Velocity = 0, yet still moving?

Barberetti · Post by **Barberetti** » Sun Aug 21, 2011 5:30 am

Hi all,

A friend and I bought EM and are having a blast, but one small problem. Not sure if it's technical though, or just us noobs not knowing what we're doing, so I figured I'd post it in here first. When my friend tries to stop his ship, he can't. His velocity, speed and gravity readings are all zero, yet he's drifting about 30 metres a second. Is this some game setting that's causing this that we don't know about?

Viper · Post by **Viper** » Sun Aug 21, 2011 7:15 am

Welcome to the game and forums mate. Sounds to me like you're close to a gravity source, but then again you should have some kind of reading on your gravity gage I reckon. Can he see dust particles moving by when he's supposedly 'stopped'?

Nigel_Strange · Post by **Nigel_Strange** » Sun Aug 21, 2011 7:26 am

First: speed and velocity are the same.

Second: If the set velocity is zero, you could still be moving under inertia (if compensation is turned off).

Third: how does he know he was moving if all indicators say he was not moving?

49rTbird · Post by **49rTbird** » Sun Aug 21, 2011 1:03 pm

Hello Barberetti, Hop onto MP and we can help there also:). Welcome to the forum and the Sim. Have fun and hope to see you in Multi-Player sometime.

Barberetti · Post by **Barberetti** » Sun Aug 21, 2011 2:19 pm

Thanks for the welcome everyone

From post: 113134, Topic: tid=7902, author=Nigel_Strange wrote:First: speed and velocity are the same.

Second: If the set velocity is zero, you could still be moving under inertia (if compensation is turned off).

Third: how does he know he was moving if all indicators say he was not moving?

Sorry, Velocity, Set Velocity and Gravity are all reading zero. That's what I get for posting drunk

What happened was we were chatting on Skype and he said something like "How do you keep your position relative to the asteroids when you're mining them?", to which I replied that I hadn't found any moving asteroids yet so I hadn't had that problem. So, I ran a dedicated server and we both joined. I went to his position, ans sure enough he was slowly drifting through space, even though his Velocity, Set Velocity and Gravity were all set to zero. I'm pretty sure he said that he can see the dust particles moving as well.

He's on his way round right now as it happens, so I'll ask him, and mention to him about joining the multiplayer. I assume that's the Remula One server?

UPDATE: For some reason, the axis on his joystick that he was using for strafing was causing the problem. Disabling strafing in the joystick config stopped the drifting, so he's happy.

[Edited on 21-8-2011 by Barberetti]

MMaggio · Post by **MMaggio** » Sun Aug 21, 2011 4:18 pm

Some controllers can't find a zero position for strafing controls. Sometimes my Saitek shows slight movememnt forward even with the throttle at zero. Not really that uncommon a problem. Even the slightest current leakage thru a "pot" or control on a joystick can cause some kind of drifting or turning, that's why many offer a calibation program. It is easyly overcome.

Maarschalk · Post by **Maarschalk** » Sun Aug 21, 2011 7:09 pm

Hi Barberetti, welcome to the game and forum. Hope to see you out there some time..

Post by **DaveK** » Mon Aug 22, 2011 1:35 pm

From post: 113153, Topic: tid=7902, author=MMaggio wrote:Some controllers can't find a zero position for strafing controls. Sometimes my Saitek shows slight movememnt forward even with the throttle at zero. Not really that uncommon a problem. Even the slightest current leakage thru a "pot" or control on a joystick can cause some kind of drifting or turning, that's why many offer a calibation program. It is easyly overcome.

I'm (fairly) sure that in the set up screen you can alter the sensitivity of your joystick so that it doesn't register at "fully hands off" - my version of the problem was a slow (but sicky making) spin when I was supposed to be stopped

Welcome!

Tzukasa7 · Post by **Tzukasa7** » Mon Aug 22, 2011 4:21 pm

In this game much as in real life the physics of space flight are that momentum will continue to carry you forward even after your forward thrust is stoped since there is no air friction to slow you down. This is called inertia and in order to overcome it and stop moving in one direction you have to fire thrusters in the opposite. By default the game has the IDS (inertial dampening system) turned on which will do this counter thrust for you but it can be turned off and the thrusting controlled manually to allow you to slide sideways at say 100mps while moving say forwards at 500mps which makes you much harder to hit in combat. The key that toggles this is by default set to Spacebar and this is probably what your friend has hit causing these issues

If you have the 3d cockpit turned on then in the bottom left display of the cockpit just above fuel # you will see IDS or INERTIAL telling you which mode your ship is in and simply hit the spacebar key to toggle between the two. Its also a testament to just how much detail they have put into this game and how realistic the physics engine is as I had never seen true space flight in a sim b4 till I played evochron

Barberetti · Post by **Barberetti** » Wed Aug 24, 2011 1:20 pm

From post: 113153, Topic: tid=7902, author=MMaggio wrote:Some controllers can't find a zero position for strafing controls. Sometimes my Saitek shows slight movememnt forward even with the throttle at zero. Not really that uncommon a problem. Even the slightest current leakage thru a "pot" or control on a joystick can cause some kind of drifting or turning, that's why many offer a calibation program. It is easyly overcome.

Yeah, when he came round and told me he'd found the problem, it turned out that he'd spent a couple of hours playing with the calibration options in Control Panel, and the software that came with his stick (as well as within the game obviously), and in the end gave up and just disabled that axis. He's not the sort to give up that easily though, so I'm sure he'll continue to mess about with it until he gets it working how he wants.

Actually, knowing him, he may well just throw the stick in the bin and buy another one

It's a shame that I didn't think to ask him to check to see if the horizontal and vertical indicators above the radar were reading zero or not, otherwise we'd have realised what the cause of the problem was a lot sooner.

@DaveK - Yeah, I had the same problem with my stick, but then mine's a pile of garbage anyway so I wasn't surprised. Upping the deadzone a few notches sorted it out.

@Tzukasa7 - Nah, he'd already learned about the difference between Inertia and IDS mate. This was purely a calibration/hardware problem. In fact, he took the time to play the tutorials, unlike me who did my normal thing and just dived right into the game

.

Anyway, all sorted now so no worries. Thanks again for the input and welcomes everyone, much appreciated!

MMaggio · Post by **MMaggio** » Wed Aug 24, 2011 1:35 pm

I am surprised that he wasn't able to correct or compensate for it. Usually the drift is nominal and not really a problem.
I can't help thinking there is something else afoot.

BraveHart · Post by **BraveHart** » Wed Aug 24, 2011 2:38 pm

"Glad you have everything ship shape and now you can really have Fun...Welcome aboard Barberetti"