Pilot Archive

PYR: How fast you can make your starfighter turn

PYR Acceleration: How quickly the starfighter can stop turning in one direction when desired, and then start turning in another direction.

Those are in degrees i believe

Degrees per what? lol. Ok I keed, Degrees per second sounds about right... or does it? hmm I'll have to play around.

Not my flavor of math. I'm more of a digital/electrical guy. So maybe some one could help me out.

Engine has a Yaw stat of 71, chassis base stat of 200, how does that turn into the in flight V number? How do I figure out how to translate the engine stat, and the chassis stat into the in flight stat? And how would one figure the time to max rotational velocity? Hell is that even the right term?

There has to be some body with this kind of math fresh in their mind around here. Take me to school!

eh? 200?

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agent156 wrote:
Degrees per what? lol. Ok I keed, Degrees per second sounds about right... or does it? hmm I'll have to play around.

Not my flavor of math. I'm more of a digital/electrical guy. So maybe some one could help me out.

Engine has a Yaw stat of 71, chassis base stat of 200, how does that turn into the in flight V number? How do I figure out how to translate the engine stat, and the chassis stat into the in flight stat? And how would one figure the time to max rotational velocity? Hell is that even the right term?

There has to be some body with this kind of math fresh in their mind around here. Take me to school!

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71 tells you at what rate your starfighter can yaw at (for the sake of example lets call yawing rotating).

the units are in degrees/second i believe

what you are not told is what modifier to yaw and pitch you get at what speed.

All of the Pilot FAQs are in degrees measurements because YPR stats are listed in degrees when you look at the engines. Turn rates are dictated by the engines. Turn accelerations are dictated by the chassis. In addition to this, every chassis has a "corner velocity," i.e, a throttle setting at which the engine's maximum turn rate can be achieved.

Let's compare 3 ships and compare their turning characteristics with the same stat engine. For our example, this engine has a YPR of 80 degrees per second.

Jedi Starfighter: 600 degs per second squared. Corner velocity = 0.9 throttle setting.

At maximum joystick deflection to do a hard pitch-up turn at a throttle setting of 0.9, the JSF would take (80 degrees per second) / (600 degrees per second squared) = 0.13 seconds to hit its maximum turn rate.

Tie Advanced: 300 degs per second squared. Corner velocity - 0.9 throttle setting.

(80 degs per second) / (300 degs per sec squared) = 0.27 seconds to hit its maximum turn rate.

Tie Bomber: 50 degs per second squared. Corner velocity = 0.5 throttle setting.

(80 degs per second) / (50 degs per sec squared) = 1.6 seconds.

So, you can see why some chasses are "snappier" than others. Note that at their maximum turning rates, the Tie Advanced and Jedi Starfighter would make approximately equal radius circles because their corner velocities are the same. The Tie Bomber would be making a smaller circle because its corner velocity is 0.5 versus the 0.9 of the Tie Advanced and Jedi Starfighter.

The thing to be wary of is that the corner velocity isn't a simple point, but a curve. That is, the Jedi Starfighter turns very well from .55 to 1.00 throttle settings. The Tie Bomber would turn well from about .45 to .65 throttle setting. The Tie Advanced does well above .75 throttle, but can be a pig below it.

How do you utilize this data?

Imagine that you're in a Jedi Starfighter facing a similarly equipped (hah!) Tie Advanced. You'd use snap turns to put your nose on his tail (since he can't achieve maximum turn rates as fast as you can), and reduce your throttle so that your speed is lower to get him to overextend his flight trajectory into your kill zone.

Word.

Coran, thanks for the best explanation I have seen so far.

One more question: How do you calculate the "corner velocity" ?

You set your throttle in .1 increments from .1 to 1.0. Fix yourself on an obvious target (like a space station as a landmark) and time how long it takes for you to do 10 revolutions.

Message Edited by Coran_Sienar on 07-14-2005 10:04 AM

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Dragon942 wrote:

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TomoRainer wrote:

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Dragon942 wrote:
So am I understanding correctly that those numbers are accelerations and NOT rates? So It's just how fast the chassis can get to maximum rate, and the rate is determined soley by the engine?

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With the caveat of the chassis speed modifier, which will affect your maximum forward velocity.

There's also a chance that it gets applied to your PYR rates as well. I've heard that it doesn't, but the lack of documented tests combined with the counterintuitive notion that, if speed mods didn't apply to turn rates, a Y-8 at optimal throttle would turn just as fast as an A-Wing (given identical engines) has me thinking it could.

Message Edited by TomoRainer on 07-12-2005 07:35 AM

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Here is the problem I have(straight from the FAQ of course):

(Tier 4) TIE-Advanced: 80k Resources ~65k mass [SP: 2 Guns] 1 missile
[Spdx 1.0 Acc 40 Dec 60 Pitch 300 Yaw 300 Roll 150]

(Tier 4) Eta-2 Actis Interceptor (Jedi Starfighter): N/A Resources 90k mass [SP: 2 Guns] 1 missile
[Spdx 0.95 Acc 50 Dec 50 Pitch 600 Yaw 600 Roll 300]

First of, I can hardly believe that the JSF is twice as responsive (accelerating to rate) as the TIE-Advanced (as well as the Interceptor models and other 300 yp ships). But assuming I get over that, there is no way in hell its actual turning rate is twice as much. Not even close. This might make me believe that rate is based just on your engine.

But this is hard to beleive too, or, as you said, a Y-8 could turn just as well as an A-Wing at the proper throttle. So that can't be case either.

But the throttle thing brings up an interesting point. There is obviously a modifier based on your throttle percentage. So maybe there is a modifier scale. As in at X percent throttle, you can turn at Y percent of your engine's YPR, where there is a Y defined for every given X. And maybe this scale doesn't reach 100% on every craft (i.e. at the best throttle setting it might only be 30% for the Y-8) or might even exceed 100% for some.

Does that make sense when you think about all the ships and engines you've flown? If this is the way it works, it would unfortunetly be very hard to quantify the handling characteristics of your ship. But then again, I guess it is already.

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One thing I've noticed, is that the higher the PYR on the engine I put in my YT-1300 or Nova, the better they handle. It's noticable. With crafted MK5 engines in each, the one in the YT being solely experimented on PYR and the one in my X-Wing being solely experimented on speed (and the remainder into PYR), the YT-1300 actually has a better PYR rating in-flight than the X-Wing, and handles accordingly better. That is, I notice a much tighter turning radius on the YT at the appropriate throttle level (50-60%). The turning acceleration of the YT is noticably slower, but I find I can roll it over and make tighter maneuvers with it.

In each case, any ship I fly handles noticably better with EO3 running than without. With a high PYR engine and EO3 I could almost make Han Solo blush in my YT-1300.

My guess is that the chassis determines the baseline modifyers, but the engine itself (and it's overloads) contribute a lot to the actual performance. Nothing, however, seems to be able to make a B-Wing turn any better

Admiraljz: The engine does determine your maximum PYR rate. The chassis only affects the PYR acceleration. Read Coran_Sienar's great description of the difference between the two up above.

Coran_Sienar: Good post. One thing I think you are missing though is that I belive what is listed as the speed modifier in the FAQ affects the entire engine, including the PYR rates. Therefore the same engine in a JSF and a TIE Advanced will actually give a higher degree/second PYR in the Advanced because of the 1.0 vs. 0.95 modifier.