Cadet II/Ship control

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Steering your ship using Alleg physics

One of the Allegiance's charms is its semi-realistic physics engine. While not truly Newtonian, it is "Newtonian enough" to capture some of the essence of flying in space, though new pilots can make mistakes as they fly. This brief article is intended to clear up misconceptions and recommend some strategies for proper steering in Allegiance. Unfortunately, this article can only recommend, as the best way of learning how to steer is to actually practice in game.

Basic concepts

Drag

Allegiance space is not true Newtonian space. In Newtonian (ie. real) space, an object will keep traveling until a force causes it to stop. Allegiance space contains drag, which makes any moving object want to slow to a halt. When reading the rest of this article, keep this fact in mind. Ships have to constantly generate propulsion to keep moving forward, and any moving ship eventually reaches a maximum speed as its propulsion reaches a level of equilibrium with the drag in space.

Understanding your thrusters and throttle

For propulsion, your ship generates a finite amount of thrust. By default, the amount of thrust generated is determined by your throttle, and all of that thrust is directed out of the ship's forward thruster. The forward thruster (aka main thruster) is the most powerful thruster on the ship, and responsible for producing most of your motion. At 50% throttle, your ship will generate 50% of its maximum thrust and direct it all out of the main thruster. Ditto for 100%, or any other setting you chose.

In addition to your main thruster, you have four side thrusters (up, down, left, right) and a rear thruster for going backwards. Unlike your main thruster, these thrusters have modifiers that can reduce the thrust output by a certain percent, reducing their maximum output to a fraction of the main thruster. The size of the modifiers depend on faction and ship. Many fighters have all side/rear thrust output chopped by 50%, while interceptors have no reductions at all. In addition to the modifiers, use of side/rear thrusters diverts power from your main thruster. Despite these issues, use of your side/rear thrusters is necessary as you play the game.

You can manually engage your thrusters by using your thruster keys (default setting is on numpad). Using thruster keys overrides your throttle setting, causing the ship to generate its maximum possible thrust. It also causes all of the ship's thrust to be directed out of the engaged thruster (instead of the main thruster). In the case of a side/rear thruster, this means that the drag in space will cause the ship to begin losing forward motion (main thruster not engaged), as the side thruster moves the ship sideways. If two or more thrusters are engaged, the thrust will be split between your thrusters in such a way that both thrusters are expelling the same amount of thrust. Side/rear thrust modifiers are taken into account, so engaging two thrusters will always move you in the same direction as a ship with different modifiers. The speed of travel for a ship with lower modifiers will be significantly less, however.

Automatically engaged thrusters

While most pilots know how to manually engage thrusters, many pilots don't understand that a ship's side/rear thrusters will automatically engage in response to happenings in game. There are a few key differences. When thrusters engage automatically, they don't override the throttle, nor do they rob the main thruster of all of its power. All generated thrust is equally split between the main and side/rear thrusters. Unlike manual engagement, there is no need to turn a thruster on or off. They will engage and turn off as the situation dictates, unless you are manually engaging a thruster (auto-thrusting is disabled with a thruster is manually engaged).

One situation that automatically engages thrusters is vector lock. When you engage vector lock, your thrusters operate to maintain your current direction of motion despite the direction you are facing. This is why engaging vector lock and turning results in a loss of speed. Not only is power being taken from your forward thruster, but your direction of motion is being maintained by a less efficient side/rear thruster.

Changing throttle is another situation that engages thrusters. When you reduce throttle, not only does your forward thruster reduce output, but your rear thruster engages to help you slow more quickly. Cutting your throttle shunts all of your ship's power to its rear thruster, making you stop as fast as possible. Your rear thrusters engage whenever your speed is too high for your throttle setting. Incidentally, this means that a bomber's rear thrusters engage whenever it is rammed, working against the ram (see below).

Turning and the G-indicator

A common operation that automatically engages thrusters is turning. Turning engages your side thrusters to cancel your old vector, while your main thruster begins propelling you in a new direction. As a result, your speed drops (less forward thrust), your ship carves out a little arc in space. The G-indicator (shown as ( ) on the screen) points in the direction your ship is traveling, so its location (on screen or off) can give you a clue as to how close you are to completing the turn. When your G-indicator is centered, the turn is finished and your side/rear thrusters will turn off. How long it takes totally cancel your old vector (and get your G-indicator in the center of the screen) is a function of your agility, your acceleration, and how drastic your turn was.

There are some techniques that you can employ to turn more quickly, but first let's discuss acceleration and agility.

Acceleration vs agility

Acceleration is, among other things, a measure of how long it takes for your ship to change direction. Ships with high acceleration can stop on a dime, meaning that it takes their g-indicator very little time to align with the nose of their ship. Interceptors are a great example of a ship with high acceleration. As you know, what you pack in cargo greatly affects your ship's acceleration. Pick up LRM Aleph Resonator from space, and notice how hard it is to suddenly change your direction. The Expansion Complex provides two 10% increases to ship acceleration.

Agility is a measure of how quickly your ship changes its orientation in space (ie. turns). Ships with high agility can whip around much faster than their thrusters can change the ship's direction of motion. As a result, a ship with high agility can turn to attack a target before the negating effects of the ship's side thrusters makes it harder to aim. Agility upgrades can be found in the Supremacy Center.

For many ships, gentle turns allows the ship's acceleration to keep pace with its agility, allowing the g-indicator to stay consistently centered. With more drastic turns, a ship's agility outpaces its acceleration, causing your ship to move in an arc while the thrusters work to change your direction.

Boosting

Your ship's booster simply provides additional forward thrust at the cost of fuel. It is a "strap on" component, rather than an integrated part of your ship's thrust system. You can not divert booster-generated thrust through a side thruster, though Community Core does provide a "retro-booster" for scouts that generates backward thrust. The main purpose of the retro-booster is to augment the stopping function of the rear thruster, allowing scouts to stop quickly.

Incidentally, like manually engaging thrusters, holding down the boost key will prevent your thrusters from automatically engaging. This is true, even if you don't have a booster installed. This is a common cause of overboosting, because pilots will hold down the key too long (preventing their ship from decelerating). It is also much harder to steer accurately while boosting (since you're relying solely on your boosters and drag to cancel your old direction of motion), so changing direction to intercept a target may become difficult.

You can use this behavior to your advantage. A common trick is to hold down the boost key just before you start to ripcord. The ship will continue coasting forward for most of the ripcord sequence. If you are out of fuel (or reloading fuel), you can hold down the boost key to replicate vector lock. As long as you're not boosting, you can throw yourself in one direction and use the boost key to "slide" in that direction while you turn your ship to engage an enemy. This isn't quite like vector lock (the drag in space will cause you to stop), but it is a quick/handy trick for those who master it.

Applications to common problems in flight

Oversteering

As we discussed previously, turning engages your side thrusters to cancel your previous direction of motion, while your forward thruster propels you in a new direction. Yet, it is frequently helpful to you want to cancel your previous direction as fast a possible, trusting your main thruster to get your moving quickly in the new direction once you've stopped moving in the old one. A common scenario where this is the case is trying to dock/transfer as quickly as possible to meet some imminent threat.

You can increase the speed at which you turn by oversteering, or turning farther than you intend to go. When you oversteer, you use your ship's powerful main thruster cancel your previous vector, rather than your weaker side thrusters. While your main thrusters are working, watch for your g-indicator to appear, and track its motion. When the g-indicator is lined up with where you really want to go, immediately point your ship back towards the intended target (having good agility helps). As your g-indicator is now centered with the nose of your ship, your forward thrusters will fully engage and you'll gain speed very quickly. Boosters are of great help while oversteering, since the additional thrust will let you almost-instantly cancel your old vector.

Of course, the question of "how much to oversteer" is important. You typically don't want to oversteer so much that your intended target is off screen. It is important to know when the g-indicator is pointing in the right direction so that you can turn back. If you have a really good feel for your ship, you can get away with oversteering so much that your intended target is off screen. Don't try it when you're just starting out though.

I typically oversteer so that my target somewhere between the edge of the screen and half the distance from edge to middle. If I'm moving perpendicularly to an aleph, and want to boost through it, I'll turn so that the aleph is right on the edge, and boost until I see the g-indicator line up with it. I'll then stop boosting, turn back, and boost again.

Intercepting a target

Suppose you're a stealth fighter, wanting to intercept a miner traveling across a sector. Suppose you are an interceptor, wanting to unload on a bomber traveling across your screen. Suppose you want to chase down a scout that has been camping in your home. There are many situations where you want to meet up with a target moving laterally across your screen. Plotting an intercept course with a distant target is not a trivial task for a human. However, with a few easy tips, you can improve your chances of "crossing the t" of an enemy's target (to use naval jargon).

The biggest tip is to not aim directly for the target, unless you are moving very fast and are reasonably close (ie. almost in gun range). If you aim directly for a distant target, you'll end up always turning to keep the target in the center of your screen. Since turning engages side thrusters and reduces your speed, you'll consistently end up falling behind the target as you get closer to it. This is a decent strategy if you want to leisurely line up and take a shot at a bomber's nans, or settle in for the right moment to unload on a miner. In a time-crunch situation, however, falling behind the target means that you'll be playing catch-up just as a miner gets to safety or a bomber begins unloading abs missiles.

Instead, you want to lead the target. Precisely how much to lead is hard to say. What I typically do is put my target ship off of the edge of the screen and monitor its motion as range between us closes. As the range closes, the target ship should begin to work its way to the middle of my screen. If you're 1k from the target, and it is still off the edge of your screen, make an adjustment and turn a bit towards the target. If the ship is halfway to the middle of your screen and you're 3k away, make another adjustment and turn away from the target. You'll probably have to make little adjustments as the distance closes. That's fine. Minor, periodic adjustments won't hurt your overall speed that much. Peeking in f3 helps, if you can get away with it. Sometimes you can't, but it is a great help when you can.

Exploiting the forward thruster

It is frequently the case where you don't care exactly where you are going, so long as you are going fast. You might be a scout running away from a boosting interceptor, or a bomber wanting to travel vaguely in the direction of an enemy base. Either way, you can enjoy better results by manually engaging your forward thruster.

Recall that manually engaging any thruster causes the ship the maximize its thrust output, while also preventing any other thruster from auto-engaging. This feature can be exploited to make high speed turns without losing much speed. If you turn with your forward thruster engaged, your side thrusters will not try to cancel your old vector (and thus not divert any power from your forward thruster). The drag in space will allow you to still execute the turn, but it will take much longer. This is not something that I would try in the middle of an asteroid field: you stand a good chance of sideswiping a Helium rock (and entertaining the enemy). If you're at the edge of a sector and want to make a pursuer work harder to kill you, this the trick to use.

Your bomb/htt runs can also benefit from this technique. As mentioned above, your rear thrusters will automatically try to slow down a bomber/htt after it has been rammed. Holding down your forward thruster key will prevent this from happening, allowing you to maintain a higher speed for longer. It also prevents your side thrusters from trying to adjust from a wonky ram, letting you keep a higher speed at the cost of accuracy. The loss of accuracy is important to note, because even if you get really good rams, your bomber will be hard to steer with the forward thruster engaged. This is not a technique that I would use close to an enemy base, especially on an htt run. It also dangerous to use if the enemy has a skilled prox dropper. However, if you want to traverse an empty sector, or cover most of the distance to a base, this is a useful technique.

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