on-foot movement feels "off"...
Initially posted to feedback and suggestions on Steam.
Dan2D3D linked me here to share it as well.
I will paraphrase my original stance.
The way your astronaut moves on the ground doesn't feel right, and the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that the root of this distracting sensory clash is momentum and inertia.
When you are on the ground in a gravitational field or mag-booted to a surface and move, you do not "begin to move" so much as "partially phase into an alternate universe where the resting inertial reference frame is 6m/s-" (or 3m/s if you have capslock on) "-in the direction you chose."
You do not accelerate. Your velocity instantly snaps to a new value for as long as you're holding W, S, A, or D.
One might thing that this "snappiness" would feel good and precise. One would be wrong, and here's why: Because there is no gradual acceleration or deceleration, your position jumps an arbitrary distance based on the raw calculation of how many milliseconds your computer subjectively detected the key being pressed. This is bad because there are a great number of variables affecting this subjective detection of time, not to mention the imprecision of human reflex.
There is no way to carefully nudge yourself into the right position for an optimal sightline for the purpose of placing components or aiming shots while on foot, because instead of your character accelerating from a halt to a target velocity over any short span of time whatsoever, they shunt forward at an immediate velocity as if they were entirely massless. No wind up to motion. It just doesn't feel right because nothing moves like this. Not even robots.
In short, all-or-nothing infinite/instant acceleration to a fixed velocity feels, in a word, brittle.
It produces on-foot motion that feels jumpy, twitchy, and imprecise.
In a game about Engineering, precision is a pretty big deal.
Now, perhaps an individual may feel as though it would be appropriate to consider this a matter of personal preference. Even if that point were to be yielded, there is as of present time no option extant to indulge any other preference.
All of this would be neatly amended with an option toggle either somewhere in the configs or bindable to a hotkey.
Otherwise, as things presently are, it is rather quite distracting every time I try to move.
I like this feedback
Well, keyboards are binary; trying to build analog response around binary input is always going to be a compromise. That's what proper analog input devices are for. It's difficult to balance even in games that already do this. (Ever played CONTROL? You could water house plants during the time the character spools up the transition animation between different walking direction. Super totally not frustrating when you happen to (accidentally or not) switch between movement direction keys. The whole game feels like a dream where you try to run at your fastest but don't actually make any noteworthy progress.)
Could bind it to Walk or otherwise a "Vernier" mode similar to how KSP realizes it for RCS: When disabled, full thrust is applied immediately and as long as the key is pressed. When enabled, max thrust is reduced and thrust also ramps up slowly as you hold the key, but still drops immediately to 0 when the key is let go instead of also ramping down.
In the meantime, you can replicate slower approach by walking at an angle where possible. Or use a mod such as the now-three-years-old Precision Thrust Control, https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2126789993, provided it still works for you.
Well, keyboards are binary; trying to build analog response around binary input is always going to be a compromise. That's what proper analog input devices are for. It's difficult to balance even in games that already do this. (Ever played CONTROL? You could water house plants during the time the character spools up the transition animation between different walking direction. Super totally not frustrating when you happen to (accidentally or not) switch between movement direction keys. The whole game feels like a dream where you try to run at your fastest but don't actually make any noteworthy progress.)
Could bind it to Walk or otherwise a "Vernier" mode similar to how KSP realizes it for RCS: When disabled, full thrust is applied immediately and as long as the key is pressed. When enabled, max thrust is reduced and thrust also ramps up slowly as you hold the key, but still drops immediately to 0 when the key is let go instead of also ramping down.
In the meantime, you can replicate slower approach by walking at an angle where possible. Or use a mod such as the now-three-years-old Precision Thrust Control, https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2126789993, provided it still works for you.
Also, https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers/pc/topic/ability-to-alter-the-acceleration-of-the-player-jetpack
Demonstrating not only how much Keen cares but also the community in general unless it's some stupid short-sighted hype feature like liquid water. Or a console port.
Also, https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers/pc/topic/ability-to-alter-the-acceleration-of-the-player-jetpack
Demonstrating not only how much Keen cares but also the community in general unless it's some stupid short-sighted hype feature like liquid water. Or a console port.
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