Ship refusing to flip

[Mrgrimm150]

So I just got this game and am going through the tutorials however I have a slight problem. Whenever I issue the flip command the ship just doesn't flip. It goes where I tell it but then it just doesn't turn around to fire. Am I missing something?

[Orinoco]

Does it have a working engine or sail?

[71]

Is the ship bulky or large? I think in certain cases ships won't flip to avoid overlapping with nearby terrain or other ships.

It should still flip when it's clear of things though.

[Mrgrimm150]

Well it's the ship in the tutorial which introduces the idea of flipping and you can't modify it in any way. Other ships flip fine for me but that one just refuses for some reason. So the problem is kinda solved and I'm left with a weird quirk. Thanks for the tips on ship design though.

[Shat my pants]

Originally posted by Mrgrimm150:

Well it's the ship in the tutorial which introduces the idea of flipping and you can't modify it in any way. Other ships flip fine for me but that one just refuses for some reason. So the problem is kinda solved and I'm left with a weird quirk. Thanks for the tips on ship design though.

Did you ever figure this out? I am having the same issue and it is highly frustrating.

[71]

What was the name of the ship and/or the stage of the tutorial where this is occuring?

I think I just remembered encountering something like this during my tutorial playthrough, but the problem ended up being more nuanced than 'it wouldn't flip'.

If we can narrow it down precisely, I'm pretty sure Zarkonnen can resolve it without much difficulty.

[71]

It was #3 Postioning, wasn't it?

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=668884093

The battle is counted as defeated if you don't flip within the first 2 to 5 seconds. Unfortunately, the most obvious move and flip command (like the one pictured above) causes the ship to flip a fraction of a second too late. Since being defeated causes your crew to instantly stop following orders (even those already issued), it appears to the player that the ship simply won't flip.

If you issue a much shorter move and flip, or flip in place and then move via a subsequent command, it will work, but the defeat condition really needs to be loosened for this battle not to be a constant headache.

[Shat my pants]

Originally posted by 71:

It was #3 Postioning, wasn't it?

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=668884093

The battle is counted as defeated if you don't flip within the first 2 to 5 seconds. Unfortunately, the most obvious move and flip command (like the one pictured above) causes the ship to flip a fraction of a second too late. Since being defeated causes your crew to instantly stop following orders (even those already issued), it appears to the player that the ship simply won't flip.

If you issue a much shorter move and flip, or flip in place and then move via a subsequent command, it will work, but the defeat condition really needs to be loosened for this battle not to be a constant headache.

You are exactly right, it was #3 Positioning and I went back to give it another try after reading your reply. Lo and behold, it works just like you said. What an odd little glitch, hopefully it gets resolved so that folks with less time/patience don't get frustrated and turned off of this game, because Airships is nothing short of wonderful. Thank you very much for clearing this up for me, it is always nice to lower my own frustration factor and confirm that the issue wasn't me being an idiot :) Much appreciation!

[Zarkonnen]

Just sanity-checked this by looking at the code and playing through tutorial 3. It isn't that you lose if you don't flip fast enough. It's that if you get unlucky, your ship can be defeated by the first enemy salvo.

So I assure you that there is no code that makes you lose tutorial 3 if you don't flip. You can remain un-flipped for as long as you like. It's your ship being defeated that's the issue.

In practice, this means I should rebalance the tutorial!

[71]

Huh. The RNG gods must just really hate long move-and-flip commands. I was consistently getting defeated every time.

Glad it will be reworked.

[Zarkonnen]

Yeah, I am a little suspicious of it all. My current guess is that the timing that most people use to execute this move biases the weapons to nicely hit the vital points of the ship!

I can't make it happen myself, but I am very used to this phenomenon where I play the game differently at a micro-level than most players.

Related anecdote from an earlier game project:

This was a space RPG where you could select crew members to be sent down to planets as away teams. I got a rather upset feedback message on the forums about one of the planets you could explore: Why had I programmed the game to always make the doctor on the away team fall and injure herself critically?

I had done no such thing. The game chose its victim randomly. But if you have a few hundred people playing the same game, it's not inconceivable that for one unlucky soul, the game would pick the doctor say three times in a row. So from their perspective the game was clearly programmed to be vindictive, but in fact, it was just random chance.

[Shat my pants]

Zarkonnen,

Just wanted to thank you again for your detective work and insight into the mechanics at play here. Perhaps that little bit of understanding will help me quickly defuse any other similar issues myself. I like how you get involved through the forums and I really feel that you created something special. A serious congrats to you.