Monday 25 April 2016

Red XIII's X-Wing Maneuver Guide Part 1

Picture the scene: you've barrel rolled and boosted Jake Farrell into a perfect range 1 Procket shot on that pesky shuttle (bye, bye Palp!) Fantastic! You win! Although... wait... through all that excitement you failed to notice the presence of a rather large rock that is now a bit too close for comfort and with Soontir looming into view you need all the actions (and remaining hull) possible to make your escape!
You could do a hard one left and most likely stay out of Soontir's arc BUT, will you end up on the rock?
Decisions like this make or break a match of X-Wing and to be able to confidently say "Hard one left! Out of arc!" will more often that not win you that engagement, if not the whole game.

*** Disclaimer ***
I'm pretty sure I can’t be the 1st person to put together something like this. However, I've tried throwing a few search terms into Google and never had much luck so for everyone else in my boat here it is:

Red XIII’s X-Wing Maneuver Guide


A special thanks goes out to Vassal (where I spent ages getting the screenshots). I couldn't have done it without you buddy!

Straights


Well, to be fair, if you are here, you probably already know your way around straights but here are a few screen shots anyway.



Small Base Ships


1 straight = 2 base lengths of movement

2 straight = 3 base lengths of movement



Large Base Ships


1 straight = 1.5 base lengths of movement

2 straight = 2 base lengths of movement


Please note, throughout all the large ship diagrams, I have related everything to a large base. Where the movement of a small ship doing a 1 forward would be 2 small base lengths (referred to as 2 base lengths in the pics), a large ship doing a 1 forward would move 1.5 large bases (referred to as 1.5 base lengths in the pics) The reason for this decision was to help with eyeballing moves within the game. If you're moving a large base ship, it makes sense to use that base as a reference point.

Got that? Then let's move onto the more difficult stuff.



Turns

Turns are the second easiest maneuver to visualise. All turn maneuvers, regardless on speed, will turn your ship 90 degrees. There are, obviously, some intricacies (it would be a pretty boring game otherwise, eh?) for example, a one hard turn doesn’t move you one base forward and one to the side, we are now getting into the realms of half-base, quarter-base and third-base movement.

All of these go by the formula:
Lateral movement = forward movement
If you go 0.9 base lengths left, you will also go 0.9 base lengths forward. Simple!

One very interesting thing I came across whilst doing this is the one hard turn for large base ships. Everybody says that when you one hard turn with a large ship your base ends up still inside the corner of where it was previously. Have a look at the screen shot that depicts that. Yes, agreed, it does overlap itself BUT not half as much as I had imagined it would.

Previous to doing this post I would never have done a one hard turn when next to an asteroid or other ship but armed with this knowledge, I am much more likely to do something like that.


Small Base Ships



1 turn = 1.2 base lengths of lateral and forward movement

2 turn = 2.1 base lengths of lateral and forward movement

3 turn = 2.8 base lengths of lateral and forward movement


Large Base Ships


1 turn = 0.9 base lengths of lateral and forward movement

2 turn = 1.25 base lengths of lateral and forward movement

3 turn = 1.6 base lengths of lateral and forward movement


And here's all that info in a bite size chart for your convenience!






Banks


Potentially obvious, but any bank move, regardless of speed will turn your ship 45 degrees. The difference is how far forward and how far to the side. Honestly, they are a pain to visualise so hopefully this section will help with that. 
Almost all of these go by this formula:
Lateral movement times 2 = forward movement

Almost all of them… the 3 bank on a small ship doesn’t follow this rule. According to my calculations (and you can see them on the pic below) a small ship doing a left 3 bank will go 4.2 base lengths forward and 1.9 base lengths left… my question to you all is this: WHY???

I have been sitting here staring at these screenshots for what feels like hours. I can’t work it out. Am I being blind? The large base 3 bank follows the formula so why doesn’t the small base one? Please somebody put me out of my misery with this and tell me where I’ve gone wrong (or tell me I haven’t gone wrong and this is just a crazy quirk in the maths of the game)

Anyway, here are the pictures.

Small Base Ships


1 bank = 1.2 base lengths of lateral movement and
2.4 base lengths of forward movement

2 bank = 1.6 base lengths of lateral movement and
3.2 base lengths of forward movement

3 bank = 1.9 base lengths of lateral movement and
4.2 base lengths of forward movement


Large Base Ships


1 bank = 0.9 base lengths of lateral movement and
1.8 base lengths of forward movement

2 bank = 1.1 base lengths of lateral movement and
2.2 base lengths of forward movement

3 bank = 1.3 base lengths of lateral movement and
2.6 base lengths of forward movement

 And another table!



I've been asking myself this question: Is the knowledge we are gaining from this experiment/article/blog post worth it? How am I going to use it to "fly better"?
The answer to the first question is (for me) yes, it's definitely worth it. During the time I've been working on this stuff (a few weeks maybe) I have noticed a difference in my flying, I know where a 5K is going to get me and I will do it in the full knowledge that I'm not going off the table. Asteroids and debris have been much less of a worry for me now I can make and educated guess where a 3 bank will put me. As for how to use this info, I think there are 2 schools of thought, either, approximate the whole shebang (i.e. round up the numbers and remember the formulas - lots of "just over a base length" or "just under a base length") OR print out little tables like the ones above and use those for reference. I usually fly all small ships or two big ships so you would only need one set of tables if you are doing the same... 


Anyway, I'm going to leave it there for the time being, my brain if fried and if you've managed to take all that in then I'm sure your's is too. I will write up part 2 in the very near future which will deal with range and using our knowledge of movement and range to get out of some sticky situations!

Until then; Red XIII signing off!



4 comments:

  1. This is great! This confirms what I suspected... Ie: ships go forward more than I thought in turns and banks! Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. With regards to the issue have you tried measuring the lengths not in Vassal but with the real templates. Maybe it's a Vassal error!

      Delete
    2. No, that's a fair point. I might try and get the mat out tonight and use some real ships and bases...

      Delete
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