You're drifting. Literally. If you’ve spent any significant time in No Man’s Sky, you know that the flight model has always felt a little bit like driving a car through thick syrup. It’s reliable. It’s safe. It’s also kinda boring once you’ve done it for 400 hours. Then Hello Games dropped the Orbital update, and suddenly, NMS flight assist off became the thing everyone had to try, even if it meant smashing their favorite S-Class interceptor into the side of a space station at Mach 1.
The toggle is tucked away in the Starship settings, and flipping it changes everything about how your ship interacts with the vacuum of space. Most games—and NMS is usually no exception—cheat. They apply a "counter-thrust" the moment you stop pushing the stick forward. In the real world (or real space), that’s not how physics works. If you move forward and let go of the gas, you keep going. Forever. That’s the "Newtonian" dream that NMS flight assist off finally lets players touch.
It’s messy. It's frustrating at first. But honestly? It’s the best thing to happen to dogfighting since the game launched in 2016.
The Drift: Understanding NMS Flight Assist Off Mechanics
When you disable flight assist, you aren't just steering a ship anymore; you’re managing momentum. Think about it this way: with the assist on, your ship points where you look. With it off, your nose can point at a pirate while your entire ship continues to hurtle sideways at five hundred units per second. This is the "decoupled" flight style made famous by games like Elite Dangerous or Star Citizen.
In No Man’s Sky, this allows for maneuvers that were previously impossible. You can boost past a freighter, flip your ship 180 degrees to face the ships chasing you, and keep drifting backward while you unload your Phase Beam into their shields. It feels cinematic. It feels like something out of The Expanse.
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Why Does It Feel So Different?
The default flight model uses what’s essentially an atmospheric drag simulation, even in deep space. It’s there to make the game accessible. Without it, you have to manually counteract every single movement you make. If you roll left, you have to roll right to stop the rotation. If you thrust up, you stay moving up until you thrust down.
- Inertia is your new best friend (and worst enemy). You’ll find yourself overshooting landing pads constantly because you forgot that "braking" now requires a reverse burn, not just letting go of the trigger.
- The skill ceiling goes through the roof. It takes actual practice to dock smoothly.
- Combat becomes three-dimensional. You aren't just circling enemies in a "blue zone" turn-rate battle anymore. You're strafing.
How to Actually Fly Without Assist Without Exploding
First, don't try this in a cluttered asteroid field. You will die. Start in open space near a planet.
Go into your Options, then Controls, then Ship Controls. You’ll see the toggle for Flight Assist. Set it to "Off" or "Toggle" if you want to map it to a button. If you're on a controller, this is going to be a thumbstick workout. If you're on KBM (Keyboard and Mouse), it’s arguably easier to manage the fine-tuned adjustments needed to stay on course.
The "Flip and Burn"
This is the bread and butter of NMS flight assist off gameplay. To execute this, you need to be at a decent cruising speed.
- Boost forward to build momentum.
- Cut the throttle (or just let go).
- Use your pitch and yaw to rotate the ship 180 degrees.
- Notice that you are still moving in the original direction, but now you’re looking backward.
- Fire your weapons at whatever is behind you.
It sounds simple. In practice, it’s easy to lose your sense of direction. The HUD helps, but your brain will keep telling you that you should be moving in the direction the cockpit is facing. Breaking that mental habit is the hardest part of the transition.
Dogfighting: The Real Reason People Toggle It Off
Let’s be real: No Man’s Sky combat can get a bit repetitive. Most fights boil down to "turn until the red arrow is in the middle, then shoot."
When you use NMS flight assist off during a Sentinel intercept, the geometry of the fight changes. Sentinels are incredibly agile. They like to zip past you and reset. With assist on, you’re stuck in a turning contest. With assist off, you can "drift" with them. You can maintain a constant distance by matching their vector while keeping your nose pointed squarely at their engines.
It’s particularly effective with the Infra-Knife Accelerator. Because that weapon has such a high fire rate, being able to maintain a steady line of sight while drifting sideways allows you to melt shields in seconds.
The Vector Problem
One thing you'll notice is that the "Space Dust" effect in NMS actually serves a purpose. Those little streaks of light tell you which way you are actually moving. When flying with assist off, ignore where your ship is pointing for a second and look at those streaks. If the dust is moving from left to right across your screen, you are drifting left.
To stop that drift, you have to apply thrust in the opposite direction. It’s a constant dance. You’re always correcting. It’s exhausting for the first twenty minutes, then it becomes second nature.
Ship Choice Matters (A Lot)
Not all ships are created equal when the training wheels come off.
A heavy Hauler with low maneuverability stats is going to feel like a literal brick in space. It has so much mass that once you start it moving in one direction, stopping it takes forever. It’s sluggish and unforgiving.
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On the flip side, a high-maneuverability Solar Ship or a Sentinel Interceptor is a dream. These ships have high "snap" potential. They rotate quickly, which is vital for assist-off flight. If your ship takes three seconds just to turn 90 degrees, you’re going to be halfway across the solar system before you’ve even lined up your counter-burn.
I’ve found that a maneuverability stat of at least 800 is the "sweet spot" where NMS flight assist off starts to feel rewarding rather than like a chore. If you’re rocking a decked-out Exotic with 1000+ maneuverability, it’s basically like flying a needle. Precise. Sharp. Dangerous.
Common Misconceptions About Flight Assist
People think turning off flight assist makes you go faster. It doesn’t. Your top speed is still capped by the game’s engine and your ship’s pulse drive upgrades. What it does do is remove the speed bleed-off when you turn.
In standard flight, when you pull a hard U-turn, the game slows you down to help you make the corner. With assist off, you keep your velocity through the turn. You aren't faster, but you are more "efficient" with the speed you already have.
Another myth is that you need a HOTAS (Hands On Throttle-And-Stick) setup to enjoy it. While NMS does have some wonky VR and joystick support, plenty of the top-tier "stunt flyers" in the community use a standard PS5 or Xbox controller. It’s more about the "feathering" of the triggers than the actual input device.
The Landing Problem
This is where most people give up. Trying to land on a frigates landing pad with assist off is a nightmare. The docking computer usually takes over once you get close enough, but if you’re trying to do it manually for the "immersion," be prepared for a lot of shield damage.
My advice? Keep flight assist on a toggle. Use it for combat and long-distance travel, then flip it back on when you’re approaching a space station or your planetary base. There’s no shame in using the computer to help you not explode.
Technical Nuances: The Orbital Update Impact
Before the Orbital update, "drifting" was mostly a glitch or a result of specific engine upgrades. Now that it’s an official toggle, Hello Games has refined how the camera reacts to it. The camera "lag" is now adjustable in the settings, which is huge. If your camera is too stiff, you won't feel the drift. If it’s too loose, you’ll get motion sickness.
You should definitely play with the Ship Camera Follow Strength slider while practicing with assist off. Setting it lower allows the ship to move more independently of the camera, giving you a better sense of that Newtonian physics "slide."
Practical Steps to Mastering the Drift
If you’re ready to stop flying like a tourist and start flying like a pilot, here is how you should spend your first hour with the setting changed.
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- Find a "Marker": Go to a space station and fly about 2000 units away. Turn around and face it. This is your stationary target.
- The Box Drill: Try to fly in a perfect square around the station while always keeping your nose pointed at the entrance. This forces you to use lateral thrust (strafing) and pitch/yaw simultaneously. It's harder than it sounds.
- The Slalom: Find a group of large asteroids. Weave through them without using your forward thrusters more than once. Use your momentum to carry you through the gaps, using only small bursts of side-thrust to steer.
- The Combat Test: Summon the Anomaly or a freighter to get a feel for "skirting" large objects. Fly parallel to the hull of a capital ship, flip 180, and try to "rail" the length of the ship while facing backward.
Once you can do these things without hitting anything, you’re ready for real combat. You'll find that NMS flight assist off isn't just a gimmick—it’s a completely different way to experience the universe. It turns the "space" between planets from a loading screen into a playground.
Stop letting the computer fly your ship. It's your S-Class; you should be the one in control of where it goes, even if "where it goes" is sideways into a black hole because you forgot to counter-thrust.
Check your ship's maneuverability stat before you flip the switch. If it's under 500, go buy some pulse drive upgrades first. You’ll thank yourself when you aren't trying to drift a cosmic school bus.