Why I Love MM, Star Citizen's New Flight Model w/ @CaptainBerks

My thought's on the current version of MM, and how it effects the PU, combat, industry and more.

Do you hate MM? Why? Do you Love it? Why?

[driftnut]

Its just ridiculous that a ship manufacture would sell a ship that doesn't have enough power to have shields when in nav mode. Not being able to regen sure that's a balance / game move but no shields is nonsensical for in game law. Add to that no counter measures in nav and the massive lag to switch between mods is a punish.

[Stakargord]

1 practical issue is being a hauler who needs to traverse a distance in atmo towards a destination. The hauler now needs to choose between having markers or shields, but never both. - just a thought

[StarCitizenSpeakeasy]

They need to decouple it from the markers somehow so I can still see my markers when I'm in regular flight mode.

[scdude]

You want actual arguments? Here you go:

Master mode itself (the switching) is not the major source of complaint. It's everything that happens below 600 m/s, including the decision to split SCM into two: SCM speed and boosted SCM speed. Basically we have 3 modes (4 if you want to include landing gear down).


For flight below 600 m/s ("SCM mode") here are the issues:


Removing tri-cording has profound effects on flight. The glaring obvious mistake in the removal of tri-cording, is that the ship loses maneuverability just by flying forward.

If the game limits the total velocity-vector to maximum forward acceleration of the ship, you can't strafe to the sides while flying forward. This is why boosting still "feels off" and on rails.

Because you can't strafe to the sides while pushing forward, you are at a disadvantage vs. someone just drifting, as they can freely apply maximum strafes in all directions and be more evasive.

*So the game punishes the active player for flying forward. And rewards the passive player.*


The correct way to handle tri-cording, is to account for it in ship tuning and balancing, so it can be in the game without disturbing the intended balance of the ships. Tri-cording has always been a part of the game, but did not become meta since 3.14 flight model tuning.

In 3.10, the benefit of tri-cording was only 17 % vs. a whooping 35 % in 3.14. In 3.10, tri-cording was never an issue or necessary to use in the vast majority of combat. You will not find a single Spectrum post from 2021 where people complained about tri-cording.

Hence, my recommendation would be to lower strafe G for a light fighter archetype to maximum 8 G. Perhaps it would be even better with 6 G and leave strafes unaffected by boost.

To prevent the flight model to feel "slidy" or "drifting without intent", let the players have more retro thrust, so it's easier to stop the momentum of a ship. In 3.10 a Gladius had 6G unboosted retro and 12G with boost.

Since then we nerfed retro several times in the hope it would solve backstrafing. But the truth is, that the strong lateral strafes are much more to blame for backstrafing, as it's just a matter of sliding out of the circle with centrifugal force assisted with lateral strafes.

And really pure backpedaling should be solved through G-forces.


Get rid of space-drag boost. It serves no purpose and does not fulfill the design intention ("encouraging to close the gap"). In fact, it *punishes* the pusher by having them spend a valuable resource (boost) on top of the above designflaw of removing tri-cording.

One unified SCM/Boost space is the way to go. What the top speed should be is subject to testing. But between 400 and 600 m/s is reasonable range for testing.

[Angel-Six]

There are a lot of people who do not remember the change from 2.X flight modes to the 3.X flight model. Everyone was up in arms. Initially I was one of them, 2.63 was a really great flight model and was really fun. 3.0 was terrible by all measures, but it evolved and improved. I still find 2.63 to be better than 3.22, but so many people don't know any different. The fact that Master Modes is so fun now, I can only imagine how much better it will get as it evolves. People always resist change.

[murnurmurk]

The people complaining either haven't had enough time with it, or they're pissed they can't solo a hammerhead in a Gladius anymore

[lba]

I think countermeasures should be available in non-combat modes though

[CuuchCRUSHER]

CIG took away the ability to evade shots. This results in aim duels and DPS races.

[remix]

What OOO-62 wrote is so true, this is exactly my experience with Mm.

[klaric]

Didn't we have master modes several years ago? I remember having to switch to SCM and two other modes depending on how I'm looking to fly.

[Roboticus_Prime_RC]

Just wait until it's open to all backers and the griefers get their hands on it.

[TaldrenDR]

MM squishes the skill ceiling. Bad players love it because now they can do better. Great players hate it because they are riding the Ceiling knowing they are being held back.

[BestShifty]

The fights look good because you can actually see stuff and it´s not just zooming by.
There are some issues, it kinda feels like a dps race right now and so on, but those issues can be resolved.
I´m certainly having fun right now, much more as with the old system. That´s for sure.

[kevinm]

My beef with MM is how slow it is because its boring. The ones that like it are the ones that cant think fast enough to enjoy the competition of speed! AS for liking or disliking it I am holding my thoughts for now and need to put at least 60 hours into playing it before I can honestly have an opinion. Not fond of the additional modes. Like WTF, why do we need all these flight modes?

[DavidLimaGoncalves]

Master modes is focused on either dogfighting, or cruising. There's a 3rd aspect to this game, which is running away from a fight, or rather, fighting your way out of a fight. With this change (and I'm talking about the waiting times between mode switching and loss of shields and weapons in NAV), running away is far more punishing or near impossible. Which kind of forces you to stay and fight, or just give up.
And remember, a lot of people don't want the PvP aspect of the game. They acknowledge it exists, but at least they had a way to run from it (though unbalance in my opinion prior to 3.23). Now, it feels they lost that. Either stay and fight, or pretty much risk being blown out of the sky within the time it takes you to change modes and reach full speed.

[hirofortis]

I haven't tried master modes yet, but have a question. What's to stop someone from just one-shoting you when you come out of quantum at an OM? Your shields are down and without shields you are just a sitting duck. Is this the case or am I misunderstanding how the system works? The C2 for example takes FOREVER to get shields up in live. You would never be able to get shields up in time even if you turned on SCM right after you got out of Quantum.

[Spidder]

I think once they have tuned every ship to where it needs to be, MM will be good and people will get used to it. MM is pretty much here to stay so best thing we can do is just give feedback, rather than to argue against having MM.

[Mongoose_DK]

I'm not much of a racer, but racing in master modes is amongst the most boring things I've done in my life. It just lacks some excitement

[NoNo-fh]

Oh god I hope they don't meet everyone in the middle, that would flat soda. A compromised flight system would truly never please anyone.

[jeremyrockwell]

Yeah I don't see a problem with a mining ship not being the fastest tbh. It's supposed to efficient, not fast right?