ABSTRACT: The new flight model changes have resulted in an "on-the-rails" experience that has made maneuvering choices largely irrelevant. In the present state, nearly all skill expression in the flight model is via aiming. This is tremendously unhealthy for the game as it lacks depth and "replayability". As flight is the cornerstone of Star Citizen, I believe this issue is of paramount importance and that the design directors at CIG need to promptly rethink their approach, posthaste. In the new flight model, fighter-archetype ships are unable to exit the cone of vision / cone of fire of their opponents; this yields a flight model where maneuvering is unimpactful. The inability to take and hold an advantageous position against an opponent for a usable amount of time has substantially lowered how enjoyable flight combat is. The ability to infinitely extend from a target has not been addressed and "kiting" retains a significant advantage over offensive play styles that involve closing distance. Speeds are so low that it is nearly impossible to make mistakes when attempting to merge onto a target; this has created a substantial issue for group combat where it is prohibitive, and outcomes are deterministic where results are consequences of numerical advantages with little potential for individual actions to be impactful. I hope to demonstrate these issues, and possible solutions to the audience. I will attempt to reduce the rigor level and keep the post as concise as possible; several concepts may be confusing to the uninitiated: I will do my best to explain concepts to those who want to learn. These concepts are frustratingly difficult to put into text format; it is significantly easier to explain them in live fights in-game or diagrams. CIG's Goals with the Flight Model Rebalance: It is my understanding that CIG's goals with the flight model redesign are vaguely: Bring fights closer Make flight more intuitive and/or lower the skill floor Improve hit registration Fix undesirable behaviors such as wiggling While these are valid and admirable goals, CIG's methodology in achieving some of these goals has resulted in a less engaging experience. Why Maneuvering Is UnImpactful: In this section I will go through various changes between the new and prior flight model and their related consequences. Acceleration Profile: In the previous flight model, a rectangular, cuboid acceleration profile was utilized. The present acceleration profile, which is often described as an "inverted egg" or an "apple" shape was utilized by CIG as a range control system via the principles of uniform circular motion and has resulted in combat occurring in a "range band". While, at first glance, this may seem a success on the grounds of Goal #1, the resulting consequences largely outweigh the benefits. Changing the acceleration profile to a forward-centric model has resulted in restricted lateral movement which prevents a pilot from exiting the cone of vision of an opposing pilot, often referred to as a bandit. Maneuvering becomes significant when you are able to utilize it to gain positioning advantages over an opponent; simply "wiggling" about in front of an opponent to attempt to dodge shots--this does not work against highly skilled opponents--is not engaging gameplay and yields a very shallow experience for veteran pilots. The insignificance of maneuvering is a consequence of the new "egg" acceleration model; it has two major shortcomings: vectoring, and a mismatch between player and bandit acceleration profiles. On the topic of vectoring, most players inherently hold forward throttle until they have become more experienced or receive training in flight. Most players are unfamiliar with orbiting and uniform circular motion and make the mistake of misunderstanding that forward throttle results in tangential movements when orbiting a set point between the bandit and themselves. The egg shaped flight model worsens this effect at best, and at worst it has created a situation where an opponent becomes impregnable whilst making the most elementary and textbook mistake (over-throttling) due to the extreme amounts of tangential vectoring that they are inputting. This creates stale orbits where maneuvering is dampened by the strong tangential inputs; it makes combat feel unengaging and entrapping. The tangential acceleration is so strong that a ship cannot create enough lateral movement to flip the orbit, or attempt to contest the positioning. Any attempt to give the player enough lateral acceleration to create significant centripetal force and overcome the stale orbit would result in a change of the acceleration model shape that CIG seems unwilling to relent on. A second issue is that it makes positional takes nearly impossible. The egg shaped model prevents maneuvering out of an opponent's cone of vision. It does so due to the vectoring options that are available to both a player and a bandit as a player attempts to maneuver their ship perpendicular to the bandit in order to gain an advantageous position. If you look at the acceleration models in this position, with a player shooting into the spine of an opposing bandit, the player has no option to contest the vector of the bandit's forward throttle. This results in resources being used to take a position yielding no reward as the bandit simply holds forward throttle and leaves; there is no option to utilize maneuvering skills. In reality, it is nearly impossible to even achieve a perpendicular position due to the restriction of lateral movements in orbital flight geometry as was discussed in the previous paragraph. In conclusion, the acceleration model changes have created a "range band" in which, while fights may be occurring closer on average, experienced pilots are being forced to fight at longer distances due to the restrictive nature of the acceleration profile. The cuboid model employed by the previous flight model had no such issues and resulted in a more enjoyable experience. In the previous flight model it was possible to reverse orbit direction, and make meaningful maneuvering choices that resulted in positive or negative consequences. Equivalence: CIG has sought to control fight ranges and kiting with the acceleration model changes. This is impossible. If you take two ships with a perfectly circular acceleration profile, let's say they can accelerate at 10G in every direction. It becomes readily apparent that any input a player does can be cancelled by an opposing input by a bandit, thus making it so a player cannot close distance. What is NOT so readily apparent is that the same rule applies to any acceleration profile. There is always an escape vector, there is no way to tune this out via the flight profile. CIG's attempt to reign in this behavior with the egg shaped flight model has sacrificed far too much in terms of playability. CIG, you have to solve this issue with a secondary control system. It cannot be done with the acceleration profile or speed limits. I recommend a targeting system that restricts acceleration along negative delta vectors based on distance. As high acceleration, negative delta maneuvers are valid at close ranges and essential to positional play, I recommend a bubble of ~175m where no acceleration penalties are applied and then applying X % per meter of distance gained, relative to the current target. As distance increases, acceleration along vectors away from your current target decreases and thus pilots are encouraged to stay close. Should they choose to extend, they may do so, but with the consequence of lowered acceleration and thereby lowered maneuvering efficacy--this also solves your wiggling problem to a certain extent. If a player wants to run, they have to drop target, forgo the ability to deal damage and voila, they have their full acceleration with which to maneuver away from an engagement. Balance the hard burn running with missiles. I'm sure there are other secondary control systems that could be used to a similar effect, this is just the one I have imagined and though through. Speeds are too Low: The severe reduction in speed has resulted in the skill check in merging being essentially removed. The consequence of this is that team fights are now inescapable tar pits where numerical advantage is deterministic. This is not fun and engaging gameplay as individual action and effort are not rewarded and the experience feels disempowering and RTS-like. While numerical advantage should be a significant factor, it should not be the sole deciding factor in gameplay. The inability for bandits to make mistakes and be isolated from their wingmen has resulted in very little maneuvering skill being expressible in a team fight scenario. The speed cap also contributes to the inability to achieve and advantageous position on a bandit as you often hit the speed cap before you are able to complete a positional maneuver and therefore stall mid-attempt. This removes a wonderfully fun meta-tactic from your game and is significant reason why the flight combat feels so uninspiring. You cannot simply lower acceleration to extend the time to reach the speed cap as a fix, as accelerations--at least for Light Fighters--have to be kept to a high enough value that mistakes can be made. Lowering acceleration would simply result in a similar consequence as the speed changes; skill would become inexpressible and therefore individuals would feel as though fights are deterministic. Why CIG has Failed to Achieve Many of their Goals: While fights are occurring closer on average, experienced pilots are being forced to fight further away. Flight has become more intuitive but the skill ceiling has been lowered far too much during the attempt While lower speeds have resuled in better hitreg, the consequences to maneuvering significance has broken the game Undesirable behaviors such as wiggling or kiting have either remained untouched or worsened