Is Yaw supposed to be so slow?

[jamesc70]

I'm giving this game another try; last time I just couldn't get into the flying. It almost seemed like they made it terrible on purpose - a Descent type of control was pinpoint accurate and fun, while the default of this is horribly bad. I changed a lot of the controls - mouse controls yaw/pitch, A/D is L/R thrust, and Q/E is roll.

Thing is though, yaw'ing is incredibly slow... is this how it is supposed to be? To spin in a circle left to right and get back to your original heading takes around 60 seconds. Even thrusting in the opposite direction of the yaw does not seem to speed up yaw'ing at all.

Maybe just a 'first crappy ship' thing? What am I missing?

[Sheethead]

Yeah yaw is for tiny corrections, you wanna roll and pitch for fast turning.

[caaront]

The Type 7 has good yaw control, compared to the other ships anyway.

[Kraft51]

roll and pitch is the key, the tutorial even tells you this. however the Sidewinder is rather weak on all aspects, being a starter ship.

[jamesc70]

So, you are saying that in order to quickly orientate myself to say 90 degrees left of the current heading I'm on, I should roll 90 degrees so the destination is now above me and then pitch toward it?

I know in aircraft in atmosphere that yaw basically helps you orient by small increments, but I've never seen that mechanically in any space flight game. One RCS thruster on a nose of a spacecraft could spin it in a second (but the forces wouldn't be good for the pilot obviously at high turning rates).

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

Originally posted by jamesc70:

So, you are saying that in order to quickly orientate myself to say 90 degrees left of the current heading I'm on, I should roll 90 degrees so the destination is now above me and then pitch toward it?

That is correct. Or you can do both the same time.

I know in aircraft in atmosphere that yaw basically helps you orient by small increments, but I've never seen that mechanically in any space flight game.

It is done intentionally, so fighting doesn't turn into "turrets in space". The fun value in this case outweighs the realism.

[jamesc70]

Alright, thanks for the replies, I'll try roll/pitch to turn faster.

[Sheethead]

Yeah it behaves quite a lot like fighter jets in an atmosphere for the sake of fun and intuitive gameplay, so it's not the most spacey flight model you would expect.

[Sheethead]

btw turning off flight assist has more realistic effects - the ship stops compensating so you don't lose momentum while turning, everything is more agile (you still have a speed limit to prevent things from going totally bonkers). It makes for more efficient flying but is also harder to use.