I heared that the ability was there but you just have to put assign the keys manually... don't ask me how.

If I had a nickel for every time someone told me that my idea for melting down coins to make a giant robotic parrot was a bad idea, I would have one kicka$$ giant robotic parrot.

At the controls screen, assign "auto-level" to a button. Then you can toggle it on/off. This mimicks barrel rolls.

"At the controls screen, assign "auto-level" to a button. Then you can toggle it on/off. This mimicks barrel rolls."

No it doesn't... Do you even know what a barrel roll is?

Hengist.

I know not having barrel rolls seriously limits my ability to do other combat moves. It sucks. Spent hundreds of hours playing Jan Eyres Isreali air force learning them too :p

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Yeah, I know what a barrel roll is.
I only wrote down the exact sentence I found when conducting a search for it.

If anyone could find out how to assign a key to barrel role it would be very helpful I think. It comes in very handy for dodging out of the way of missiles and other projectiles. Found this out playing X-Tension.

Spinning around on your center axes is NOT a barrel roll. In an airplane a properly done barrel role will maintain one gee and the plane will never know it was rolled. You cut an arch in the air by lifting your nose first and then rotating the aircraft. So hitting the auto-level key doesn’t simulate a barrel role.

Barrel rolls are useless without a joystick. Mice and keyboards were simply not designed to accomodate them. Since we can't use joysticks, there's no point in barrel rolls.

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Rockets: $100,000
The look on that pilot's face when you launch a full pod of screamers up his tailpipe: priceless

Sweep your mouse pointer in a big circle and the lighter fighters will move in the same manner as a plane doing a barrel roll. They keep the same direction up, but they are still rotating around a cylindrical plane as they go forward, if that makes sense. That's one of the ways to throw off opponent's aim.

Remember, though, that most dogfighting techniques rely on both gravity and atmosphere. Immelman turns and split-esses aren't going to translate into outer space. But there are OTHER techniques you can use in outer space that you couldn't use in an atmospheric flight sim. Such as cutting engines, rotating around, and firing at the target behind you.

It's a different environment. Adapt instead of complaining

Actually, I think that even with the mouse, being able to roll would be a big help. The pilot in me wants to nose up into a turn, not nose down into an inverted loop.

Does anyone know if it is possible to default to engines disengaged? I never use them -- it's either thruster tapping or cruise engines.

Barrel-rolling would be awesome for defeating gunfire. We are talking about changing directions in three different axes simultaneously (roll, pitch and yaw)-- Very difficult to track to put a constant stream of gunfire on such a target.

Not being able to do that doesn't make it "useless." It's the interface that's useless if it doesn't allow you to do it.

Funny thing is, I thought I saw NPCs do barrel rolls and couldn't but help think, damn, why can't I do that too.

I have seen npc's do barrel roles. There just taunting us, the game makers are just sick and enjoy this torture. Even with the physics of space using thrusters mounted on key points of the ship you can do any atmospheric combat move you like. Playing microsoft space sim taught me that one.

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Agreed... I remember back in the 1960s when Aviation Week and Space Technology interviewed John Glenn, he said it's better to program a spacecraft's reaction control system to fly like it's in atmosphere if it has to maneuver violently.

Rather than yaw-to-turn like these space games, which in real life would exert lateral Gs on the pilot and smash his head into the sides of the cockpit (OUCH!), it's better to roll-and-pull to turn during violent maneuvers, just like in atmosphere, in order to keep the Gs in the pilot's relative "down" direction which is more easily tolerated.

Yes -- negative and lateral Gs hurt. The zero-g environment only makes it worse, because when thrust is applied, you're going from zero into the negative that much faster.

Has anyone watched Cowboy Bebop? There are some excellent dogfighting scenes on just about every episode, and the pilots are always nosing up through the turns. The controls they use on the show are pretty cool, too. Motorcycle grips controlling roll and pitch, with thruster control on the right hand accelerator, plus rudder pedals on the floor for yaw.