Thanks! Just after the prototype build, the right stick is now used to control yaw and controls vertical velocity since that's how it works in space. I've also hooked in the strafe thrusters to apply when you roll in hover mode to give you more responsive lateral control when hovering. Yaw and roll are also separated when in hover mode, though I keep going back and forth on that. I might make that a ship-specitic thing.
The yaw being on the right stick is the one that makes a big difference IMO and I'm sad that prototype build was just before I added that, because I use it constantly.
This is great stuff, thanks. I do think a lot of the problems here are framing problems and that a good tutorial to set expectations would go a long way on addressing your feedback, but also it's kind of supposed to be a little weird. Some other random points:
I know it might sound like I'm arguing with these points, but this is actually really encouraging because most of the parts of the game you're describing as being difficult are supposed to be difficult and take some practice to really get right. The game is about nailing sick landings, and if it was super trivial to do, what's even the point of the game?
As I said before, I think a lot of the problems are coming from incorrect framing and expectations, and I think with a decently designed tutorial (and tutorial level) a lot of that could be ironed out. That said there are some control oddities that I'm not exactly sure how to handle. Space raises some very annoying questions and is essentially two more control modes even if it wasn't intended to be. That will require more testing.
It's also important to note that in some cases the omissions of certain features is very deliberate because it would go against the very thing I'm aiming for. E.g. I actually did try having direct control of forward/reverse thrusters while in hover mode (there's video of it too) and it looks and feels atrocious, nullifying everything I thought was interesting about the control and flight model.
Thanks again for trying this and noting it all down! You always come at my games from a very different place, and always give very detailed and insightful feedback on how a normal person might (or might not) survive contact with them.
It sounds like the changes you have/will have in the updated version are good ones. At one point I did try to turn the craft perpendicular expecting the extra drag would slow me down, but for reasons that are now obvious didn't have success with it.
I can appreciate wanting to have some complexity, and not just the simplest possible form of the concept. There is a question of, do the quirks make it challenging in a way that's fun to contend with. For me personally, dealing with a lot of inertia in three dimensions like this already feels challenging, but things that add confusion or inputs not doing what I expect them to do, those sorts of "challenges" are harder for me to come to terms with.
I'm still not convinced that having two separate modes the way you have them is either necessary or a good idea. But I'm also curious to know what led you to try that in the first place. I can understand as far as you wanting airplane like flight and helicopter like flight, and so you have two different modes for it, that kind of follows at least on paper. But practically speaking, it doesn't seem like something that arose out of necessity, or maybe I'm just not seeing it.
As I mentioned, I'm not fond of how many things change when you switch modes. I could understand if it was something a little more specific, like enabling a particular kind of stabilizing effect. Then at least the button would have a clearer intention and utility, rather than being a button that just changes "a bunch of things." It's also unclear precisely how/when to make the transition from one mode to the other. You talked about using maneuvering skill to make the transition between modes of flight, but you also have a button that's supposed to cross that transition; how do the two meet?
To give a more concrete suggestion, why not leave the pitch/roll control unchanged between modes and just have the hover mode try to stabilize you vertically or something? If the player wants to flip upside down and crash then let them. That would keep the controls more consistent and make it clearer what the button is for. You could also have the hover mode be an on/off feature rather than creating a logical division between two separate flight modes (which would also help solve your naming issue).
I'm also curious to know what led you to try that in the first place . . . But practically speaking, it doesn't seem like something that arose out of necessity, or maybe I'm just not seeing it.
The short answer is that a fully manual flight mode won't give me the results I'm looking for without a flight model that is both less forgiving, and requires much more complex and precise input devices such as a full on HOTAS. Even in Tiny Combat, which does have a fully manual control setup, you can't get the level of precision, smoothness, and the "cinematic look" I'm after without fancy hardware. There's a reason I call out Star Citizen in the the game's page, and it's because that kind of flight model and control setup just doesn't lend itself to good landings.
This goes back to the helicopter stuff I was talking about. Helicopters fly like both helicopters and planes in a realistic sim (i.e. DCS) and it's all controllable because you aren't flying this on a gamepad, and you are doing things at a much slower, more controlled pace. You can't whip these things around like a video game sci-fi spaceship, the way I'd like to be able to, because the physics just doesn't work that way. So to give that faster pace, and more responsive handling, you need to up the power on everything, exaggerate the physics, and so on. However in doing that, it also becomes even harder to control. With a mode switch, you can adapt the controls, filter them, tune them, to specific regimes of flight and make it very controllable. It's similar to how aim down sights completely changed how FPS games were made on console. When a player uses ADS, they are expressing their intent to precisely aim, and you can lower the sensitivity, snap the crosshair, and change how recoil is handled.
Without some kind of mode switch, the only other option to make these kinds of physics controllable (and good looking enough, which is the whole point here, this is a very aesthetics driven project) is for the ship to massively change in behavior on its own. The way that the throttle blends from lift to main engine in the "manual" mode is actually vestigial from experiments on that, though I liked it enough to keep it. Not all ships behave this way either, e.g. the aerodyne that's not in the prototype doesn't use the lift engines at all in the manual mode. So there will variety in how things fly and control. It's also an avenue for me to experiment in different control methods and physics. However the problem with some kind of magic blending that somehow deduces what the player is trying to do, is that inevitably you're going to guess incorrectly about what the user wants to do and that feels really bad!
The modes communicate the player's intent, and from there you can optimize the two modes for their own special purposes. If you want to hover in a precise and tight controlled area: hover mode. If you want to land vertically: hover mode. If you want to fly somewhere far away: normal mode. If the player doesn't understand this, and is trying to use the modes for things they aren't designed for, that is as I've been going on about, a training issue. A good tutorial should cover this, but at the same time I don't think it's a problem that the player might have to learn and practice a skill. That's kind of the whole point here.
That's working as intended, since you're not really meant to move forwards at speed in hover mode, and not really meant to hover up/down in the manual mode. However I am interested in what you were trying to do that you felt you needed to do either of those things in those modes.
There is a lot of feedback missing, both in HUD stuff and especially in audio. Thank you for giving it a shot!
You need a gamepad. If you don't have a gamepad a bunch of stuff isn't going to work. This is all written out on the game's page. This was very hastily put together and as a proof of concept for a hyper-specific purpose. It's not meant to be a real game.
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