intuative for some.

[MangoTangoFox]

I saw TBs video, really liked the look of the game, and really want it... But this mouse issue is worrying me, as I've seen other titles mess this up in the past. Why, in a zero-grav environment, does a ship have a max rotation speed? If in space, you used anything that would create angular thrust, you would continually accelerate for as long as you continued thrust and would maintain that momentum until you thrust in reverse. But beyond all that, this is a video game... Why go out of your way to prevent people from having fun with it? If people want responsive, non-accelerated, non-capped mouse movement, why not give it to them as an option? This doesn't look like a competitive multiplayer shooter, so it's not as if there's some sort of unfair advantage in doing so.

And when you respond with "It's a space ship, it should control like a ship" nonsense, consider every modern first and third person shooter. The turn rate either has no cap at all, or an insanely high cap. And yet we are usually working with human figures with muscles, gravity, wind resistance, ground with friction, heavy armor and weapons that would slow angular acceleration, etc... Games don't respect any of that, because they would play horribly and would feel bad to the player, especially on PC. And yet a spaceship in a zero gravity environment (your game), is one of the only situations in which almost none of these factors apply, but they were implemented anyway?

If players want something simple like this, just give it to them. If you feel the way it is now is the best way to play the game, how you envisioned it, by all means make that the default, but there's no reason to deprive yourself of money and players of a fun game, who'd rather not deal with dragging their mouse through a puddle of syrup. I've not tested the game myself, but TB noticing it and the length of this thread is a good sign that I'll find it noticeable.

And I say all of this because judging by your last statement, you have no intention of providing such options, and that would be a real shame.

[Shajirr]

How does the game play witrh the controller/joystick?

Because all of what I've read in this thread indicates that the mouse isn't the best device for movement, even though it is superior for aiming.

[Shajirr]

clippa の投稿を引用：

Yeah, I did mess around with those last night and found something I was halfway happy with.
There HAS to be a better way of doing mouse control than this though.

There is, and most games do employ it.

It is when mouse controls aiming / turrets, and the ship/other vehicle you are piloting tries to match the direction you face, or has completely separate controls for movement.

This is done in games like Mechwarrior Online and X3 Reunion from the ones I remember

I played Mecwarrior with Joystick for movement and mouse for aiming, both completely separate from each other.

[Dr. Wolf]

I use a trackball and did some tests...does seem to be behaving as I'd expect for a speed cap.

It's not "negative acceleration"; moving your mouse faster DOES NOT make the ship turn slower. Get rid of that idea now. That said, if you are moving the mouse at or above the ship's max turn speed, how long you are moving the mouse for-- that is, in terms of time, not distance-- will determine how far you turn.

So if you move your mouse all the way across your mousepad in 0.1 seconds and then stop, you will only have 0.1 seconds of the ship turning at its maximum speed. If you move the mouse all the way across your mousepad in 0.01 seconds and then stop, then you will get 0.01 seconds of the ship turning at its maximum speed (even if your mousepad is the size of a football field and you are moving your mouse using a railgun). But this is still not negative acceleration, because the ship isn't turning any slower when you move the mouse quickly-- it's just that you're not turning the ship for as long. If you have an infinitely large mousepad (or a trackball, which is how I can confirm this), movements above the ship's maximum turn speed will make the ship turn continuously at its maximum turn rate, no matter how far above the maximum turn speed you get, up to the tracking limit of your device.

[MangoTangoFox]

Dr. Wolf の投稿を引用：

I use a trackball and did some tests...does seem to be behaving as I'd expect for a speed cap.

It's not "negative acceleration"

We know this, and it's irrelevant, because the effect on the player is essentially the same. There is an acceleration time to get the movement to max speed. If you moved a long distance, but stopped as the rotation was just starting to accelerate (which lets be honest, is quite a long time), the long movement turns into almost no movement on the screen. This also makes it so that movements back and fourth swing around like a rock on a rubberband, to the point where if done right, you could get the rock (the camera) to stay in place even though you're sending huge inputs. I've tested the game now first hand, and it feels horrible to me.

The game supports 120Hz, and supports it properly with full per-frame movement and camera position updates (commonly failed by devs using unity [which supports unlimited framerate by default] that never test the game on a >60Hz display). It has FOV adjustment that even scales the HUD, which I think looks nice and suits the close-up play. Volumetric lighting tanks the framerate at times, but off the performance is just fine. It's all promising in really every other area. The slight accel/deccel to the ship movement actually makes sense unlike the camera, and even supports analog speed adjustment for the controller, which can be used at the same time as the mouse.

Playing with a controller, the default mapping is horrible (using the d-pad for vertical thrusters and roll), but it's hard to blame them considering the number of inputs the game needs. Problem with the mapping is that the left and right fire buttons, both on mouse/keyboard and controller, cannot be remapped. It looks like you can, but if you map anything to the gamepads triggers, or the mouses clicks, it does that new action and fires the weapons at the same time, regardless of what the weapons are mapped to. I wanted bumpers for weapon fire, and triggers for roll, but I ended up with weapons on bumpers, with roll AND weapons on the triggers. That said, the camera movement seems like it was made for the analog stick. The stick cant send a speed faster than the game thinks it should, and you can because of that the issue cannot occur. Despite it working properly, the controller feels slow. Smooth and consistent, yes, but still not the kind of tactile responsiveness or speed that this game would benefit massively from.

I feel game would feel best with that acceleration time made far smaller, or removed entirely with slight mouse smoothing in it's place. When I look for a shooter, I want to feel in control. To be able to aim between enemies or objects competently. The acceleration time and maximum speed cap here (present in almost no first or third person shooters, for very good reason), take all of that away. Your mouse inputs are only mere suggestions, that feel like they are being registered far too late, after you've already put in two more commands. Move left, then right, and the games like "nah, I'll just sit still because that was the inevitable result anyway". Leave it as is for controllers and flight sticks, even leave it as is by default for the mouse, but if you want this game to feel even vaguely good at all with a mouse, a toggle to disable that acceleration and remove the rotational velocity cap can make that happen.

[DYSIOD☰]

MangoTangoFox の投稿を引用：

Why, in a zero-grav environment, does a ship have a max rotation speed? If in space, you used anything that would create angular thrust, you would continually accelerate for as long as you continued thrust and would maintain that momentum until you thrust in reverse.

That sounds great, but you also have to consider momuntum and the maximum thrust from a thruster. If you wanted infinite precision you'd need massive thrusters to be able to instantly counteract your momentum. If you didn't then you'd constantly be fighting for control of your ship as it spun through space.

Realistic newtonian physics in games with a lot of space is hard enough, it would be impossible a game with such tight spaces. The always-on flight assist mode compensates for that so you don't have to fight your ship, but it means a loss of potential mobility.

As far as gameplay reasons go, because they like it that way. Also because 1:1 turning would just feel awful and make it -really- easy to get turned around. Having that maximum rotational velocity gives your brain time to track the changes that happen. There's a reason our gold standard in 6DOFing and every DOF game since has a maximum rotational velocity.

[MangoTangoFox]

KMod Dysiode の投稿を引用：

Also because 1:1 turning would just feel awful and make it -really- easy to get turned around. Having that maximum rotational velocity gives your brain time to track the changes that happen. There's a reason our gold standard in 6DOFing and every DOF game since has a maximum rotational velocity.

Excuse me? Have you seen this game at 120Hz? Have you tried it at a higher FOV? Have you played any arena shooter ever? There is no problem problem with spacial awareness. If you played at the minimum FOV at 30FPS, yes, you'd likely have no idea where you were most of the time, but the game doesn't force that on you. Nor would there be an issue with 1:1 turning (go watch someone play RatzInstagib), and even adding mouse acceleration to that would not cause the problems that exist currently, while allowing a wide variety of rotation speeds suited for 360 degree gameplay of this type. The problem isn't so much the speed cap, but the forced acceleration time. If you move quickly and stop, you don't get the maximum speed allowed, you get the very beginning of the acceleration curve for a split second, which produces very little movement if none at all at the extreme end.

You say peoples' brains aren't fast enough to track the changes, which is nonsense, but even if that was correct, couldn't the player choose to keep their mouse movement in check, or lower their sensitivity? Why FORCE a limitation, when in every other shooter on the market, the player chooses their own turning speed via settings or their hand in reality? Load up any modern first person shooter. Max out your mouse DPI, and put the in-game slider all the way to the right. It's highly likely that those settings are unplayable, but the player should be the one to decide whether or not that is the case.

Physics are irrelevant when your game feels bad with what should be the most capable input method. This is about making it feel great, making it behave like the player expects, nothing else matters. And again, I'm advocating for a small tweak to vastly improve the experience for some players, while everyone else is unaffected.

[Shajirr]

MangoTangoFox の投稿を引用：

If you move quickly and stop, you don't get the maximum speed allowed, you get the very beginning of the acceleration curve for a split second, which produces very little movement if none at all at the extreme end.

If you do this you simply either control the ship incorrectly, or you have too high DPI / sensitivity, way higher than needed.
Why would you do any sharp and fast movements knowing that the ship simply cannot turn as fast as you move the mouse?