Page last updated 1 June 2022
This article takes a look a the flight model in Star Citizen and provides detailed information about how it works as well as what is planned.
Official Sources for the Flight Model
Official sources about the flight model are listed first for players to jump right to those documents. Here at SCFocus the aim is to provide Star Citizen fans with easy access to the "good stuff".
Flight & Fight - Upcoming Improvements - From RSI website June 17th 2020
The Principles of Flight - From CitizenCon 2948 (2018) - New!
Flight Model & Input Controls - From the official RSI website June 16th 2014
IFCS & Flight Physics Star Citizen Alpha 3.2 (PDF) - Google Docs June 26th 2018
Spectrum post IFCS Q&A - June 26th 2018
Important Caveats -> This information is subject to change as the flight model continues to evolve with the game.
Key Takeaways
Star Citizen's flight model aims to simulate the physics of spaceflight and space ships.
- Correct application of thrust at the places where thrusters are attached to the ship
- Inertia, mass changes and counter thrust are very necessary
- Ship & component damage affects flight
- Designed to offer a great PVP experience
- Simulates the physics that would involve controlling and moving a ship in space with no short cuts
- Star Citizen will be controller agnostic
- Intelligent Flight Control Systems (IFCS)
Current Status Of The Flight Model
Since the introduction of the new flight model there has been little refinement but it does feel like the some of the latency issues have been worked on.
It does feel like the end of the road is in sight for a great flight experience. There is still work left on atmospheric aerodynamics and pitch / roll effects.
Summary
The Star Citizen flight model continues to improve and be refined which is required for Squadron 42 release.
"This level of realism was necessary in order to deliver a flight control system that could be fully integrated with and influenced by the environment, damage states, changing mass distribution, power allocation, thruster placement, etc. IFCS is an emergent system, and therefore may be imperfect at times. But this mimics reality.
And finally, great effort has been made to limit spacecraft control to only the command pathways provided by IFCS. No player, AI or even IFCS itself will ever modify the position, velocity, rotation or rotational velocity of a ship directly, with the exception of initialization and network correction. This guarantees that all spacecraft control is consistent and the game will never have an unfair advantage over a player."
Source -> Flight Model & Input Controls