ESF Agility Comparison Redux

Previous thread, by Faint: http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/esf-agility-comparison.66723/

I did some testing for myself and wanted to share the results. They might surprise you, or not. All tests are done with a completely stock ESF on a freshly made test character.

First up, yaw speed. I recorded a 360 degree yaw using a landmark in the game world for reference then counted the number of frames it took using vdub. The video for this and the tests to come can be found here if you want to look yourself: http://www.mediafire.com/?vg9okqmcvdc2r

Scythe: Yaws 360 in frames 112 to 771, 659 total frames, 21.97 seconds.
Mosquito: Yaws 360 in frames 748 to 1427, 679 total frames, 22.63 seconds.
Reaver: Yaws 360 in frames 427 to 1106, 679 total frames, 22.63 seconds.

This surprised me because in Faint's results the scythe yawed considerably slower than the reaver and mosquito. Perhaps something has changed in a recent patch.

Next, maximum pitch rate or 'turn speed'. I recorded a 360 degree pitch at full throttle and counted the frames, again using a landmark as reference.

Scythe: Pitches 360 degrees in frames 763 to 914, 151 total frames, 5.03 seconds.
Mosquito: Pitches 360 degrees in frames 221 to 372, 151 total frames, 5.03 seconds.
Reaver: Pitches 360 degrees in frames 560 to 711, 151 total frames, 5.03 seconds.

Funnily enough the ESF all have very similar maximum pitch rates, consistent with Faint's results. But then what could possibly account for the often heard opinion that the reaver is sluggish? Read on.

Next I tested the pitch rate acceleration, or how quickly the esf can pitch starting from a standstill. I used one of the three giant warpgate bubble holder upper things as a measuring stick. This thing:


I lined each esf up straight and level, then pitched up and looked at each frame to compare. Below you can see from top to bottom, frame 0, 1, 4, 9, and 15. The bottom picture at 15 frames being how far each esf pitched after half a second. Left to right is scythe, mosquito, reaver.


As you can see the scythe comes in first having pitched the greatest distance from a standstill in the half second, and so having the greatest pitch rate acceleration. The reaver is last, and the mosquito in the middle. How much of a difference this really is and how large an impact it has on combat I leave up to you to decide.

Last of all, something I know greatly impacts an ESF's ability to fly low is the inertia. In other words the tendency to slide around corners. I had made a video and image some time ago for another thread about this that I will repost below. (thread here: http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/why-the-scythe-is-unbalanced.77201/ )



It can be hard to notice, so I attempted to draw the difference.


This may or may not have a great impact on dogfighting, I haven't really considered it in detail myself. Though it would seem common sense that it makes the scythe harder to aim at because it can more suddenly change direction, and so change the spot you need to aim at to lead your fire against it. The main impact I know it has is on flying very low, weaving between tree trunks and through amp stations and the like. I count the scythes low forward flying inertia as a great bonus to overall 'agility' myself, as I love to fly low.

It's important to note the inertia when flying forwards is a separate thing to the inertia while in hovering mode, strange as that sound it is true. The scythe conveniently gains a great amount of inertia when it goes into hover mode.

Concluding, I think the most interesting thing here is the discovery that the scythe has the fastest pitch rate acceleration. Another fact to put behind 'It feels the most agile'.

It would be nice to have the values instead of playing guessing games and conducting mad scientist experiments.

Did you test the pitch both up and down?

No, lol. Now that you mention it I think I might have to. I'll just test the max pitch rate and if it's the same I'll assume the pitch accel is too.

I always pitch down for a sharp turn. I'm not sure if it happens faster, or just slows the plane more, or what - but it feels different.

Also, powersliding the reaver is actually kinda handy. Just... yeah, probably not near objects.

Ok, time to pitch down 360 degrees for each esf:

Scythe: 151 frames total, 5.03 seconds.
Mosquito: 151 frames total, 5.03 seconds.
Reaver: 151 frames total, 5.03 seconds.

Exactly the same, so I won't worry about using pitch down.

There's definitely something to it, it puts the strong vthrust on the inside of the turn which I sometimes want and sometimes don't. Something about how it works out with aiming at ground targets too I think.

All this does is confirm what every Reaver pilot has known for a while.

Yeah, I don't think you can easily classify inertia as a good or bad thing globally. Sometimes you want the inertia to let you continue a maneuver while you're adjusting aim, and sometimes you want the faster response to expand the reaction time window. Another good example of useful inertia is the Reaver's old beta afterburner coasting, where you could just pulse the afterburner every now and then and wind up going at nearly-full AB speed for ~4x the usual AB duration.

Good find on the pitch acceleration difference. I may have to try to exploit that with a non-rolling Rolling Scissors sort of inside weave.

If nothing else the name will be apt considering you are flying a large purple pair of scissors.

They're frakking toasters!

I do wonder where the perceptions of poor response come from. Is it the drift causing a sensation of "loose" handling and sluggish response?

Probably from people who try to fly like a conventional jet.

Another thing with reavers, I swear they take longer to enter/exit hover-mode (compared to mosquitoes anyway), so while you want to be careful not to get stuck in it trying to escape sudden flak, it's amazing for everything I want to do while flying with v-thrust. Which is actually pretty close to just 'everything'.

For me, it's really always been the acceleration/deceleration. Reavers are very slow to start moving and are very slow to stop moving. This makes slowing for a turn take more time, meaning the turn itself takes more time. It also makes quickly zooming away take more time (unless you use AB). To me, this is a fundamental issue. The Reaver exhibits very minimal mass when turning ("low inertia") relative to the mass it appears to have when stopping. The time it takes to stop the Reaver should mean I can do absolutely ludicrous aerial acrobatics (drifting in the sky, doing a 180 and moving backwards at extreme speed for a long time) as well as gaining absolutely phenomenal dive speed and energy retention for extremely fast BnZ (boom and zoom - fixed wing combat tactic). Instead, the Reaver gets all of the disadvantages of high mass, while receiving none of the disadvantages.

Also, as LameFox said, the Reaver used to have an extremely long transition time between hovering and flying - however, I think it has been reduced quite a bit now.

Also, OP, would you be able to do a comparison of the pitch and yaw at max flight speed (no vertical thrust or AB though)? I'm interested to see if the aircraft handle differently at high speed, but I imagine it could be more difficult to conduct such a test.

I didn't quantify the pitch acceleration so it'd be almost impossible to compare the results. I could do yaw I guess, but I'm pretty sure the ps2 flight model wouldn't do anything like change handling at speed. It just seems too.. stupid.

This. If you want to come to a full stop flying "ordinary" with a reaver you have to hit the brakes for like 15 seconds or something like that. It feels like it will never stop. Gets even more prominent if you have racer 3.
The only way to break at an almost acceptable level is to pitch up and use your vertical thrust.

I think if VS would get "blessed" with reaver breaking power right now, they would all crash into obstacles/their targets for a whole week

If this is all correct, the obvious problems with the reaver were transitions in between hover and go or acceleration/brake or pitching accel.

Clone all ESF already, might as well, they are all almost at the same values, once we know all ESF are clones, not one person will dare whine about ESF, except for weapons that is and hit boxes, lol.

Btw, pixel, try a hover test to see the values and a brake test.

To do this put the ESF's to hover at a certain altitude and 0 speed, then watch them sink and time it.

To test brakes go from max speed to hover while holding brakes and time it.

I wanna see those values.

Your wish is my command:
http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/esf-deceleration-comparison.72077/
http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/hover-airframe-testing.69547/

Yeah but a bit more up to date since they seem to have changed the values without saying anything.

I'm not sure about that, I think Faint's video of scythe yaw speed just glitched out. You can see it in the youtube there and he says as much in his post.

You also forgot the mosquito on your hover test.

You should stablish the full values of everything into one thread to see where everything stands, if you feel like it that is.

Scythe has best Vertical thrust.

Reaver has best stationary vertical thrust.

So no, Reaver is not the best with flying with V thrust. It's the best at staying still and getting shot out of the air by AP rounds while V thrusting.