Key Ramping is a liability for combat but nonetheless defaults to being on. It would be more newb friendly if it defaulted to being off and had a friendly toggle somewhere in the GUI.

(for those who don't know, /set doKeyRamp 0 will make your ship more responsive.)

+1 a radio on the control page where you select joystick/keyboard might be a good spot.... plenty of room to put controls in for all the other obscure/undocumented configuration options as well....

+1

The default key ramp rate is a massive detriment to a n00b in combat. I'd be willing to guess less than 20% of the playerbase even knows the control exists and can't figure out why the guy they're fighting can change direction so fast.

Default to 0 is a great idea. There's almost never a reason to have it higher.

Not only noobs it'd seem.

I have never had a reason to set it higher than 0. Make it standard and remove the ability to adjust as its not needed.

+1

I do see a reason for keyramp for new players. It is too easy to over correct steering without it. It should be on by default for newbs.

It should be an option in a configuration section.

Why don't we just make key ramp default on (1) and just do away with the command? Until this post I've had it on for years and it ain't so bad (although I do realize, now, that that's why I lost to some people pretty consistently). Makes people plan their dodge rather than use brute force strafe smashing for every bolt that's already in the air (or lack there of, in this case) or sticking to one prescribed pattern that's damn hard to hit.

Owners of nice joysticks can set their deadzone and ramping to be arbitrarily small. It wouldn't be fair to just force keyramping on keyboard users.

Which people do you expect that you will no longer consistently lose to now that you know to free yourself of this handicap?

Chaak is gonna tear ya up now, Maal ;)

I had no idea this existed. Now that I've turned it off I'm surprised it was ever on. I just assumed that slow ramp was the way the ship handled.

Haha, well I'm not completely sure about Maal as he probably has more experience without the key ramping, although a test is always appropriate ;) . The biggest difference I think is with flare users and cases where I need to maintain a very short distance (also applying to flare users, but also with some incompetent energy users that tend to be predictable at long ranges).

Hmmm, I didn't think about the joysticks...

And fluffy, there are some cases where it is useful... I'd suggest adding some kind of friendly slide bar in the "controls" menu and a tip about it in large, happy, unavoidable letters telling newbies about its function. Perhaps make the default "1" and in one of the training missions add a step that tells them about the command, having two buttons; one to keep the value the same and the other to make it "0".

Perhaps if the key ramp was applied to the steering functions only?

Yes to default off, opt-in.

No to making it compulsory.