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Re: Side Slip and Barrel Roll

Not drifting.  A drift is like a cop slide.  

A sidesslip is lateral movement while the aircraft is facing and moving forward, similar to a crab walk.  The longitudinal axis remains parallel to the flight path.  Commonly used by atmospheric craft while landing (to align with the runway) or strafing targets.  It involves rudder input opposite of aileron. The maneuver is used in the movies by TIE fighters in cinematic dogfight scenes.   

I’ve been testing In practice mode and it doesn’t look possible.  I can’t get a ship to barrel roll either which requires similar coordinated input.  I’m not very far into the game, still figuring the mechanics  out, maybe it will reveal itself.

9 Replies

  • Yep, you don't have control over your laterals and vertical thrusters in this game, you can't do that. Squadron is not 6Dof (degrees of freedom) but only 3,5 dof (3rotations, and half a translation : forward only)

  • Elphaba's avatar
    Elphaba
    5 years ago

    @Gornosaurus

    1. Boost perpendicular to intended direction you’ll be facing when laterally strafing

    2. Engage drift mode

    3. Add rudder until you are facing 90deg to the direction of travel - lateral skidding

    4. Done.

    as for an aerodynamic side slip, 

    a) you’re in space

    b) there’s no up so no gravity pulling down

    c) there’s no wings to change aerodynamic flow

    d) such a manoeuvre is utter redundant and pointless in space, especially this kind of fakery Star Wars ‘flying’

    e) you sideslip to stay in a direction whilst losing lift to descend faster => utterly redundant here & in space.

    so you have no ventral or dorsal thrusters, so no up/down sliding, and no lateral thrusters so no strafing per se, but the EFFECT of strafing sideways is achievable as I outlined above.

    if what you’re wanting is a sideslip like you’d do in a light aircraft on high finals, then it’s utterly nonsensical in space, even with the George Lucas Star Wars flying. 

  • Elphaba's avatar
    Elphaba
    5 years ago
    @Gornosaurus Really? You’re basing this ‘canon’ on to 2dvdesktop game that’s forcing weird and mis-named moves to compensate for 3D?

    Look, sideslip ping in space doesn’t exist, it doesn’t even exist in movie canon. What you CAN do in space and in Star Wars i(though they never explicitly showed it) is have ventral and dorsal thrusters that move you up and down whilst still travellling forwards.

    In movie canon, there’s no need for that other than take off and landing because they are using fake aerodynamics to make it feel more like WW2 dogfights that most of the audience instinctively understand.

    Within SW:S there are no thrusters, so drift - LATERAL and LONGITUDINAL are all we have.
  • Elphaba's avatar
    Elphaba
    5 years ago
    @Gornosaurus And just so you know, the ‘talon roll’ is a Star Wars-y name for a fighter BFM move known as a Hi Yo-Yo.

    And you can do a hi yo yo in SW:S - I’ve done it many times and you don’t need thrusters, but because there’s no drag and no loss of energy in space, and in this game it doesn’t really do what it’s intended to do.

    Real BFM (fighter pilot moves) are based on ENERGY. You lose energy in the turn and when climbing. The hi yo-yo bleeds off energy that keeps you from overtaking a banking target.

    This means NOTHING in space!

    Why you’d use it (incorrectly) in SW:S is that pitch and roll rates are faster than yaw, so a high yo-yo can make for a quicker banking reversal.

    Please don’t try and use 2d miniature fakery mechanics in these types of games - it just won’t work.

  • @Elphaba wrote:

    @Gornosaurus

    as for an aerodynamic side slip, 

    a) you’re in space

    b) there’s no up so no gravity pulling down

    c) there’s no wings to change aerodynamic flow

    d) such a manoeuvre is utter redundant and pointless in space, especially this kind of fakery Star Wars ‘flying’

    e) you sideslip to stay in a direction whilst losing lift to descend faster => utterly redundant here & in space.

    so you have no ventral or dorsal thrusters, so no up/down sliding, and no lateral thrusters so no strafing per se, but the EFFECT of strafing sideways is achievable as I outlined above.

    if what you’re wanting is a sideslip like you’d do in a light aircraft on high finals, then it’s utterly nonsensical in space, even with the George Lucas Star Wars flying. 


    Sorry, couldn't let some of that slide 🤓.

    According to technical readouts in my Son's Official Star Wars vehicle cross-section book there are built in 'repulsor lifts' in the nose section of the T-65 / T-70 X-Wing and neck section of the BLT-A4 Y-Wing.  It appears to be on a gimbal and can vector.  The pseudo-sci-tech is common in many Star Wars universe ships throughout the guide.

    Repulsorlifts are low-maintenance antigravity devices.  Which explains how the Starfighters can do the low speed docking and landing maneuvers without the hilarity of the Austin Powers golf cart machinations.

    With regards to d) above, lateral movement in space combat is far from pointless.   Watch any of the combat scenes from the Expanse, BSG, or Babylon 5.  Each amazing interpretations. 

  • Elphaba's avatar
    Elphaba
    5 years ago

    @GornosaurusYet again you misunderstood.

    Of course canon movie ships have thrusters - as I said - just look at how they take off and land, BUT the combat scenes follow ww2 fighter aircraft and DO NOT make use of true 6DOF flight, like B5 or Battlestar’s fighter do.

    And again, I never said it was pointless in general, we’re talking about the fake-y Star Wars flying, and for that, then they are - during combat - useless; if Motive had implement 6DOF flight a) most people would struggle and b) everyone would be moaning that it’s not like in the movies.

    And let’s not forget your arguments were based on a silly desktop game, which in turn is based on forcing some knowledge of BFM into 2D; both of which mean nothing in spaceflight, and only some relation to Star Wars.

    You can’t argue both sides at the same time.

  • very true, but they do have gravity  engines( which is the actual slip or sliding drive) but its not as powerful as the thrust engines.

    This is what can do the turning while the thrusters send you sliding. which as you said is redundant and i agree, but its really the boosters that do all the work which is why I proposed and agree with no boosters for all , but a booster countermeasure component for all. 

    So you can slide with regular acceleration thrust which you can do as long as you have acceleration under max speed. But the closer you are to max speed the less your maneuvering advantage it form the acceleration.  Which is all increased along with max speed from the booster auxiliary component. 

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