What does flying around as a ship provide that flying around as a disembodied POV doesn't offer? (I'm honestly curious, I've never 'played' SE with a ship before).

[quote="evildrganymede"]What does flying around as a ship provide that flying around as a disembodied POV doesn't offer? (I'm honestly curious, I've never 'played' SE with a ship before).[/quote]

I get a better sense of actually 'travelling' through space. You have to work to get anywhere so it makes getting places a bit more rewarding. That said it can be a little tedious if you're not in the mood for it, so I don't exclusively use ships. If you want to fly them realistically it takes a fair bit of work and mathematics. I'm terrible at maths so it's been a good educational experience for me and very satisfying. I also just like the 'cool' appeal of it. Are there really many things more completely bad-ass than flying spacecraft? I'd recommend trying it if you haven't already, if you've played KSP or have any familiarity with orbital mechanics then the learning curve will not be steep at all. The UI is a little clunky, but once you get used to it, it's second nature.

evildrganymede wrote:

What does flying around as a ship provide that flying around as a disembodied POV doesn't offer?

Flying SE ships is a different experience than just looking around, as Iamjackslameusername wrote. It took me some time to realize that flying in thin atmosphere with very low pressure is totally different from dense environments. First I thought it is some kind of a bug. I'd recommend to test flying on Earth first. Next thing is flying on low gravity selenas, or slow flying in general, where you use vertical thrusters and low thrust maneuvering, helicopter-like. Also interplanetary travels (without warping) is very much fun, getting to stable orbit, changing orbits, docking maneuvers, escaping gravity, and so on. Very much like KSP experience (I just must do the maths by myself ).

Actually atmospheric flight is not quite buggy, but is rather limited and simplistic. Ideally, when flying on Earth, especially with my novelty warp planes, you're not supposed to need to keep the hover thrusters on at all times just to maintain level flight. For example, FAA regulations prohibit airspeeds faster than 250 knots (420 feet per second, 129 meters per second), whenever a craft is below 10000 feet AGL, and every single modern airliner in the real world can fly just fine at that speed, under those altitudes, AND with flaps at 0. I think SE, either by design or by mistake, treats 1 bar at 1 g as if it were 0.1 bar at 1 g or 2 g. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do not remember if improvements to aerodynamic flight is planned, since SE is more for Space Stuff than Aviation Stuff.

SE uses simple analytical aerodynamics model with 11 numerical coefficients interpolated by splines. These coefficients are for MIG-29 (I think), taken from somewhere, it's impossible to remember the source now. The data tables are limited by the "forward" motion, ie attack angles in range -90°...+90°. This is why it goes crazy if you trying to fly backward.

It is possible to import data tables for other planes. I can make a function to load them from the file, so aerodynamics model can be customized/modded. Maybe these coefficients can be calculated for a custom ship mesh in some third-party software like X-Plane.

SpaceEngineer wrote:

SE uses simple analytical aerodynamics model with 11 numerical coefficients interpolated by splines. These coefficients are for MIG-29 (I think), taken from somewhere, it's impossible to remember the source now. The data tables are limited by the "forward" motion, ie attack angles in range -90°...+90°. This is why it goes crazy if you trying to fly backward.

It is possible to import data tables for other planes. I can make a function to load them from the file, so aerodynamics model can be customized/modded. Maybe these coefficients can be calculated for a custom ship mesh in some third-party software like X-Plane.

Crazy Aerodynamic at backward flight is annoying. Since SE's ships would land on surfaces by hovering.
Probably we may also need better aerodynamics at hypersonic flight since shuttles would have to do that when they are launching from/ entering to planets with atmosphere.

SpaceEngineer wrote:

It is possible to import data tables for other planes. I can make a function to load them from the file, so aerodynamics model can be customized/modded.

If it is not very complicated and you have enough time, please do it. Enabling customizable aerodynamic physics and limitations per ship is a great idea, that would push SE even more forward. Many thanx!

SpaceEngineer wrote:

SE uses simple analytical aerodynamics model with 11 numerical coefficients interpolated by splines. These coefficients are for MIG-29 (I think), taken from somewhere, it's impossible to remember the source now. The data tables are limited by the "forward" motion, ie attack angles in range -90°...+90°. This is why it goes crazy if you trying to fly backward.

It is possible to import data tables for other planes. I can make a function to load them from the file, so aerodynamics model can be customized/modded. Maybe these coefficients can be calculated for a custom ship mesh in some third-party software like X-Plane.

That makes a lot of sense, actually. Thanks!

Plus, only ships that have Aerodynamic set to true would actually need the more complex tables, so the MIG-29 data could be retained as the default for anything that does not have their own custom coefficients.

I'm a very big fan of piloting ships in SE.  After I learned how that is...  The flight school was a must!  Piloting ships gave way to a much more diverse way of playing SE.  I'm glad they're there.  It was mentioned in an earlier post, but I'll say it again.  It's one thing to be able to zip to anywhere in the known universe disembodied, but it's a much more rewarding experience to take off from Cape Canaveral, enter an orbit, transition to interplanetary space, enter a stable orbit around another celestial body, and subsequently land on said celestial body.  However, it's super frustrating to have SE crash, or speed up time to get a slower spacecraft to a destination in a timely manner, just to find out that your spacecraft or station that WAS in a "stable orbit" with almost no detectable eccentricity ending up either buried in the planet, or 31G light years away from it's original "stable orbit".  

Is there any elevator trim on those shuttles? It's a pain to pull up a little elevator constantly at supersonic speed using a kayboard or mouse.

I would really appreciate more focus on ships mechanics.
Mostly it is already in TODO list - and just a question, WHEN?