Lerk Flight Tweaks

twiliteblue

After watching so many newbies struggle to fly and glide with Lerk, I think the flight model could be more intuitive.

Having to hold the Jump key in addition to the Forward key to glide is rather superfluous, since ideally, the Lerk is always gliding, except for the brief moments before each flap. Reversing the Jump key state required for gliding is a simple change which would help new players dramatically.

A new feature added is One-Flap take off (no flap required when taking off from walls). Lerk can now glide without falling after flapping just once from the ground.

Currently, Lerk can change direction rather too abruptly while gliding by simply waving the mouse around. A short turning process is necessary for balance, to allow marines (of similar skill to the Lerk player) to track Lerk movement. (It should only affect Lerks when attempting to turn more than 90 degrees in less than 1/30 of a second.) The slowed turning effect is more pronounced when climbing (gliding) up, because I feel that the Lerk should not be converting diving velocity directly & instantly into upward velocity (which also causes the flight physics to feel buggy and unpolished).

Diagonal gliding (Forward + Left/Right) feels rather underused. A small increase to the strafing angle wouldn't hurt.

I have also increased Lerk "air control" when not gliding, to better match the agility of this hunter from the air. (Left/Right air control when not gliding should feel much more responsive. Try circle strafing in Crevice.)

There are a few other tweaks and balance changes added, such as Crouch key diving slows down horizontal speed. This is to reduce the power of players who are mainainting max speed while gliding without flapping, and to counterbalance the improvements to air control.

Here is the mod with the changes:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=341818680

Have a go for 10 minutes and see how well it flies!

Nordic

I don't like the sound of it, but I will try to give it a try in the following week.

Van_Tuz

The main feature of the mod (gliding state inversion) just adds more confusion. If you hold space - you're falling. I think that's very counter-intuitive. It would be better to just make lerk always glide. Or leave it as is if lerk gains an extra air control when not gliding.

However, i think that the current flight mechanics is quite easy to learn, so i'll take a neutral position in the discussion about how necessary these changes.

twiliteblue

@Van_Tuz Good point. I'm still trying to figure out if there's any point in having two possible flight state when holding Forward.

twiliteblue

I've reverted the Jump key state changes for now.

Nordic

I like it for the most part. I love the shift key air brake from remi.D. Minimum lerk glide speed from 4 to 5.5 was really nice and combined with the air brake I could see being strong.

Really the only thing that I noticeably was from the change: "-Gliding turning is no longer instant when climbing upward. This only slightly affects Lerk "pancaking", which was too easy and had very abrupt movement. Lerk can still zig-zag gliding downward to evade marine fire."

This was just on a listen server without real combat so it is hard to tell much.