Forums » Suggestions

Mouse Look imbalance

May 26, 2003 Eldrad link
One of the first things I notice when I started playing Vendetta was that the blue cross hairs (the actual direction of your ship in mouse look) were some what difficult to control. I think this is really cool, because A. it's realistic, you can't just instantly change the direction you're turning, and B. it makes aiming more of a challenge.

Just today I found out that this feature only effects players using mice. If you're using the keyboard/Joystick mode you are able to instantly change directions. This is obviously a problem because it gives non mouse users a fairly sizable advantage.

If you don't know/understand what I'm talking about heres an easy way to see it. In mouse mode turn left then stop. The blue cross hairs will follow your turning, then when you stop they will keep going past the direction you're facing, then come back and oscillate a little bit around your green cross hairs. In keyboard/joystick mode, turn left then stop. Your cross hairs stop the moment you remove your finger from the turn key, no over shooting no oscillations.

Here are a few ways the problem could be fixed:
1. Allow a mode where you can use a mouse, but cannot look in any direction other than the one your ship is facing.
2. Make it so that the direction the ship is facing (blue cross hairs) go straight towards the direction the player is looking (green cross hairs) and stop the moment that they meet.
3. Add the feature to keyboard/joystick mode. Make it so that when you stop turning or change the direction you're turning in the ship continues to move in the old direction for a moment and then oscillates in a similar way to a player using mouse look.

To make my input clear I would very much like to see the third solution implemented because I think the feature makes the game both more realistic and (more importantly) more enjoyable.

I don't think that this problem is a large enough imbalance that it needs to be changed now, or in the near future, but I would like to know if it will be changed at some future point because it might have an effect on whether I play the game in its final form.

-Eldrad
May 26, 2003 Willis link
Dude, it isn't Imbalanced, joysticks turn slower anyway, they turn at the ACTUAL turn rate of the ship, while the mouse can jump around and u just have to wait for the ship to catch up. In mouse you could swing 180 degrees in .5 seconds, but u have to wait another 2 seconds for the ship to catch up. When u use a joystick, it takes 2 seconds to do a 180 degrees swing, as you are actually turning the ship.
May 26, 2003 slappyknappy link
I don't have a joystick.. so this is a question not a comment:

When your ship gets there with the joystick, does it still "bounce"? I would almost rather fly that way: turn with the rate of the ship, and no bounce when you get there.
May 26, 2003 The Kid link
Its just a difference between the mouse and they keyboard arrows, when you use a keyboard/joystick, the ship and your view turns at the turn rate of the ship, but with a mouse, you can even look backwards while turning, or if the ship turned instantly, that would give mouse users a huge advantage.
May 26, 2003 Cmdr. Freeman link
The heavier ships wobble around in joystick mode.
May 26, 2003 Kuvagh link
I think what he's really talking about is the oscillation. There doesn't seem to be any oscillation with the stick or keyboard.

Asp
May 27, 2003 Kuvagh link
Even Valks and Centurions wobble in mouselook mode. If you're turboing towards Star A, move the cursor to Star B and let go of turbo the nose overshoots Star B all the way to Star C before eventually settling on Star B. I couldn't detect this sort of oscillation in keyboard mode... I don't really know what that means. :)

Asp
May 27, 2003 Cmdr. Freeman link
I think it means you have more control in mouselook mode, but it comes at a price...oscillation. This is a non-issue.
May 27, 2003 Arolte link
It would be nice not to have all the wobbling crap with the mouse. For some heavy and medium ships that is. I don't know whether it was an intended feature, but I think it's annoying. Why can't the ship just have a very slow turn rate and acceleration? Tuuuuuuuuurn, and stop. That's it. Is the reticule wobbling really necessary? Removing the wobble may very well get more people to fly heavy ships. The Ragnarok, for example, pretty much wobbles with even the slightest jolt, making it the game's top flying target.
May 27, 2003 Eldrad link
Ok, first Willis I understand the advantages of being able to look in a direction your ship isn't facing, and maybe this is a large enough advantage that you should have your aim crippled as well. If that is the general agreement, then it should not be connected to being a mouse user. There should be +look and -look modes separate from mouse vs keyboard/joystick.

Arolte, the 'wobble' is really just angular acceleration, larger ships have worse translational acceleration, and angular acceleration.

At the moment a valk's or cent's angular acceleration, in mouselook mode, is about equal to that of a prom. (note that the max angular velocity is not effected by mouselook and is better in a valk/cent than a prom [EDIT: I assumed this was true but am not sure at this point. I did some testing and the ships appear to have the same max turning speeds, 1 revolutions takes 4.0 sec in a cent and 4.2sec in a prom which probably means that they have the same max but different accel]) This was just my rough qualitative assessment and I could be wrong, but it is very obviously worse than a valk or cent in keyboard mode, which appear to be able to go from their max angular velocity to stopped fast enough that it appears instantaneous.

I'm a fighter pilot, and as such I really enjoy the implementation of angular acceleration in this game. I can also see how it would be aggravating in the larger ships. I would really like to see this feature remain. Most games have instantaneous angular velocity changes, which makes dog fighting easier and less interesting.
May 27, 2003 The Kid link
when you use a mouse, the hand holding the mouse will always SHAKE a little tiny bit (at least), and that is human nature, can't have anything done about that except maybe creating a "dead zone"
No worries about shaking hands with a keyboard because its tougher to press, and for joystick, well, if you shake big enough, it shakes.
May 27, 2003 Eldrad link
Kid, switch to mouse mode you'll see what's being talked about. We're not talking about hand shaking.
May 27, 2003 The Kid link
meh my hand shakes enough on my slippery desk to do a little, but I know about the wobble, because when you stop, well, its easier to explain this with a diagram, but in the game, the blue circle goes farther than you actually want it to go and snaps back in place, which creates a little wobble there...
May 27, 2003 Suicidal Lemming link
Well, you don't really get the wobble using a keyboard\joystick because you arte actually controling the ship directly and can tell how quickly\slowly it slows down, whilest on mouse mode it will keep going till ti reaches the cross hairs, then slow down and wobble into place.
May 27, 2003 Eldrad link
Devs, is there actually a torque being applied to the ships or is this all just a hack? If there is a torque does it change based on ship/engine?