Turn and thrust instead of cardinal directions?

[Professor Paul1290]

I have no idea how divisive this might be so definitely worth discussing before even attempting to throw this on Mantis.

Does anyone else feel that A and D should turn the ship while W and S control forward movement or maybe even thrust?

I feel like flying in straight cardinal directions and diagonals feels like a very bizarre way for a ship to move. Also I feel like the ship should "feel" like it has some mass to it and takes a moment to do a 180, not a whole lot as the player probably should be pretty maneuverable compared to the AI, just somewhat.

[Hyfrydle]

I agree with this it took me quite a while to understand how the ship moved. Also I felt at times like I wasn't moving at all and the enemy flagships seem to be much faster than the players ship.

[Pepisolo]

I should probably keep out of the discussion as I'm not yet in the alpha, but when I heard about the new combat changes I did think to myself... "hmmmm sounds a bit like asteroids.... cool!" I guess it doesn't play that way, though, and without testing it I'm not sure if it even should, but overall the idea of a thrust based movement system seems pretty neat to me.

[x4000]

Really what you are setting is your new target direction, and your ship maneuvers there as quickly as it can.  If we went with a thrust-based thing, we'd have to get rid of W and S, as they would have no meaning.  Honestly, these are currently just quick shortcuts to tell your ship what direction to move in without having to right-mouse-click to do so.  You aren't ever directly in control of the thrusters.

Making the ship control a bit more barge-like is something I found frustrating in the past.  A lot of the fighters and so forth have much lower turning radii, but I tuned that down for the flagship because otherwise it felt just really sluggish to me, personally.

I'm surprised that it took you a while to understand how the ship moved, though.  Odd also that it felt like you weren't moving at all sometimes -- there are bunches of dust blowing by.  Perhaps those need to be less transparent, to help with lower-contrast screens.

Overall the enemy flagships are incredibly slow compared to the player ships, but the pirate flagships are murderously fast for sure.  They may need some toning down.

[Riabi]

Really what you are setting is your new target direction, and your ship maneuvers there as quickly as it can.  If we went with a thrust-based thing, we'd have to get rid of W and S, as they would have no meaning.  Honestly, these are currently just quick shortcuts to tell your ship what direction to move in without having to right-mouse-click to do so.  You aren't ever directly in control of the thrusters.

That's too bad, from your description, I has something like SPAZ in mind.

[Cinth]

  Odd also that it felt like you weren't moving at all sometimes -- there are bunches of dust blowing by.

Run a quick CP with just a solo AI (default settings?) and the empty space map.  Took me several minutes of "flying" to find the AI and it does feel like you aren't moving at all.  Even with the dust particles whizzing by in the background.  It wasn't until I added in space junk that I could actually get the sense the my ship was moving. 

[Professor Paul1290]

Really what you are setting is your new target direction, and your ship maneuvers there as quickly as it can.  If we went with a thrust-based thing, we'd have to get rid of W and S, as they would have no meaning.  Honestly, these are currently just quick shortcuts to tell your ship what direction to move in without having to right-mouse-click to do so.  You aren't ever directly in control of the thrusters.

If it's a waypoint shortcut then I guess you could also go a different way with it

You could go the other way and instead emphasis that it is a "move order", like maybe have a little waypoint marker that you move around with WASD or maybe even have a waypoint line you rotate around the ship with A and D with maybe W or S to toggle "go".
In either case it becomes a bit more "fire and forget" and you could free the player's left hand a bit more of the time to do other stuff.

[x4000]

Really what you are setting is your new target direction, and your ship maneuvers there as quickly as it can.  If we went with a thrust-based thing, we'd have to get rid of W and S, as they would have no meaning.  Honestly, these are currently just quick shortcuts to tell your ship what direction to move in without having to right-mouse-click to do so.  You aren't ever directly in control of the thrusters.

That's too bad, from your description, I has something like SPAZ in mind.

That would be more of an action game than we have in mind here.  I mean, this does have direct shooting, but we're not trying to make a SHMUP.

Run a quick CP with just a solo AI (default settings?) and the empty space map.  Took me several minutes of "flying" to find the AI and it does feel like you aren't moving at all.  Even with the dust particles whizzing by in the background.  It wasn't until I added in space junk that I could actually get the sense the my ship was moving.

I have.  That's really odd that it doesn't feel like movement to you.  I mean, I guess that's part of the nature of being in space, to some extent -- there are few referents around.  I brightened the dust particles in .801, so let me know what you think.  I guess I could add in tiny less-frequent micro-asteroids that go whizzing by, or something.

Really what you are setting is your new target direction, and your ship maneuvers there as quickly as it can.  If we went with a thrust-based thing, we'd have to get rid of W and S, as they would have no meaning.  Honestly, these are currently just quick shortcuts to tell your ship what direction to move in without having to right-mouse-click to do so.  You aren't ever directly in control of the thrusters.

If it's a waypoint shortcut then I guess you could also go a different way with it

You could go the other way and instead emphasis that it is a "move order", like maybe have a little waypoint marker that you move around with WASD or maybe even have a waypoint line you rotate around the ship with A and D with maybe W or S to toggle "go".
In either case it becomes a bit more "fire and forget" and you could free the player's left hand a bit more of the time to do other stuff.

Oh yeah, it's completely fire and forget.  Holding down the buttons literally does nothing.  Once set in motion, ships keep moving in that direction forever, unless you hit Q.  That left hand should be super unoccupied in general.  The main problem with the waypoint thing is that the actual waypoint location is essentially infinitely far in the direction you just chose.

I am almost tempted to just remove the WASD controls all together, since they are pretty confusing and just right-clicking isn't something that takes that long, anyhow.  I'm not sure.  The fewer controls to teach the better, particularly if something does something counter-intuitively.  But at the same time, I'm not keen to limit options.

[Cinth]

Run a quick CP with just a solo AI (default settings?) and the empty space map.  Took me several minutes of "flying" to find the AI and it does feel like you aren't moving at all.  Even with the dust particles whizzing by in the background.  It wasn't until I added in space junk that I could actually get the sense the my ship was moving.

I have.  That's really odd that it doesn't feel like movement to you.  I mean, I guess that's part of the nature of being in space, to some extent -- there are few referents around.  I brightened the dust particles in .801, so let me know what you think.  I guess I could add in tiny less-frequent micro-asteroids that go whizzing by, or something.

I could see the dust in the background just fine, it's just that it felt like it was in the background.  Once I added in junk (in the settings), movement became obvious.  I think part of the problem was that the single AI ship I had in the CP.  I couldn't find it.  The size of the battle field doesn't lend itself to 1 v 1. 

The appearance of movement correlates to what is moving on screen in relation to your ship.  If only one ship is on screen, nothing appears to move in the foreground. This can also be applied to the mini-map too.  In the case I described, I had lost all form of contact with my opponent.  No visual or mini-map blip.

[madcow]

The movement sounds similar to the Hyperion level in SC2 HotS except with an active fire on it as well.  Is that about right? Because I loved that level

[keith.lamothe]

Generally speaking having something like A and D be turn-left and turn-right, and having W and S be increase-thrust and decrease-thrust feels much more tactile than mouse orders (which the current WASD is essentially a shortcut for), but I'm not particularly clear on what the goal is for controls-feel.

[x4000]

Generally speaking having something like A and D be turn-left and turn-right, and having W and S be increase-thrust and decrease-thrust feels much more tactile than mouse orders (which the current WASD is essentially a shortcut for), but I'm not particularly clear on what the goal is for controls-feel.

I think that we could make that work, actually.  I was thinking about that just now.

Basically: the "stop moving" command that is currently Q instead gets remapped to S.  W becomes "start moving in the centerline of where you are currently facing."

"A" and "D" become "gradually rotate yourself if not moving" or "gradually adjust your movement target by angle if you are moving."

I'm totally cool with that for the keyboard controls -- honestly I don't use the WASD at all, I'm not a fan of them here, so if there is something that would feel more comfortable to others, then I think it's worth a go.  I like my right-click, heh.

[Professor Paul1290]

On a side note, I noticed the more visible dust particles have added an amusing amount of "woosh" to the game. It looks weird because you're not really moving that fast on the battlefield but at the same time it feels oddly entertaining in a way that perhaps should not be "corrected".

Running into asteroids is now somewhat more noticeable because it makes the "woosh" stop!

[x4000]

The speed could always be adjusted down, but I thought the speed was a nice touch, really.

[Misery]

Really what you are setting is your new target direction, and your ship maneuvers there as quickly as it can.  If we went with a thrust-based thing, we'd have to get rid of W and S, as they would have no meaning.  Honestly, these are currently just quick shortcuts to tell your ship what direction to move in without having to right-mouse-click to do so.  You aren't ever directly in control of the thrusters.

That's too bad, from your description, I has something like SPAZ in mind.

That would be more of an action game than we have in mind here.  I mean, this does have direct shooting, but we're not trying to make a SHMUP.

Run a quick CP with just a solo AI (default settings?) and the empty space map.  Took me several minutes of "flying" to find the AI and it does feel like you aren't moving at all.  Even with the dust particles whizzing by in the background.  It wasn't until I added in space junk that I could actually get the sense the my ship was moving.

I have.  That's really odd that it doesn't feel like movement to you.  I mean, I guess that's part of the nature of being in space, to some extent -- there are few referents around.  I brightened the dust particles in .801, so let me know what you think.  I guess I could add in tiny less-frequent micro-asteroids that go whizzing by, or something.

Really what you are setting is your new target direction, and your ship maneuvers there as quickly as it can.  If we went with a thrust-based thing, we'd have to get rid of W and S, as they would have no meaning.  Honestly, these are currently just quick shortcuts to tell your ship what direction to move in without having to right-mouse-click to do so.  You aren't ever directly in control of the thrusters.

If it's a waypoint shortcut then I guess you could also go a different way with it

You could go the other way and instead emphasis that it is a "move order", like maybe have a little waypoint marker that you move around with WASD or maybe even have a waypoint line you rotate around the ship with A and D with maybe W or S to toggle "go".
In either case it becomes a bit more "fire and forget" and you could free the player's left hand a bit more of the time to do other stuff.

Oh yeah, it's completely fire and forget.  Holding down the buttons literally does nothing.  Once set in motion, ships keep moving in that direction forever, unless you hit Q.  That left hand should be super unoccupied in general.  The main problem with the waypoint thing is that the actual waypoint location is essentially infinitely far in the direction you just chose.

I am almost tempted to just remove the WASD controls all together, since they are pretty confusing and just right-clicking isn't something that takes that long, anyhow.  I'm not sure.  The fewer controls to teach the better, particularly if something does something counter-intuitively.  But at the same time, I'm not keen to limit options.

After messing with it a bit, I'd definitely be against the WASD movement.   To me at least it was the most natural way this could have been controlling. I can see how the "doesnt stop moving if you let go" bit might seem a bit odd to some, but I didn't really have issues with it.  I definitely prefer this as opposed to right clicking everywhere and generally waving the mouse all over the place.  Trying to move in one direction (and probably altering that direction very frequently) while then using the same cursor to attack in another the whole time is something I generally prefer be kept to things like the mobas and such, which is what that control style would remind me of. 

At the same time though, giving players the option to do exactly that might not be a bad idea.   More options is never a bad thing!