I noticed something the other day that I hadn't noticed before.

We all know that turning an Odyssey is like rolling a boulder uphill.

However, at close to 0 throttle, the Odyssey rotates pretty quickly. In fact, it seems like it rotates faster at 0 throttle than most other large ships.

What I found the other day is that if I tap R to disengage the throttle, rotate while it's coasting to a stop, then tap R again to throttle back up it actually turns pretty well. There's still coasting, but it's a small price to pay to turn the nose of this behemoth in the direction I want it to go.

Now this was in an exploration cluster. I have not tried this in space combat, but I hope to give it a shot very soon.

Brief disclaimer, I am also using the Breen impulse engine which may be affecting this. I'll have to switch to a "normal" engine and try again.

This works for all ships.

When you reduce your throttle (but not to 0), your turn speed remains constant while your forward thrust goes down. If you are relatively close to your target (i.e. in firing range), this translates to a huge reduction in time it takes to face your target. If you don't reduce your speed you will end up just "orbiting" it.

In combat, I actually spend the vast majority of my time at two speed settings (for all my ships): 1/4 impulse and reverse impulse.

Related note 1: Your engine power level also affects your turn speed. Directing more power to engines still helps, even if you spend most of your time at 1/4 impulse.

Related note 2: Spending your time at 1/4 impulse isn't without disadvantages, though. Speed = defense in this game, so enemy shots will land more often.

This is/was integral to "power sliding" KDF cruisers around in some situations. "I'm going that way but my cannons are pointing this way! PEW P-PEW!"

In addition, evasive maneuvers, the duty officers to reduce evasive maneuvers cooldown, attack pattern omega, and auxiliary to dampeners all give you varyingly nice levels of maneuverability.

For a while, on a bortaS (facing similar issues), I had one of each, giving me a maneuver buff almost all the time, if I wanted (though at the cost of cooldowns on other, vital, abilities).

Of the three, evasive is the most maneuverable, attack pattern omega is more all-around useful (stops movement debuffs, attack buff), and aux to damp seemed fairly weak for this purpose.

This has been done to me before.

I've practiced it, but have never used it in actual combat.

Yeah, I use it on my Excel', Bortas, Gal-X all the time. I still miss the old days when the tier 5 cruisers would go drifting in a turn if you did it right.

The thing some of you may not have realised is the OP is turning in Sector Space.

Now the thing is if you have Driver Coils skill you will turn better in sector space than you do in system Space.

And all ships seem to turn faster in sector space with 0 throttle than they do in System Space.

Also power sliding starships is always cool.

Yeah this is old news.

Sure, that could have been it. I've just never seen a ship at 0 throttle turn as fast as that before, unless it was an escort.